Minutes
ITANA Conference Call
December 11, 2008

*Attendees*

Jim Phelps, University of Wisconsin-Madison (chair)
Tom Barton, University of Chicago
Brendan Bellina, University of Southern California
Michael Enstrom, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Mike Halm, Penn State University
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Chris Phillips, University of Maryland-Baltimore
Ann West, Internet2/EDUCAUSE
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)

*Agenda*
1. Roll Call
2. Agenda Bash
3. Accept minutes of last call
4. Check-In / End-Of-Year Call
5. Next steps, next call
See also: Face2Face Travel Issues

Future Agendas:
1. SOA
2. Business Intelligence

Items on the shelf:
1. SOA
2. Business Intelligence https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Business+Intelligence
3. UML Tools/Training
4. Architecture Tool discussion (All)UC Irvine's use of Protege (http://protege.stanford.edu/)
 Chicago's I.T. Ecosystem Tool (Tom B)
*Face2Face*

The Face to Face scheduled for early January 2009 has been cancelled, due to the increasing number of institutions with travel restrictions. Such restrictions will probably continue, which presents an opportunity to think more about using alternate methods.

*Updates from Campuses*

University of Maryland-Baltimore - Budget restrictions mean no travel except for technical training. There is considerable interest in Maryland in DR, partly driven by state law. Statewide, universities are moving to common hardware for all enterprise systems.

Penn State - There is still a diverse group on campus looking at IT architecture but, so far, there is no movement to institutionalize their research. The university is considering outsourcing student email, but there are some concerns about compliance with FERPA and HIIPA, particularly if the company's servers are located outside of the U.S. In additions, more and more departmental systems are migrating to central IT to avoid maintaining the separate services.

UW-Milwaukee - The budget situation is causing IT to look at the methods and processes used to provide support, involving business intelligence. The intent is to help define which projects are priority, which can be deferred, and which do not need to be done. The intent is to use BI metrics to help administrative units determine their priority.

UW-Madison - The budget restrictions force departments to think about how/why they do things. Departments begin asking why they are supporting some applications - email and calendaring for instance - when central solutions are available.

USC - There is not a restriction on travel, but additional levels of authorization are needed. USC has outsourced student email to Google and is considering outsourcing staff and faculty email, as well. The university is purchasing a hospital system, which has the potential to consumer significant IT resources.

*Meetings and Attendance*

The effect of the economic downturn, and the growing number of universities with budget restrictions, has begun having an impact on meeting attendance. There is substantial evidence that workshops and conferences will see a significant drop in attendance. As a result, Internet2 has begun looking at alternatives to delivering educational opportunities to the community.

There was a general discussion about potential alternatives, including webinars and streaming video, perhaps combined with chat, and capturing the event for future viewing. There are drawbacks to online meetings - it is hard to replicate the collaboration and interaction that occur at a face-to-face.

Some of the tools discussed were Adobe Connect and the Marratech videoconferencing and e-meeting software. EDUCAUSE uses Adobe Connect, which would be available for use by ITANA. Wikis can serve a collaboration role, as well, for certain applications.

Those on the call were interested in exploring such tools during the new year, particularly those that may be open source or available through Internet2 or EDCAUSE.

Jim suggested the possibility of regional gatherings in locations that would then be interconnected. That would provide the advantages of a face-to-face, but with the possibility of less expensive travel.

*Identity and Privilege Management*

There was a general discussion about identity and privilege management, brought about by the example of consolidating the identity systems of a central campus and related medical center. This led to a discussion about role-based access and distributing that access, using an application like Grouper.

*Video Case Study*

Jim reported that the videographer at UW-Madison is editing a video case study about how EA originated at Madison. He is also exploring a concept of campus-based videographers taping EA professionals and CIOs, then sending the raw footage to Madison. The UW-Madison video person would then edit the tape into a video case study. The ITANA wiki includes some questions to use in developing such case studies.

**Next Call, Thursday, January 8, 2009, 2 p.m. EDT

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