Minutes of the meeting held 13th September 2004 Present: Paul
Waites, Owen Atkin, Julie Lord, Richard Firn (Chair), Ian Jennings. Lorna Evans.
Cake: Pear & Cinnamon Loaf ... somewhat burnt.
ICDB 04/12 Apologies for absence.
None
ICDB 04/13 Minutes of the previous meeting.
They were accepted.
ICDB 04/14 Matters arising
ICDB 03/22, ICDB 02/21 Software auditing. IJ reported that the ability to audit
software on networked machines had been improved. Very large amounts of data
would be collected by any non-targetted audit thus this capability would be
expected to be used very selectively.
ICDB 04/15 Annual updating of the departmental web pages
LE reported that this was progressing reasonably well. The committee were disappointed
to learn that the Chair of the BoS had decided to issue the new cohort of students
with hard copies of the student handbook rather than inform them about the web-based
version that had been prepared last year. The committee agreed that a better
approach (less work and easier to comply with the FOIA) would have been to investigate
how to better serve the student's needs with improved web-based information.
It was agreed that the policy of moving to web-based information systems should
be adhered to. Any return to hard copy provision should only be considered in
exceptional cases.
ICDB 04/16 Refreshing the Biology Web Pages throughout the
year.
The proposal to have a link to one different research group each month from
the home page was agreed. It was agreed that this might help keep members of
the department more informed about the work of others in the department. The
only extra "cost" was the administration of the changes because the
research pages of the groups should be updated at intervals in any case. Research
Committee would be informed and asked to comments.
ICDB 04/17 Web adminsitration
PW summarised his plans for improving the administration of the Biology web
systems with reference also to IJ's proposals. It was agreed that:
The Biology web site should be defined as those pages in www.york.ac.uk/depts/biol/
folders and on the Departmental server (www.biology.york.ac.uk). Pages stored
in the University's user web area (www-users.york.ac.uk) or other University
categories (e.g. www.york.ac.uk/res/) will not be regarded as being part of
the Biology site.
The web site technical administrator should manage the technical and structural
aspects of the Biology site. This role should be assigned to Paul Waites.
The web site technical administrator should have all the Computing Service web
accounts (biol22, etc.) in their name and should manage the passwords. Passwords
should not be devolved by content providers.
The web site technical administrator should have full access to the Departmental
web server with the ability to create new root folders and accounts.
The main Departmental administrative web pages (the Biology Home page, UG, PG,
stores, IT, HoD, Personnel, etc) should remain on the Computing Service web
server as long as the vast majority of the pages are static. Dynamic pages linked
to databases via Coldfusion/PHP etc should be on the Departmental web server.
Research groups and associated units should be encouraged to locate their pages
on the Departmental web server. File store over a set limit will incur a charge
(limit currently is 1Gb).
All pages on the Biology site should comply with the University guidelines on
accessibility and visual identity.
All Departmental administration pages (i.e. not research) should not only comply
with University guidelines but also with the Departmental visual identity/style.
Web authors who do not locate pages on the Biology web site (as defined above)
and/or do not use Departmentally supported software will not be entitled to
Biology IT support.
The Department will provide and support web authoring software for use on the
Biology site. The supported software is currently Dreamweaver and Contribute.
The web site administrator will advise on the appropriate package.
The Departmentally approved database engine is MySQL. The Departmental Coldfusion
server or PHP scripts may be used to link web pages with a database. However,
such technology is time consuming to set up and administer and so only limited
support can be offered.
It is expected that web authors will have the necessary level of competence
to write web pages. Training courses will be available.
ICDB 04/18 VLE
The forthcoming demonstrations of the 4 prospective VLEs were noted.
ICDB 04/19 Report of IMSG
The group has met 4 times. The outcome of the deliberations with regards to
the FOIA would be outlined to the department at a meeting this week. Policy
and procedures would be available on the web. Training needs have been identified.
The group is moving on the consider document management systems.
ICDB 04/20 Agresso
The survey conducted by the Chair and the Stores survey had revealed widespread
criticism of the software. While the system served the needs of regular, expert
users it was unsatisfactory for the majority of users. These problems had now
been acknowledged but no very dramatic improvements were expected. The strategy
of completing order on suppliers' web sites seemed the best hope.
ICDB 04/21 IT resources
IJ noted that the extra £10K sought to pay the department's contribution
to Microsoft costs had been largely counteracted by the 7.5% cut imposed on
all expenditure. Resource limitations, or unpredictable resource needs, clearly
would have implications for the phased update of departmental PCs. The need
for new hardware to provide for a secure, robust server system for the new departmental
web server would also have an impact.
The issue of resourcing the HYMS-linked departmental expansion was still unresolved.
IJ had no funds available to provide hardware for the new units expected to
be arriving soon.
ICDB 04/22 Email filtering
There was praise for the implementation of Spam Manager which seemed very good
at reducing the number of unwanted emails received by users. PRW would produce
some advice for the Bulletin as to how users may tailor Spam Manager to suit
their needs.
Richard Firn
13/09/04