Minimum Workstation and Software Site License Subcommittee Minutes

 

October 17, 2002
Meeting in AH-1120 at 10 a.m.
Diana Osborn, Chair

Calendar Software
UCO has extended the Meeting Maker license agreement including maintenance through June 2004. Calendar committee will reform to take the time between now and the expiration of the maintenance agreement for Meeting Maker to review current and upcoming software packages that include calendaring to determine if there is something else that will fit the needs of the campus. Please contact Diana Osborn to join the committee.

XP training update
No report given. Carol Tohsaku inquired on how many would use Windows XP and Office XP and when they would start using them, so handouts can be adjusted in time.

Spam filtering
A pre-filtering implementation has begun on mail.sdsu.edu, but it has not received any scoring. TNS is continuing to test.

Personal Firewall Software
Scott Horvath was at the Zone Alarm event. He feels that departments should have a firewall for the department rather than indivdual firewalls, and the event seemed slanted towards use in labs. Agreement was made to drop this item from the next agenda.

Qualitative Data Analysis Software
No further discussion was done. Believing this to be only a College of Arts & Letters need, there was agreement to drop this item from the next agenda.

XWin32, PC XWare, cygwin
Diana mentioned that PC Xware wanted to match any pricing received for Xwin32. She downloaded and tested cygwin. This freeware package appears to do everything it says and it will run though SSH. Diana will post her results. Sciences may decide to go with cygwin, while the Library is pursuing XWin32 (50 user floating license).

Canvas 8
Further study on SDSU's need for Canvas 8 site licensing is pending the Software Survey's final results.

Crystal Reports
Diana stated that Version 9 of Crystal Reports is now available. There are volume purchase pricing, as well as educational pricing for 5-packs. Further study on SDSU's need for Crystal Reports site licensing is pending the Software Survey's final results.

Software Survey
Using the url that was posted for the Software Survey, 21 areas responded with several of them sending multiple responds based on user types. Some areas did not respond to the survey - Arts & Letters, Sciences, Enrollment Services, etc. The results are being tabulated and unfortunately, manually entered into the database. Cyndi brought a preliminary report on the areas that have been entered so far. Some of these numbers brought up deficiencies in the request for data (i.e. Didn't list Cold Fusion under Servers, Didn't separate PC/Mac in workstation numbers).

Some of the preliminary trends included in the data entry so far:

• 158 servers and 2388 workstations
• A wide spread of Windows versions with XP Professional leading and no reported use of XP Home
• The majority use for Macintosh is still System 9 but OS X use is climbing.
• 641 Meeting Maker users entered versus the 1050 accounts issued, and 336 users claimed of other calendaring software
• 600 Acrobat (full copy)
• 26 for Crystal Reports and 45 for Brio
• No solid numbers for any of the Citation Managers, so we may need to survey the faculty on these

Agreement was had on continuing to use the month of October for future surveys. Also, a list of who reported and the areas they reported on will be posted with the final results.

PGP email
After discussion, it was decided to drop this item from the agenda. It was felt this should be considered at the mail server level.

TOAD
TOAD is a software tool for Oracle/SQL Developers and there will a free class in November on Tips and Tricks for TOAD. Please contact Cyndie Winrow if you are interested in the class this week.

SAS, SPSS and Microsoft Agreements
In regard to SAS and SPSS, current license agreements do not allow SDSU to diseminate their software to Adjunct faculty. If however Adjunct faculty can document that the SAS or SPSS software is being loaded on a State/Foundation purchased computer located on the SDSU campus, that is allowed. This documentation must be presented to Susan Mar. If the documentation is acceptable, the Adjunct faculty will be required to sign an SDSU agreement with Celia Chavez. If there are questions about Adjunct faculty software use, please refer them to Susan Mar.

Also note the following:

• In addition, a SDSU paid employee must be listed as the responsible person for the SAS and SPSS software's licensed use. In the future, a listing of SDSU paid employees will be available to department software coordinators, but they must Email Celia Chavez with that request.
• Shared computers with software from these contracts must only be used by SDSU paid employees.
• In the future, SAS and SPSS software will need a signed SDSU agreement filed with Celia Chavez, whether it is a single use or a multiple use deployed via a server for a lab.
• Please see the Microsoft Campus Enterprise Agreement pages for a description of who is eligible and who is not eligible for Microsoft software. Also visit their other Calstate pages for a list of the Microsoft software products and for their frequently asked questions.

Network Associates/McAfee
Per Celia Chavez, the current SDSU/McAfee contract expires 11/20/02. While it was negotiated directly with McAfee, a renewal needs to go through Network Associates, who bought out McAfee after our contract began. Network Associates negotiations have revealed their intentions to raise the pricing and our calling around gleaned the fact that there are 11 CSU campuses who have McAfee products. Network Associates wants to know how many Macintosh versions of the product are being used, as there is a pricing difference. In an effort to curtail the price, SDSU is considering changing from unlimited to 5000 licenses. Now the Chancellor's Office is looking at a systemwide license for McAfee and is in negotiations with Network Associates. Bottom line - SDSU use of McAfee is covered past the 11/20/02 expiration of our current contract. Remaining issues are whether or not students will be included and if fees will be charged for home use of the products. Note: Home use of any software must be stated in the contract. So the language of this contract is being examined.

Apple Software
Celia Chavez stated that March would be the next opportunity to add Macintosh computers to the OS TAP program and be eligible for OS X.2. Recently, a pricing change took effect after the order was placed for the OS X.2 media the may affect the charge back to departments. This may mean either a lower charge back or more copies of the media, because of the reduction in price. Please note that UCO is paying the 10% surcharge to the Chancellor's office for the order that is passed on to the SDSU user.

Announcements

• EduTools, an open resource for the worldwide higher education community, was announced in an Email from Susan Mar recently. It provides the most complete independently-reviewed analyses anywhere of selected course management software, including product comparisons, reviews, and automated decision-making tools. To learn more visit http://www.edutools.info.

• MIT OpenCourseWare project, announced by MIT President Charles M. Vest in April 2001, has the Massachusetts Institute of Technology making materials for nearly all its courses freely available on the Internet over the next ten years. It will begin as a large-scale pilot program over the next two years. The first steps include design of the software and services needed to support such a large endeavor, as well as protocols to monitor and assess its utilization by faculty and students at MIT and throughout the world. By the end of the two-year period, it is expected that materials for more than 500 courses would be available on the MIT OpenCourseWare site. To see a first sampling of course materials visit http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html. To view the Fact Sheet on the project visit http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2001/ocw-facts.html.

• Jones Knowledge e-education course management platform, similar to Blackboard, was announced as a Free item in a Email from Susan Mar recently. To learn more visit http://www.jonesknowledge.com/corporate/jk_eed.php.

• CSU estore - Staff and faculty may subscribe to the Contracts Store E-mail List to receive future announcements and Systemwide contract updates at http://www.calstate.edu/csp/Store/subscribe.shtml These announcements are sent to:
  • Those individuals on the Bulletin's distribution list
  • Subscribers to the Contracts Store E-mail List (above)
  • Email lists whose owners have expressed interest in receiving them.

  The Systemwide Contract Store is your single point of access to systemwide or multicampus contracts. Browse the store's departments and aisles for the products or services you are interested in. These include:

  • IT Equipment
  • IT Services
  • CMS Implementation
  • Office Supplies
  • Software
  • Financial Services
  • Other Services
  • Other Commodities

  Contact and ordering instructions can be found with each contract listed. Please direct comments about this opportunity to:

  Tom Roberts
  Assistant Director, Systemwide Contracts
  Contract Services & Procurement
  voice (562) 951-4583
  troberts@calstate.edu
  

• WebStyle guidelines demo was announced by Keith Parks. There will be a "Guided Tour" of SDSU's new Web Style Guide on Wednesday, October 30, 9 - 10 a.m., in SS-1500. No RSVP is required. It is for anyone who actively develops Web pages for SDSU departments, offices, programs, etc., as well as those with an administriative role in the Web development process. The Web Style Guide is linked from the faculty/staff page on the SDSU home page and will be highlighted with an article in the SDSUniverse web site shortly.

Next MWSSLS meeting will be November 21, 2002 in AH-1120 at 10 a.m.

PLEASE NOTE: The statements found on the MWSSLS Home Page are for informational purposes only. While every effort is made to ensure that this information is up to date and accurate, official information can be found in the University publications.

Last modified on October 21, 2002
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