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MINUTES OF THE E-BERKELEY STEERING COMMITTEE
Meeting of January 23, 2003
Chancellor’s Conference Room, California Hall
Members
present: EVC and Provost Paul Gray, Chair,
AVC Greg Brown, VC Beth Burnside, AVC Ron Coley, Director Jon Conhaim, Dean
Ralph Hexter, Director Phyllis Hoffman, VC Jim Hyatt, Assoc. Dean George Johnson,
Director Helen Kelly, University Librarian Tom Leonard, VP Christina Maslach,
Dean Mary Ann Mason, AVC Jack McCredie, Chief Technology Officer Tessa Michaels,
AVC David Moers, Director Ralph Moon, Director Barbara Morgan, Professor Arthur
Ogus for Professor Ken Goldberg, Professor Philip Stark.
Also attending: Liz Church, Faye Fields, and Joe Knowles, Business Services; Ted Goode and Dianne Walker, Services for International Students and Scholars; Kelly Haberer, Administrative Systems; Craig Lant, System & Network Security; Patrick McGrath, Central Computing Services; David Scronce, Human Resources; Jerome Smith, Workstation Support Services.
1. Welcome and Approval of Minutes from October 30, 2002, Meeting
Paul Gray remarked that the difficult State budget situation continues; the State budget reduction for the University is relatively small compared to others, but the impact will be felt. He said it is important to keep e-Berkeley momentum going, and that what has been accomplished has contributed to the effectiveness and efficiency of campus-wide systems.
Minutes from the October 30th meeting were approved as distributed.
2. SEVIS @ Berkeley: The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System
Ted Goode, Director of Services for International Students and Scholars (SISS), introduced the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a national immigration program mandated by Congress. SEVIS is a system for producing visa documents and reporting data about students and exchange visitors, with an implementation date of January 30, 2003. Ted said that the nationwide system is in disarray, and that approval for our use of SEVIS is delayed. He introduced Dianne Walker, Project Manager for SEVIS, who handed out a document with details regarding the system and the University’s responsibilities.
Dianne gave an overview of the project stating that all UC campuses have purchased the same software for reporting to the INS. Berkeley is responsible for reporting “event” information on 10,000 people with visa documents prepared here, including dependents of students and scholars. August 1, 2003, is the date by which all continuing students and scholars (F and J visas) must be in the system. Dianne said that final regulations have not yet been published, making it difficult to determine what needs to be reported, and technical specifications for the system have been changing. The penalties for not reporting are heavy for both individuals and the University. She stressed that the collaboration on this project between her unit, the Registrar, Student Information Systems, Academic Personnel, the Graduate Division, and many other units has been solid, and that 200 people have been trained in the process. Dianne remarked that it is important to integrate policies, processes, and data systems on campus in order to comply with SEVIS, yet there is no federal money for this unfunded mandate. The impact on the campus budget has yet to be evaluated.
Paul Gray asked whether there are actions students need to take that they are not aware of; Dianne replied that students, scholars, and support staff are being informed of new requirements (many requirements are not new). Jack McCredie commended the group for the phenomenal work done in spite of the unbelievable timeframe and the technical ambiguity. Professor Ogus asked whether the University plans any resistance to the reporting of personal information or to the penalties involved. Paul said the Chancellor has just appointed a committee to look at the Patriot Act’s impact on privacy of student records and research information, and to determine the University’s policy and position in regard to the new legislation. Paul congratulated the SISS team on the great job: a model of how to get things done fast.
3. Travel Reimbursement
Ron Coley said that the change to the original course regarding the travel system has resulted in a faster travel reimbursement process. Internal processes have improved to a standard 10-day turnaround, and the system being introduced today will further shorten the time it takes to be reimbursed. Ron introduced Faye Fields and Joe Knowles, who are responsible for these processes, and Liz Church, technical support for the new system. Faye reported that the pilot for the system, which began on January 6, 2003, involves 12 departments and has been a success. The server hosting the system has been moved from University Hall to COIS, and the system will be rolled out to campus departments (with training) beginning in February. Faye noted that it might be possible to handle reimbursement for entertainment and miscellaneous expenses with the same solution.
Joe Knowles and Liz Church demonstrated the system. Some of the benefits are: one-time data entry, help boxes with travel policies, links to currency conversion tables, and a tracking system whereby the traveler or others involved in the processing can review the progress of paperwork on each reimbursement request. The system uses CalNet ID’s and reflects BFS roles. Processing goal is 5 days start-to-finish. The backup paperwork on travel expenses is still necessary for audit purposes, however it is hoped that in the future transactions can be done online.
4. Human Resources Management System (HRMS) Phase II Plans
David Scronce distributed a summary of the Recent and Planned Releases for HRMS. The releases cover an impressive array of new online services, additional reporting, and improvements to existing systems. Relative to the presentation by SISS, there have been changes to handling of immigration status, enabling the decentralization of data entry back to the departments. Upgrades are being implemented in the areas of recruitment and the HRMS/payroll interface. The HR portal will be rolled out in April, first serving the Administer Workforce and Academic Case Tracking functions, with e-Recruit (for staff) later in the year. The Academic History and Tenure Tracking functions will provide academic departments and deans’ offices with direct access to records that have been housed solely in the Academic Personnel Office. The Staff Recruitment functions will be rolled out in July, hopefully giving external applicants web-based 24 x 7 access to the system.
Patrick McGrath presented information on system availability changes being implemented in order to support HRMS, such as performing backups while the online system is running. The need for 24 x 7 availability for some features, such as e-Recruit, will require the central server to be prepared to deal with unscheduled outages such as application updates, emergencies, and facilities-related outages. The current availability of the online system is from 6 am to 6 pm, and Central Computing Services will work with Administrative Systems to make the system available for a longer period, making adjustments to the maintenance schedule to accommodate high volume system use. Kelly Haberer added that nightly batch processing would also be managed to fit with the recruitment system when it becomes available.
Paul Gray asked whether “shadow systems” would be going away. David is not sure: people need to get used to the new system and have confidence in it, but there are many useful new functions. Paul thanked the HRMS team for their work and noted that this is the biggest thing we’ve got going.
5. Privacy and Security
Jack McCredie reminded the committee of his “Piracy and Privacy” presentation at the October 30 meeting; several issues needed followup. The Campus Information Security Committee (CISC) was appointed at that meeting to take the lead, and much progress has been made.
a) Approve Campus IT Security Policy
The policy has had wide distribution and has been presented to this committee as well as to many other campus-wide groups. It is now before the Steering Committee for approval as campus policy. Paul Gray asked for a vote on adopting the policy; the vote was unanimously in favor.
b) SNS Campus Scanning
Craig Lant described the network scanning being done by the System and Network Security Office (SNS). He reported that the current practice is to scan the network proactively for known vulnerabilities, rather than just react when the system has been breached. The first scan went well, with only 75-80 computers (out of 45,000) having a particular vulnerability. These computers were repaired; many were simply lacking password protection. Craig said that more scans are planned, but SNS will take care to avoid disruption of service on campus. Some scans can potentially reveal personal information to SNS personnel, and Craig assured the committee that his staff is very aware of the sensitivity of this information. Open proxies and email relays are vulnerable areas that may need to be addressed. Jack commented that the campus might need additional policies restricting how the network may be used.
c) New Anti-Spam Service
Jerry Smith handed out a list of UCLink spam control measures, and outlined the difficulties inherent in trying to block spam (unsolicited bulk email) from users’ accounts. 20-40% of Internet email is estimated to be spam, and IST has identified 70+ commercial spammers that account for 9.3% of all incoming email messages on UCLink. Jerry proposes a two stage process of spam blocking: (1) block email from these 70+ addresses, with users being able to opt out of the blocking, and (2) install a spam filtering engine on a front-end processor, route incoming UCLink mail through the filter, and tag the mail as possible spam. The filtering engine being tested is PureMessage from Active State (based on the SpamAssassin freeware). Users will be informed that they have the option to choose filtering when it is available. Jerry’s main concern is that people know what is happening so that they don’t lose confidence in their email. Jack noted that he had attended a Common Solutions Group meeting in Austin recently, with representatives from about 20 large research universities; campuses that had implemented filtering of this kind reported very positive responses from users.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:55 a.m.
Future Meetings
Thursday, February 27, 2003, from 10:00 noon, Chancellor’s Conference Room, California Hall
Monday, March 24, 2003, from 1:30 p.m. 3:30 p.m., Chancellor’s Conference Room, California Hall
Wednesday, May 14, 2003, from 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