CERRITOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

MINUTES OF

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS COMMITTEE

FRIDAY DECEMBER 14, 2007  

9:00-11:00 A.M. -- ROOM LC-62

  

MEMBERS PRESENT:    Lamont Freeman, Lee Krichmar, Dean Mellas, Mario Morales

Wes Nance, Bernie Negrete, Patrick O’Donnell, Harry Riegert, Bernice Watson

 

MEMBERS ABSENT:  ML Bettino, John McGinnis, Deb Moore

 

The meeting of was brought to order at 9:00 a.m.

 

MINUTES OF NOVEMBER 9, 2007

 

The Minutes of November 9 were reviewed by members in attendance.  There was no discussion.  It was moved by Dean Mellas, seconded by Wes Nance, and accepted by attending members to approve the minutes as presented, with one abstention (Mario Morales).

 

OUTSTANDING IT STANDARDS ISSUES

Lee reported that we are taking delivery of the new DC 7800.  This week we have four in the Forensics Lab this week and we have two remaining academic labs to be replaced (Skills and Language Labs) for this fiscal year.  The Language Lab in particular will be making good use of the resources.

Lee asked if there were any more Standards issues to be discussed.    There was no further discussion on this item.                                

 

UPDATE ON VARIOUS CODEX MEDIA TYPES NOT WORKING – (Bernice and Patrick)

                                                  

Lee asked for their update on various codex media types.  Patrick reported that he was not able to find free DVD Codex.   From what he could determine, you get a copy of the software when you purchase a DVD drive.   We are entitled to use the software of the various models of our Hewlett Packard PC’s (from the 7700’s down) that came with a DVD drive.  He is still researching some of the others PC’s; we will have to figure out if we have to pay for software for the older PC’s.  In some cases, it would be cheaper to buy new hardware than to buy software by itself; Lee agreed to purchase a few new drives for various areas if necessary.  Dean Mellas asked if divix can play DVD’s and Patrick confirmed they could not.  Dean suggested that M-Player can be researched on Google by searching M-playerHQ.  The question would be would be if it can accommodate CSS.   Bernice responded that it might be better to just get a new drive.  Patrick responded that we would have to look into how many Smart Podiums that would affect. 

 

Lee asked to find out how many licenses come up we are not able to cover.  Patrick explained that finding the information from HP is hard and there may not be many Smart Podiums with DVD drives in them.  Bernice added that we have been using the computer DVD’s as a backup, because sometimes the unit will go down; and so we were pulling them out without having replacements for them and hoping that the computers will play them.  Patrick said that there might not be a lot of rooms with a DVD drive in them, but especially the first few.  Nursing is the area that was impacted, but apparently Rusty found another way of meeting their needs.

 

It was the consensus of the group that it is most efficient to wait until someone reports a problem rather than to go out and look for one. 

 

TECHNOLOGY MASTER PLAN OUTLINE

REVIEW OF IT UNIT PLANS

Information Technology unit and division plans were passed out to all members for their review.

Lee said that in conversation with Jo Ann regarding the Information Technology Master Plan that Jo Ann gave no specific guidance other than to attack it from a committee standpoint and to include what we, as a committee, feel should be in the Master Plan for starters.  Lee said that in the last IT Standards meeting (as recorded in the minutes) we had decided to start with the IT Unit Plans for a basic outline.  Lee shared the Unit Plans she completed, explaining there are four different plans.  The three separate units include Infrastructure, Help Desk Technical Support and Academic Computing, and Administrative Computer Support (PeopleSoft).   There is a fourth unit for Publications, which was not shared.  The Division Plan is the more cumulative place to begin because it includes all four units, so Lee will begin with that.

Bernie asked if we envision Information Technology Master Plan to be in the Unit Plan format.  Lee responded that she envisions it as some type of web-based document extracting information from the Unit Plan, but also to include a table of contents with various topics; a section on helpdesk; technical support; academic computing; replacement plans for academic labs; PeopleSoft upgrade; and use of information from unit plans (such as from Bettino for Talon Net, or from McGinnis for the Library, cutting and pasting from these areas, that portion we might find relevant, into our document. 

Lee said that in her particular unit and division plan documents she added a few appendices and more statistics, which is not required.

SURVEY MONKEY

We reviewed the online survey tool called Survey Monkey.  Harry asked about the value of the Survey Monkey.  Lee explained it is for the subscription to an online survey tool.  It can be used for free, but only for the first 100 recipients, and then can be purchased if you need more, at a reasonable price.  The purchased product provides for unlimited number of surveys for unlimited number of recipients. The only problem is that it can only be used under one-user ID.   Each license is separate and it is authenticated by the user email address. 

 

It was also noted that when Lee looked into creating surveys that she worked with Nathan (originally Caroline) and received supported from Research and Planning.  There were clarifications made concerning inquiries about surveys. 

 

REPORTING TOOLS

Dean asked about profiling tools used in usage utilization.  Patrick said we had one report when we were looking at inception of the VMware implementation, which was done by HP and GovPlace.  Lee said it was not of much value technically, but was more of value from a CBO standpoint where you would encourage a business officer to look at certain things, such as square footage, air conditioning utilization, power consumption, etc. and they put all those components together to determine the value of virtualization.  The reporting also points out servers you would not want to virtualize.  In IT we have a lot of other reporting tools too.  We use a product which provides risk information for operating systems, patches and updates, updates for applications like  Adobe Reader, and can be analyzed by reviewing the top 20 PC’s with the highest amount of risk.   Patrick said there are different scans he is able to set up.  It helps to provide efficiency in making the campus more standardized. 

There was much discussion about the attachment that detailed the utilization reports in the IT Division Plan.  There was debate as to how these were used, what their value was, and that perhaps they were confusing if they were used the way Lee intended.  After much discussion the group moved on with no clear decision.

Bernice asked if Lee would be adding something about infrastructure for video only. Lee said she would not be the one writing it, but hoped that others would contribute, and she would encourage including it.  Lee asked Bernice if that was included in ML’s unit plan, but Bernice did not know.

One idea to allow collaboration is to open a Talon Net project site for the purpose of members of the committee contributing that way.    Lee wants to make the plan comprehensive so that our community understands both where we are and where we are going.

Lee brought up a current bandwidth problem and the group had a discussion regarding our options. Lee provided a history of our previous upgrades.  She will be meeting with Cenic after the first of the year to discuss our future expansion.

 DISTRICT ACCREDITATION REPORT

 

The IT portion of the Accreditation Report was done twice – first with much detail and unorganized content but which answers the accreditation questions.  Lee believes that she can use some of this content in the IT Master Plan too, and will begin pulling all of that together too.

TECHNOLOGY MASTER PLANS FROM OTHER SCHOOLS

Our campus has never had a Master Plan.  Other schools have them, but they are very different.  Cabrillo just built a big one.  Their infrastructure is in need of upgrading and they are trying to get the funding to solve this problem.  We are not focusing on any specific IT problems.  We are trying to find plans with virtualization, risk assessment, or something more strategic in nature.

MISCELLANEOUS DISCUSSION

Wes asked about the possibility of a 5-year plan.  Lee said due to the changing nature of IT that we should look at a 3-year plan.  She is looking at a Master Plan that focuses from the perspective of what we are doing now, and the direction where we are headed toward.  Three years is even challenging to predict for IT.  It is more a strategic guide than a prediction of our future.

 

Program Review will soon be occurring for IT, which has never before happened. 

 NEXT MEETING

Lee will bring back a draft of the Information Technology Master Plan for the next meeting for review and will also ask John and M.L. to forward their division plans for Library and Distance Ed.  Lee asked if we want to meet the January 11 meeting, since that is at the beginning of school.  There were no objections.  That meeting will be held at 9:00 a.m. in Room LC 62.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 10:20 a.m.

 

 

 

Submitted By:  Patricia Childress, Administrative Assistant