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University of California, Berkeley
DRAFT MINUTES OF THE E-BERKELEY STEERING COMMITTEE
Meeting of June 18, 2003
Chancellor’s Conference Room, California Hall
Members
present:EVC
and Provost Paul Gray, Chair, AVC Greg Brown, AVC Ron Coley, Director Jon
Conhaim, Professor Ken Goldberg, Divisional Computer Manager Tim Heidinger
for VC Genaro Padilla, Director Phyllis Hoffman, VC Jim Hyatt, Student Representative
Charis Kaskiris, Director Helen Kelly, University Librarian Tom Leonard, VP
Christina Maslach, Dean Mary Ann Mason, AVC Jack McCredie, Chief Technology
Officer Tessa Michaels, VC Horace Mitchell, AVC David Moers, Director Ralph
Moon, Director Barbara Morgan
Also
attending: Susie Castillo-Robson, Registrar;
Kelly Haberer, Administrative Systems Department; JR Schulden, Student Information
Systems; David Scronce, Human Resources
1. Welcome and Approval of Minutes
Paul
Gray noted the uncertain campus budget situation due to the lack of convergence
in the state budget process, but it is important to maintain the momentum
of the e-Berkeley initiatives even though they may proceed at a slower rate.
Paul requested a brief update on the Oracle/PeopleSoft situation. Jack McCredie
said there would be no effect on us in the short term but the long-term effect,
if Oracle buys PeopleSoft, is no more development of PeopleSoft products.
Jim Hyatt noted that UCB’s decision on implementing PeopleSoft 8.4 Financials
is tied to what happens.
Minutes were approved as distributed.
2. Announcements
-
Change in Policy for Student Email Accounts
Susie
Castillo-Robson presented the Student Systems Policy Committee’s recommendation
that all UC Berkeley students be assigned UCLink e-mail accounts. The Registration
and Enrollment Policy Committee approved this proposal in April. A copy
of the proposal was included in the meeting packet. Susie outlined the benefits
of a single, pre-assigned UCLink e-mail account for each student, such as
a consistent, unified approach for official campus communications. The current
UCLink server is unable to handle this number of e-mail accounts, and an
RFP for a larger server has been issued. After the new server is installed,
implementation might be done over 4 years, for each new class starting in
2004.
-
HP
Mobile Technology (Wireless) Project
In
Philip Stark’s absence, Jon Conhaim presented a status report on the
“Hewlett Packard Applied Mobile Technology Solutions in Learning Environments
Grant Initiative,” referring to an overview Philip prepared for the
meeting. The Library will pay for installation of 50 wireless access points
spread over Moffitt, Doe, and branch libraries; academic departments will
pay for installation of another 50 access points; and the core project has
funds to install 40 access points at various student gathering places. Communication
& Network Services is surveying all the sites and beginning installation
work. Faculty members on the core project team are working with students
to design virtual places for teaching Chemistry, Statistics and Anthropology.
-
UCLink
Email Replacement Project
Jack McCredie
updated the committee on progress toward selecting a new campus email system
to replace UCLink. A group of evaluators from several departments has been
looking at vendor proposals and has selected three finalists. The evaluation
team will meet on June 20 to prepare their final recommendations. The process
has been more complex than expected, and Jack thanked JR Schulden for strong
leadership of the project. Greg Brown added that analysis of the financial
viability of the vendor companies is being done prior to the final negotiations.
3. Recent
Legal Issues
· California
Legislation: Disclosure of Security Breaches of Personal Information
Greg Brown prepared a “Summary of New and Pending Legislation” that
may affect the handling of personal information about students, employees
and other individuals. The spreadsheet outlines four pieces of legislation,
two enacted and two under consideration by the State, and shows potential
vulnerabilities in UCB systems. Also included in the meeting packet were UCOP
summaries of the provisions of each bill or act.
Greg has been working with a group of representatives from the Data Stewardship
Council and the Campus Information Security Committee to formulate a plan
for the University in response to California Senate Bill 1386, legislation
requiring that individuals be notified in the event of a breach of “any
database that contains an individual’s name along with social security
number, driver’s license number, bank account number or credit card number.”
The plan’s requirements and steps were outlined in a paper prepared by
Jacqueline Craig that Greg presented. Greg noted that Jack McCredie has been
designated lead authority to ensure compliance with SB 1386. Greg urged that
any unnecessary personal data be eliminated from campus databases, and stressed
that managers need to be informed about the importance of these issues for
departmental shadow systems as well as central systems. Campus control units
will be informed of SB1386 details in a Campus Administrative Memo next week;
oversight responsibility must be assigned for every department.
· Federal
Trade Commission: Rules for Safeguarding Customer Information
Greg
has been designated the campus coordinator for the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley
Act, requiring privacy safeguards to protect students’ personal information
needed for loans and other financial transactions. Greg has been in contact
with the key units handling such transactions as well as those coordinating
the systemwide approach at UCOP.
The two remaining bills included in Greg’s summary have to do with use
of Social Security Numbers to identify individuals. Since UC Berkeley uses
student ID numbers and employee ID numbers, we may not have much exposure;
however, Surepay statements mailed to staff do have social security numbers
and it may be necessary to remove this information.
A
discussion followed concerning encryption of networked information, a topic
raised by Charis Kaskiris who questioned the lack of encryption on Airbears.
Jack McCredie responded that no general information is encrypted on the Internet;
the campus network is open until secure areas are accessed, at which point
encrypted CalNet authentication is required to log in. Individuals can use
SSL to provide session encryption; application services can also use SSL encryption.
4. Portal Roadmap
Tessa
Michaels and Jon Conhaim presented a status report on major campus portal activities
(slides are available at http://ebsc.berkeley.edu/EBSC_Portal_Roadmap_June03.pdf
). The new campus Business Portal, at http://blu.berkeley.edu (online June 30),
is 50% complete, and includes employee self-service, HRMS, and vendor buying.
Tessa said the goal of the Business Portal is to make services easier to find
and use, and to provide current information. The Student Portal is also high
priority, and integration of the portal projects is the overall goal.
Tessa explained that the Business Portal is a “horizontal” portal,
offering information in a broad way to students, faculty and staff; it does
not target a specific audience. “Vertical” (application-specific)
portal products are being offered by many vendors and will be used on campus,
creating barriers to integrating systems and sharing information. The leading
campus portals are the Haas Business School Portal (based on Metadot software)
and the new Business Portal (based on PeopleSoft software).
Jon Conhaim presented the “roadmap” for an overall campus portal strategy,
suggesting steps to resolve some of the technical incompatibilities on campus:
- Convene interested
campus parties and form a working group (included would be Undergraduate
Affairs, Letters & Sciences, Business & Administrative Services,
Information Systems & Technology, Educational Technology Services, Haas,
Public Affairs, e-Berkeley Program Office).
- Report back
to the e-Berkeley Steering Committee within six months on a project timeline.
- Conduct research
& development on portal technologies, including integration with other
technologies (such as roles data and distributed content management).
- Recommend
a short-term approach for a campus pilot (including a Student Portal), limited
to a specific testing group.
- Provide an
analysis of long-term implementation issues to go from the pilot project
to a portal for everyone.
- Secure approval
and funding for moving forward.
A discussion
began about potential cost savings from the portal project; there seemed to
be a consensus that consolidation of resources could save some dollars. Paul
Gray asked when Berkeley would have a Student Portal such as the one at UCLA;
Jack McCredie responded that it’s just a question of money: the Student
Portal has been proposed for three years, but has never been approved due
to cost considerations. Jim Hyatt said that the pilot project would be used
to explore actual costs; Tessa noted that best practice is to start small.
The Steering Committee approved the six-month study described by Jon Conhaim.
5. HRMS and Academic Personnel
David Scronce, standing
in for Patti Owen, Director of Academic Personnel, said five components related
to faculty are included in the HRMS system; three are scheduled for implementation.
Academic Case Tracking is scheduled for this fall (for July 2004 cases). David
outlined the case review process and improvements that departments will see.
Patti Owen in the Academic Personnel Office should be contacted for further
information, and to request enrollment in training sessions. Work also continues
on Academic Salary History conversion, so that academic departments can access
30 years of ladder-ranked faculty data. Tenure Tracking is slated for rollout
in fall 2003. This part of the system replaces 3x5 cards in APO and will be
used to track seniority and title data.
Mary Ann Mason asked who would have access to salary information; David answered
that authorized members of academic departments will be able to view information
for their own departments, and the Academic Personnel office will be able to
view all data. Christina Maslach asked about Biobib information; David said
this is not currently planned for implementation, although there is strong interest.
No funding was requested for this year, and there are some Academic Senate issues
that haven’t been resolved.
Paul Gray asked David about other HRMS implementation issues; David said that
Employee Self-Service would go live on June 30, with e-Recruit (for staff) following
on July 14. The clerical bargaining unit agreement is being implemented, and
other contracts will follow. Horace Mitchell reported that the START program
is in production, and the online timekeeping component of Payroll (OPTRS) will
to roll out this summer.
Horace Mitchell announced that his department has been reviewing organizational
alignment within BAS, and the Payroll function will be moved from Business Services
to Human Resources to improve efficiency.
6. Travel Reimbursement
Ron
Coley distributed a status report on the e-Travel and Entertainment Reimbursement
System and a screen shot of the new Travel/Entertainment home page at http://travel.berkeley.edu.
The e-Travel Reimbursement System has received about 4,500 reports as of June;
3,200 requests have been paid. System performance metrics show that total
elapsed time from the beginning of the process to payment has been reduced
from 20-25 days for paper processing to 10.5 days for electronic processing.
Ron said that 570 people had been trained in the new electronic system, leaving
about 20% of campus departments that have not yet participated. The target
date for campuswide transition from paper to e-Travel processing is September
2003. Ron also noted that the online Entertainment Reimbursement System (same
model) will be implemented in August 2003.
Paul Gray asked whether the parallel path for paper receipts could be eliminated,
and Ron replied that the possibility of scanning is being investigated, as
is a post-audit system sampling receipts after the fact. The system will not
accept electronic receipts at this point. Ron added that he has solicited
feedback from many users, including faculty and the Council of Deans, and
their positive remarks have given him confidence in the system.
7.
IT Strategies and Challenges
Jack McCredie introduced
his presentation with background remarks about the recent activity of the Academic
Senate Committee on Computing and Communications (COMP), which has asked for
a more long-term look at IT planning to complement the Academic Strategic Plan.
COMP made a report to the Academic Senate on this topic; the report was approved
and forwarded to Paul Gray by the Academic Senate Chair, Catherine Koshland.
In preparation for work on the plan, Jack thought it would be useful to take
a look at the challenges IT has dealt with over the past 20 years. He outlined
the changes and similarities from 1983-2003, comparing the size of the campus
network, the capabilities and cost of computers, the use of the Internet, the
California financial situation, technical staff availability, administrative
systems, and the state of educational technology; many of the issues from 1983
remain important today. The presentation slides are available on the Steering
Committee website at http://ebsc.berkeley.edu.Jack presented a list IT Challenges
for 2003 based on an Educause survey of 400-500 higher education institutions:
- IT funding issues
- Administrative ERP information systems
- Security and identity management
- Maintaining and upgrading network
- Faculty development, support & training
- IT strategic planning
- Web-based systems
- Distributed learning/teaching strategies
UC systemwide IT Infrastructure Task Force recently drafted a
similar list of challenges:
- Instructional technology
- Digital content management and preservation
- Scholarly interaction
- ERP administrative applications
- Network infrastructure development
- Information security and protection
- Systemwide standards and policies
Jack
then listed his 10 major UCB IT Challenges for 2003:
- Develop revised
funding strategy and operating plan for next few years
- Work with Academic
Senate to develop Strategic IT Plan for campus, integrate with “new ideas”
committee recommendations (report available at http://spc.vcbf.berkeley.edu/document/NewIdeasReport.pdf
)
- Enhance IT support
of learning & scholarly communications
& enhance campus network infrastructure
- Enhance campus
IT policy development with special emphasis on copyright, spam and security
issues
- Move to new
operations center and continue development of business resumption plans
- Move to a 24x7x365
service model
- Strengthen campus
IT security procedures and practices
- Resolve several
campus IT gaps & overlap issues
- Support, promote
and enhance e-Berkeley projects
Jack
concluded with a slide showing the new SRB1 facility. The new operations center
will be located on the 3rd floor, and the move into the building will be late
Spring 2004. He said this move could provide opportunities for consolidation,
and that the infrastructure would be greatly improved by having a world-class
data center.
There were questions from Ron Coley and others about whether administrative
systems should be included as an IT challenge for Berkeley. Jack responded that
massive investments have been made in administrative systems over the past 10
years and many of the largest problems have been handled. Susie Castillo-Robson
described the 30-year-old registration system as a needed infrastructure project.
Greg Brown commented that systems have life cycles, which need to be tracked.
Jack responded that system life cycle tracking has not been included in IT planning
as has been done with the campus physical infrastructure, but it is an important
consideration that needs to be included in the budget. Mary Ann Mason asked
about an increase in student fees to help fund new systems; Susie responded
that this is a possibility, but only if students see a clear advantage. Ken
Goldberg asked for more support for departments and faculty, and a more balanced
allocation of resources.
Further
Announcement:
Christina
Maslach announced that Philip Stark has finished his two-year term as Faculty
Assistant for Educational Technology. She acknowledged him in absentia for
his many contributions, including the BRIDGE initiative, CourseWeb, the e-Berkeley
Symposium, and the Hewlett Packard wireless grant.
Future Meetings
Thursday, September 18, 2003, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m., Chancellor’s Conference
Room, California Hall
Tuesday, October 28, 2003, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m., Chancellor’s Conference
Room, California Hall
Thursday, December 4, 2003, 10:00 – noon, Chancellor’s Conference
Room, California Hall
__________________________________________________________________
Email group: e-berkeley_steering@listlink.berkeley.edu
Please send corrections and comments to: Sheila Press, avc_asst@uclink.berkeley.edu