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Meeting: November 24, 1998
Minutes
The meeting was held in Room 212 of the K-State Student Union. Those who signed the attendance list were: Ben Brent (Animal Sciences), Ken Brooks,* Karen Cole (Libraries), Mel Chastain,* Gary Cunningham (Agronomy), Janelle Esau (CNS), Chuck Gould (CNS), Jay Holt (Business Admin.), Brian Howell,* Bryan Kraus (Controller), Prakash Krishnaswami (Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering), Bob LeHew (Biology), Diane McGrath,* Eric Patterson (Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering), Joe Prockish (Physics), Gloria Robertson (CNS), Fred Schwenk (Plant Pathology), Dan Scott (Animal Science), Bradley Shaw,* chair, Gail Simmonds,* John Streeter,* Roger Terry,* Harvard Townsend,* Beth Unger, and Sava Zakjevskii (Chemistry).
Representatives of all academic and non-academic departments on campus were encouraged to attend because of the anticipated financial obligations that will be required of each unit should the Novell Site License Proposal be approved for purchase and implemented. Regular members of CITAC for 1998-99 are identified in the attendance list above by means of an asterisk. [*]
The reason for holding the open CITAC meeting was to invite Harvard Townsend, Interim Director, Computing and Network Services, to report on a proposal to enter into an agreement with Novell to provide for the university to have the right to use the latest versions of Novell products. The basic contract would be for a three year commitment with options to discontinue the license on a yearly basis. In essence, the license would be a lease, not a purchase, of the products involved. Harvard distributed a five-page report (see Attachment A) and description of the conditions of the proposed contract, its benefits and limitations, and the financial implications to departments and programs who currently use Novell LANS or other products, or who would plan to add them during the life of the site license. Harvard indicated that CNS anticipates hiring a staff member to help departments upgrade Novell products and to assist with the implementation of the site license agreement. A major advantage of the license would be that it would bring all KSU LANS up to Year 2000 compliance.
Harvard made it clear that if the proposal were implemented that departments and programs that use Novell products would be required to participate and to share in the cost of the site license. He outlined the cost, based on the number of Novell related nodes that they have. It was also made clear that should a department increase their use of Novell products after the start of the site license agreement, they would have to purchase the additional licenses should they continue to use them in the event that the site license is discontinued.
During the question and answer period, a few individuals expressed concern about the benefits of central control over departmental LANS and the financial implications to departments. Townsend indicated that in his view some uniformity was important because of university-wide issues such as Year 2000 compliance, the desirability of continued upgrades as part of the license agreement, and as a way to make technical support for effective and efficient. He acknowledged, however, that if the site license contract is signed, all Novell users on campus would be required to upgrade their systems and to pay a proportionate share of the total cost when the contract is renewed.
CITAC members present voted to recommend that CNS continue with its efforts to implement the Novell site license.
Due to the time required for discussion and to answer specific questions about the contract, announcements were made about additional agenda items that had been proposed for the meeting. Shaw indicated that these would be included in subsequent meetings. Harvard announced that the committee charged with reviewing and recommending a calendar/scheduler program had completed its work and had recommended the calendar program made available through Netscape Communicator 4.5. Townsend also announced that because of a number of problems with program security caused by hackers a plan to require that all faculty, staff, and students change their passwords was soon to be implemented. Basically, the plan called for all faculty and staff to change their passwords by January 31, 1999. Students would have until the fall semester 1999 to change their passwords. This is one step among several that are being considered to improve security of our computing and information systems campus wide. Finally, Harvard announced that he had submitted to the CITAC Campus Network Committee a written proposal for the upgrading of the Campus Network. He had a few copies of the plan which he distributed to those in attendance who expressed special interest in the plan. Harvard asked the CITAC committee to review his plan and to communicate its reaction and comments as soon as possible.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m.
For CITAC,
Bradley Shaw
Attachment A - Site License Proposal
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