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University
of California, Berkeley
MINUTES
OF THE E-BERKELEY
STEERING COMMITTEE
Meeting of October
30, 2002
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, VC Ed Denton, Peter Gabbay, Undergraduate Student
Representative, Professor Ken Goldberg, Tim Heidinger for VC Genaro Padilla,
Director Chris Hoffman for Dean Mary Ann Mason, Director Phyllis Hoffman,
VC Jim Hyatt, Assoc. Dean George Johnson, Charis Kaskiris, Graduate Student
Representative, Director Helen Kelly, Director Rosemary Kim for AVC Scott
Biddy, University Librarian Tom Leonard, Assoc. Dean Michael Mascuch for Dean
Ralph Hexter, VP Christina Maslach, AVC Jack McCredie, Chief Technology Officer
Tessa Michaels, VC Horace Mitchell, Director Ralph Moon, Director Barbara
Morgan, Professor Philip Stark, Trish Cascardi for VP William Webster.
Also attending: Cliff Frost, Communication & Network Services,
Mara Hancock, Educational Technology Services, Craig Lant, System & Network
Security, Carol Stillman, Cisco Systems, David Ward, WASC.
1. Welcome
and Approval of Minutes from August 28, 2002 Meeting
Paul Gray introduced David Ward, who is visiting
campus as head of the accreditation team from the Western Association of Schools
and Colleges (WASC). He is also President of the American Council of Education
in Washington. Paul Gray invited him to sit in on this meeting so that he
could get a better sense of what is happening in IT at Berkeley. Paul also
introduced two new committee members: Charis Kaskiris, Graduate Student Representative,
and Peter Gabbay, Undergraduate Student Representative.
Paul gave an overview of the e-Berkeley initiative
for the benefit of the guest and new members, briefly outlining some of the
significant changes in technology that have been implemented on campus over
the past two years.
Minutes from the August 28th meeting were approved as distributed.
2. Educational Technology Initiatives
Mara Hancock reported on next steps for Learning
Management Systems. She had last presented a report at the August meeting,
after having sent out an RFP during the summer. Two finalists were chosen
from the vendors submitting proposals; however, after taking stock of the
campus financial situation, it became evident that there are currently no
funds to buy a new system.
Mara presented a series of slides showing plans
for regrouping around three major goals: (1) Streamline support and eliminate
service redundancy; (2) Build to standards and integrate with other campus
systems; (3) Provide users with what they want (when they want it). Mara said
that important steps are to analyze current services, and to survey other
groups on campus about the needs they perceive.
This semester, Educational Technology Services
will emphasize outreach to their customers and review the usage numbers for
BlackBoard, WebCT, and CourseWeb. The locally-developed CourseWeb system has
been a success, with 908 sites (40%) visited and edited. CourseWeb will be
targeted for further development, and a second release is planned after the
winter break. Other campuses are interested in combining their efforts with
ours in this area. User surveys, ongoing dialogue through interviews, and
talking with participants at the e-Berkeley Symposium are methods for collecting
data on what users want.
Philip Stark introduced the possibility of
a Student Technology Fee. A recent EDUCAUSE study indicates that 70% of public
universities charge a technology fee (average amount is $200). At the request
of Christina Maslach, the Educational Technology Committee is surveying students
and working on a list of features that students might want to pay for (to
be used in a fee referendum). In the past, students have felt strongly that
the university should cover technology costs. David Ward said that, at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison, a “half and half” plan passed
overwhelmingly: the administration covered the cost of new infrastructure
and students paid for specific projects related to undergraduate education,
with distribution of fees reviewed on a five-year schedule. The only other
UC school charging a fee is UCLA; Christina Maslach noted that fees there
are distributed based on enrollment in particular courses.
Philip Stark also discussed the AirBears (wireless)
project, announcing that BRIDGE had received seed money from Hewlett Packard
through CITRIS, and that there have been discussions about the most “transformational”
way to use the money. Areas where students congregate, such as the ASUC food
court, library reading rooms, cafes and Tang Center waiting rooms, could be
upgraded to wireless, to make the most positive impact on students’ lives.
In addition, Philip is working on another proposal for $200,000 in HP equipment
and also talking to Cisco. Philip said that arrangements are being made with
the various departments, libraries, etc., to share costs for wireless installation,
spreading the funds as widely as possible.
Paul Gray asked about the status of Webcast
services. Mara Hancock reported that 15 courses are online and event webcasting
has been launched. Christina Maslach noted that many large lecture rooms,
such as Wheeler, need modifications before webcasting can be made available.
3. E-Berkeley Symposium
Christina Maslach gave an update on plans for
the e-Berkeley Symposium, to be held in May 2003, for faculty, staff, students
and outside guests. She said the planning group would hold a mini-symposium
in January to craft the vision for the May meeting. Short white papers are
now under development on core issues such as:
-
The value of interactive
education
-
What is our incentive structure
for innovation in teaching?
-
How can technology help
with multi-disciplinary teaching?
-
An assessment of teaching
methods (how do we know the methods are effective?)
These issues are focused on the culture of
teaching, cross-cutting the areas being worked on for the WASC review. Christina
hopes that the symposium will help articulate our campus educational vision.
Paul Gray thanked Carol Stillman and Cisco
Systems for their help in starting and focusing the efforts now underway.
Paul asked David Ward whether he had questions
or comments at this point. Dr. Ward spoke about the difficulty of transforming
learning and noted that at Wisconsin “envisioning sessions” were
held to plan changes in teaching areas such as language acquisition and chemistry.
He said that possibly a crisis (such as a budget or enrollment crunch) is
needed to create a reason for changing teaching structure. It is hard for
people to imagine transformation, and he thinks the symposium can help in
forming new strategies; however, he noted that it takes the commitment of
whole departments, not individuals, to embrace change. Paul Gray commented
that it will be challenging to approach bodies such as the Academic Senate
with ideas for changing incentive structures that have been in place for a
long while. Dr. Ward spoke about the problem of scale; accrediting groups
still focus on the small liberal arts college as the model for education,
but the large research university should be able to provide alternatives.
4. Innovative E-Berkeley Projects
Jon Conhaim distributed a report on the nine
e-Berkeley Innovation Projects, giving the status of each as of October 10,
2002. He provided background on the funding and criteria for these projects;
shared information from the status reports, and said he would appreciate any
suggestions or assistance from the Steering Committee.
5. Privacy and Piracy: Managing Network
Resources
Jack McCredie said his intent in making this
presentation was to inform the Steering Committee and ask their help in addressing
the major network problems that have arisen over the past few years: (1) the
rise in malicious attacks upon networks, and (2) the issues that must be confronted
regarding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Jack distributed a packet
about critical network management issues, including a “Privacy and Piracy”
summary with examples showing the magnitude of the problems, and identifying
policy issues that the e-Berkeley Steering Committee needs to consider in
balancing conflicting goals: protecting privacy rights of our constituents
while shielding them from harassment by cyber-pirates.
Jack said the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act has brought about a dramatic change in copyright law, and noted that David
Ward, as President of the ACE, sent a letter to colleagues around the nation
urging that universities and colleges do more in dealing with the implications
of these changes.
Jack described the efforts being made every
day to protect the network against attack and misuse. He introduced Craig
Lant, Campus Security Officer, who heads Security & Network Services (SNS),
a department dealing with daily attacks on the network. Jack also said that
IST receives complaints related to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; these
are dealt with as required by the situation and its degree of seriousness.
Also contained in the packet are a draft “Campus
Information Technology Security Policy” and several reports from IST
departments:
“CNS Data Collection and Retention –
Current Practice,” by Cliff Frost, Director, Communication and Network
Services
“SNS Data Retention,” by Craig Lant, Campus Security Officer
“Virus Scanning,” by Jerry Smith, Director, Workstation Support
Services
Jack also brought to the Steering Committee’s
attention the letter that was sent to many colleges and universities from
the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association
of America, the National Music Publishers’ Association and The Songwriters
Guild of America, asking campus administrators to set policy to stop copyright
infringement. The Office of the President and UC attorneys are working on
a system-wide response to this letter; a draft of the response is also included
in the packet.
Jack continued his presentation by citing percentages
of the network being used by staff, students, and faculty to share entertainment,
taking up a significant portion of campus bandwidth at a large cost to the
university. He said that limitations set by the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act protect the university from legal action, but this does not mean that
responsibility for problems of inappropriate use can be set aside. We are
prohibited by policy and statute from invading privacy of electronic communications,
but CNS and SNS are logging a great deal of transactional data about network
activity, and policies need to be established for how long data can be kept
and what should be reported to departments.
Jack concluded by saying that Berkeley is a
leading institution in dealing with these issues, but we are still a long
way from problem resolution, and the e-Berkeley Steering Committee is the
body to grapple with these issues.
Paul Gray asked about the magnitude of copyright
infringement, and Jack summarized some of the recent incidents in more detail.
He stated that some people do not know they are acting illegally. Ralph Moon
agreed with this assessment, having had experience with people downloading
licensed library materials.
Tom Leonard noted that the Library has formed
a new Committee on Privacy and would be glad to contribute expertise. Jack
also informed the Steering Committee about the new Campus Computer Incident
Response Team, a group composed of Police Department and other representatives
that coordinates responses to attacks that may have severe consequences.
Greg Brown asked whether the Campus Information
Security Committee (CISC) could tackle these issues, and Paul Gray assigned
CISC the task of researching the six policy issues in Jack’s memo and
reporting progress to the Steering Committee on an ongoing basis.
6. Information Systems and Technology Update
Jack McCredie reported on the operational highlights
for IST for the last six months, referring the committee to the online report
at http://istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Nov_Dec2002/cio.istops.html
Jack distributed copies of his recent article
in Berkeley Computing and Communications, “Moving information technology
forward despite significant budget reductions.” The nine ongoing e-Berkeley
projects are of greatest concern. Cost for 2002-03 is $551,000 and all funding
is temporary. E-Berkeley contributed $328,000; Paul is funding half of the
LMS activities; the RePS project has some external funding from NIH, and the
rest came from re-allocation within IST.
7. Service Recognition Award
Paul Gray awarded Jack McCredie his ten-year service pin, and spoke in appreciation
of Jack’s many contributions to the university.
Announcement
Paul announced that former Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien passed away last night;
a memorial service will be held soon.
Future Meetings
Thursday,
January 23, 2003, from 10:00 - noon, Chancellor's Conference Room, California
Hall
Thursday, February 27, 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: SheilaPress, avc_asst@uclink.berkeley.edu