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University of California, Berkeley

MINUTES OF THE E -BERKELEY STEERING COMMITTEE

Meeting of January 29, 2004
Chancellor's Conference Room, California Hall

Members present: EVC and Provost Paul Gray, Chair, Principal Analyst Patricia Cascardi for VP William Webster, Director Jon Conhaim, Student-at-Large representative Jason Dixson, Acting Controller John Ellis, ASUC Representative Michael Heinrich, Professor Ken Goldberg, Manager Tim Heidinger for Genaro Padilla, Director Chris Hoffman for Dean Mary Ann Mason, Director Phyllis Hoffman, VC Jim Hyatt, Director Patricia Iannuzzi for University Librarian Tom Leonard, Assoc. Dean George Johnson for Dean Richard Newton, Director Helen Norris, Director Rosemary Kim, AVC Jack McCredie, Chief Technology Officer Tessa Michaels, Director Barbara Morgan, AVC Bob Price for VC Beth Burnside, Professor Philip Stark, Asst. Dean Charles Stoup for Dean Ralph Hexter.

Also attending : Craig Lant, Campus Security Officer; Katherine Mitchell, COrE; Director Louise Schulden, SIS - IST.

1. Welcome and Review of Minutes

2. Berkeley Financial System (BFS) Upgrade

Jim Hyatt asked Helen Norris, Project Manager for the BFS upgrade, to give an update on plans to move from PeopleSoft version 7.02 to 8.8.   Helen referred to the handout included in the meeting packet, saying that the upgrade will take place over the next 12 - 15 months in two stages:   from 7.02 to 8.4 by the end of the first 12 months, and then to 8.8.   The upgrade to the most current version is important; PeopleSoft does not support version 7.02, and the new version will be web-based, making it much easier to use.   The technical and functional team dedicated to the project will also include resources from Alameda County where a similar project is being completed.   Major tasks for the project team include matching the upgrade functionality to Berkeley's business requirements and minimizing customization.   Training for over 1,500 campus users is included in the project plan.

Paul Gray asked how much of a change this would represent; Jack McCredie replied that the interface would be more like HRMS
(web-based and easier to use).   The lifetime of version 8.8 should be 4 - 5 years.   Jim said that this changeover would not be as difficult as the initial implementation, which required Chart of Accounts revisions and moving from paper processes to online.   Chris Hoffman inquired what customizations would be left out; Helen said there would be many discussions about that before proceeding.

3. New Four-Year Grant:   Mellon Library/Faculty Fellows for Undergraduate Research

Patricia Iannuzzi presented background information on a new $749,000 Mellon-funded project begun under the leadership of Christina Maslach and the Campus Academic Partners to develop undergraduates' skills in the use of library resources for research.   The new project builds upon a $138,000 pilot grant that UC Berkeley received in 2002 to create a Mellon Faculty Institute for Undergraduate Research.   The new project will support 45 Fellows and will focus on large-enrollment courses and the way faculty and students interact with library collections.   The project will follow two strategies:

• develop and nurture a cohort of instructors dedicated to a new way of teaching, who become change agents within their departments and throughout the university;
• support a campus collaboration of academic partners that can be a catalyst for change, working together to provide support and create infrastructure for faculty and other instructors.

Further information on the project may be found in a Berkeleyan article at:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2004/01/21_mellon.shtml

and on the Institute website at:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MellonInstitute/

4. Portal Roadmap

In June 2003, Jon Conhaim and Tessa Michaels reported on separate proposals for student and business portals.   Paul Gray asked that they return in January 2004 and propose an integrated strategy for developing portals across campus.   Participants who worked to develop the new road map included:   Zane Cooper (Haas), Mara Hancock (ETS), Tim Heidinger (Student Affairs), Michael Heinrich (undergraduate student), Tom Holub (L&S), Jeff Kahn (Public Affairs), Tessa Michaels (BAS), Helen Norris (Budget & Finance), JR Schulden (IST).

Jon presented a slide show, "Campus Community Portal Road Map," beginning with three questions:

• How do campus portals fit into the e-Berkeley strategic goals?


• What problems would a campus community portal solve?


• What would be the road map for developing a campus community portal?

Jon addressed the first question by saying that one of the main goals of e-Berkeley is to reduce paperwork by putting more information and services online, and to streamline access to course information.   Jon said many successful projects have been devoted to this first goal, but a second goal, "bringing it all together," has not been achieved. 

One problem is that there are about 600,000 web pages on campus that are not integrated into an overall set of standards, so students, faculty and staff have difficulty finding information and conducting transactions.   Jon and Tessa propose a single community portal and these steps to create it:

Jon described the project phases and timelines:

Phase 1	(complete 12/04): BearFacts rebuilt using JetSpeed or uPortal.
Phase 2	(complete 4/05): MyBerkeleyApp checklist application integrated into portal architecture used for BearFacts.
Phase 3	(complete 8/05): Haas student portal integrated into campus community portal.
Phase 4	(complete 12/05): Sakai learning management system launched on campus community portal.
Phase 5	(complete 8/06): Campus community portal, including Blu portal, extended to faculty and staff.

Each department involved in the development process has committed to carrying out the project; however, the schedule is based on the current level of staffing, which could be affected by budget cuts that delay project completion dates.

Funding would begin with a one-time $50,000 contribution from the e-Berkeley Program Office to cover Phase 1. Phase 2 would be supported by Student Affairs as part of its collaboration with IST and ETS. Haas School of Business would fund Phase 3. ETS and IST-SIS would provide resources for Phase 4; and a request would be made to the e-Berkeley Steering Committee for Phase 5 funding.

Jon thanked all those who participated in the planning process, particularly Michael Heinrich for his contributions to the student portal. Jon requested Steering Committee approval for the proposal and e-Berkeley funding for Phase 1. Paul asked Jack for his opinion of the road map; Jack responded very positively to the concept and framework ("exactly where we should be"), with his only caution being that the budget situation could interfere with some of the completion dates.

Michael Heinrich commented from the student perspective, saying that (1) the fee increases are burdensome on students who might find them more tolerable if they were provided with an enhanced system; (2) a good portal would create campus community within the student body - an online meeting place, and (3) other universities have successful student portals that save time for students by making it easier to find and use information.

After a brief discussion, the Steering Committee approved going forward with the Portal Road Map proposal. Paul commended Jon for the excellent outcome of the planning process, and asked for progress reports.

Paul asked Jack to report on the impact of the Governor's budget on the Digital California Project before beginning his presentation.   Jack said that the statement from UCOP included a budget reduction for DCP from $14 million to $0.   This was shocking to the community that had successfully completed the wiring of all county education offices to bring them advanced Internet services.   UC managed the project for the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC).   However, the situation is not as bad as it seems, since $20 million went back into the budget for K-12, so that county offices are able to use this money for the Digital California Project if they choose.

Jack continued with his report on the Information Technology Strategic Plan, beginning with a brief background on the development of the plan through joint work with the Academic Senate Committee on Computing and Communications (COMP). Jack presented a draft of "Important Questions to Ask During the Process" and "Potential Strategic IT Initiatives for UC Berkeley," which he developed to stimulate discussion across campus. Jack plans to discuss the lists with campus committees as well as produce a web-based survey for committee members and the campus at large in March. The goal is to have a sense of the most important campus IT initiatives when the new chancellor comes, so there is an early summer deadline for completion of the first phase of the plan.

Ken Goldberg thanked Jack for working with him on the plan and used a series of slides to present his update on the process from the academic side. He started with an overview of COMP membership and its role as advisor to campus administration and the Senate on "matters of policy concerning computers, data, and telecommunications." COMP is charged to "review faculty and student use; recommend ways to improve; and participate in long-range planning." Ken presented a diagram showing his understanding of the convoluted structure of academic and administrative committees and departments involved in IT on campus.

After the Academic Strategic Plan was produced last May, COMP members focused their efforts on formulating a strategy to develop a follow-on IT Strategic Plan. The Senate approved the recommendation and forwarded it to Paul Gray, who consulted with Ken and Jack and gave his support to the project.

The scope of the plan outlined in the matrix Ken presented covers areas that are already being handled by existing departments, but COMP is particularly concerned with research and the need for improved hardware, software, networking and technical support. Ken emphasized that the idea that research computing means "supercomputers" is limited; IT is critical to research in every discipline. He provided a list of research elements requiring computing: scholarship, mentoring/training, experimentation, publication/reporting, presentation, fundraising, administration, communication, archiving, and travel.

Ken noted that the decentralized model of research computing support in the 1980s and 1990s has resulted in a situation where technical support costs are not sustainable in some departments, so they have very low levels of support while others are well served. COMP is developing a survey to gather data from academic departments about their current IT status, to provide information for the IT Strategic Plan. COMP is also interested in the expansion of wireless networking to support present and future needs of academic departments. Ken closed by saying that this is a moving process that will never end; he proposed a website that would continue to be updated and serve as a campus-wide communication tool. Jack added that Katherine Mitchell and Phyllis Hoffman from COrE are helping with the planning process.

6. Implementation of Minimum Security Standards for Networked Devices

Jack McCredie said that he and Craig Lant are very pleased to announce that the draft Minimum Security Standards policy has been through the process of refinement by many campus groups, and is being presented to the Steering Committee today for approval. The site-wide license for firewall software has been obtained, and implementation guidelines are included with the policy. The implementation time frame for the policy will be one year, which should allow time for educating the campus community and installing new software: all networked machines will need to be running current operating systems, anti-virus software, and firewall software.

The policy describes minimum standards for connecting to the UC Berkeley network; however individual requests for exceptional situations will be considered by the Campus Information Security Committee (CISC). Paul Gray said that the Minimum Security Standards have been presented to the Council of Deans and the Chancellor's Cabinet, as well as many other committees, and no objections have been raised. He asked the Steering Committee for any objections; there were none, and the policy was approved. The approved policy will be announced at the upcoming Deans & Chairs meeting.

7. MyBerkeleyApp (Online Services for New Students)

Tim Heidinger presented a checklist showing progress on Vice Chancellor Padilla's project to streamline services provided to the 45,000 students who want to be admitted, and to reduce the paperwork by putting 14 different kinds of forms online. In 2000-01, most forms were paper, with a few available on the Internet. In 2001-02, the forms were still available in paper, but most had also been posted on the web. By 2002-03, all interactions for the admissions process were done online, and the only paper the students receive is a nice admit letter. (Tim noted that this was not a project to "automate" processes; it is a collection point and a place to present information in a more comprehensible way.)

Enticing departments to participate was difficult but everyone is proud of the success of this conversion (and the yield rate did not plummet). VC Padilla is now interested in looking at reducing paper between admission and the student's arrival on campus. Important considerations include making new transactions compliant with the proposed new student portal, and developing a standard technical format. Central Computing Services - IST, has contracted to provide servers in the new data center for these processes. Paul Gray said he is impressed with this achievement and thinks the savings in mailing costs alone will be significant. When asked how many students lack access to the Internet, Tim replied that there are only a handful (including those who are philosophically opposed). He thinks it is essential that departments provide good online service to students, since we aren't the only player; students apply to 10 places and they expect departments to respond to questions.

8. Updates

• Date Change for Second e-Berkeley Symposium: Jon Conhaim announced that the symposium focus will be on how to improve student services and the undergraduate experience, from admissions through the first year. Christina Maslach will sponsor the symposium, which will be held in October 2004, possibly at the International House.
  
• New Berkeley e-Mail System: Jack McCredie said that the new email system went live about two weeks ago. All 40,000 accounts have been moved, and it is now working smoothly after a few initial quirks. Former UCLink users can now use the ".berkeley.edu" domain name. Now other domains will be invited to run on the new system, and Socrates mail users will possibly migrate in the summer. Michael Heinrich said there has been positive feedback from students. Jim Hyatt commented that the conversion was relatively painless, on both Mac and PC platforms.
  
• New Data Center: Jack reported that the contractor for the new Data Center is now doing the fit out, and the building will be handed over on June 3, 2004, with the move tentatively scheduled for the July 4th weekend.
  

The meeting was adjourned at 11:50 a.m.

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Next meeting: Monday, April 12, 2004, 10:00 - noon, Chancellor's Conference Room, California Hall

Future meetings:
Wednesday, June 23, 10:00 - noon, Chancellor's Conference Room, California Hall