CASCC May 10th, 2005 Meeting Minutes

Members Present: Tim Christian (CAS),  James Strawn (CASGAL), Capt. Dale Lathrop (AERO),  Jianguo "Jay" Liu (MATH), Nancy Durr (JOUR), Richard Lowe (HIST), Cheryl Lawler (PHYS), Chuck Guarnaccia (PSYC)

Guests Present: None
Called to order: 2:32 p.m.

  1. Approved March 1st, 2005 minutes with corrections
  2. Review Submitted Software Suggestions - James
    1. Software Expenditure CASCC 2005-05-10.xls  - James stated the annual budget (for CASGAL) is $20,000 for new software and renewals; on average less than $5,000 is spent on additional software requests and we are spending between $14,000-$16,000 on renewals;  2003 $40, 000 a combined amount spent on Gausview, SPSS Answer tree, Spartan Upgrade, Gausian Upgrades, Adobe (which is upgraded every 2 years; $90,000 cut from total budget (not Software Budget renewals) due to the opening of College of Engineering
      1. Tim explained the tradition of the Committee to look at software that benefits the greatest number of people in the college
      2. James submitted the one Software Purchase Request received for the semester and explained he received a better response sending the requests via email than when sending paper
      3. Dr. Guarnaccia's asked for clarification regarding annual renewal requests advantage of annual price vs one time cost standard; Tim explained there is no standard, every software vendor is licensed differently which is why the Software Request asks maximum number of licenses needed to be used concurrently
      4. Committee approved the following;
        • one time software purchase request of the Psychology Department for concurrent license for EQS version 6.1 for Windows 2000 from Multivariate Software Incorporated
        • future purchase of this software to be reveiwed  in Fall
        • Committee requested Dr. Guarnaccia to consider using course fees and have a Course Fee model in place, research the possibility of more users or if other departments are using the software, and to investigate if the Psychology department will pay for future purchases
  3. Notebook Administrator Rights Policy Review - Security Policy changes did work; (but does not reflect if the result is due to the policy changes or the technical changes); it is not working for person's who travel (are unable to load data from flashdrive or cannot load conference related software on their machine due to needing admin rights causing productivity cost issues) and people who do research after business hours (productivity cost issues for these departments unable to continue their research projects if a software install is need or broken)
    1. options for travelers that did not work
      1. remove computer from UNT network, give administrator access, upon return from travel have CASCSS clean the machine (an inconvenience for the customer who would be without his notebook for an extended period of time and longer if problems are found) 
      2. rebuild the notebook
      3. take snapshot of notebook before leaving campus, user is responsible for data backup, then return to CASCS to return the notebook back to the way it was before it left campus (data backup found to be an inconvenience as well as snapshot failure issues)
    2. alternate options
      1. ease the restrictions on notebooks
      2. provide training as a process for granting administrator rights to the requesting user
      3. increase the expiration date of notebook network addresses to three months (which can be changed if necessary) on the UNT network and prevent user from using network until vetted (due to out-of-date virus protection; the amount of time from announced vulnerability to the corresponding exploit is less than 25 days)
      4. consider CASCSS providing CAS with After-Hour phone support and extending CASCSS hours of operation using the existing staff (phone stats will provide information of the need for this support) - Committee Approved; Tim to arrange to begin Summer I due to summer research; Chuck requested email reminders at beginning of each semester of the new support hours; Nancy requested phone call activity be monitored; Christine will ask HR how payment is implemented or allowed for After-Hour or On-Call support
        • Open hours suggested 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Saturday
        • Projects such as rebuilds can be completed during this time depending on the phone load
        • On-Call staff will be required to be in the Denton area during their hours of duty and remote controll will be 
        • Chuck suggested On-Call Support staff use answering service - Tim stated the call will be routed to pagers or mobile phone of Part-Time employee who will determine if the call should be routed to a Full-Time employee
        • Tim stated he is trying to implement this without increasing the budget or without a large increase to the budget
  4. Old Business
    1. Discuss Desktop Upgrade Options - 229 computers available from COBA - Tim
      1. Suggestions to determine what CAS needs
        • lease options - if anyone would require a 2-year cycle
        • upgrading memory would almost equal the cost of a new computer
        • replace the machines under 600MHz
        • include the Chairs perspective on what is needed
        • identify which computers are costing more money to service and replace with the computers available from COBA
        • do not replace idle machines
      2. Commitee's decision regarding CAS Partial Computer Desktop Upgrade Proposal
        • based on Dean replacing desktops next year
          1. only upgrade computers on campus
          2. replace machines under 600MHz
          3. replace computers with less than 256mb ram
          4. replace based on trouble tickets
          5. do not replace idle machines
        • based on Dean not replacing desktops next year
          1. shuffle computers of Grad students and their major professor
          2. leave it to the Chairs
      3. Tim to discuss in next Chair's meeting
      4. Tim to find out if Dell will pay for maintenance services of Trent or whomever assigned
      5. 5/10/05 Tim
        • Chairs passed the offer from College of Business yet committed to upgrade but approval is not official
        • Macs will be included in the upgrade

  5. New Business 05/10/05

    1. Tim requested updated information for the Members List.

    2. Dale asked if XP was a possiblity to which Tim replied he has Curry reviewing XP on a workstation through attribution after the servers are completed

    6. Meeting adjourned: 3:47 p.m.

    Please email change suggestions to Tim Christian (tim@unt.edu) 
    Last updated: 09/28/2005 10:29:47 AM