DCC meetings notes – Wednesday May 09, 2012
DCC notes for 5/9/12
No audio notes are available for this meeting.
Pat Kinghorn announced that Bookstore orders using FY12 funding need to be placed by June 10th .
The DCC Steering Committee is also looking for some new members! If you would like to join the Steering Committee to share your ideas, thoughts, and anything else please contact Pat at DCC_Liaison@brown.edu.
Chris Grossi spoke about Recycling day- it was a success!!! Two full trailers, 55 pallets and 16.5 tons of surplus goodies! It saved Brown $15,000. Good going team!! He also spoke of Matlab license removal- there will be more info on this on a Blog post including the renewal information. Adobe CS6 was released and we should be seeing that come to campus for download in the summer.
Scott Martin – gave a presentation on the new Filemaker Server project!! It is here!! Finally! The launch date for the project is projected to be July 2012. The Server will be able to host Filemaker databases for the university using the Filemaker Pro 12 Advanced Server. Please note that all previous versions of Filemaker files will need to be converted to version 12 as this is a new file format. Files will be accessible via Ethernet, Brown Secure and VPN. There will be levels of access from Admin down to standard user. Scott also discussed the new ITSC a la carte program where departments that do not have a DCC or ITSC person for their group can get services from ITSC for a fee. The limit is 10 hours a month. There will be a list of fees and services provided for on the website soon. Scott can be reached at Scott_Martin@brown.edu for questions. His presentation can be found at: http://www.brown.edu/cis/support/dcc/.
Bill Bordac – Brownsites/Web services. Bill gave an up to date look at Brownsites.
Bill spoke of the latest version of BrownSites as it is an evolving product. WebServices usually releases three upgrades a year. Version 1.3 will be coming in June. They are working on a plan to make it easier to update older versions of BrownSites by deploying modules. He also spoke about Go Service which is a way to create short URL’s. WebServices also offers monthly training for BrownSites. Please note that the training is not hands on. There are now 85 live BrownSites. You can read all about it here .
Thanks!
Notes taken by Peter Mello
DCC Meeting Notes — Wednesday April 11, 2012
DCC Meeting 4/11/12
You can listen to the Audio of the DCC meeting.
http://www.brown.edu/cis/support/dcc/audio/audioarchive/DCC%20mtg%204-11-12.mp3
Chris Grossi spoke of the Dell recycling day. There will be a tractor trailor in the CIT parking lot from 8am until 2pm on April 20th to collect Brown owned surplus equipment and personal machines. More information about the event can be found at the below address
http://blogs.brown.edu/cis/2012/04/05/dell-recycling-day-april-20th/
On Wednesday April 18th, there will be a hands on Tech Forum. The topic of this forum is the Brown standard images. There will be laptops there that will be imaged from the deploy server during the meeting.
On June 5th the new Dell desktops will be available for order. They will be the 9010’s. They will not have a Brown std image on them until CIS can get one in to build the image. One should be available on the the deploy server shortly after CIS receives their machine.
The Matlab renewal is approaching. The is the possibility of some new toolboxes being added to our license. No toolboxes will be removed. Preferred method for getting a copy of Matlab is through the Matlab TAH license. If you are going to image a cluster with Matlab, please do not use this license. There will be a package from CIS to use in these instances. More information will be coming.
Brown only saw about a ½ dozen infections of the recent Mac Vulnerability according to the Sopohs server.
Starting this month Microsoft patches will be delivered to managed ITSC and managed Biomed computers through SCCM.
John Spadaro
John spoke of the new IT Governance at Brown and went through the process of getting projects funded through CIS. The new process was put in place to try to get the decision making into the hands of the people that run the University. You can read about the new IT Governance here:
http://www.brown.edu/it/governance/home
As always, if you have any questions about IT Governance please send them to John.
Academic Technology Services(AT)
Carrie Saarinen and Kelly Egan came to talk about what ATS can do for you.
Academic Technologies helps professors with course related technologies for teaching and learning. They have funds available to help faculty with new ideas they may have in teaching their courses. The have the resources to put ideas into actual teaching.
AT has 4 multimedia labs available for teaching and student lab use when there are no classes going on. The facilities are equipped with Video production equipment. There are consultants available to help guide Faculty during classes and students during lab use.
AT has funding to try out new ideas in the classroom. An example was using both ipads and kindles in a class to determine which would work best in that setting.
AT offers services as well as innovation. They will help develop new technologies but once they become mainstream, they will then become a service supported by AT.
Canvas is the new learning management system. They have been very active talking to other schools about how they are using it.
They would be happy to come to your faculty meetings to do a presentation on What AT Can Do For You. Pat Kinghorn said it was very beneficial and successful for her Faculty.
You can find out more about Academic Technologies at brown.edu/go/teachwithtech
DCC Meeting Notes – 14 March 2010
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.
DCC Meeting Notes — Wednesday, February 8, 2012
DCC Meeting Notes – Wednesday January 11th, 2012
Please feel free to download an audio recording of the meeting.
I. Announcements from Chris Grossi:
Google + integration is coming at the end of the month. Announcements to campus will be sent out. This will be an opt-in service, and it will likely be heavily used by students.
CIS is down to 2MB on the Novell system. CIS will be filing a Sys-change so that no more provisioning of Novell user accounts occurs.
CIS will be upgrading the license file on the ESRI ArcGis Server this week.
Dell is concerned about Hard Drive shortages due to flooding in Thailand. This has been affecting many PC Manufacturers. If you have any large orders to place over the next several months, contact Aaron Sherman, Brown’s Dell Representative, and he may be able to set them aside for you.
Pia O’Reilly – Sophos and Fep updates.
Near completion with the antimalware project – FEP and Sophos have been posted on the Brown Software page at software.brown.edu.
FEP automated push testing is nearly complete. The FEP push will be done on Tuesday, Jan 17th. Targeted departments will be made aware of this.
Other key milestones include:
- i. Feb 29th – DCC Completion of manual FEP deployment.
- ii. March 1-23 – SAV Server monitoring will take place.
- iii. March 30th – SAV server decommission.
The removal of SAV with the packaged FEP installer has been fixed.
Brown owned systems should be getting Forefront Endpoint Protection and Sophos for Windows/Mac, Personal workstations should be getting Microsoft Security Essentials and Sophos personal edition.
III. Card Vending Upgrade Project
Updates by Scott Thatcher – Director of IT for student life.
Brown currently has a highly distributed vending infrastructure, and much of the equipment is no longer under a support contract.
Two stripes located on the back of all Brown IDs.
Thin stripe – “Offline” stripe that holds static information ($ amount), is able to be used at copy machines, pawprints printing stations, laundry machines and some vending machines. This stripe needs to be filled at ageing CVC machines using cash or credit.
Thick stripe – “Online” stripe that has account information, which is connected to the Odyssey system for keeping track of Dining, bookstore purchases, library, and other purchases
Phase 1 of the upgrade project should be completed by the end of January.
Copy and Pawprints services will be moved to the online Odyssey system. A valueport card center will allow you to save money on a central value store.
If you lose your card, you won’t lose your money!
New value named “Bear Bucks” has been coined in an effort to spread awareness of the new system.
Phase 2 of the upgrade project is projected for the end of this summer.
Laundry and some vending will be moved to the Odyssey system, allowing access to centrally located funds from any machines that accept the card
A user portal is being developed – will eventually allow online interaction and transactions.
The thin stripe will eventually be eliminated, and the value on this stripe can be transferred to the thick stripe (Central value store)
General Discussion
DCC meetings will be bringing back the post meeting general discussion, provided that there is time. If anyone has a topic to bring up at the end of our meetings, please feel free to discuss!
The bookstore will be getting demo workstations and laptops soon. They will include the Optiplex 790 series, and the new Latitude E Series.
Don Rogers shared some detailed insights with us with regards to the renovations that recently took place in Metcalf building. Listen to the full audio for more details. The point to take away from Don’s discussion was, if anyone is involved in a remodeling project at brown, do your research and get in touch with facilities and media services to make sure Brown preferred vendors are performing the work!
DCC Meeting December 14, 2011
PRESENTATIONS:
Chris Grossi opened the meeting with a brief announcement about turning on Google Plus as an opt-in service for the Brown Community. There has been a big demand for this from the students, so by mid-January it will be launched. On January 2nd, CIS will adopt Google’s “Scheduled Release Plan,” which will enable CIS to have greater control in rolling out Google updates. Chris also thanked everyone for their participation in the software survey, and said that he and Stephanie Obodda would be tallying the results, to be made available sometime during January or February’s meeting. Chris told the DCCs that the software updates in SCCM are working in pilot departments. Also a presentation should be scheduled for a TechForum early next year.
Steve McKay then gave an update on Forefront, the antivirus software which is to replace Symantec for Windows machines. The new standalone installer has been adapted to include tools that remove all previous Symantec version, as well as Microsoft Security Essentials. On the Mac side, Sophos also looks good, and the distribution version is ready. SCCM installations have begun in pilot departments, and will be expanded in January. Antivirus software for Macs will be held off until after the New Year.
Judy Nabb, Kerry Feather, and Stephanie Altomari-Cavanagh introduced Learning Point, which will support professional and learning development, as well as mandatory compliance training for the Brown Community. It will replace training.brown.edu. Learning Point will be available to faculty, staff and students, and provide a comprehensive check point for all training events, testing, and evaluations, as well as an interface for facilitating employee networking and collaborative endeavors. Users will be able to track their learning and training session, as well as be provided a means for important training announcements. Learning Point will provide both instructor led and on-line training sessions and modules. Transcripts existing in training.brown.edu , should be downloaded and saved, before the training.brown.edu site is decommissioned on July 1, 2012.
For more information email clpd@brown.edu, or visit the informational page located on the Human Resources website.
Michelle Wise who helps to organize the health and wellness component of classes which are offered to the Brown Community, will maintain the training.brown.edu site for these classes.
Stephanie Obodda will be working with Microsoft to provide on-line training modules for Windows related training.
Those departments on campus which are still in need of an online registration system will be provided with classes which will offer training to create registration forms using Google Docs. These classes will be made available beginning in January and last through the summer of 2012.
John Harmon gave a presentation and brief demonstration of the new project called WORKDAY, soon to be released at Brown. WORKDAY will provide a central management system for Human Resources, Payroll, and other administrative efforts at Brown. Brown members will be able to access human resources related information such as vacation or sick time availability, payroll, and benefits information. WORKDAY will improve the way that human resources data is administered, and will afford an integrated system so that this data is easier to share and manage. This initiative will permit employees to access their own information and administer certain transactions, as well as providing an interface for reporting and record keeping.
WORKDAY WIZARDS will be trained from among the Brown Community in order to provide instruction to faculty, staff and students toward navigating the WORKDAY program.
To see John’s presentation click here.
An audio version of the meeting can be heard here.
Notes submitted by Stephanie Han
DCC Meeting November 9, 2011
Presentations:
Anti Malware Project Presentation
Given by Pia O’Reilly and Lea Snyder
Key Dates: SCCM Push starting 11/29/11 for Forefront (FEP) -Select Departments
On Software Downloads: 12/01/11- Also Morning Mail announcement same date.
Auto install of all managed departments by early December, un-managed departments at a later date in December.
Completion date of 12/29/11
April 3rd- End of life for SAV ( Symantec Anti Virus)
Macintosh Anti Virus Client to be started around January –February 2012
To see the presentation click here.
Ed Casey from Instructional Technology gave a presentation on Canvas
Right now only in limited release ( Med School only)
Training is available- this link is not public and really only for DCC’s interested in learning about Canvas right now. Check that out here.
Ed would love to have DCC’s attend the training.
Canvas will eventually replace MyCourses .
Announcements:
Chris Grossi gave updates on where we are with the Dell contract. Just signed!! He will be putting up the information in Google docs to share with all DCC’s. The basics are that we can now buy Dell computers through the bookstore in addition to going thru the Dell Premier site. The bookstore will keep a small number of Dell’s on hand for emergencies. Good news! Take a peek at the google doc when it is up for the particulars. Also in the news.. the Novell Print Queue is now gone as of 10/31/11! Maple versions 14 and earlier are going away so you will need to get your users upgraded to the newer version (15). There is also no AMP program at this time for Macintosh OS X 10.7 (Lion) . You will have to download it from the App store for 29.99.
An audio version of the meeting can be heard here.
Notes submitted by Peter Mello
