IT Governance Committee Meeting minutes
February 8, 2012, 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm
4-202
Attendees:
Martin Schmidt
Marilyn Smith
M. Frans Kaashoek
Claude Canizares
Armand Doucette
Dan Hastings
Michael Howard
David Segaloff
AGENDA
1. Approve January 17th Meeting Minutes – [Marilyn]
2. Review of Research Computing Progress & Plans [Claude & Marilyn] (20 - 30 min)
3. Update on Software Development funding and
Digital MIT projects & funding [Marilyn] (15 min)
4. Admin Systems Update [Marilyn & Mike] (15 min)
5. Services Retirement [Marilyn] (20 min)
6. Next Meeting Wednesday February 29th 10:30am – 12:00pm 4-202
Decisions:
 Approved minutes from the January 17th meeting
Next Steps/Action Items:
 Claude Canizares to send an email to the IT Governance committee asking for feedback on
the formation of a Research Computing Advisory Committee. [completed]
 IS&T was asked to research if we could use the Kuali Open Source Document Management
functionality that OPS will be migrating to, rather than a commercial system so that MIT
would standardize on one Document Management System.
 Marilyn agreed to clarify the cost structure for Bates and W91 for the Governance
committee. [completed]
 David to send the link to the MGHPCC website to the Governance Committee
(www.mghpcc.org). [completed]
 A suggestion was made that a sub-group from the IT Governance committee should have a
high-level discussion with MITx Administrators.
 Marilyn will discuss with Israel, the suggestion for a sub-group to meet with MITx
Administrators [completed].
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Send an email to Claude telling him about the Service Retirement discussion as he left
early. [completed]
The IT Governance committee would like to hear more about Administrative Systems at
the February 29th meeting.
Discussion:
 Review of Research Computing Progress & Plans Research Computing:
o Claude informed the IT Governance committee that he wants to form a Research
Computing Advisory Committee and asked for input on the membership of the
committee.
o This committee would be a great help in tackling research computing issues and
making decisions regarding the Massachusetts Green High Performance
Computing Center (MGHPCC). We are currently looking for MIT researchers to
sign on to use the MGHPCC.
o There is a MGHPCC meeting next week to discuss the status of the project, issues,
and operational/management questions.
o The Governance Committee was reminded that the MGHPCC is comprised of 5
institutions: Harvard, Northeastern, Boston University, UMass and MIT.
o Marilyn mentioned that there was a Research Computing/MGHPCC report that
was being reviewed by Claude and Marty Schmidt.
 Questions were asked about how charges worked at the Bates Linear
Accelerator Center in Middleton MA.
o Marilyn agreed to clarify the cost structure for Bates and W91 for the Governance
committee.
o Send link to MGHPCC website to the Governance Committee:
 Update on Software Development funding and Digital MIT projects & funding:
o Marilyn reviewed the IS&T Software Development Funding as approved by the IT
Governance Committee. She informed the committee that she would be seeking
approval for additional funding for Education Systems and Administrative Systems
projects at the February 29th meeting.
o Marilyn informed the committee that the Online Registration Project Team will
receive an MIT Excellence Award in recognition of the successful implementation
of their project. Dan Hastings said Online Registration went well and that there
weren’t significant problems.
 Frans brought up several issues that he was aware of with the system.
o Lack of APIs to enable access to the data.
o Inability to see the class schedules.
o Faculty/Advisors don’t know how many students are in a class.
 Dan asked Frans if he and his associates would please send their feedback
and concerns to DUE.
 IS&T has architects working on protocols for APIs to enable the community
to develop their own interfaces to the system, but we still need resolve
authentication issues in order to maintain system security. IS&T also needs
to work closely with DUE business and data owners.
o Marilyn reviewed the Digital MIT projects and funding.
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Most of the projects are in process and will carry over into Q1 of 2013
Marilyn explained that OSP was going to be migrating to the Kuali Open
Source Document Management system in order to be compatible with other
Research Institutes.
 IS&T was asked to research if we could use the Kuali Open Source
Document Management system, rather than a commercial system so that
MIT would standardize on one Document Management System.
 Marilyn reported that a decision was made by members of the Provost’s
Office and OSP to look at combining the Outside Professional Activities
(OPA) and Conflict of Interest (COI) reporting. As a result of that decision
the current OPA project was put on hold. The COEUS development team in
OSP is working on new COI reporting guidelines, which have a strong
similarity to OPA reporting.
o Members of the Governance committee felt that the systems were
not the same and that different information was needed for each
system.
 Armand told the Governance committee that he spoke with Vijay Kumar
about the MIT Sloan request for a Video Production/ Management system
at MIT. The feeling was that cost and availability were the biggest issues
Video today. More investigation on this topic is necessary.
o A suggestion was made that a sub-group from the IT Governance committee
should have a high-level discussion with MITx Administrators. Marilyn will discuss
this with Israel
Administrative Systems Update:
o Marilyn reported that the Administrative Systems roadmap was not ready.
o There have been meetings with the various stakeholders (Facilities, EHS, HR,
Finance, Payroll and others).
 They are prioritizing the work and in the meantime are continuing to work
on projects. It is anticipated that the Student Appointment project, APR 2.0,
and Enterprise Learning projects will be completed in March.
o Alison Alden, Mike Howard and Marilyn are working with ASPCC and conducted a
facilitated meeting to discuss ASPCC’s charter and discuss prioritization. The next
meeting to continue this discussion will be held the week of February 13th.
Services retirement:
o Marilyn updated the IT Governance committee on the work the IS&T Senior Staff
has been doing in development of an IS&T Service Portfolio and Service Catalog.
o As part of this activity, IS&T is looking at a list of services that should be retired
and we would like come back to the Governance committee at the February 29th
meeting with a proposal to retire some services. In preparation for this, she asked
the committee to give her feedback on the information they would need in order
for them to make an informed decision.
o Marilyn gave the committee some examples of services that we might want to
retire:
 There’s a legacy travel system that is still in use by a limited number of
people
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IMAP email service that uses the old pop protocol that runs on an old server
that is at risk of failure.
 TechTime, the prior calendaring system, is still in use by Koch for
lab/equipment scheduling.
 Thalia is a web application for storing, organizing, and sharing photos &
images, and currently only used by one department.
o The Governance committee members suggested the following information would
be appropriate in a request from IS&T to retire services.
 What is the impact to community?
 What is the cost of IS&T to run the service and what would the savings be if
we eliminated the service?
 Are there high profile people who will be impacted?
 What is the risk if we continue to use the existing service?
o It was suggested that IS&T should develop a watch list of services that pose some
level of risk. We were asked to have a communications plan in place to inform the
community that a service was going to be retired, explain why, and identify
alternatives to the service.
Marilyn was asked when the Governance committee would hear more about
Administrative Systems and she said she’d try to come back with more information at the
February 29th meeting. It was also suggested that perhaps an interim plan could be
developed while the roadmap was still being developed.
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