Faculty Information Technology Group

FITG04-M1

Minutes of the sixth Meeting of the Committee held on 2 February 2004

Membership: Professor P Roberts (Chair), Mr T C Baseley, Mr P S Blake (abs), Dr I Campbell (abs), Dr J H Chandler, Mr N J Cope, Professor C McKnight, Dr B Negus, Mrs K J Newcombe

In attendance: Mr R J McKeating (item 3 only), Mr C Spendlove (Secretary), Mr D M Temple, Ms C Thomas

Apologies were received from Mr P S Blake & Dr I Campbell.

1. Minutes of the Previous Meeting

The minutes of the fifth meeting of the group held on 26 September 2003 were confirmed.

2. Matters Arising not Covered Elsewhere in the Agenda

2.1. PDF File Creation Working Party (FITG03-M3 2.3.)

A new option for licensing Adobe software was under investigation. This would be based on a concurrent user licence. A further update would be provided at the next meeting of FITG.

ACT: BN

2.2. Support Services FITC (FITG03-M3 2.4.)

Dr Negus advised the Group that Dr Wilson had confirmed by Email to Professor Roberts that a Support Services FITC was not required, since support services were content with the communication channels currently in place with Computing Services. Support services would continue to be represented on FITG by Mrs Newcombe.

2.3. Windows 95 (FITG03M3 3.4)

Dr Negus confirmed that all Windows 95 actions were now completed and that the process of transferring responsibility for Netware was underway.

2.4. Hardware Disposal (FITG03M4 5.)

Dr Negus confirmed that Ms Hannan was expected to circulate a paper to FITG member shortly after the meeting.

ACT: SH

3. Unsolicited Email (Spam) Filtering

FITG04-P1

Mr McKeating’s paper was received and considered. The Group was informed that spam was received in different quantities across the University. Some individuals only received a limited number and therefore did not perhaps appreciate the scale of the problem for others. Messages in spam filter folders were automatically deleted after 21 days. One senior member of staff had reported their spam filter containing 3500 undeleted messages, implying receipt of around 150 messages per day.

It was noted that, whilst action would need to be taken in the near future regarding student email, current discussions related only to the treatment of spam in relation to staff email.

The key issue was that, where spam was filtered, the sender was not sent an automated notification that this action had been taken. Although 99.9% of spam filtered emails were indeed spam, the remaining 0.1% could be bona fide. Many people opted for the default, which filtered SPAM into an area not viewable by the user. For those who opted to filter SPAM into a folder they could access, it was the responsibility of the individual member of staff to check through their filtered spam emails on a regular basis to ensure that no bona fide emails had been filtered. To some extent, this limited the benefits of filtering spam in the first place. Rejecting all spam would at least enable the sender (who would be automatically notified of the rejection by their own mail system) to contact the University by telephone to resolve the problem.

The Group was asked to comment on the following options:

1. Continue as at present, rejecting only virus-infected email.

2. Additionally reject “high-scoring” SPAM.

3. Additionally reject all mail identified as SPAM (recommended by Computing Services).

Mr McKeating confirmed that any decision taken was not permanently binding and the policy could be changed at a later date if it proved to be unworkable. It was AGREED that option 3 would be taken up on a trial basis for approximately 3 months and that feedback would be provided to Mr McKeating over this trial period.

ACT: ALL

Mr McKeating would then provide an update for the next meeting of FITG.

ACT: RM

4. Computing Services Projects

FITG04-P2

Dr Negus’ paper was received. No clarification was requested.

5. Email Archiving

FITG04-P3, FITG04-P4

The papers were received.

Ms Thomas advised the Group that Computing Services were not aware of any other University which had yet taken any steps in this area, although a number were attempting to tackle the problem at the moment.

There was a general concern that staff did not necessarily recognise the value of their emails and would not, therefore, think to archive them. However, it was felt that staff should take responsibility in this area and that an educational exercise would need to be undertaken to ensure that they did. An appropriate way to start such a process might be to provide some guidance to users on structuring email folders.

Currently, the general concensus was that, when a member of staff left the University, there was no standard procedure for ensuring that important emails were archived prior to the deletion of all of that individuals email records. It was AGREED that Heads of Departments and Support Services should be informed of the requirement to ensure that emails are archived where appropriate prior to staff departure.

ACT: FITCs/CT(for support services)

The Group felt that the draft policy was a good starting point but that further work was required as follows:

· the relevant information on retention schedules (see para 3.3 of the proposed policy) should be included in the policy rather than by reference to another policy. If necessary, this could be achieved by means of appendices.

· Consideration should be given to the potential links between email archiving and a Document Management System and the Co-Tutors personal tutee system

ACT: CT

6. Computing Services Service Level Agreement (SLA)

FITG04-P5

Dr Negus’ paper was received. Dr Negus reminded the Group that consideration of the draft change priorities by FITG at this stage was in accord with the process approved by FITG (see FITG03M3 2.1). Faculty IT Committees had already been consulted and had provided limited feedback. Various comments were received from individual FITCs which Dr Negus noted. Mr Cope would send Dr Negus a detailed list of comments on the change priorities document from his Faculty. It was AGREED that the draft change priorities should progress to the next stage of the consultation process without any amendments being made.

ACT: NC, BN

7. Computing Services Project Planning

Mr Baseley provided a verbal report on behalf of the FITCs. There was some concern that the University calendar of events was not being taken into account when planning project implementation. An example cited was the introduction of the new email servers in September 2003 on a University Open Day. Although it was understood that Computing Services had had limited options, since not to take any action would have resulted in an email failure at the start of Semester One, the FITCs were concerned that consideration did not appear to have been given to the precise implementation date; it was thought that the following day might have been a better option.

Ms Thomas confirmed that Computing Services do consult as widely as possible by means of email and the noticeboard and that known facts are taken into account. Computing Services had certainly consulted ahead of the cited incident. However, lack of feedback from users sometimes means that Computing Services are not informed of key dates etc.

Mr Temple advised the Group that the University’s budget year did not help in planning project implementation. Most project spending took place in the period between 1 August and mid-September which provided limited scope. To compound this problem, projects for the following academic year could only be planned from mid-May when the Computing Services budget was generally approved, limiting the time available for project planning. Plans were in place for a rolling equipment upgrade programme in future to replace the “big bang” approach. However, a bid for a recurrent equipment replacement budget had not been approved, so Computing Services were still dependent on capital bids for major equipment purchases.

It was AGREED that future major project planning consultation emails should be sent to Heads of Department and Support Services as well as the it-information mailing list.

ACT: BN/CT

8. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

The ITIL briefing paper prepared by the FITCs was received and noted.

9. Dissemination of FITG Minutes

It was AGREED that this agenda item should be carried forward to the next meeting of FITG. In the interim, publication of FITG minutes would continue to be via the Computing Services web pages.

ACT: BN

10. Date of Next Meeting

To be arranged.