Meeting between ITS/BI and School Computing Officers
Wednesday 30 August 2006  2pm  Swallowgate Room 11
The chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and expressed pleasure at the large attendance.
1. Server upgrades
The University’s main webserver had been upgraded earlier in the summer. ITS was phasing in
the new Central File Store (CFS), and would be increasing the default diskquota to 1 gigabyte for
staff, and 250 megabytes for students, with an additional 100 gigabytes to be assigned to each
school; the uses for this shared space and the ways in which it was to be administered were up for
discussion, and Computing Officers were asked to raise this in their respective schools.
The village servers on the North Haugh (purds, maths and pasta) were also being upgraded
during the summer. The first two upgrades had already been achieved and the third was
scheduled for 31 August. As part of the upgrade the North Haugh users’ filespace was moved to
the CFS, and mail delivery was being consolidated on a single server (nhmail).
2. Printing
It was acknowledged that there had been problems with printing in the computer classrooms
during the past academic year. One step that had been taken in order to keep the classroom
printers working was to place a 10 megabyte limit on the size of print-files. Work was being done
over the summer to remove the need for this limit.
Another possible development was duplex (double-sided) printing, if there proved to be a demand
for this.
ITS staff pointed out that the burden of printing was being transferred from Schools, who used
their own photocopiers or the Printing Unit, to students, who used the classroom printers. This
entailed both a financial burden on students (which some Schools refunded but others didn’t) and
a pattern of use of the classroom printing system for which it had not been designed. The system
could cope with the overall level of demand for printing, but large files, in particular those
containing non-standard fonts and unoptimised images, had caused printing in classrooms to be
frequently disrupted, often at the busiest times.
The following points were made:

some documents, such as course handbooks, might be better produced by Schools and
given/sold to students

other documents, such as lecture notes and hand-outs, could not be produced in this way,
either because they had to be produced at the last minute, or because not all students would
require to print all of the material, so central production would be wasteful

ITS should publicise good practice in production of documents for distribution and printing:
eg the image optimisation feature in PowerPoint and effective creation of PDF files

ITS should take steps to ensure that its printing provision was based on an understanding of
the demands of users (eg by surveying actual printing activity)
3. hosts file maintenance
Computing Officers who are authorised to make changes in the hosts file were asked to take the
following actions

good house-keeping to ensure the information is up-to-date

make the computer name (on the computer) match that given in the hosts file
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
follow the ITS naming conventions – eg ddpc-xxx where dd is a departmental code, xxx is the
username; the program will add a number where more than one entry occurs for the same user

the users registered in the hosts file are responsible for machines registered in their name –
this needs to be borne in mind when a user registers several machines in their name, for
example for use by members of a research group
4. Core services document
The document, currently in draft form, was available from the ITS web site, and comments were
invited. The purpose of the document was to indicate

the general services provided by ITS

the current supported implementation of those services

areas where full support was not possible but where ITS would provide help on a best efforts
basis, for example with old software, new and developing software and specialist software
ITS were asked how they balanced the needs of staff against the needs of students; there was no
ready answer to this, but it was agreed that it should be addressed in the Core Services document.
5. ITS Helpdesk
School Computing Officers were asked to identify themselves when contacting the Helpdesk, so
that Helpdesk staff would know they were dealing with people with IT expertise. The Helpdesk
Manager places a high priority on establishing good working relationships with School
Computing Officers.
6. Business Improvements
The Director of Business Improvements outlined what BI does – partly a traditional Management
Information Services role and partly a development role in improving the University’s business
processes. The general strategy was to provide robust underlying systems with good data quality,
and flexible web-based user interfaces and reporting facilities. Data quality was sometimes the
weak link.
BI staff were available for consultation on project management. Feedback on the work of BI was
welcomed, and should be sent to the Director (email: hmfk).
7. Web re-design
The University’s Web Manager described the major redesign of the University’s website, currently
being undertaken in partnership with consultants. Progress of the project was reported on-line,
accessible via the link on the University homepage. The Information Architecture had been
agreed, and the consultants were now setting up the so-called wire frames, which establish where
different elements of information are to be located. The underlying philosophy was that
information and navigation should be organized in a way that reflected the needs of different
groups of users rather than being based on the structure of the University.
A Content Management System had been purchased (Terminal4) and this would replace Plone.
The Content Management System would facilitate devolved authorisation to add and modify webcontent, and ensure that changes were made timeously. Data feeds for volatile information would
be provided, and there would be a library of common elements, such as the University arms.
It was emphasised that the changes were not intended to interfere with the ability of Schools to
determine the content of their web-pages.
Feed-back on the web re-design should be sent to the Web Manager (email: sde1)
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8. Sharing expertise
It was noted that there are devices and software in use in Schools which are not provided or
supported by ITS. It was agreed to produce a list of such items, along with a note of where in the
University the relevant expertise to support them was to be found.
9. Wireless networking
It was noted that difficulties had been experienced connecting to the wireless network in Maths,
although ITS staff had been unable to reproduce the problem. It was possible that some
interference from the neighbouring Computer Science network was affecting Maths.
It was noted that the JANET Roaming Service (JRS) was likely to be implemented in the coming six
months. This would enable visitors from other participating institutions to connect to the St
Andrews network using their own home authentication.
10. PCs in teaching rooms
It was noted that 40 lecture theatres and other teaching rooms had been re-furbished in the past
year, with a further 15 scheduled for the coming year. Re-furbishment in most cases included the
installation of a PC for use with the data projector. Information on which teaching rooms
contained a PC was needed in the room-booking system; ITS were asked to provide this
information, but it was noted that some teaching rooms have PCs not provided by ITS.
It was agreed that faulty equipment in teaching rooms needed to be fixed rapidly, ideally within
an hour. So far as PCs were concerned this could be achieved by providing a wireless-enabled
laptop from the Helpdesk. Advance information of faults in equipment was desirable, and it was
suggested that Computing Officers could provide this in respect of the teaching rooms in their
area.
11. Applications software
Some concern was expressed at the proposal to move to Office2003 in the PC classrooms.
Documentation for students had been written with Office2000 in mind. ITS staff suggested that
students would probably be able to make the small adjustments required to understand the
documentation, but undertook to look again at the proposal.
ITS were asked if they supported open source software, such as OpenOffice. It was explained that
ITS staff are supporters of open source products and use them where possible. OpenOffice could
not be deployed on managed PCs, such as those in the classroom, or those which are being
developed for use in administrative units. This was because there was no administrator’s kit
included in the product.
One of the reasons advanced for using OpenOffice was to avoid the need for repeated upgrades of
operating system and applications software. It was noted that Microsoft’s current licensing
permitted users to purchase the latest version and downgrade to an earlier version, with the
possibility of upgrading to the purchased version later.
12. Mac support
It was noted that numbers of academic staff buying Macs was increasing again in some areas. ITS
pointed out that support for Macs was available via the Helpdesk, but that with the increasing
number of administrative applications using a web interface it was not always possible to ensure
compatibility with all browsers; some prioritising would be inevitable, and the need to include
Mac browser support made things more difficult.
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13. Certificates
A particular issue in Mac browser support was the lack of instructions for installing certificates.
This led to a general discussion of certificates, and a strongly voiced suggestion that the University
should invest in becoming a certificate-signing authority. This had been deemed too costly in the
past, but the cost had come down in recent times. It was agreed that the repeated appearance of
certificate warnings would lead users into the habit of accepting certificates without due
consideration.
14. PC setup instructions
It was observed that when computers were deployed to staff desks they should ideally be
configured so as to accept St Andrews certificates. This led to a request that more guidance should
be given to those responsible in Schools for setting up newly deployed computers. ITS agreed that
their documentation in this area needed to be updated and improved.
15. New procurement procedures
Some disquiet was expressed at the requirement to purchase only the approved make of PC, since
it was felt to be possible to get better value elsewhere. ITS staff replied that the quality of
components and the servicing agreement that had been negotiated made the approved make of PC
the best value for the University over the four years of the PC’s lifetime. Also having a standard
model and standard software-build meant that ITS were able to give more complete and more
rapid solutions when faults arose. It was pointed out, however, that Schools’ budgetary
requirements meant they had to make a decision based on what they needed and what they could
afford at the time of purchase.
ITS staff felt less strongly on the necessity for standard procurement in the case of Schools with
sufficient technical staff to maintain their PCs for themselves.
16. Date of next meeting
The chairman thanked all those who had attended. The next meeting would be arranged by email.
ACTIONS
Although the meeting was not constituted to take formal decisions or require actions from anyone,
certain action points emerged and were implicitly agreed in the course of the discussions.
ITS staff

publicise good practice in producing files for printing

take steps to determine what the printing requirements are in the classrooms

address in the Core Services document the question of staff versus student support

collect and disseminate information on applications for which support expertise lies in the
Schools rather than ITS

assist in collecting information for the room-booking system on PC provision in teaching
rooms

ensure that replacement laptops are available for rapid deployment in case of failure of PCs in
teaching rooms

investigate financially viable avenues for having signed certificates acceptable to browsers
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
provide adequate documentation on setting up of new PCs

arrange the next meeting
School computing officers

publicise the new shared file-space facility, and discuss how their School proposes to take
advantage of it

publicise in their School good practice in producing files for printing

co-operate in keeping the hosts file up-to-date and consistent

identify themselves as local IT experts when contacting the helpdesk about issues in their
School

periodically check PCs in teaching rooms to give advance notice of faults

contribute to the discussion of the ITS core services document
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