Computing & Information Services

Computing Policy Committee Meeting
Friday, December 12, 2008
4:00 – 5:00 pm, ETC 309

Present: Alex Botero-Lowery, Lily Copenagle, Chris Deiss, Jim Fix, Michael Gottesman, Dena Hutto (for Vickie Hanawalt), Ed McFarlane, Christine Morita-McVey, Kathryn Oleson, Marty Ringle, Robert Slifkin, Sonia Sabnis, Kjersten Whittington

Absent: Vickie Hanawalt, Darrin Pufall, Jon Rivenburg, and Peter Steinberger

Jim called to order at 4:05 pm. 

1.    The minutes of the November 21, 2008 meeting were approved.

2.    The committee reviewed the draft of Reed’s response as to how the institution is complying with the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA). Sonia Sabnis asked if stories are placed in the student newspaper regarding copyright violations.  Marty Ringle responded that Gary Schlickeiser usually writes one of these articles for The Quest each year.  Marty described a software tool, developed at the University of Michigan, that CIS is evaluating.  When someone uses a very large amount of outbound bandwidth for peer-to-peer file sharing –– typically an indication that the person's machine is serving up music, video, etc. ––  it automatically sends the person an email warning them about illegal file sharing.  If the bandwidth consumption persists, CIS would contact the person to ensure that the P2P activity detected by the system was legitimate.  Marty reminded the committee that rule making on this law will continue throughout 2009 and our only requirement is to provide a written draft of Reed's position on HEOA file sharing measures to President Diver.  The CPC approved the draft statement and agreed that it should be brought to the President’s staff. 

3.    The CPC discussed special SPAM filtering for webmail. Marty stated that inbound SPAM filtering is already in place and that the committee is being asked to consider outbound filtering.  He described a recent case in which a Reed community member's webmail account was hijacked and used by a spammer to send out 94,000 messages.  As a result, Reed was blacklisted by Hotmail and other ISPs, thereby causing problems for Reed members sending out legitimate email.  By filtering outbound web mail with a SPAM score of 6 or higher we could prevent future blacklisting without interfering with any legitimate outbound mail.  CIS’s filter would stop such messages from being sent and the sender would be notified. Marty asked for the CPC’s guidance on the number of messages sent at one time which could get snagged by the filter.  The CPC agreed that CIS should set the outbound filter to allow 100 named recipients.  If this allows SPAM through or creates problems for users, the allowable number could be re-evaluated.

4.    Marty began a discussion of the CIS 5-year (2010-2014) strategic technology planning process.  Since 1989, CIS has conducted a strategic planning exercise every five years.  Marty and members of his staff meet with tenured & tenure track faculty members, administrative staff, student groups, alumni board members, senior officers and others.  This process provides insight on how Reed’s current technology is currently being used, what doesn’t work well, and what each person or group would like to have in the future.  CIS analyzes the responses, seeking commonalities from which to develop institutional goals. The resulting set of goals is reviewed by the CPC, the President’s staff, the web policy committee and eventually Reed’s board.   Marty asked if the CPC would like to play a more active role in the process.  Marty also asked if the CPC would be in favor of CIS using a web survey to complement the face to face interview process.

Alex Botero-Lowery asked if the effectiveness of this process has been studied.  Marty responded that there has not been a systematic review of the process but informal feedback has been very positive. Chris Deiss asked if face-to-face meetings have been useful for planning purposes.  Marty responded that they have provided a very sound basis for developing institutional goals.  Jim expressed his appreciation of the interview process but wondered if this was still feasible, given how labor intensive it is. Marty replied that while he used to do this by himself, he now shares the load with others in CIS, hence the process is well within our capacity. 

Kathy Oleson echoed Jim's view that the face to face interviews were highly appreciated. Kjersten Whittington and Sonia Sabnis agreed that personal interviews sounded like the best way to gather information and commented on conversations they'd had with CIS staff when they first arrived at Reed.  Kathy suggested that although surveys were valuable for many things, it would be better to stick with the personal interview approach as long as CIS staff could afford the time.  The committee strongly agreed with this suggestion.

Marty proposed that the January meeting be devoted to a more detailed discussion of the strategic planning process.  In particular, he would like to get CPC input on specific technology topics and questions that he and his staff should pose to faculty, staff, students, and others.  The committee endorsed this proposal and Jim asked committee members to send Marty ideas for topics and questions prior to the meeting.  Marty also noted that he is currently soliciting such ideas for topics and questions from the CIS staff.  Jim  requested that these be distributed to CPC members prior to the January CPC meeting, should a draft be available.  Lily suggested that the interview process include individual administrative staff members, not just department heads.  Marty welcomed this suggestion and encouraged committee members to provide input on any aspect of the strategic planning process they think of.

Marty and Jim thanked committee members for their work this semester and wished everyone a happy holiday.  Jim adjourned the meeting at 5:05 pm.