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University of California, Berkeley

Members present: AVC Greg Brown, VC Beth Burnside, AVC Ron Coley, Director Jon Conhaim, EVC & Provost Paul Gray, Director Phyllis Hoffman, VC Jim Hyatt, Executive Director Helen Kelly, Executive Director Rosemary Kim for VC Don McQuade, University Librarian Thomas Leonard, VP Christina Maslach, Assoc. Dean Jeffrey Reimer for Dean Mary Ann Mason, AVC Jack McCredie, VC Horace Mitchell, Director Barbara Morgan, Dean Richard Newton, AVC Robert Price, Director David Scronce, Professor Philip Stark, VP William Webster.

Also attending: Director Louise (JR) Schulden, Student Information Systems, IST, and Director Victor Edmonds, Educational Technology Services.

1. Approval of Minutes from August 30 meeting. Minutes were approved as distributed.

Cabinet Retreat
Paul Gray gave an update regarding the Chancellor's September Cabinet Retreat. Major topics were budget process improvements, dashboard metrics, how meetings are conducted and relationships between committees, and decentralization of staff salary budgeting. Most important, Paul felt, was the focus on overall goals and the Chancellor's priorities, including academic strategic planning, operational excellence, developing and executing research initiatives, creating more effective external relationships, improving the undergraduate experience, campus diversity in all its aspects, faculty/staff retention and recruitment, graduate student support, and the challenge of renovating the campus physical infrastructure. Jim Hyatt noted that the Chancellor wanted specific goals; for E-Berkeley, 8 out of 9 projects are to be implemented by the end of the year.

Open Berkeley Initiative
Christina Maslach presented some ideas being developed for this still-unnamed fundraising initiative. Under consideration is a "gate" into UC Berkeley resources, and ways to work with community colleges and high schools to make it easier for students to qualify for entrance to the university through online coursework. Richard Newton commented that there needs to be something to offer to a sponsor, and that a list of creative ideas should be developed quietly.
Campus Information Security Committee
Jack McCredie reported that a formal advisory committee to the campus Security Office has been established; it includes representatives from all control units. The topics under immediate consideration are a gateway virus scanner product and security/privacy policy issues. He thanked everyone for nominating members to the committee.

IST Operational Highlights
Jack McCredie continued the practice of reporting highlights from the Information Systems & Technology organization, as was done previously with the CCCPB (Campus Computing and Communications Policy Board). The highlights represent IST accomplishments during the spring and summer semesters, 2001. Those highlights most significantly linked to e-Berkeley projects are policy and governance, security, Webcast, e-Grades, graduate admissions, and Kronos. Other accomplishments, such as additional web-based student services, are directly related but not listed as e-Berkeley projects. McCredie called attention to the collaborative efforts of UC Berkeley, Davis and Santa Cruz staff to produce the Internet connectivity CD "Connecting@Berkeley", which recently won an award from ACM. Another accomplishment has been design of a campus-wide Active Directory, bringing departmental directories into one structure.

The highlights are listed on a handout (#2) included in the meeting packet.
In response to a question from Paul Gray, Jack reported on the current virus problems. He said that it has been a very difficult task dealing with these attacks (the Nimda virus, for example, had 16 independent attacks packaged together). The Security Office is in control of the situation, and the campus has not been affected in a major way, although it is a serious problem that is not at an end. A new, high-powered virus scanner will be the subject of a funding request in the near future.

Paul Gray asked for updates on the HRMS project and the Travel system. David Scronce reported that the prototyping stage for HRMS has been concluded. The project team is identifying the gaps between what the software does and what UC Berkeley needs to determine what modifications are necessary for implementation. Most of the modifications have to do with integration with the financial and payroll systems. The tentative "go-live" date is July 1, 2002. This is later than earlier estimates and will affect some other projects, notably the faculty database needed for women and minority recruitment, and needed payroll system changes.

Ron Coley reviewed the status of the Travel system and the background of the current arrangement with the vendor (Extensity). Several issues are still outstanding, including the outcome of UCLA's implementation. Paul Gray wants to be informed when a final decision is made regarding this vendor, and he requested that future meetings always include updates on the major, crucial projects.

Proposed Revisions to Steering Committee Charter
Barbara Morgan outlined the changes being proposed to the charter, shown in italics on the handout attached to the meeting packet (#3). The major change is making the Steering Committee explicitly responsible for campus IT policy, a needed carryover from the CCCPB. Other changes include strengthening the wording on privacy protection and adding a fundraising responsibility. The subcommittee structure was revised to show only the standing committees. The revisions were adopted by the Steering Committee.

E-Berkeley Management Plan
Paul Gray said that the latest draft of the plan, which includes goals, values, and objectives, is closer to what he wanted; it was included in the meeting packet as attachment #4. Committee members thought that some project objectives for the next two years (defined last March) now seem very tight. Upon reconsideration, some of the percentages were revised downward (item one, course web sites, changed from "90% of the top 50 high-impact courses" to "a significant fraction of the top 50"; and item five, high-volume administrative applications, changed from "100% user participation" to "80% user participation").

Richard Newton remarked that the values section should contain a statement regarding a commitment to "deliver on time" in order to build credibility with faculty and staff. Barbara noted that the new plan includes metrics for tracking costs, time, user satisfaction, and service usage (measurement tools are being developed by JR Schulden and Jon Conhaim).

Philip Stark, Faculty Assistant for Educational Technology, introduced directors Victor Edmonds, Educational Technology Services (LMS project manager), and JR Schulden, Student Information Systems - IST (infrastructure). Instead of buying enterprise-level commercial software, the project will work on data integration and on "automating" the work that faculty have to do to build web sites. The first phase of the LMS project, BearBONES (Berkeley Online Educational System), will expand the existing CourseWeb system and provide a simple web page for every course, with useful information for students. One aspect of the project is a proposed requirement that students either provide an email address or accept one provided by the university; the Registrar is working on this. The more elaborate second phase, Strawberry Creek, will develop interactive online content for the courses with the largest enrollments. This phase is still in the developmental stage, and will require market research and funding efforts. A future possibility is providing online course content to help community college students transferring to UCB. The handout on this initiative was included in the meeting packet as attachment #5.

Jack McCredie stated that LMS will be the first real application where we try to use all the pieces of the general e-Berkeley architecture. Committee members asked about communication with faculty and getting buy-in; Victor Edmonds noted that the e-Berkeley funding for LMS has two components: software and a customer service organization for faculty.

Policy Draft: Allowable Users and Uses of Berkeley Domain Name
Jim Hyatt and Jon Conhaim presented an addendum to the Interim e-Berkeley Policy (sent to the campus for review in June). This draft policy (attachment #6 to meeting packet) clarifies the use of the Berkeley.edu Internet domain name. Campus participants and affiliates, support groups, and student organizations are able to register in this domain. Non-affiliated groups are normally not eligible but may seek to use the Berkeley.edu domain name by submitting an exception request through a campus sponsoring unit. Guidelines are available at http://socrates.berkeley.edu:7015/exception.html. The Steering Committee approved distribution of the policy draft to the campus community, with campus comments on the entire Interim e-Berkeley Policy to be considered at the November 27, 2001 meeting.

Request from University Relations: Email Forwarding for Alumni
Rosemary Kim, representing the Development Office, departmental alumni associations, and the California Alumni Association, reported on the "At Cal" Online Alumni Community Project. The purpose of her presentation (attachment #7) was to gain approval from the Steering Committee for use of a sub-domain of the berkeley.edu domain name (alumni.berkeley.edu) for email forwarding services to be offered to alumni. The Steering Committee approved the request.

A report showing Timelines for e-Berkeley Projects was distributed by Jon Conhaim. The phases and milestones for each project are broken out, and "roll-out" and "roll-up" dates are shown. The "e-Berkeley Collaborating Projects," such as HRMS and Campus NewsFlash, are shown at the end of the report (without milestones). Jon reviewed each project briefly. Beth Burnside asked for more detail on the Research e-Protocol System.

Barbara Morgan asked whether demos of some of the more "exciting" projects should be placed on the agenda for the future, for informational purposes. Paul Gray agreed to this, providing there is sufficient time.

Wednesday, October 24, 2001, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Chancellor's Conference Room, California Hall

Tuesday, January 29, 2002, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in the Chancellor's Conference Room, California Hall