ITPAC Meeting Minutes: February 19, 1999
Last edited March 31, 1999 by Fedro S. Zazueta.
Call to Order
A regular meeting of the ITPAC was held on Thursday, February 19, 1999. The meeting was called to order by Larry Halsey, Chairman, at 9:30am in room 1031-A McCarty Hall.
Attendees
Present: Thirteen members were present or represented: Mary Ann Andrews, Kathy Bergsma, Nancy Byrd, Roger Clemmons for Phil Achey, Larry Halsey, Joe Joyce, Jerry Kidder, Don Poucher, Craig Stanley, Jim Syvertsen, Ricky Telg, Pete Vergot, and Fedro Zazueta.
Absent: Three members were absent: Phil Achey, Justin West and Vernon Parmenter.
Approve Prior Minutes
The minutes of the November 19, 1998 meeting were reviewed. One revision was made correcting the number of training sessions conducted to 61. Minutes were then approved.
Report of the Chairman
The chairman opened the meeting by welcoming new members: Mary Ann Andrews (who replaces Nancy Byrd) and Ricky Telg (who replaces Rick Mizell). Chair was unable to contact new member Justin West, thus not present.
Halsey introduced Goldie King of the Office of VP. He offered the committee’s thanks to J. Kidder for serving as secretary for the year.
The chairman requested nominations of a new chair. The nomination of Vernon Parmenter was presented. Current Chair will contact Vernon and offer the position to him. If he has reservations against it, then, the current chair will remain in position. Committee approved.
The chairman will provide information package to new members. He also requested email addresses and user ID's for new members.
A request was made for other agenda items.
IT Status
Fedro Zazueta has mounted a website for ITPAC (http://www.agen.ufl.edu/~fzazueta/itpac). Major considerations will be posted for the committee at this site. Dr. Zazueta provided two handouts addressing the Goals & Strategies for IT and the 5-year Planning Effort.
Y2K Report
Dr. Zazueta shared that Y2K is not a technological problem, but a business problem. We need to discuss contingency planning regarding compliance.
Y2K Small Business Initiative
Dr. Zazueta stated that we need to reach out to external clients. IT has scheduled a series of workshops for businesses through the state.
Dr. Joyce suggested that Zazueta and Tom Hintz attend the next Administrative Council meeting, scheduled for July 12, 1999 at the Florida Farm Bureau, to discuss the status of the Y2K Compliance Report. Also, a memo needs to come from the VP office to the units to impress upon them the importance of responding to the Report. Larry Halsey will write letter to Vice President Martin.
Jerry Kidder noted that it may help to get responses from units by giving them examples of the possible consequences of not being prepared.
Dr. Zazueta shared that 3-4% of hardware are in non-compliance. Larger concern is software such as data base management and embedded systems.
NT System
Discussion of NT as primary platform. Cost of conversion discussed. Training of personnel in use of NT to being. Funds for the migration from Novell to NT discussed.
Connectivity
Extension is picking up DivCom cost of connectivity to each county. Pete Vergot to initiate discussion of connectivity with Zazueta. Dr. Zazueta and Dr. Vergot to draft letter regarding county connectivity to present to ITPAC at next meeting.
EDIS System
Status of EDIS as a system:
- Still in transition process. Main problem, designed for old way of looking at information. Faculty will be able to enter info on database and information becomes available immediately. The DB is not yet circulated.
- Needs to be conceived as information system and not print system.
- Some PDF's & HTML's producing different information. Need to come up with a workable business process system. Key problem is tagging. Because of the number of documents following the current linear path a bottleneck effect results.
Issues to discuss:
- What can be done to clear the bottleneck of documents submitted?
- How can the system be used to streamline documents to allow them to be immediately accessed?
Consensus is that EMS should not edit all incoming documents for posting on Web. Each department should be willing to assume responsibility for content and editorial mistakes.
Dr. Joyce asked if ITPAC can make recommendation to Publication Steering Committee regarding putting up new documents using a method currently utilized by Agronomy Department.
L. Halsey, with N. Byrd’s assistance, to provide draft memo for Publication Steering Committee by March 15.
Florida First
Report on Florida First/Strategic Planning given by L. Connor. Purpose of Strategic Planning Process for IFAS is to enhance its capacity to carryout states mandate of services. Several items were shared regarding implementation:
- Need to have base papers prepared for major sectors.
- State conference for major constituencies.
- Identify committees.
- Preparation of base papers.
- Coordination of invitations.
To date, 29 base papers have been received, 3 for internal use only. Committee questioned whether IT should submit base paper. Dr. Connor stated that group could submit it a base paper.
Base Papers
Dr. Larry Arrington gave report on base papers submitted. Question of where IT fits in relative to the base papers. Arrington shared that there were no policy implications for this committee in base papers. IT statement was included in the Administration/Support paper chaired by Arrington.
IT Staffing
Dr. Zazueta gave report regarding issues in IT Unit. Issues included:
- Loss of 10 personnel since IT inception.
- Unable to resolve cross-training issue.
- Need to begin paying employees better salaries with the UF system.
- Rate has been redistributed to some current employees.
- Possibly have William Fleming, Director of IFAS Personnel, or Susan Hudson, Coordinator - Employee Relations, meet with IT.
- Personnel to discuss salary, moral, work environment.
Items of Interest
- The IT Newsletter should be available within the month.
- IT has completed its move, they are now in Bldg. 87.
- Gartner Group bought out by new company, Internet G.
- IT no longer manages Swat Team, now under EMS.
- Discussion of utilizing uniform Domain address identifying IFAS departments.
- Inspector General's Office for UF now in process of adopting a security Policy.
- Committee has decided meeting quarterly is not enough.
Next meeting scheduled for April 22, 1999 at 9:00am, in room 1031-A McCarty.
Meeting adjourned at 1:00pm.