Institute of Technology
Minutes of the ITICC Meeting,
February 20, 2003
3:35 p.m., Physics 133
Present: Rahul Akolkar (ME), Bill Arnold (CE), Bryan Carlson (ADCS),
Tom Chase (ME), Ben Cosgrove (BME), Tracy DeLaney (Astro), John Hall (Math),
Peter Hudleston (IT Stud Aff), Phil Kachelmyer (ADCS),
Jerry Larson (ADCS), Larry LeMay (ADCS), Jim MacDonald (ITLabs & CSciE),
Dan MacEwan (Chem), Mark Nicosia (BME), Karen Swanberg (Geol),
1) Status Reports from CSciE and ADCS
LeMay noted that the Windows machines in the labs appear to be more heavily used than the Unix. There is steady demand for Windows, with occasional lines of users waiting in EE/CS 3-170 and ME 308, and fluctuating demand for Unix. The lab in CE, however, is much less heavily used than the others. Larson reported that the Unix machine s in the Walter lab are well used – there had been over 3200 sign-ins in so far.
Kachelmyer reported that there has been an issue with Matlab licenses – we have hit the limit on number of licenses a few times. Because of the apparent high demand, the number of keys has been increased from 150 to 175. Nicosia said that contributing to this increased use may be the fact that, for BME classes, code that had been in Fortran is now written for Matlab.
MacDonald said he would shortly get a system set up to report regularly on lab usage .This would be placed the web. He will have available complete data for spring and fall 2002.
2) Report of Subcommittee on Lab Automation
Chase presented the background and recommendations of the subcommittee charged with finding ways to make the labs run more efficiently (see attached report). The plan is to implement the changes gradually, so that operations are not disrupted. The basic idea is to reduce the number of lab consultants and upgrade the remaining positions to become both lab and ITICC help-line consultants. This is prompted both by a move to more efficiency but also by the fact that it is difficult to find sufficient numbers of good consultants for the labs. The individuals, when trained, would be more able to deal with the range of issues encountered by users.
Lab operating hours would stay basically the same as now. Security would be handled by a combination of camera surveillance and fiber optic cables. MacDonald said the video cameras would use discs rather than tape to store images, the quality being much better. Printing will be by U-card swipe. Carlson said there may be some problems when some errors occur during printing, for example with postscript files when multiple pages of useless stuff is produced. There needs to be a way to credit students for printing errors of this kind. It should be possible to simply give a rebate to the student’s U-card account. Carlson noted it seems that students may currently be avoiding EE/CS 3-170, where the new printing system is in effect, and going to ME 308 instead.
Overall, implementation of the plan should lead to better lab operations and cost savings. Some of the proposals are already being acted on.
3) Approval of Improvements – Second Round 2002-03
MacDonald described the proposed improvements (see the IT Labs web page), most of which are related to the scheme for lab automaton. What is proposed provides partial implementation of the plan. The remaining costs will be added to lab improvements for 2003-04.
The LCD projector is for the North Hennepin labs (which offers the Applied Networking courses and program). The student taking these courses and using the lab at North Hennepin pay the IT computer fee.
Hudleston asked for a motion to approve the recommendations of the Chase subcommittee and for another to approve the proposed the final FY03 proposals for lab improvements. Both motions passed unanimously.
4) Other Business
Hudleston said he wanted to improved the way information is made available about computer classrooms. There have been several requests recently, in which the instructor making the request has seemed unaware of what facilities are available or how to reserve them. With the addition of the two new classrooms in EE/CS, and increased demand for computer classrooms, we need to provide clearer information abort what is available and how it can be reserved and used.