University Computing Committee

Minutes of the meeting held at 2.15pm on 1 December 2011

Present: Stephen Smith (Chair), Terry Edhouse, Tim Elsworth, Kriss Fearon, Byron George, John Grannan, Ian Hall, Elizabeth Harbord, Kath James, Ian Jennings, Oliver Larkin, David Surtees, Alison Taylor, Adrian Young, Eliza Xu. Heidi Fraser-Krauss, who takes up the post of Head of IT Services in January, also attended the meeting and was welcomed by the committee.

Apologies: Apologies for absence were received from Kingsley Boulton, Andrew Hill, Stephen Town, Geoff Wall, Jan Watkins, Adrian Whitwood

11/28 Minutes of the meeting held on 16 June 2011

These were accepted.

11/29 Matters arising

None.

11/30 Report on the meeting of Information Strategy Group on 14 November 2011

Ian Hall reported on the latest meeting of Information Strategy Group.

John Robinson, the incoming Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, will take over from Trevor Sheldon as Chair of ISG in April.
The Campus Maps project had encountered some technological issues but is now seeking quick wins as well as long-term results and is being taken forward with the Web Office.
A report on the Information Policy Review had been received from Chris Webb. UCC members expressed an interest in seeing the review.
A report on information security had been received from Stephen Town, setting out plans for carrying out improvements and fulfilling the recommendations arising from the security audit. There is not enough funding available this year to carry out all the work required, but the need for further funding has been recognised by the University.
A report was received from Stephen Town outlining proposed new governance arrangements under ISG. The paper will be revised and taken back to the next ISG meeting.
An update on Library investment plans was considered and approval had been confirmed for the pilot of 24/7 Library opening.
An Information Strategy Update will be posted out to departments early in the new year.

UCC members were reminded that they are entitled to put items forward to ISG via UCC at any time.

11/31 Notes from IT Infrastructure Forum meeting held on 23 June 2011

John Grannan reported that a number of technical meetings have been held to discuss various topics.
The Forum had discussed its relationship with other groups and in particular the University Computing Committee. Some overlap exists between these two groups and clarification is needed on how they should work together and where they fit within the University’s governance and committee structure. UCC agreed that the Terms of Reference of both groups should be examined and feedback provided to Stephen Town for his wider discussions on governance. Steve Smith, Heidi Fraser-Krauss and Dave Surtees will look at the Terms of Reference for UCC and will liaise with Aaron Turner who is currently revising those for the Forum (Action: Steve Smith, Heidi Fraser-Krauss, Dave Surtees).

11/32 Information Strategy developments

Ian Hall gave an update on new developments.

The Google Apps project was launched. Over a thousand students have signed up to the service, which is also being rolled out to staff on a phased basis.
York Print Plus is also being rolled out to staff and students, offering potentially significant environmental and cost savings to the University.
The Student Portal was launched in October, the Alumni Portal in July, and the Applicant Portal in October.
The new online recruitment system, e-Recruiter, is now up and running.
The new University card is being rolled out. It will be the Library card for staff from next week and will eventually be the single multi-purpose University card.
An additional link to the JANET network is now in place.
Examination papers for the last five years are now available online via the Digital Library and several other Digital Library projects are underway.
The University has been invited to join Research Libraries UK, a prestigious group of leading research libraries in the UK and Ireland.
The University has purchased Alan Ayckbourn’s archive.

11/33 IT Services developments

Dave Surtees gave an update on developments in Enterprise Systems:

The major project to implement Google Apps for staff and students is ongoing. All new students will be provided with Google accounts and existing students have been offered an opt-in process, with the aim of moving all students to Google by the start of the next academic year. Departments are asked to promote the migration to their students. The Directorate is working with departments to identify suitable times to move staff on a phased basis, and is providing support in the form of documentation, visits, first-line support via the IT Support Office, and also second-line support. The University’s Senior Management Group is keen for all staff and students to eventually use the same system.
A soft launch of Confluence wiki has commenced, with a blogging service to follow in 2012.
Developments in the Business Systems area include work on student timetables, change management procedures, ERDF system, applicant mailshots, CPD system, and Tableau reporting software.
The Digital Workspace Group has rolled out Windows 7 to all classrooms. Work on VDI and thin client continues. Developments planned for the future include a managed laptop service, the rollout of Windows 7 to staff PCs, Linux provision, and the management of non-PC devices.
The Web Services Group have been engaged in implementation of the Student Portal, the new Confluence wiki, and a VLE upgrade. Future plans include involvement in a project to look at Membership, Categories and Entitlements, a blogging platform, further development of the Student Portal, and changing our approach to development.

John Grannan outlined Infrastructure work planned for the next year:

Continued operational delivery of infrastructure services.
Capacity strategy and plan (including budget forecast) for 2011/15 period.
Infrastructure business continuity and availability strategy and plans.
Heslington West (and King’s Manor) network development plan for 2011/15 period.
Infrastructure operational service level catalogue.
University infrastructure technical meetings and presentations.
Support the University learning spaces development plan.
Conjoin with Estates on Heslington East new developments.
Start and progress stages 2 (Dept) and 3 (additional functionality) of the YPP project.
Develop ‘cloud’ strategy, policy and plans including virtualisation.
Develop data centre hosting strategy, policy and plans.
Complete JANET connection resilience and capacity upgrade.
Conjoin with University infrastructure review group.
Improve supplier liaison, engagement and purchasing activities.
Develop a timetable of process improvement reviews (LEAN).
Improve service monitoring, logging and reporting.
Support Directorate improvements in mobile computing.
Engender environmental/sustainability improvements.

11/34 Google Apps

Further to the more general discussion in 11/33 above, Terry Edhouse raised four specific points relating to Google Mail. The responses from IT Services, forwarded after the meeting, are provided below in italics for information:

Duration of Postini archive. We have had instances of needing to retrieve messages several years old that related to drawn-out student appeals.
- Work needs to be completed to decide on the ‘default’ retention period for email archiving in Postini. This is a policy decision rather than a technical one.
- We might wish to apply different retention policies to different kinds of account; this will require some reworking of processes.

Access to logs. Students have claimed not to have received e-mail concerning assignments as a way of avoiding penalties for late submission of work. Just having the message in the senders 'Sent Items' folder doesn't help when the message was sent to a mailing list which the student may or may not have been on at the time the message was sent.
- The consensus within IT is that a more robust mechanism than email receipts should be used by the department for the notification and submission of course work, and suggests they speak to the E-Learning Development Team to explore possibilities.
- Having now spoken to ELDT, we received the following: The VLE could make a contribution here. With the SITS data feed, all students enrolled on a specific module or programme could receive updates/notifications via email, triggered by the announcements tool or by the ‘send email’ function. The VLE also offers receipts for assignments that are submitted by students to the system, so would also help in that respect as well. Simon Davis, who has liaised with Electronics in the past on VLE matters, would be the logical point of contact for further VLE inquiries from the department.

Access from abroad, in particular China. We have a large proportion of overseas students with a significant number from China. We also have research links with Chinese institutions.
- We are aware of concerns about accessing Google’s services from China, and will speak to other Universities further down the Google Apps route than ourselves.
- The WebVPN provides access to Google Mail and isn’t blocked in China.

The auto-deletion of messages marked as 'SPAM' or 'deleted', after 30 days.
- We consider this behaviour to be more consistent and predictable than is the case currently. Webroot provides 28 days before deleting spam, our previous service provider considerably less. Using the web client avoids unpredictable, inconsistent behaviour previously experienced with the variety of clients using our IMAP service.

11/35 Current priorities

All members are encouraged to inform the Chair by email of any current priorities.

11/36 Any other business

None.

11/37 Date of next meetings

Thursday 1 March 2012

Thursday 14 June 2012

LSM