Meeting between ITS and School Computing Officers
Wednesday 17 January 2007 ● 3pm ● Swallowgate Room 11
The chairman welcomed people to the second meeting of the group.
1. Previous meeting (30 August 2006)
The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed. The chairman reviewed the progress that had
been made on the action-points listed in the minutes.
 Printing: advice on the production of documents for printing in the classrooms had been
documented and publicised. Other concerns raised at the previous meeting had been addressed
by the resolution of the technical problems that had beset the printing system during 2005/2006.
 Balance between support for staff and students: this had been explicitly addressed in the latest
draft of the IT Services core services document
 Documentation of IT provision in teaching rooms: this would be addressed in the new roombooking system, which was being developed by Registry in conjunction with BI. It was noted
that the Vice-Principal (teaching) was convening a group on the technology provision in teaching
rooms. ITS would be represented on this group
 Information on support for different applications was being collated and would be made
available as appropriate. This would include those cases where support and expertise lay outside
ITS
 Emergency replacement for computers in teaching rooms: the Helpdesk had laptops available,
configured for wireless and with a range of standard software. These had been deployed on two
occasions recently. The first contact in case of problems in the teaching rooms was Media
Services, but the Helpdesk can respond rapidly when required.
 Certificates: UKERNA had now launched a scheme to provide authority for Universities to sign
their certificates, and for these to be recognised by standard browsers. ITS had applied to join this
scheme. Our users will therefore be saved from having to respond to challenges to our servers’
certificates. Some re-configuration would be necessary in order to take full advantage of the
scheme.
 Documentation on setting up new PCs: this would be available by the end of the month
 Shared filespace: Some Schools had taken early advantage of the shared filespace, and
procedures for managing this facility would be developed based on the experience gained
working with these Schools. Procedures would be documented and publicised in due course.
ITS staff were keen to discuss specific requirements with Schools. There was some discussion of
the relation between the shared filespace and individual users’ personal diskspace. These issues
would be addressed in the documentation.
2. Upgrade of classroom PCs to Windows XP
The chairman thanked those who had responded to the request for comments and requirements. ITS
Systems staff had considered all the points raised and provided.
The aim was to provide an XP-based build which would preserve all the current functionality while
increasing security and adaptability. Adaptability was important because it was proposed to use the
same basic build for classroom PCs, managed desktops for staff and an unmanaged standard PC for
staff. A response in detail to the points raised by users was given.
 Right-clicking on the desktop: this had been disabled in the Windows2000 build because it was
the only way to disable context menus that gave access to insecure features. It was possible that
XP would permit greater flexibility, and this would be investigated.
 Write and Cite: this software required a modified default Word template to be available on every
classroom PC, which might make it unfeasible
 Flatter menu system in the Start menu: it was believed that the current subdivisions and
categorisation of the applications was tidier and more intuitive than a flatter system. Apart from
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one or two applications with special requirements there were never more than two levels of submenu below the main Start menu
Image manipulation software: GIMP and Paintshop Pro had been suggested. It would be
necessary to investigate what was needed and what was feasible. There were a number of issues
involved, including ITS’s capacity to support numerous different graphics pacakages.
Power management: this was accepted as an important consideration. It was not possible to
power the machines down completely overnight because that was when centrally managed
backups had to be deployed, and because it was necessary that classroom PCs should be ready
promptly for teaching at 9am. However it was expected that XP would provide more flexible
power-reduction.
Regular checking: It was hoped that local IT staff would notice and report faults where possible,
as was done by the computing representatives in Halls, but it was recognised that this was not a
full solution to the problem of early diagnosis of faults. It was proposed to increase the logging
and monitoring of the activity and inactivity of PCs in order to pick up symptoms of faults.
Active whiteboards: these were to be provided in teaching rooms, but not generally in
classrooms.
Specialist software: a number of specialist applications had been asked for, and this would be
discussed with the departments concerned. In general it was hoped to keep the application-set
as uniform as possible across the different classrooms.
Open source software: ITS was in general keen on open source software, but there were other
considerations to be borne in mind:
o Firefox: there was unfortunately no administration kit, which would be needed to make
the installation secure. It was technically impossible to dispense with Internet Explorer,
and probably wasteful to support two browsers
o OpenOffice: again there was no administration kit. Microsoft Office was the industry
standard and it was desirable to give students experience of using it. It would be
wasteful to support two applications covering the same functions.
o Text editor: TextPad would be deployed in the classrooms in the coming semester and
would be included in the XP build
Playing .MOV files: There were licensing restrictions and technical objections to the deployment
of Quicktime as part of the build. QuicktimeAlternative had been deployed in Physics to play
.MOV files. There were some licensing problems to be resolved but it might be possible to
extend this. There were similar issues surrounding the deployment of RealPlayer.
The new build was expected to be ready in June to provide some live testing over the summer.
Before then there would be opportunities to try out the proposed build.
3. Core Services document
The current draft had been distributed prior to the meeting. There was no discussion or objection
raised at the meeting, but comments by email would still be welcome.
4. Information Interchange
 Module Management System (MMS): The School of Psychology was using MMS, which was
developed by the School of Computer Science. It involved some commitment by teaching staff,
and they needed to know whether MMS was going to be supported in the long-term. It was
understood that MMS had also been adopted by the Schools of Economics and Management.
The chairman reported that Business Improvements was going to support the system, and ITS
had been asked to host it.
 The future of Eudora: the Eudora web-site had announced that from April only the latest version
of Eudora would support sponsored mode, so that Eudora users would need to upgrade if they
wanted to keep the enhanced functionality of sponsored mode. It was noted that users are
increasingly turning to Thunderbird, partly because of its superior support for IMAP and its
adaptive junk-mail filters, and partly because Qualcomm had handed the source code for Eudora
over to Mozilla and it was expected that subsequent versions of Thunderbird would incorporate
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some of the functionality of Eudora where this was superior to that of Thunderbird.
Documentation on Thunderbird was available on the ITS web-site, and was being supplemented
in line with growing experience of the product. ITS would provide training on request to groups
of users planning to change to Thunderbird.
Collaborative tools: It was agreed that ITS should take initiative in developing tools such as
message-boards, wikis and blogs. Some work had already been done on this, but ITS needed
some guidance from users on cultural aspects. ITS staff would visit the School of Psychology to
observe how the School wiki was being developed and used. ITS had plans to introduce a wiki
for use in connection with the Helpdesk. It was noted that there were collaborative tools
available in WebCT, which ITS would investigate with help from SALTIRE.
TurnItIn plagiarism detection system:
o This product had been adopted by many Universities, and the VP (Teaching) had directed
that it should be made available for use in St Andrews in Semester 2. Academics would
not be obliged to use it, but if it was used for a module students on that module would be
obliged to submit their work to TurnItIn. There were some issues still to be resolved and
guidance would be needed for both staff and students. This would be provided by
SALTIRE in conjunction with ITS. It was noted that submission could either be via
WebCT or direct to the TurnItIn website.
o ITS and SALTIRE both felt that the WebCT method was preferable for a number of
reasons. Prior to direct submission to TurnItIn, students would have to be registered on
the TurnItIn website, which would require effort by the academics teaching the module
and consequent calls on support staff, whereas students would be automatically
registered in WebCT. ITS systems staff were concerned at the storage of students’
usernames on the TurnItIn servers, and there was the likelihood that students would
make the security issue worse by using their main University password for TurnItIn;
these problems would be avoided if WebCT were used for authentication for TurnItIn.
Use of WebCT for TurnItIn purposes would not oblige academics to use WebCT for
preparing or distributing their teaching material.
Problems connecting to the VPN: due to not being enough IP addresses available. The longterm solution was to introduce authenticated SMTP (so that the VPN would not be required for
sending email), but this was delayed pending the resolution of the certificates issue. In the short
term it was agreed that the number or IP address slots should be increased.
Recent problems sending email: these were due to the mail servers’ continuing attempts to
connect to one of the open relay lists which used to provide crucial information in the
identification of spam. Because of changed patterns of spam this list was no longer providing
significant information and had been closed down, and our mail servers needed to be reconfigured to stop them trying (and failing) to connect to it.
Actions for ITS
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Implement and document procedures for use of the central file store
Provide early opportunities to try out and comment on the new PC classroom build
Provide guidance and training on Thunderbird
Consider developing a Helpdesk wiki, work with SALTIRE in investigating the use of WebCT
message-boards, and generally take an active part in spreading the use of collaborative tools in
the University
Introduce authenticated SMTP, when practicable
Increase the number of IP slots for the VPN
Arrange a further meeting in about three months
Feedback requested from Schools
 School requirements for shared space on the central file store
 Comments on core services document
 Comments and suggestions on the classroom build once it has been made available for trial
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Reporting of faults in the classrooms and teaching rooms
Information on email requirements for different groups of users
Ideas and requirements for development of collaborative tools
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