IT@Brown: News & Resources

The audio for this meeting can be found here:

http://www.brown.edu/cis/support/dcc/audio/audioarchive/DCC%20mtg%209-12-12.mp3

Pat Kinghorn – Updates

We have two new members on the DCC Steering Committee!  Kristen Soule has decided to return to the DCC Steering Committee after taking some time off.  Our other new member is Jesse Coutu.

David Sherry:  Security Updates

Laptop Encryption updates – only 46 out of 1000 licenses of Symantec Endpoint Encryption have been used.  ISG will be drafting a list of people and departments that they would like to see encrypting their laptops for the best interest of the University.  CIS will also be providing Mozy licenses with the encryption software to allow users of encrypted devices to back up their data to the cloud – The Mozy license will allow for unlimited backups.

PCI DSS assessment – Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard – Brown has to be compliant. Higher Ed focused company came in to evaluate Brown and its 52 credit card merchant accounts.  Brown is not PCI compliant, and will be rolling out 30 day, 60 day, 90 day, 180 day, and 365 day goals to make sure Brown is PCI Compliant in the future.  Although this is not federal law, this standard comes from 5 largest CC companies.  They have the authority to fine us if we are not compliant, or not allow us to use their cards.

Cloud Based Data Storage – Dropbox.com is inherently insecure and is for commercial use, not enterprise use.  Brown is looking into emerging technologies such as internet 2, Net+, box.net, google drive as approved cloud based data storage solutions

Laptop Loaner program – 6 Dells and 4 Macs have been purchased and they are located at Service and Repair.  The Systems are unencrypted, and intended for traveling Faculty that do not want to take their own devices with them.  The machines are scanned and wiped after being returned.

Protecting Brown Information Class – This class will not be schedule anymore.  It will be on-demand, and the online presentation is available.

New twitter accounts – CISO@Brown and ISG@Brown – Will be publicized during October which is National Cyber Security Awareness Month.  Prizes to win for those who follow!

Two step Google authentication is now an opt-in service – This provides an extra layer of Google authentication for individuals who would like to opt in.

Scott Thacher – Community Technology Consortium overview

Scott is the IT Director for the Division of Campus Life and Student Services and Chair of the Community Technology Consortium

CTC – A new group that has been created as an advisory group to Mike Pickett on Big Picture IT strategies, architectures and methods.

This group meets once per month, and serves several purpose, including the vetting of and soliciting feedback from the Brown community about big IT projects that will be affecting the community in a big way.  They serve to take community feedback on things that the community wants, that are not currently provided by CIS including but not limited to, Storage Infrastructure, Virtual Infrastructure, andprivate cloud for Brown use, to name a few examples. Membership includes high level members of Brown’s IT community.

Chris Grossi – CIS announcements

CIS recently completed a contract with Qualtrics.  More information about this powerful survey tool coming soon

Back to school weekend went very smoothly.  The helpdesk had 340 walk-ins in a week.

Some returning students are running into issues with MAC OS 10.6 machines running cloudpath.  Deleting the old certificate and installing the new one should resolve the problem.

SAS 9.3.4 is available on software.brown.edu.  It is now Unkeyed.

The windows team has brought up a 2^nd print server.  Any print queue migrations will be transparent. (Except for some MAC users, who may have to change the print queue name.)

Brown has a new Dell Inside Service Representative – Luis Diaz.
He can be contacted at Luis_Diaz@dell.com
800-576-6038 Ext# 513-9343

Changes to the Dell Premier page have been made, the 7010’s, 6330, and 6430 are up there without image.  The XPS 13 should also be available on this page shortly.

A new standard image will be uploaded to the deploy server.

Steve Mckay – Software Services updates

The C-Farm server has been upgraded.  Mathematica, Matlab, ArcGis licensing is all tied to this server.

Software.brown.edu has been moved to a new VM.  This will allow the packaging of programs like SAS to be put into one large file, rather than multiple smaller files.

There is demand for Creative Suite 6.  Now that Keyserver is running version 7, Creative Suite 6 can now be packaged.

SAS is now available unkeyed.  SPSS will soon be available without needing to connect to License Manager to run.

Matlab – more toolboxes are being added to the license manager

Software.brown.edu will be updated in the future as part of CIS’s web re-design

Matlab 20212B is available – This will be packaged through lab use only.

Nvivo 10 – Being packaged soon.

Notes submitted by Stephanie Han

Announcements:

Pat Kinghorn announced that there was a FileMaker one day conference meeting at MIT next Wednesday, June 20th, 2012. If anyone is interested, please e-mail her, and she will send along further information.

Chris Gross announced that Maple 16 will be released shortly. Chris mentioned that Dell did fix some of the issues which were problematic on the premiere page, such as the default login going to their software page, and not to computer equipment. Dell is in the process of rebuilding the information on their software page. Chris was going to send around a Google spreadsheet to all of the system admins and DCCs to ask for suggestions on what types of software should be included on this site.

Chris also told the group that he and Scott Martin had met with some folks from FileMaker regarding an on-line training series initiative. This series appears to be an excellent and inexpensive way to gain needed training.

David Sherry: Password Strengthening Policy (10+)

David Sherry then introduced the new password policy to the DCC community. With the onset of Workday, and Oracle Identity Management (OIM), David remarked that it was an ideal time to implement a campus wide initiative for the strengthening of passwords. The reasons for strengthening the Brown network passwords are due in part to the increased amount of confidential information available to both faculty and staff, through for example WorkDay and Banner. Also Brown’s ability to qualify for funding and grants also mandate that the password policy be upgraded. Compliance with the Level of Assurance with InCommon (Shibboleth), which would raise our level from Bronze to Silver. Due to these requirements, the password convention must be bumped up from eight characters to 10 or more characters. David Sherry stated that there would be a grace period whereby members of the community could begin this process. Eventually it will be necessary for each person in the Brown Community to verify their identity by logging into the Oracle Identity Manager, where the password change will take place. David is encouraging that this process commence on June 20th. Passwords will have to be changed annually. At the 351st day, notifications will be disseminated to Brown users as a reminder to change their password. The password must be changed before the expiration date, or a user may lose the ability to authenticate into Brown resources. Near the conclusion of his presentation, David Sherry distributed a pamphlet to the DCCs with specific information regarding the password policy. For more information please visit: www.brown.edu/go/passwords

Scott Thacher: Community Technology Consortium (CTC)

Scott Thatcher gave a brief presentation on a new initiative entitled, “Community Technology Consortium.” He remarked that the CTC is an advisory group which directly communicates to Mike Pickett on issues voiced through the IT community here at Brown. The purpose of this group is to promote coordination and communication across IT’s strategies, architectures, methods and priority. It is hoped that this consortium will assist:
Identifying and planning top priority collaborative initiates within Brown.
Allowing Brown-wide IT best practices and standards to be jointly developed
Fostering innovation and allowing ideas and solutions to be broadly shared.
Coordinate support transitions of IT leadership, during times of emergency.
Serving as a technology advisory group.
Providing advocacy for issues of the IT community’s concern.

It is hoped that the Consortium will have a web presence sometime in the future. The membership includes: Tony Allison, Andrew Ashton, Jeff Coady, Jaime Combariza, Monty Combs, Cliff Hirschman, Chris Keith, Paul Koussa, Jennifer lane, David Mycue, Kristen Soule, John Spadaro, and Scott Thacher.

Tom DuValley: Red Hat Server License

Tom DuValley presented the campus-wide site license for several Redhat products, including server, workstation and clustering software. This service will be managed through a Red Hat Network Satellite service providing:
• Licensing
• Hosts and serves out all software
• Hosts and serves out all software updates
• Provides Kickstart management
• Config file management
• Update management
• System profiling
Workstations and servers for all Brown faculty, staff and students will be licensed at no cost. Vendor support will be available to all those who are licensed. The way to install this system is via Kickstart, which is accomplished through the Campus PXEBoot service.
Brown’s particular satellite is called Hubble, RHN.brown.edu, and is great for system administrators, because it provides a central management hub for all of these systems. If a department wants to manage their own machines, they get their own log in and their own account.
Please visit https://sites.google.com/a/brown.edu/brown-rhn-satellite/ for further documentation, and for specific satellite documentation please visit https://rhn.brown.edu/rhn/help.

Audio capture and presentation PDFs can be found at: http://www.brown.edu/cis/support/dcc/dccpresentations/

An audio recording of this meeting is available here.

Announcements – Chris Grossi

We’re down to two weeks left for the Symantec Antivirus license. CIS is tracking and running reports of machines that are still contacting the SAV server. ISG has sent reminders to departments that have many remaining SAV clients. We need to get full migration completed by the end of March to both ensure active and current client security, and to be in compliance with our licensing agreements and protect Brown from a license audit and penalties.

CIS has been working with SAS to extend licensing across campus, they are close to being ready to un-key SAS licensing. Standalone SAS will be available to departments before the end of the semester. Anyone using a keyed installation of SAS will need to uninstall their preior version and reinstall the new unkeyed version. Students are included in the licensing and can install SAS on their own computers.

By the end of this patch cycle, Windows machines managed in the CIS SCCM system will have their Microsoft updates managed by SCCM.

As part of Brown’s Dell contract, Dell will be running a Recycling Day on Friday 20 April (Earth Day weekend) to allow Brown-owned and personal equipment to be dropped off for recycling. Details are still being worked out, look for more information from CIS soon.

Qualtrics Online Survey Platform

Representatives of Qualtrics, a commercial service offering very high-quality hosted online survey building, deployment, and reporting, presented their platform. Their core features are:

• Sophisticated surveys made simple (built by a PhD survey researcher)
• 86 question types
• Advanced logic available
• Provides University control. delegated administration
• FERPA. IRB, PHI, HIPAA compliance – SSAE 16 Certified
• University owns the data
• Collaboration available with other researchers in the world even if they don’t have Qualtrics at their institution
• Extensive training and documentation both in using the service and in general research survey design

If you have any questions about the features and benefits of Qualtrics, feel free to contact Ryan Jackson, their representative, at ryanj@qualtrics.com.

CIS is looking for feedback to see who else in the University would be interested. Send your feedback to Stephanie_Obodda@brown.edu. If you have direct feedback regarding the usefulness of Qualtrics to your department, you can also complete the CIS survey that is collecting departmental interest in the platfom.

Doug Wilkinson – CIS Network Technology Group (NTG)

NTG is comprised of:

• Network Security
• Network Engineering
• Network Operations

Any network tickets should be assigned to the Network Operations group, they triage and reassign as needed.
CommOps remains unchanged, still handle dead ports, tap requests, etc.
Projects update:

• Internet Border to OSHEAN – upgrading infrastructure to prepare for a future migration from redundant 1G to redundant 10g
• 5400 firewall decommission, reaching out to departments who are behind these obsolete devices
• NSZ moves
• PBX and SIP upgrade, now complete. SIP features and phones are in testing and will be deployed in new projects in the near future.

Doug’s slide deck is available here.

An audio recording of this meeting is available.

Announcements – Pat Kinghorn

Next week’s TechForum meeting (Wednesday 21 Sept 2011) is focused on FileMaker Go. Our new FileMaker technical rep will be here doing a demo. Also, Brown is leading the creation of global higher-ed FileMaker listserv. If you’re interested, contact Pat Kinghorn.

Next month’s DCC meeting will be held in the List Art Center, room 110.

Announcements – Chris Grossi

We all got through the Back-to-School rush pretty well; it was as quiet a BTS period as in the last 10 years. The Cloudpath wifi auto configuration service was a big part of that: 2450 people auto-configured the Brown-Secure SSID since 8/30. Walk-ins were down 50% at Help Desk, as there was no need for walk-in wifi configuration.

Banner’s recent ‘Error 404’/cookie problems were been patched on Monday. If anyone has further troubles, contact Help Desk.

Tom Flood from Facilities is making a bulk purchase of Dell laptops and desktops – if you want to join in contact Tom immediately.

AV migration is coming along … CIS is testing a ForeFront installer. They are assembling a steering committee to manage the migration project. More information is coming soon, please contact Pat Kinghorn if you’re interested in participating.

Software Services release EndNote X5 for Windows immediately. EndNote X5 for Mac is waiting for receipt of installation media from the vendor, and will be released within a month. X4 is available directly in a pinch, but does not work on Lion.

CIS is still planning to formally support Office 2010 in October.

In the past, Help Desk has had Windows XP and Windows 7 licenses available for student use via MSDN-AA, but these have been discontinued by Microsoft starting this semester. CIS is working with interested parties to determine ways to address this.

CIS will be sending a survey regarding the software portfolio to the campus later this month. This is intended to identify stakeholders for software licenses and establish best practices for long-term management of our software portfolio.

Also, CIS released a wifi survey by Morning Mail and hopes to have a good response rate. Please solicit responses to this survey from your department members.

The top half of the 128.16.128.0/24 subnet has been converted from ResNet to part of the admin network. Correction: The 138.16.128.0/17 subnet is now being used for staff/admin networks. Departments running local firewalls may need to adjust their rulesets.

David Sherry – All Things ISG

PowerPoint deck available

ISG has a staff of 4 including CISO, handling all information security, not just IT.

State of the Information Security Union at Brown:

• Staffing: Now hiring for an additional IT Security Engineer

• Network Security Zone (NSZ) moves continuing – still working with departments who ask for it, not mandated at this time

• Scanning service maturing

• Deeper involvement with privacy, records, compliance, and identity (governance)

• Increasing tickets and DMCA notices

• National Syber Security Awareness Month

• “Securing the Human” being prepped – Video awareness campaign from SANS

Ran an external scan by Dell/SecureWorks for auditing purposes. Full report due Friday 16 Sept. 2011. No urgent or critical vulnerabilities were found.

“There are many, many vulnerabilities that can be removed by simply patching the software on systems, and/or upgrading the software to its latest version.”

Google Security

New infrastructure transition last July, many users complained about ‘new’ terms of service allowing administrator access, which was not new at Brown.

Google Image Search malware attacks are getting shut down by Google as best they can. It seems that few people actually got infected by these.

Vanity attacks via Google News alerts – spear phishing. Usually targets high-ranking officials, CEOs, etc.

Virus Proliferation

Phishing and link attacks are growing. Smartphone attacks are coming soon. Increase in attacks on Macs as well, as market share grows.

VPN Status

The new F5 VPN (SSL and Fat Client released) was released as a soft launch on 8/18 and a full launch on 9/12. The obsolete Cisco VPN will be decommissioned on 10/31. ISG is working with Hospital technical staff and other affiliates to iron out bugs and ensure continuity.

Protecting PII

Identity Finder, an automated tool to find personally-identifiable information on your own computer, is targeted for implementation by 10/14/11. If you want to try it at home you can get to at the Identity Finder website.

Guardian Eagle laptop encryption is targeted for 11/23/11 with 1000 licenses to start. Implementation will be targeted at known users of confidential/PII data. ISG is also working on server PII discovery using Veronas.

Firewall Thoughts

Current core firewall servers are aging, ISG is targeting replacement just after commencement next year. They are looking into next generation equipment that moves beyond port-based security for content, user, and application security.

Other Projects

Enterprise Certificates through Comodo: SSL certificates will be available in any number we need, including personal certificates. This should become available before Spring 2012.

Eduroam – new SSID for cross-institutional use by all members of Eduroam (3700 schools in the world, 3600 are in Europe). Login to wifi at participating institutions using your Brown credentials; visitors from other Eduroam universities can login to wifi at Brown with their home credentials.

Brown will soon be archiving mail using Postini for staff members at level 12 or above, for the purposes of data retention and retrieval for legal records.

Coming soon: terminal server for vendor access; developing Domain Trust Security Guidance.

I don’t know about your department, but I work in a large academic one and we’ve had a few incidents in the last few years of affiliated individuals sharing copyrighted material on our network. This becomes a problem when the rights owners detect it, send a take-down notice to Brown, and initiate a cascade of detective work and paperwork that ultimately burns a lot of time and effort.

Feel free to copy and modify this text at will for use in your own department, or just read it for your own information. There is also a lot of good information about managing such incidents in a classic post from Pat Falcon (ISG).

To everyone in {DEPARTMENT}:

We have had a few incidents in the last few years of handling cases where people in the department were ‘caught’ sharing copyrighted commercial material online from the Brown network, using services such as BitTorrent. These tend to be works such as digitized music, TV, movie, eBook, or software titles.

Strictly to inform everyone, I’m writing to let you know how people get caught, what exactly happens in such a case, and why it’s worth avoiding.

1. I do not scan for such shared material on our network. Brown does not actively scan for such material either. We have better things to do with our time and generally prefer a free and open academic environment. However, Brown does have explicit policies* that all of us agreed to when we activated our Brown accounts that prohibit sharing copyrighted materials using the Brown network, and these policies are invoked by the Information Security Group (ISG) in CIS when necessary.

2. The entities that *do* scan for such shared materials are the copyright holders themselves or their agents, who monitor shared files on BitTorrent and other services. When they detect some shared material from the Brown network, they send a take-down notice to Brown referencing the time and the IP number of the sharing computer. Brown uses this information to find the network port (which represents the building, room, and network tap used) and unique hardware network card address of the specific sharing machine. They send this information to me and I am obligated to track it to the computer that was used, and the likely person who was using it.

3. When we determine who was sharing the material, the individual must complete a form that indicates that they have taken the material down from sharing services, and that the individual has been educated about the relevant policies. This form must be signed by the individual who had shared the material, and also by their supervisor or the department Chair as appropriate. Copies of this form are filed in the individual’s University records (offices of Student Life, HR, or the Dean of the Faculty as appropriate), with the ISG, and within the department. Second offenses escalate up the ladder and include meetings with the Office of General Counsel. None of us want to get to that point!

4. The copyright holders are looking for people both downloading and uploading content. You may not realize when you use BitTorrent software or similar services, even while you’re downloading the content, parts of it are shared back to the Internet to feed other downloaders. That’s how it works. So even if you fire up sharing software briefly just to download something, you are also uploading/sharing at the same time, and this is commonly what will initiate all these actions. Even if you only fire up BitTorrent for a short time to download one file, you are putting yourself at risk of all these actions. Also, even if you plan to use BitTorrent software only when connected to your home network, some torrent software runs automatically in the background even when you’re not actively using it, so you should make sure it’s truly off when you’re at Brown. I can help you verify that such software is not running when you don’t want it to be.

5. BitTorrent sharing itself is not illegal on its own. It is often used to download/share legitimate files that have appropriate licenses, such as free software and music. It is only a problem when sharing copyrighted material without permission. We do not plan to filter BitTorrent traffic in the department or at Brown for this reason.

To avoid all the negative consequences, time and effort that must go into acting on copyright complaints, *please* refrain from downloading/sharing copyrighted material when using the Brown network. This includes connections through the on-campus wired and wireless networks, and connections from off-campus when using the Brown VPN. I really don’t like to play the cop, and you probably don’t want the negative attention.

Please let me know if you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer them.

Thanks very much,

{SIGNATURE}

*For those of you who are interested, you can read the entirety of the relevant Brown policies at the link below. Note that some of the consequences include filtering the computer off the Brown network until the issues are resolved. This usually only happens in the residence halls, not within departments.

http://www.brown.edu/cis/policy/copyright.php

1. The Center for Digital Scholarship

Presenters: Elli Mylonas, Associate Director, Ann Caldwell, Metadata Specialist, and Andy Ashton, Senior Research Programmer Analyst, all at University-Library Integrated Technical Services.

Elli introduced the CDS: a new group formed from the Center for Digital Initiatives (Library) and Scholarly Technology Group, formerly party of CIS and now part of the Library. They are also doing digital repository work. CDI used to work with collections within the library and directly with faculty and classes. STG was primarily in the faculty using digital resources mostly in research, in project driven mode.

They are focused on working with library collection AND with faculty at Brown who are doing projects, funded by research funds or grants CDS helps them get. DCCs should know about this resource so they can help match their faculty with these resources.

The CDS works primarily with the humanities, also some social sciences. Their website is: http://library.brown.edu/cds. They support UTRAs, have interns, and visit classrooms to give presentations or team-teach.

Ann talked about the CDS’ creation of metadata, descriptions of files. The CDS has scanning equipment including a large scale scanner. Creating metadata for Brown’s collections is an ongoing project. They also work some on faculty members’ collections, do consulting. Storage of digital resources at this point is done on site.

Andy talked about the Brown Digital Repository, a platform for preserving and accessing the digital products of scholarly work at Brown. The Library offers the repository for storage of research work. It is able to handle all kinds of materials; the CDS staff is working on building the interface for using the materials. Right now dissertations are stored there, among many other things. For each object stored there, metadata is captured first. Developing standardized metadata is a focus right now.

CIS is running a streaming server called wowza. This can be used by the repository to retrieve and play streamed content. The repository can also work with materials that Brown doesn’t own: it stores metadata about it and links to it.

The CDS is building an interface for users to add metadata and links to materials. CDS will continue to develop APIs and departmental workflows.

Q: Is the repository only available to members of the Brown community?
A: Authentication is done through Shibboleth. At this point it’s only Brown but the system is in place to federate rights outside of Brown. Right now the CDS’s digital assets are public; in future they will be able to restrict access for research-in-progress and collaboration purposes.

Q: Do internet searches bring up results from the repository?
A: It is possible to distribute metadata out to search engines (for public objects). This is one of the key features of the software they are using.

Q: Is it a fee service to store objects in the Digital Repository?
A: No fee but the repository does not equal storage. It’s part of the library, part of Brown’s desire to preserve and make accessible its assets. Not really for private, ephemeral objects. Better for reserach materials, even administrative materials, but intended more for LONG term storage.

Q: Whom do we contact to explore using the Digital Repository?
A: Contact Andrew Ashton. They are in the thick of pilot projects and setting the systems up, but will be able to take on new projects in future.

2. Internet Security Group: David Sherry, Chief Information Security Officer

Things in the security area have changed a lot in the last couple of years: major areas of concern include privacy, regulations. There is a big new records management initiative. All of this revolves around data stewardship: who owns, accesses, manages, uses our data? Who backs it up, archives it, stores it, destroys it? In response to this we are kicking off a Data Privacy and Records Management (DPRM) Program. We need to be able to ensure confidentiality, availability, and integrity of our data. Brown is very open to innovative ways of doing things, but some things do need to be regulated. New regulations are coming along that will hit higher ed soon; we need to be ready.

The Records Mgt Committee submitted an excellent report but few people know about it; that needs to change. The IT Disaster Recovery effort also helped people to think about data ownership, storage, etc. Regulations like the Massachusetts Privacy Law (effective March 1) impact us.

What has been done: Russell Carey, head of Risk and Governance has been spearheading this; there’s been a campus-wide group meeting regularly on this for a year. Ownership of the project is David Sherry, and it will include not just digital security but paper as well. The stewardship issue was merged with the Records Management effort. Those were on parallel paths. Senior leadership is involved.

There is going to be a push to get rid of all social security numbers, but not before careful procedures and guidelines are completely ready to help departments out. This is a long term plan, probably a couple of years. It needs to be thorough. There is no need for SSNs to be out there in departments.

There are 10 top University administrators involved in the DPRM, including the registrar, legal counsel, Russell Carey, the head librarian, the university archivist (position to be filled), David Sherry… in other words, people who own a lot of the key data. This is the committee that has been meeting regularly for a year. Next a working group will be created with representatives from across campus. It will be a monthly meeting. Task forces will be created as needed to test things.

They are looking at hiring a University Records manager and business analyst to help out. A new ISG website is coming soon, which will have records management information.

Guidelines for safeguarding information — a useful document on the ISG website, but it’s too much to make into policy. Instead, a subset of it is being made into policy; it is going through legal counsel now.

ISG just purchased something called Guardian Edge. Encryption platform for flash drives and laptops, mandated by the Mass Privacy Law. If you have removable media with sensitive info on it, it has to be encrypted. Works on Mac and Windows. It will go up on the software.brown.edu page at some point; we have 1000 licenses. They were just bought by Symantec.

Tip: use Google Identity Finder, free version. We have the enterprise version which runs a report. This is for self awareness. It will find SSNs and other sensitive information on your computer.

Q: What is the timeline on SSNs?
A: It will be the first thing addressed. Paper is a big concern. BRU also. All restricted info,actually, not just SSNs.

3. Google update from Chris Grossi

Special thanks to Don Rogers, Kristen Soule and Cliff Hirschman who have given a lot of help behind the scenes. Your work has made things go more smoothly for the GAE team.

The last week has been intense: University Hall was migrated on Wednesday; Staff Development Day was on Thursday; CIS migrated on Friday. On Monday: Athletics, Facilities and the Libraries; Tuesday, half of J Walter Wilson, and Campus Life & Student Services. Wednesday (today) is the BOB and the Bookstore, Public Safety and more of JWW. It’s been busy but it’s going fairly well. Chris estimates 1500 people so far. Individual opt-ins continue apace.

The Software Services team including Steve McKay, Peter Tirrell, and Barry Albright have been processing all the forms behind the scenes. Tatum Ponte and Michele Blanchette at the help desk have been sending messages in the morning. No big glitches. For the rest of this week there will be only smaller departments migrating.

Next week’s focus is on academic departments: small ones on Monday; the hard sciences on Tuesday — the last big push (except for Biomed, which goes through July). Then lots of tracking down of faculty, emeriti/ae, medical folks, etc. But for the core of university it will be largely there by mid -next week.

Cliff helped lay out the ‘remaining issues’ list. This will be up shortly on a website. Public calendars are an example. More documentation is coming. Google Guides, DCCs, and 6 students are working on this. Documentation on distribution lists is ready, on the new Google Apps site. Hand-helds: new iPhones coming imminently. Progress has been made on Google Groups, for use in accessing calendars. These groups can be security groups; don’t have to be used for mail delivery.

Any issues for the GAE team?
1. Best way to redo when a PST migrates incompletely?
2. How to embed a calendar in a web page? (Answer: not possible)
3. Opening a mailto link runs outlook. Best solution requires chrome and the GoogleApps Desktop.
4. It’s important to freeze changes on booking rooms for two days prior to a departmental migration.
5. Forwarding email from outlook to gmail: technically, one can use outlook for now, but don’t get in the habit. This will not work after September. It’s an OK solution for one-up.
6. the ad.brown.edu issue is mostly but not completely resolved. Be sure to get rid of it whenever you see it. (it was resolved on Thursday)

Training: encourage your users to check out training.brown.edu.

One more for dccs: a webex for detailed questions that didn’t get covered. Scheduled for the 18th 1-3 pm. Reserved B&H 164. Appirio’s last training day. For Brown directory: those who do not opt in will not be in the directory until the fall.

For reluctant faculty, there will eventually be a stick. For now though, it’s still time for carrots. Another encouraging email from the Provost is a good idea given the timing of the campaign at the end of the semester. Grad students need another nudge, too.