Information Technology Planning Board
Meeting Summary
Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2008

ITPB Attendees: Christine Borgman, Alfonso Cardenas, Jim Davis, Michael Goldstein, Xue Hua, Bill Jepson, David Kaplan, Kathleen Komar, Sam Morabito, Warren Mori, Marilyn Raphael, Alan Robinson, Andrew Royer

Guests: Ross Bollens, Carmela Cunningham, Larry Loeher, Sean Pine, Nick Reddingius, Margo Reveil, Terry Ryan, Kent Wada, Don Worth

Agenda Item 1:  January 29, 2008 Meeting Summary

The January 29, 2008 meeting summary was approved as presented.

Agenda Item 2:  ITPB Charter/Working Group Responsibilities Discussion

Chair Alfonso Cardenas introduced this topic to review the ITPB charter and committee responsibilities – specifically regarding the goals and responsibilities pertaining to investment and budgetary issues.  He read directly from the charter:

The ITPB has the important responsibility of guiding the development of a budgetary, policy and procedural framework that will move the campus to a mature governance structure for information technology matters.

Chair Cardenas went on to interpret this.  He said that the ITPB charter is thus more than just advising, it is also to be involved and to facilitate the budget environment.

He said the ITPB needs to do much more than give advice, it needs to see how to make things possible.  He said he expects that each working group will consider this as well as the best resource requirements and how to go about getting things done.

Discussion:

A concern was voiced about the charter and its "unclear" language regarding whether the guidance of the ITPB committee over the budgetary funds is campus-wide in nature or specific to an initiative. There was a concern that costs might constrain the vision of the working groups because people in the groups may not be aware of resource possibilities. There was also a call for clarification about the CITI role. CITI was not formed until after the ITPB charter was created. It is CITI’s role to make funding decisions. CITI is a committee on IT infrastructure and the question arises whether all IT infrastructure funding issues should be considered by CITI only. Several people agreed that the ITPB (and its working groups) need to have the freedom to recommend campus IT initiatives and major efforts, even if they do not know how to fund them. A statement was made that there needs to be better demarcation between CITI and ITPB, clarification of the roles of the two committees and a more efficient process in place. Sometimes one group will have the strategy and details or funding that are closely interrelated with another group. A suggestion was made that the governance process be more thoroughly examined two or three years from now.

With this discussion in mind, Chair Alfonso Cardenas said that there will be further discussion of the charter and synchronization between ITPB and CITI. Also, all working groups will report back at the April 29, 2008 meeting.

Agenda Item 3:  Report from CCLE/Intellectual Property Working Group

Terry Ryan reported on the CCLE/Intellectual Property Working Group preliminary activities.

The group took a “train the trainers” approach and determined that materials should be developed to answer questions about copyrighted material that address fair use, how faculty members can protect their own materials, and what materials have been licensed by the campus and are available for use.  (For example, many units are paying for material that is already paid for by the Library for campus-wide and/or system-wide use.)

The Working Group particularly focused on priorities for a new staff person who will be hired through CCLE funding and administered by the Library.   The staff member would provide assistance in dealing with intellectual property issues when adding copyrighted content as course resources.

The working group also suggested that the OIT should take responsibility for establishing training for IT groups across campus.

Though not all of the recommended tasks for the new staff person can be completed this academic year, the tasks are laid out with the goal of raising awareness of the issue and letting faculty know where to go for more information by June 2008.

The Working Group presented the priorities for the new staff person, detailed in the group’s recommendations.

Discussion:

• Faculty and students need to understand an open environment.  Jim Davis said that in an “iTunes universe” faculty need to understand what they can and cannot post.  He suggested that the current checklist approach for faculty to review copyright considerations when posting content was a good step. Since there is need for institutional infrastructure that addresses the potential liabilities of copyright infringement, the checklist approach ensures a check by the individual responsible at the point of posting. Additionally, it sets the stage to deal with the relatively few copyright infringement notifications of this type through take down steps.  In other words this is a “take-down” approach in which any potentially infringing postings are removed after the fact, rather than creating a before-the-fact monitoring approach.

• Students and faculty don’t read long lists of rules and guidelines.  Information should be made available when they need it in a “click through” checklist which they should be required to go through prior to posting their own materials. 

• There should be a website with a simple, attractive format, and we should look at engaging a training specialist to help create this.

• The question was raised as to who is liable for posted materials and for enforcing the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act?  Helping people post without an infrastructure in place to provide full support can expose students and faculty to liability. 

• The suggestion was made to use smart technology to provide FAQs in clear and simple language that’s available on the spot.  Ask Right Now was recommended.

• The point was made that intellectual property issues need to be researched across the UC system.  Are the policies different between campuses?  The issues should be administered consistently through the UC system.

• The Library currently coordinates purchases made on the system level, which includes three kinds of materials:  materials that are available to everyone, materials for specific groups (e.g., Health Sciences), and materials that are purchased for single-campus use.

The CCLE/Intellectual Property working group will report back at the next meeting with broader recommendations about the CCLE that the ITPB recommended to consider in addition to intellectual property issues.

Agenda Item 4:  Security Working Group Report

Jim Davis presented the Security Working Group’s report, which he noted also represented information and input from Medical Center representatives.  The group has specifically focused on outlining key questions to be considered regarding policy, practice, education and communications regarding personally identifiable information on portable devices.  The group purposely refrained from making recommendations and instead raised the following questions for discussion – which are focused solely on personally identifiable information on portable devices.

1.  The campus should consider establishing a policy that prohibits the use of personally identifiable information on portable devices to the greatest extent possible.  Major faculty and business uses should be targeted first.  The Working Group would like to develop a policy saying that protecting personally identifiable information is the individual’s responsibility.  If individuals follow the appropriate procedures, they won’t be liable.  Related questions to be answered are:

• How should an exception be defined so that it is not overly cumbersome in relation to the risk?
• How can the campus include personal devices and home computers?
• What training, certification, registration and technical requirements should be created?

2.  The Campus is forming – and defining the role of - an IT Compliance Coordinators Group.  The point was made that this is not an enforcement group; it is a reporting group.  The Compliance Coordinators Group will need to work closely and well with faculty senate, grad council, and other groups.  The group wants to bring faculty along as policy is being developed, and not just dictate it out to them after the fact.  There are several vehicles already in place for involving the campus, including the Executive Board, the Legislative Assembly, and the Graduate and Undergraduate councils.  The Compliance Coordinator Group is now prepared to go forward.

Discussion:

• The campus is not structured for enforcement, yet leaving the responsibility for protecting personally identifiable information to individuals with portable devices creates liability issues for the University.
• Encryption is being used in the Medical Center, but encryption across the campus is difficult and too expensive for broad campus use.
• The campus will need to balance the need for personally identifiable information versus University liability.
• The definition of “portable” continues to change, especially with the rapid changes in technology.  The campus will need to consider what actually constitutes a “portable” device in the future.

Agenda Item 5:  Update from Computational Cyberinfrastructure Working Group

Warren Mori, who is the director of IDRE (Institute for Digital Research and Education), agreed to become the chair of the Computational Data Infrastructure and Collaboration Working Group.  He gave an update of proposed changes for that working group; major points are:

Suggested new name: ITPB Computational Data Infrastructure & Collaboration Working Group should become the ITPB IDRE Working Group

Suggested working group mission:  To support, advance and guide a campus wide program to position UCLA as a world leader in research and education in computational thinking using high performance computation, using data visualization, and using data analysis of large data sets and databases.

Suggested charge for the working group:

• To articulate a need, a vision, and a business plan for campus investment in cyberinfrastructure in support of research.
• To articulate a need and a strategy for improving collaboration in computational based research.
• To inform the ITPB of IDRE’s activities toward obtaining the needed cyberinfrastructure and improving collaboration.
• To obtain ITPB’s endorsement of the vision, the activities and of recommendations for campus investment in cyberinfrastructure.

Mori also gave an overview of IDRE:

IDRE is an active community of faculty, researchers, and students with:

• common interests and overlapping research and education goals
• a growing federation of Centers of Excellence (e.g., LONI, FSC, IPAM, ETC)
• a growing repository of knowledge, resources,  and experiences

He then asked that the ITPB endorse the renaming of the working group and the new charge for the working group.

Discussion:

• Discussion of the proposed name change focused in part on the idea that IDRE, as a permanent institute, should not be included in the name of a temporary ITPB working group. 
• Suggestion was made to change the working group name to Computational Cyberinfrastructure Working Group.  This was agreed to by the ITPB membership.
• Working group topics should encompass both short- and long-term strategies to achieve its goals and mission.  
• There is an overlap between the Computational Cyberinfrastructure Working Group and the ITPB Data Management working groups.  The two working groups should work closely.
• Discussion also focused on the idea that IDRE’s immediate needs (for clusters and cluster-hosting programs) should be included in the working group’s discussion, but that the working group should keep a broader definition and goals than just those of IDRE.

Agenda Item #6:  Overview of Campus-wide Policy and AB1298

Jim Davis and Kent Wada gave an overview of this legislation, which expands the definition of personally identifiable information.  Specifically, this bill includes medical information and health insurance information as personal information that must be protected.  The legislation became effective as of Jan. 1, 2008.

The Office of Information Technology is preparing a letter to the campus saying that those with ultimate responsibility for the security and integrity of data should ensure that any medical information and/or health insurance information contained in any computerized systems or electronic devices should be protected through the processes that have previously been established to identify and safeguard existing personal information such as social security numbers.

Item 7:  Other Business:

Alfonso Cardenas, Christine Borgman and Jim Davis will meet the following week with Chancellor Gene Block and EVC Scott Waugh about the ITPB, and recent IT activities and IT planning initiatives being undertaken by ITPB.  They will give a fuller update at the next ITPB meeting. 

All working groups will meet before the next full ITPB membership meeting.  Alfonso Cardenas, Jim Davis and Christine Borgman will try to join each of the working group meetings; at least one of the three will be at each meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 12:07 p.m.

Next Meeting:  April 29, 2008  2 – 4 p.m.  11348 YRL.