Information Technology Committee February Meeting

The ITC started our meeting off with receiving an update on the Learn@UW outage. The start of the semester is one of the busiest times for Learn@UW, as everyone checks out their course webpage. Unfortunately, on the first day of classes this semester, the extra load exposed a problem with Learn@UW, and in order to fix the system it had to be shut down. Service was restored that day, but Learn@UW serves the entire UW system, not just the Madison campus, so any outage affects a lot of students and faculty. The committee had to resist the urge to try and design a “fix” for the system during the meeting, and let the staff that supports Learn@UW work on a solution. It is well-known that the other busy time of the semester is the end of the semester. I think this outage affected the faculty more than the students. Personally, it didn’t bother me at all that I couldn’t look at the course webpage on the first day of classes. I’m far more concerned about it being available at the end of the semester, when there is a final coming up and last bits of homework to turn in.

The UW is finalizing a contract for a mass text messaging system. This was already in the works before yesterday’s senselessness at NIU. This will add one more tool that the UW can use to get the word out to the UW community. A campaign to get people signed up for the service is being developed, and it’s something that ASM could get involved with. Other campuses that have text messaging systems don’t have a very high percentage of their students signed up – no campus is over 50%, and even Virginia Tech is only at about 35%. There is also an effort to look at the cellular infrastructure on campus, and how much load could it handle. At the Obama rally, some people could get through, and others couldn’t. Yesterday, cell call volume at NIU was 12 times greater than normal, which made a lot of cell phones useless. This summer the phone lines for the Twin Cities were jammed the night of the bridge collapse. I think part of any campaign should be getting people to think about how to shift the notification load to outside the immediate area. Instead of calling everyone in your family all across the country, can you get a hold of one person and ask them to call around for you?

The committee talked about information safeguarding. Recently, some UW IDs were exposed on the web, and some of those IDs were still based on social security numbers. Several years ago, all students were forced to switch to a non-SSN based ID number, but faculty and staff were not required to switch. The UW has done an inventory, and there are about 8,000 SSN-based ID numbers still active. (A few students still have SSN-based ID numbers, if they were previously a student and subsequently returned.) The UW is moving to finally force the elimination of SSN-based ID numbers once and for all.

In other ID card news, the current UW ID card is about to get an upgrade. The “One Card” will consolidate a number of existing UW ID cards into one. For example, many people carry a card for building access in addition to their UW ID. The “One Card” will be able to do both. The goal is to start issuing them by June 1st, so all incoming SOAR students will have the new card. Housing wants to start using the One Card for access to their buildings, instead of the current key frobs. This is going to present a challenge. I’m hoping that the new cards will be available this semester, so upperclassmen that live in the dorms won’t all have to get new cards on their first day back on campus next fall, but it doesn’t sound likely they’ll be ready before finals.

The agenda and supporting documents, along with past meeting minutes, are on the ITC website: itc.wisc.edu

Morgridge Center for Public Service Advisory Board Meeting February 13, 2008

The Morgridge Center for Public Service Advisory Board is a committee that meets each semester to discuss issues that deal with student volunteering and community outreach programs. Yesterday we talked about how the Morgridge Center received a gift of money and they now want to increase the number of staff they have. This presents a problem though becuase of the limited amount of space at the Red Gym. They are looking to make a new administrative home and have a satellite location in the new Union South, the plans have not been finalized yet. The committee was also concerned with service learning courses appearing on the time table. Currently the only way to know if a class offers a service learning component is to check the notes, the board aims to get a box in the advanced search option where students can check off if the are looking for a service learning class. This is important because of the new Civic Engagement Certificate UW-Madison will soon be offering. Another point of the meeting was that the 10,000 hours show (a concert put on for students who volunteer for more than 10 hours a year) will be on April 2nd. The board wanted more students to know about the show and thought ASM could help. They were also excited becuase now Sororities have to volunteer 10 hours a year and they can add to the total to reach 10,000 volunteer hours. If you are interested in logging your volunteer hours to get a FREE concert the web site is... http://10000hoursmadison.rso.wisc.edu/