University of Minnesota

Institute of Technology

Minutes of the ITICC Meeting,

April 11 2002

3:35 p.m., 170 Physics

Present: Randal Barnes (CE), Victor Barocas (BioMedE), John Baxter (Math), Evan Bollig (ITSB), Bryan Carlson (ADCS), Tom Chase (ME), John Hall (Math), Peter Hudleston (IT Stud Aff), Phil Kachelmyer (ADCS), Satish Kumar (ChemEMatS), Daniel MacEwan (Chem), Robin Panda (ECE), Jeremy Pape (ME), Shashi Shekhar (CSci), Karen Swanberg (Geo)

1)         Status of the Labs and Management

No reports.

2)          Final Presentation of Proposal for Lab Improvements for 2002-03

The final recommendation of the Technical Committee having earlier been placed on the web, discussion of the refinements of the proposal ensued. Hudleston noted that the two main difference since the initial proposal was presented to ITICC at the last meeting was the increase by 50% in the expected cost of modification of Lind 26 - following a more realistic assessment of the cost of air conditioning - and an extra 9 computers for Lind 26. 

There was additional discussion of the proposal to add GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics cards (at $380 per card) to computers in one of the labs. Lind 26 is chosen because it has the smallest number of machines, and all the computers in whatever lab is equipped must be similarly outfitted.   A suggestion was made that we consider installing less powerful cards (but not MX) which would save on purchasing cost.  On the other hand ITICC has always opted for state-of the art hardware and software, which usually decreases in cost between  the time of approval and purchase. This is expected to occur in this case, as the lab won’t be ready until after the summer.  The point was also made that the time interval at which upgraded graphics cards come on the market is on the order of 6 months. We can’t expect to replace them on this time frame. Hudleston said he would ask those making use of the cards to provide ITICC with a statement about what their expected life cycle will be.  Shekar pointed out that there at least 3 classes that would make use of the graphics capabilities provided by these cards, and that these classes enrolled students from many IT departments.  Also, there may well be other users who will want to make use of the graphics capabilities.

After the discussion, a motion was made to leave the request for GeForce4 cards as given in the proposal.  It passed unanimously.

Some concern was expressed about the availability of Lind 26 for classes other than those in Computer Science.  Hudleston said that the agreement was that Computer Science would have priority use but that it would be available to others when not used by them.  The question is how much time this may be.  It was suggested that it would make sense for the departments who needed to use computer classrooms, for which the demand is growing, to coordinate plans so that most efficient use of the facilities could be made.  As it is, times tend to be scheduled in isolation.

On the issue of access to classrooms, Hudleston noted that  a suggestion has been made to make the computers in Lind 24 dual bootable with Linux and Windows.  This room would then we useable for classes that required the use of Windows.

Hudleston noted again that the total cost of the proposed improvements (about $460K) amounts to a little more than half of the funds projected to be available for 2002-03. We will again this year, as in the past few years, have a second round of proposals in the fall.

Hudleston said he would now prepare ballots for an e-mail vote by committee members

3)          Other Business

Barnes inquired if any consideration has been given to fixing the air conditioning in CE 230, which is inefficient and very noisy.  Hudleston said that this is being discussed in the technical committee and that he expected a proposal to be developed for this in the near future.