University of Minnesota

Institute of Technology

Minutes of ITICC Meeting

February 24, 2000

3:30 p.m., 133 Physics

Present: Bance (ADCS), Chase (ME), DeLaney (Astro), Garrett (Math), Hudleston (IT Stud Aff), Kachelmyer (ADCS), Larson (ADCS), LeMay (ADCS), MacDonald (CSE&ITlabs), MacEwan (Chem), Runzel (CE), Shield (AEM), Wentzcovitch (CEMS), Winkler (ME)

1) Schedule for remainder of the year. Hudleston outlined the provisional schedule for the remainder of the year, and said that events might cause some shifting of meetings and of dates, but that we would try to get things done following the schedule he had circulated with the agenda.

2) Report from CSci and ADCS and status of lab improvements this year

MacDonald reported that the 29 Dell Precision 210 dual processor computers to replace Pentium Pros in ME 308 have finally been ordered. The Pentium Pros will be moved to CE 230 and EE/CS 3-170. This completes (???) the purchase of the fall list of approved improvements. The purchase of these machines was delayed because of uncertainties about how fee revenue was being collected and credited to the ITICC account this year (courtesy of PeopleSoft and semesters).

Hudleston explained that he was still unsure as to whether the computer fee was being collected correctly, but he thought there were likely still problems. Several problems have been identified that have now, hopefully, been corrected. First, it seems, due to error in the way things were set up in PeopleSoft, no IT undergraduate was charged the upper division fee (of $165); all were charged the lower division fee of $135. This has now been corrected, and students' fee statements should show the correction, both for fall and spring. Second, all of the fee was credited to the upper division account and none to the lower division account. This can readily be corrected. A third error was that no course fees were assessed (for those courses identified in the class schedule). Most of the (non-IT or IT graduate students with > 24 credits) students who took a course requiring the fee will have been billed following the opening of a lab account. This has been done just recently for fall. Even with these corrections to the billing, it appears that the total fee revenue for the fall will be about $60,000 less than the estimated amount of $900,000 ($200,00 lower division and $700,000 upper division). Hudleston said he hopes to find the reason for this discrepancy and to see if some groups of student are still being missed.

Hudleston said, because of the uncertainty in how the fee is being collected, it would be prudent not to spend all of the rest of the $500,000 that he earlier had estimated would be available for lab improvements during this academic year. We have spent just over $200,000 of such improvements, as approved by ITICC in the fall. We should withhold making a decision on at least $120,000 of the remaining $300,000 until we know better what the final fee revenue will be. Hudleston also said that he will make sure that ITICC is not penalized for any possible carryover funds this year, because of the uncertainty of the fee collection under the new system.

MacDonald said that ITTechCommitte was still not in position to make a recommendation regarding the old SGIs in ME 308 and EE/CS 4-204, so in that respect a delay in making a decision on further expenditures is easy to live with.

MacDonald explained that he had learned about an alternative option for the 14 NT machines about to be ordered (4 Dell Optiplex for ME 308 and 10 machines to replace old Macs in EE/CS 3-170). In the original proposal, the machines were Dell Optiplex GX1p 600 MHz computers. There is now a new Optiplex GX300/T with a new chip set and bus architecture. The cost, at around $3600, is about $1,000 more per machine than the Optiplex GX1p. He recommended that ITICC purchase these, as they represent new technology, rather than the old technology of the Optiplex GX1p. This would be consistent with the principle of offering our students the best possible equipment for the fee they pay. The committee unanimously approved this recommendation.

On use of the labs this semester, it was noted that EE/CS labs are crowded much of the time. The SGIs in ME 308 are not used heavily, largely because they are old (and soon to be retired). We will see some added costs for maintenance of these, replacing of motherboards, etc. and more repairs which take longer to fix, as they are no longer on 24-hour service.

Larson noted that the ceiling-mounted projector in Lind 24 is now installed. MacDonald added that the presenter of the projection system in ME 302 has been ruined; someone has wrenched it out of position (probably not intentionally). It is probably not worth replacing, rather better to install a ceiling projector as in Lind 24. The cost of this will be between $11,000 to $21,000, depending on the resolution of the system (1280x1024 or 1024x780). The cost of the ceiling mount (included in the above figures) is about $4,000. The tech committee will explore options to bring back to ITICC for a decision.

3) Preliminary discussion of future lab improvements, through 00-01

MacDonald thought there were two key issues that needed to be resolved that would affect the decision on major improvements:

Will ProE have a Linux port?

If not, should the SGIs be replaced by Suns, WinNT (or Win 2000), or more SGIs?

Another issue is what do to about the Macs in Physics.

There were also issues about future computer classrooms, and how ADCS would equip the new lab that will be put in Walter Library, after the renovation. Larson reminded the committee that there had been some discussion of putting some ITICC workstations in that lab, where they could be accessed on a 24-hour basis. That raised the issue of the future of Lind 26, which is currently an ADCS lab/classroom, open for 24 hours during the latter part of each term. This lab will be given to IT when the new lab is opened in Walter. Would we continue to keep the Lind facility open for 24 hours (when we will have two labs/classrooms to manage), or would we work with ADCS to keep the Walter lab open?

Larson said that the Macs in Lind 26 will be replaced with Macs, while this is still an ADCS lab. Wentzcovitch noted that CEMS, which used to use just the Macs in this lab for classes, now could use Macs of PCs equally well.

Larson recommended that when ITICC takes over Lind 26 that the air conditioning be replaced. The current AC is inadequate. Also the carpeting will need to be replaced.

4) Other Business

None