OIT Faculty Advisory Committee Meeting Notes
November 2007
Email Status
Over 40,000 individuals use OIT Mailbox Services for email. An average of 22,769 people accessed Webmail during each of the first few days of fall quarter (an increase of 6% over last year). There were significant performance problems early in the quarter; they were resolved by correcting an operating system flaw that prevented the majority of the 19 email servers from utilizing all available physical memory as file cache.
Home directory quotas have been increased to 500 MB for faculty, 250 MB for staff and graduate students, and 60 MB for undergraduates. A test group (all OIT staff) is now using the new “mix” mailbox format and “island” email server configuration. We hope to move most faculty and staff to the new approach by the end of 2007, allowing us to further increase quotas and performance.
We will start a pilot of a “Google Apps for Education” implementation that will allow students to optionally use Gmail for email. The service will be UCI branded and integrated into the campus electronic environment.
Alumni Email Forwarding
Starting this past June, lifetime UCInetIDs and “name@alumni.uci.edu” addresses are being provided to UCI graduates. A total of 4,011 have signed up for email forwarding thus far, an increase of 2,336 from those addresses previously established with the UCI Alumni Association. Forwarding service is now maintained by OIT rather than by UCIAA’s off-campus vendor.
Server Registration
Campus firewall protection was enhanced in September by implementing blocking of all incoming connections to systems not registered to accept them. A total of 3,917 systems are registered to receive incoming connections, out of over 25,000 computers connected to UCI’s network. Approximately 510,000 packets of illicit probes each hour are now being blocked by the firewall, affording more breathing room in correcting software vulnerabilities as they become known.
Copyright Infringement Allegations
There has been a surge in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) “take-down” allegations of copyright infringement -- 33 in the first half of October, including a 1 day high of 14. In addition, the campus has received 9 "preservation notices," 23 "settlement offers,” and a subpoena for the individuals responsible for 7 allegations of infringement. Where individuals could be identified, the settlement offers were forwarded as per UC policy. The surge quieted later in October.
Research Conference
OIT, in partnership with faculty, academic and administrative units, and commercial vendors, is planning a Research Computing Symposium to be held at UCI during spring quarter. The main objective is to increase awareness and facilitate the expanded use of research computing software, hardware and technology in the UCI research community.
Express Mobile Access (Wireless) Registration
Registering for wireless/portable access is now easier in some campus locations. New devices are automatically detected and their user is given a chance to register them using their UCInetID. Visitors may also now self-register for 24 hour access up to 7 times in a 30 day period. Plans are to extend Express Registration to include other parts of the campus in the future.
Faculty Recruitment Online Tool
Working with UCI Academic Personnel, OIT implemented a new version of the faculty recruitment tool “Recruit” this summer. During the 2006/07 Recruit “pilot,” a total of 5,240 applications were processed for 77 positions. 2,598 applications for 85 positions are in the system thus far this year.
EEE
99% of all UCI undergraduates used EEE at least once during spring quarter, and 80% of instructors teaching classes accessed it. 56% of all lecture classes had a web presence, 95% used on-line final evaluations.
EEE enhancements recently added include “Rapid Return” for the EEE drop-box to provide an electronic way to return graded materials to students in mass; improved logging, stats and student grade display in Gradebook; a new Classmates tool that optionally allows students to share contact information with peers; a new MyPhoto tool to allow students to upload a photograph of themselves that is optionally displayed in the Classmates tool, on instructors’ EEE class lists, and elsewhere; and and enhanced versions of WebsiteLinker and AdvancedWebspace. See eee.uci.edu/new/ for more information.
Computing Labs
OIT computing labs have been enhanced through an acquisition of 85 new high-end computers, a trickle-down of newer equipment to lab locations where most needed, and the retirement of older equipment. A new faculty/staff training lab has been created in the building adjacent to the Anteater Parking Structure, a student drop-in lab is being placed in the new student center, and another lab will be equipped in the Cross Cultural Center. OIT now supports 11 labs with a total of 400 computers (up from 350) as well as computers in 105 SmartClassrooms and Lecture Halls.
VoiceMail System
OIT has acquired a new voice mail system to replace the current one, which is old and difficult to maintain. We are in the early implementation stages and will be piloting the new system in coming months. The system will provide the same basic menu of options as the current version, but with optional enhanced functionality in several areas.
Emergency Notification
3,131 faculty and staff, and 7,698 students, have signed up for the “zotAlert” emergency text-messaging system. The system was tested again on November 20th. We are in the process of evaluating emergency notification vendor offerings to acquire a long-term, full-featured, answer to campus emergency notification needs.
DUE IT
After reviewing several options for enhancing Information Technology services within the Division of Undergraduate Education, Dean Salinger asked OIT to assume responsibility for managing DUE IT. A year long trial of the new arrangement began this summer. The expectation is that significant synergy will be realized from integrating DUE application development and system support efforts with like efforts in OIT.
ITGC
The University of California Information Technology Guidance Committee (ITGC) is working on a draft of their final report which will be issued in coming months. UCI took advantage of an opportunity to provide feedback on an interim report this summer.
