Information Services Committee

ISC03-M3

Minutes of the eighth Meeting of the Committee held on 17 October 2003

Membership: Professor P Roberts (chair), Professor C J Backhouse (ab), Mr T C Baseley, Mr P S Blake, Dr J H Chandler, Mr P Davenport, Professor T Kavanagh, Professor C Oppenheim, Professor K C Parsons, Mr H M Pearson (ab), Dr S J Rothberg, Mr J M Town

In attendance: Ms V Blackett, Mrs M Morley, Dr A M Mumford, Dr B Negus, Mr C Spendlove (secretary), Mr D M Temple

Apologies were received from Professor Backhouse and Mr Pearson.

1. Membership

The Committee welcomed as a new member Mr Peter Davenport who had taken over from Mr Jim Mutton as the member of Council not being a member of staff, and thanked Mr Mutton for his contribution to the work of the Committee.

2. Report of the Previous Meeting

ISC03-M2
The minutes of the seventh Meeting of the Committee held on 23 May 2003 were confirmed, subject to the following minor amendments:

ISC02-M2-5.4.
Delete the reference to Human Resource Stage 2

ISC02-M2-10.
Replace “although funding had not been made available for the purchase of a new system, funding had been provided as part of the Corporate Information Services special allocation to cover the shortfalls of the existing system.”

with “although funding had not been made available for the purchase of a new system, funding had been provided as part of the Corporate Information Services special allocation to cover in part the shortfalls of the existing system.”

3. Matters Arising

i. Support Services FITC (ISC02-M2-2ii)
The DVC confirmed that he would continue to pursue this with the Director of Professional Development, who had agreed to identify an appropriate individual.

ii. Data Protection Training (ISC03-M2-3)
Ms Whyte had made a presentation at the first SSH Directorate meeting of the academic year. Pressure of business had meant that it had not been possible to make such a presentation at the first SCI Directorate meeting. It was intended that the presentation should take place at the next meeting scheduled for 13 November 2003.

iii. Diary/Calendaring (ISC03-M2-5.1.2)
Dr Negus confirmed that recommendations for system purchases had been circulated to departments/support services.

iv. Student Information Vision Statement (ISC03-M2-11)
The Registrar confirmed that the revisions to the vision statement were underway and that a revised vision statement would be completed for consideration at the next meeting of the Committee.

4. Terms of Reference

ISC03-P37
The proposed changes to the Terms of Reference were AGREED subject to the following amendments:

Delete reference to receiving reports from:

· the Computing Services service levels consultation meeting of IT user representatives (these reports were now received by the Faculty Information Technology Group).

Add references to receiving reports from:

· Faculty Information Technology Group

· Corporate Information Technology Users Group

· Data Protection Advisory Group

· Freedom of Information Working Party

It was AGREED that the Terms of Reference should be revised for approval at the next Resource and Planning Committee meeting.

ACT: CS

Secretary’s note: Revised Terms of Reference are attached and will be considered at the Resources and Planning committee meeting to be held on 7 November 2003.

5. Corporate Information Systems Procurement and Purchasing Policy

ISC03-P38
The Committee considered the draft policy. It was suggested that further clarification should be added as follows:

Total value over lifetime should be considered (eg. including ongoing support and maintenance costs)

For major capital purchases, it was felt that advice from the Bursar should be sought both in terms of both the process and the timescales for approval.
ACT: DVC

For minor capital projects, it was felt that there were inconsistencies with other purchasing procedures. It was AGREED that it would be more appropriate, for corporate information systems purchases, to add the requirement for Director of Corporate Information Services and Director of Computing Services approval to existing authorisation procedures (currently Head of Department only for purchases of less than £5000 in value and Head of Department plus Purchasing Officer for purchases of £5000 or over).
ACT: VB

6. Wireless Networking

ISC03-P39
The Committee received the papers from Dr Negus which had been prepared as a result of a request for an update from the Vice-Chancellor. Clarification was received from Dr Negus and Mr Temple as follows:

· The technology was available to deploy a wireless network across the campus and the University was potentially in danger of appearing to fall behind competitors in this area. Anecdotal evidence suggested that there was a demand from students for such technology to be available, for example in cafes and the Library.

· A wireless network was not a substitute for a wired network, rather it should be seen as complementary.

· Computing Services were not aware of any current wireless networking pilots. However, the FITCs advised that pilots were being carried out in ESRI, Civil and Building Engineering, Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering and the Business School.

· Wireless networking currently has inherent security weaknesses. Some laptop computers would therefore need to be upgraded in order to operate on a wireless network. However, it was anticipated that, within the next six months, most manufacturers should have provided “firmware” which would mean that hardware upgrades would not be required.

· The James France project had provided the core central infrastructure for wireless networking at a cost of circa £40,000. Four access points were being installed in James France. Additional access points could be purchased for £200-£300 each. There was only a limited number of frequencies available and only a finite number of signals could be used per frequency without affecting performance. As a basic rule of thumb, up to 25 concurrent users on a particular frequency using a particular access point could experience good network connection, with the functionality deteriorating exponentially as additional concurrent users were brought on line. At a recent conference, 100 users had attempted to access the network at the same time through the same access point and the access point had been unable to cope with the traffic, resulting in none of the users being able to access the network.

· The construction of the Holywell Park buildings limited the travel of radio waves. It would be unlikely, therefore, that a wireless network could effectively operate in this part are of the campus.

· There would be an ongoing maintenance cost for a wireless network but most of this had already been incurred with the installation of the central infrastructure. It was unlikely that any additional annual charge would be passed on to users.

· At the current time, a wireless network would require a significant level of support. (Mr Blake confirmed that the experience at Warwick Business School, which had installed a wireless network, was that significant resource had been required to support student laptops and that this had culminated in a dedicated support team being created.)

Although the discussion on wireless networking had been illuminating, it was not thought appropriate to make any recommendations to Resources and Planning Committee until further information was made available. It was AGREED therefore that Dr Negus would co-ordinate the preparation of a further report to be considered at the next meeting of the committee. This would include:

· An evaluation of current and future wireless networking technology.

· An outline of strategic developments in this area.

· An outline plan for a business audit (to determine which locations in the University might provide the most benefit from the installation of a wireless network).

· An estimate of the cost and time required for various levels of implementation.

ACT: BN

7. External Organisation Access to Information Services

The DVC advised the Committee that over the years an ongoing culture of special arrangements and waivers had produced a very unsatisfactory position where it was often unclear what access external organisations had to University information services. In some cases, this was potentially putting the University at risk (eg in the case of library agreements). The leasing out of parts of Holywell Park to external organisations would present increased problems in this area. In future, therefore, it was proposed that the DVC would ensure that any agreements signed with external organisations providing access to the University campus would specify exactly what level of service would be expected as part of the agreement from the various University service areas. The DISS Directors welcomed this proposal.

ACT: DVC

8. Report from Corporate Information Services

ISC03-P40
The Committee received the report from Ms Blackett.

9. Report from Media Services

ISC03-P41
The Committee received the report from Dr Mumford.

Dr Mumford advised the Committee that it was anticipated that manufacturers would soon stop production of 35mm slide projectors which would in the medium term necessitate moving teaching materials away from this technology.

There was some debate regarding when an individual academic should make the decision to transfer all teaching materials from acetates etc to Powerpoint presentations using a laptop computer in conjunction with data projectors. Dr Mumford confirmed that approximately one third of all pool rooms had fixed data projectors and that the strategy was to provide portable units for the smaller rooms. Security continues to be a problem, with another fixed data projector recently having been targeted by thieves.

10. Report from Computing Services

ISC03-P42
The Committee received the report from Dr Negus. Further discussion took place as follows:

Security Dr Negus advised the Committee that another UK University was still without a Hallnet service following the blaster virus attack earlier this year. In comparison the University had fared reasonably well and the recent additional resources directed towards IT security would strengthen the position still further. The University’s forward thinking approach in this area was to be commended.

Email There had been a significant number of problems centred around the recent upgrade of the email system hardware. Had the hardware not been upgraded, the email system would not have been able to cope at the start of term.

All the fine tuning possible to the hardware and software had now been completed, but, unfortunately, the new email servers had not performed as well as had been expected. It had become clear that disk access speed was a problem with the servers not able to cope with the level of throughput. The suppliers had admitted that the system was underperforming and were to provide an upgraded RAID control for each server which should double the throughput and resolve the problems.

Mr Temple confirmed that Computing Services needed to test that the new controllers were compatible with the configuration of the disks. If the controllers were not compatible the installation would take longer. The worst case scenario was that the email system would need to be taken offline for a weekend.

11. Report from the Library

ISC03-P43
The Committee received the report from Mrs Morley.

Some concern was expressed that a number of students had recently gained access to the Library during a holiday, as the access control system appeared to have failed. Ms Blackett suggested that the problem may have been due to operator error (Estates staff not taking appropriate action on the system) rather than hardware or software problems. It was AGREED that further clarification should be obtained by discussion with Estates for report at the next meeting of the Committee.

ACT: DVC/VB

12. Data Protection Policy Appendices

ISC03-P44
The appendices to the Data Protection Policy were approved.

13. Freedom of Information Act and Records Manager

ISC03-P45, ISC03-P46
The minutes of the meetings of the Freedom of Information Working Group (FIWG ) held on 17 July 2003 and the FIWG Sub Group were received and the recommendations to EMG and Operations Sub-committee noted.

14. Faculty Information Technology Group

ISC03-P47
The minutes of the meeting held on 17 June 2003 were received and noted. The minutes of the meeting held on 26 September 2003 (ISC03-P48) were not considered as they were unconfirmed and subject to correction. The confirmed minutes would be received at the next meeting of the Committee.

15. Data Protection Advisory Group

ISC03-P49
The minutes of the meeting held on 12 June 2003 were received and noted.

16. Library Users' Committee

ISC03-P50
The minutes of the meeting held on 14 May 2003 were received and noted.

17. Library Annual Report 2002-3

ISC03-P51
The annual report was received and noted.

18. Library Strategic Plan 2003/4-2006/7

ISC03-P52
The plan was received and noted.

19. Library Service Level Agreement 2003/4

ISC03-P53
The service level agreement was received and noted.

20. Library Operational Plan 2003/4

ISC03-P54
The operational plan was received and noted.

21. Media Services Annual Report

ISC03-P55
The annual report was received and noted.

22. Physical Learning Spaces

ISC03-P56
The paper was received and noted.

23. Any Other Business

23.1 Minutes of Meetings Reported to Information Services Committee

It was AGREED that it would be useful if minutes presented to the Committee included details of who attended and that the Secretary would liaise with the appropriate individuals to ensure that this was actioned in future.

ACT: CS

23.2 Attachments as URLs

It was AGREED that in future papers should be circulated as URLs rather than attachments with the electronic agenda.

ACT: CS

24. Date of Next Meeting

Friday 13 February 2004 09:30 in the Council Chamber.