Minutes of the ITICC Meeting,

Institute of Technology

October 21, 2004

3:35 p.m., Physics 170

Present: Ian Anderson (ECE), William Bear (Math), Christopher Bingham (Stat), Bryan Carlson (ADCS), Tom Chase (ME), Ahmed Habashy (ME), Peter Hudleston (IT Dean’s Office), Irene Jacobson (CSci. IT Labs Staff), Phil Kachelmyer (ADCS), Satish Kumar (CEMS), Jerry Larson (ADCS), Larry LeMay (ADCS), James Maatman (ITSB), Dan MacEwan (Chem), Jonathan Rogness (Math), Farzad Sadjadi (Phys), Lucas Veverka (ITSB)

1) Introductions

The meeting began with a round of introductions. Hudleston then handed out copies of the membership list and asked for help in filling in the blanks or making any changes.

2) Status reports from CSciE and ADCS

LeMay reported that he had now hired all the consultants needed to keep the labs staffed. He also reported that certain labs are now being kept open at certain times without consultants present, following the installation of security cameras. These are the times when lab consultants are not present: Lind 24, CE 230 and EECS 2-170 and EECS 2-172 all the time (although the latter two are not available when being used by classes) and EECS 4-250 after 8pm Monday-Thursday. On the weekends, EECS 4-250 and 3-170 are open 10am - 10pm, with a consultant present from 10am - 4pm in 4-250 and one present from 4pm - 10pm in 3-170.

LeMay also reported that there had been some problems with the installation of security fiber optic cable in ME 308, 312 and 314. Some of the cable has been damaged. It is being replaced. The way the cable is installed in the carrels makes it easy for the cable to become pulled out of the boxes and kinked.

Maatman inquired about a recent two-hour downtime in the labs. Jacobson said this was because the power to the file server was lost, due to a UPS that had gone bad (it will probably be replaced rather than fixed). There was some discussion about what is done in this type of situation and how users are informed. Users in the labs can find out from the consultants or call itoperators. In general users, on site or working remotely, should call the lab operators to report problems and get news about the network or the labs. Jacobson said she will remind IT operators to change the voicemail greeting to explain the downtime and give an estimated time for the problem to be fixed.

Maatman also asked if there was a way that users could find out at any time which is the “best” machine is to log into, i.e. the machine that is working the least. It is frustrating getting onto a machine that is slow because of the demands put on it doing other tasks. Jacobson said you could find out from the website what machines are in use, but not the intensity of the usage. She said that we have tried the kind of system Maatman was suggesting, but the web page for this had caused more problems than it solved. The page had to be updated so often that it brought down the performance of the network. Since all the machines are listed on the help page http://www.itlabs.umn.edu/itlist.html, Jacobson said it shouldn't be difficult to find a machine with a light load.

3) Preliminary Presentation of Proposal for Fall Round of Improvements for the Public Labs

LeMay, with help from Jacobsen and aid of a handout, went down the list of items the IT Instructional Computing Technical Committee is proposing to be purchased in the fall round of public lab improvements [See also on the web at www.itlabs.umn.edu] All the items come under the heading of regular replacements, needed replacements or general improvements. Some of the costs on the draft are estimates, and other items may be added. There are 14 additional computers that perhaps should be added to the retirement list at this time.

Hudleston noted that the funds approved last spring left about $330,000 remaining to be budgeted for this fiscal year. The proposal as it stands comes to about $110,000. Hudleston said that in addition, the carryforward funds in the ITICC account had increased for FY05 by about $50,000 (to $300,000) over the previous (largely as a result of savings in the ADCS budget) and we need to be concerned about not adding to the carryforward next year.

Hudleston said the technical committee would bring their revised recommendations to ITICC at the November meeting, after which a vote will be taken on the proposal.

4) Allocation of Lower Division Funds – “New Initiatives” – Discussion

Hudleston described the sequence of events in the past spring when the guidelines for funding instructional computing in lower division had been reviewed and put into effect. He handed out the relevant section of the revised guidelines and explained that, following these, two sets of proposals had been presented to ITICC. The first, for maintenance of existing facilities in astronomy, chemistry, geology and physics, was submitted as a combined proposal. The committee had approved this. The second had been made up of individual proposals for new initiatives in chemistry, geology and physics. The committee approved two of these, but for one year only, rather than for three years as had originally been proposed. Hudleston handed out a table showing the requests that constituted the two sets of proposals [also handed out last spring]. One of the issues of contention that had arisen in the discussion and the reason for limiting the period of the proposals to one year can be summarized by the question: To what extent can personnel costs related to management of departmental lower division computer labs be supported on ITICC funds? There is disagreement about how the revised guidelines address this question. Up until now, the only personnel support that has been allowed is for software development. Hudleston said he was sympathetic to the view that some level of personnel support for lab management should be allowed from ITICC funds, given the scale of these facilities, and he wanted to come up with a proposal that would specifically address this. He asked a small group to advise him and help come up with a proposal to present to ITICC. MacEwan, Chase, Veverka and MacDonald agreed to help with this.

5) Other Business

Habashy, who is a lab consultant as well as the ME student rep, inquired about the color printer in EE/CS 3-170. This is broken and he wondered if this could not be replaced soon rather than wait for the end of the fall semester (it is on the list of items to be replaced). He noted that there is only one working color printer in the EECS labs, and if that breaks there will be none. Jacobson said that MacDonald had looked at the problem. There were several considerations. One is that the printer is repeatedly broken and this is not a good sate of affairs. This is probably inadvertent and comes from users trying to free the machine when it jams. Another is that the use of the printer has not been great. Also, there is another printer in EECS 4-250 and one in ME 308, so there are alternatives.

Rogness reported that the Matlab licenses are again running out, causing problems. This may be because of heavy usage in Math and also increasing usage in ME classes. Hudleston said if we need more licenses we should get them.