University of Minnesota

Institute of Technology

Minutes of the ITICC Meeting,

February 14, 2002

3:35 p.m., 170 Physics

Present: Graham Allan (Phys), John Baxter (Math), Andrey Bayrashev (ECE), Tom Chase (ME), John Hall (Math), Peter Hudleston (IT Stud Aff), Satish Kumar (ChemEMatS), Larry LeMay (ADCS), Kent Mein (CSciE), Daniel MacEwan (Chem), Robin Panda (ECE), Paul Peterson (CSci), Shashi Shekhar (CSci), Karen Swanberg (Geo), Douglas Victoria (CCE)

1) Status of the Labs and Management

LeMay reported that scheduling of lab consultants is now straightened out, all labs should be fully functioning all hours.

In answer to a question, Peterson said that software from the MSDN Academic Alliance Program was now available. It can be downloaded from the web. There is much too much of it, most of no interest to most people, to be distributed on CDs. People still have the option of going and borrowing the CDs to make copies, but downloading will probably work best. The contact for this is either Bryan Carlson or Paul Peterson. Peterson said that isoimages was not being used.

Hudleston announced that he had received enough votes on the Walter Library proposal to allow the ITICC decision to be arrived at. The proposal is approved. He understood that the Sun 15 workstations will soon be ordered and the 15 Dell machines had already been ordered.

He also informed the committee that we are now able to implement the fee policy as written in regard to charging the fee at registration for students taking courses “requiring the fee.” This had been initially possible under PeopleSoft, but now it is. We have started implementing it this term.

2) Initial Discussion – Lab Improvements for 2002-03

Hudleston invited preliminary discussion or suggestions that could be provided to the Tech Committee, prior to its working up the first draft of a proposal for lab improvements for next year.

Swanberg asked if expanding the MS Campus Agreement to include all IT students would be feasible as part of the proposal. She said several students in her department had expressed strong interest in this. Hudleston said several departments had bought into the agreement, and others were welcome to do so. He was not sure that buying in for all students might not be worth it or what the overall demand might be. He would ask Kachelmyer to estimate the cost.

Chase wondered if there was any chance of developing a Windows computer classroom, on the lines of the Unix workstation classroom in ME 302. He said there was increasing demand for such facilities. Hudleston said he was unaware of any space that could be used for this. We have pretty much run out of space to convert to computer labs or classrooms. He noted that we will be an upgrading of Lind 26 as an IT computer classroom/laboratory later this year. The question of timing is an issue. There is a need for access to computers during IT freshman ordination/registration in the summer, and this should be made available in Lind hall in some way.

Hudleston wondered if ITICC would be willing to consider using IT funds to help upgrade the technology in classrooms – network connections and computer and projection equipment. This is the responsibility of Classroom Management, but there are many classrooms still needing upgrading, and central funds are limited. He said if we considered this, it would be a lower priority than upgrading the IT public labs on the regular schedule and renovating Lind 26. There is little in the way of additional funds at present for this type of thing.

Should we expand wireless into other parts of the IT lab areas? Wireless in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science is being increasingly used by students. There are still security issues with wireless, however.

3) Other Business

None