Minutes of the meeting held 26th March 2003 Present: Owen Atkin, Lorna Evans, Paul Waites, Julie Lord,Richard Firn (Chair), Ian Jennings. Cake: Experimental apple/sesame flapjacks
ICDB 03/1 Apologies for absence. None.
ICDB 03/2 Minutes of the meeting 18/12/02. These were accepted.
ICDB 03/3 Matters arising:
None
ICDB 03/4 York Extra
IJ and RDF reported that they had met with John Byrne to discuss the possible
trial of York Extra within the Biology Dept.. On behalf of the department he
had declined the offer. They informed the Committee that York Extra was a university-developed
tool that enabled information to be provided to any specific group of users.
Departments would be able to create content for web pages and then "force"
the content on to the user's screens when they logged in. However, the software
used (Java and MS IE) were not ideal for the average biology-supported machine
and it was considered that the approach had insufficient utility to be adopted
by Biology, either in a trial or at a later stage.
The Committee agreed that York Extra should not be part of the Biology IT provision
although a web link to the York Extra web pages would be available from the
new Bulletin.
ICDB 03/5 The Biology Bulletin
The committee agreed that the Biology Bulletin was a useful way of providing
information to the Biology Dept.. Given the role of the ICDB, it was agreed
that Resources Board should be asked to:
The Committee also agreed that it was time to redesign the Bulletin to recognise
that it will be a web-based tool and rid it of the Word heritage. PW showed
the committee a suggested new format and it was agreed that PW and LE would
refine the format for a relaunch in late April 2003.
The Committee agreed that the Bulletin needed to revise its remit to ensure
that:
In respect of the latter role, some of the current restrictions on content need
to be reconsidered to give the Bulletin a more informal, personal style. It
was proposed that the Bulleting be managed by the ICDB but day-to-day decisions
should be made by an editor.
Because the current "editor" was leaving at the end of March, there
was a need to keep the Bulletin going and plans would have to be made before
the ICDB met again and learned whether it had been given the responsibility
for the Bulletin. Consequently, LE agreed to act as editor/co-ordinator.
ICDB 03/6 Web Pages
OA reported that the revision of the departmental web pages was on target to
meet the April 2003 relaunch. He had convened a group of providers who had helped
devise an improved structure and the individual providers of content had largely
met their deadlines.
The page design had been seen and accepted by his group. It was agreed that
the design might evolve in response to user feedback but the use of style sheets
made any revisions relatively simple.
OA and LE were thanked for their efforts in co-ordinating and facilitating the
web development. The Committee would consider future web developments and the
management of the revisions at a future meeting.
The Committee agreed that all Biology web pages that serve the whole department
should be incorporated into the overall web strategy.
ICDB 03/7 Directory Structure of the Biology Servers
IJ reported that he proposed to re-organise the file structure on the main servers
to provide a more logical directory structure. Most users would not be influenced.
The Committee approved this more logical approach.