Tag Archives: notes

Notes for Google Apps and OneDrive Project Presentation

  • Cloud Services: Google and Microsoft
    • Goal: provide better (cloud-based) services to the community
  • Infrastructure
    • Storage
      • Available from anywhere
      • Private, secure, encrypted
      • Scales to demand
    • Access to info
      • Collaboration and sharing
    • Familiar and consistent
  • Why are we doing this?
    • Better consume our resources
      • Home directories on middfiles are 25TB
      • Grows a half TB a month
    • Enhance service offerings
      • Available anywhere on most any device
      • Scalable and efficient use of eresources
      • Cost effective
      • Highly available
      • On demand automatic provisioning
  • What we can provide
    • Google apps for edu
      • No longer in beta!
      • Online collaboration
      • Drive
    • 365
      • Online collaboration suite – word, excel
      • Software distribution (local office install)
      • Onedrive
      • More nuanced levels of licensing and access – differences between MIIS and Midd College, working through those issues
    • Email in the cloud!
      • Fully hosted or hybrid model
  • Where we are now
    • Groundwork has been laid
    • All midd users automatically have GAfE account
      • Including access to apps, drive, and youtube
    • All midd users automatically have an O365 account
      • College students can install local copies of Office through O365
        • Only for residential students, MIIS students can access cloud-based Office suite
      • Everyone has accounts but they don’t have access yet
    • All active directory groups exist in both GAfE and O365
  • Still to come
    • A series of projects as opposed to one big unveiling
      • Documentation and education project
      • Microsoft’s online collaboration apps
      • OneDrive and GoogleDrive
      • Home use software distribution Faculty/Staff
      • Everyone currently has access to Google Apps (but most people don’t know)
      • Everyone does not currently have access to OneDrive – still to come
      • Cloud-based email still to come
  • Decisions that still need to be made
    • Which service do we recommend to people?
    • How do different groups collaborate effectively?
    • Do professors choose one or the other?
      • Will students need access to both?
    • Others?

 

Questions

  • Do we want to offer the same level of support for both or favor one?
    • One platform may be better for certain uses than the other
    • We like the idea of a default/one that is better supported
  • Any support requests re: Google to date?
    • A few calendar items, nothing major
    • Most people are using web interface
  • I’m a student with a google account that I use for school work – I graduate and move on. How do I transition my work to my private account?  (Bill)
    • No fee, but there will be some hoops/procedures to go through
  • I’m a student with a Microsoft account that I use for school work – I graduate and move on. How do I transition my work to my private account? (Bill)
    • Currently more complicated than Google
    • Everything that is cloud-delivered is free
  • Do we have an inventory of what’s been turned on by Google Admin? (Joe)
    • Yes, a list can be shared
    • When you’re logged in you can see a list of some applications, but not all of them
  • How does a faculty member associate Google resources with a course?
    • A Course Hub integration would be helpful here; it’s currently tough to find the right group in Google
      • Create the resource, connect with the correct student group
    • With OneDrive, groups can own files/documents – more ownership-based management than Google-drive
      • If group owns documentation, data management is simpler from an administrative perspective. Group membership should be able to shift seamlessly
      • This is a nuance we’ll have to figure out between Google and OneDrive
  • Monterey and Midd campuses have the exact same access to this functionality? (Bill)
    • Yes, only difference is residential component for the College (Office installs)
    • This is an example of “big M” Middlebury thinking
  • For a guest lecturer or auditor, they could be added to a Google folder not a group?
    • Another nuance that needs to be explored/determination needs to be made about what to recommend to faculty
  • In terms of announcements/messaging/role out, does Course Hub integration need to be in place first?
    • We need to have nuances largely figured out before we make an announcement
  • So what’s the rollout timeframe?
    • Timeline needs to include various project teams
    • Probably not reality to have ready for fall 2016 roll out
    • Do we need to roll both platforms out at the same time?
      • It would behoove us to roll out the recommended platform first
  • We need to give faculty clear instructions about procedure change, as they are not accustomed to provisioning folders themselves (Joe)
    • Now they will need a folder with the appropriate permissions
  • What’s the motivation for having both services?
    • We have to have some of each. Google is already pretty ubiquitous in usage across Middlebury. We have to roll out Microsoft because of software distribution. Or do we? We can control what Microsoft functionality is available to avoid too much overlap with Google.
    • Encryption/security implications – Microsoft is superior to Google in this respect
    • Google doesn’t work in China – Jeff Cason currently testing OneDrive in China
    • A potential differentiation could be
      • Academic – Google. Administrative – Microsoft.
        • In reality this won’t happen
  • While Microsoft is in beta, the move to single sign on for everyone seems like a big step (Bob)
    • MIIS users having to sign on with @middlebury.edu account
    • We want to promote access to Google Apps – it would be disappointing if we couldn’t make an official announcement to the MIIS campus this fall even if the Course Hub integration is not in place.
    • What happens when students graduate? Some of our students are only here for a year, some do Peace Corps during their degree – leave campus for 2 years and come back.
      • How do the nuances of those different user needs get managed? We need an exit strategy.
    • Exit strategy for individuals and Middlebury as a whole is important.
  • Where is this project in terms of the ACTT life cycle? (Bob)
    • Should OneDrive be rolled out the same way Google Apps was?
      • Resource constraints
  • Is there a downside to MIIS announcing Google Apps rollout to campus? (Bob)
    • When Microsoft is rolled out, there may be an inordinate number of help desk tickets from people who want to migrate content from Google to Microsoft
    • It depends on when OneDrive becomes available
      • Timelines are not currently known, several different project teams
  • 2,000 Google Apps accounts active before syncing took place
  • There was already a OneDrive instance at MIIS that was being used by 40 people – no administrator
  • There’s nothing stopping any Middlebury user from using Google Apps (they just don’t know about it)
    • We are currently not fully committing or walking away from either

Notes for Panopto Proposal May 24, 2016

  • There is a proposal to pilot Panopto for one year with existing funds. This will not be a comparison pilot. We have looked at Panopto (demos 1 and 2), Arc, and Ensemble. Arc is still in beta and not viable to use in pilot. Based on our research, it seems like we can do the most with Panopto (content capture, lecture capture, streaming). Feedback from other schools: faculty are using it themselves with little help. We have determined through research that Panopto is best of breed and affordable. The ACTT team supports the video streaming recommendation.
  • Panopto would be available for one year. The recommendation on continuing will need to be made after the first semester. If we recommend Panopto, we should also recommend a term for continuing (e.g., 3 years).
  • Is this a pilot or a staged rollout? Using the term pilot might be most appropriate, helps educate users on the process we use to evaluate systems, and gives us flexibility if we decide not to adopt it. It also clarifies the support expectations and how new to all of us this service is. Pilots are often considered to be part of staged rollouts. A pilot was planned as part of the MediaCore rollout. Team tentatively agreed to consider this an open pilot in the Fall with a more widespread rollout in the Spring, pending the decision at the end of the pilot.
  • MiddMedia will be available through the pilot.
  • The focus of the pilot will be academics and instruction. We are also interested in testing out its streaming capacity for events.
  • Parameters of the pilot will be determined later. Will it be limited to specific classes or openly available? Should we limit it to instructional needs or to other use cases? Who should we reach out to specifically? We might set up workshops or intro videos to introduce the product. What model should we adopt as far as the contract is concerned? Enterprise (more expensive) or limited license (more management and limited use). Team felt it should be made available to the entire community.
  • Should it be hooked into Course Hub during the pilot? (Anticipation of one and half months of calendar time / 1-2 weeks of work to integrate, similar to Canvas.) May be better to integrate to avoid messy cleanup with accounts if Panopto is adopted. Classes begin at Monterey during the 3rd week of August. June: begin integrating with Course Hub. Could Panopto set up a test account for Web Technology to tinker with?
  • How to create shared libraries? Automatic provisioning or by request only? Who has permissions? Suggestion to have a request form to make sure the appropriate conversations happen in each case.
  • We’ll need to determine an exit strategy if we don’t adopt Panopto.
  • We’ll need to come up with criteria for evaluation. Asset management capability will need to be assessed during the pilot. What are our needs in this area? How will we organize our directories and assign permissions? How will we assess this?
  • End of June: establish contract with Panopto.

Feedback from other colleges

Skidmore, Hamilton College, Holy Cross, Lake Forrest, and Gettysburg.

Skidmore and Hamilton are using Panopto and Ensemble for different purposes. Panopto for lecture capturing and Ensemble for video asset management. Both are happy with both products and say they are easy to use.

Holy Cross has been using Panopto for the last 2 years and they are happy with it.

Gettysburg College has been using Ensemble since the summer of 2014. It is used primarily to store videos for their library reserves (75%) and the rest for faculty created content (mostly flipped classrooms). For the most part happy with it.

Lake Forest College has had Panopto for 2 years and are pretty happy with the decision. Several faculty have done a lot of screen-casting, and they were able to get started with minimal hand-holding.

Notes for Core Team May 18, 2016

Canvas

No decision yet on Canvas. LS pilot is up and going with user/group provisioning via the Course Hub.

Basic Canvas overviews will need to be added to Language School orientations.

Discussion of location for Midd-created documentation about Canvas should live. http://digitallearning.middcreate.net/ ? Library and ITS wiki?

Inventory

Joe has been trying out Palladio and Google Fusion Tables for visualizing the data. Mixed results, no tools totally satisfactory yet. Bob will put Joe in touch with META Lab who may have some suggestions around visualization.

What questions come to mind looking at the inventory data?

  • How many tools are in the life-cycle stage bucket compared to the total number of tools? Is this sustainable?
  • What criteria would trigger an evaluation? Can this be a score?
  • Agreement renewals
  • Budget
  • Utilization
  • Changes in the environment
  • New pedagogies and practices
  • New programs

 

The next large goal is to make 1/3/5 projections for items in the inventory so that the administration & community at large has some idea of where we see this inventory shifting.

Assignment for the next meeting: Look at the Classification 2D Array and pick an intersection. Come up with a set of questions that will help us make projections for 1, 3, 5 years out.

Notes for Panopto Follow-up May 10, 2016

Presenters – Jeff Dennis and Jordan Prickett from Panopto

 

Panopto enables:

  • Capture and upload video
  • Keep a searchable video library
  • Ability to watch Panopto playback on any device

 

Best Differences

  • Scale: competitors software will be limited in comparison (e.g., web casting is part of the platform, doesn’t require an appliance). No matter how much viewing or uploading, Panopto will scale up to handle delivery
  • Modern streaming approach
  • Amazon servers
  • Compare to Kaltura
  • Very transparent about support, cost, functionality

 

Video Content Management

  • View all sessions / videos
  • View videos in processing
  • Schedule recordings
  • Bookmark videos (user specific)
  • Organize through folders
    • Administrator vs. faculty / student access
  • Settings
    • Speech recognition
    • iTunes U category
    • Schedule video availability — upon approval of publisher, immediately, never, or set a date
    • Schedule availability — start/end date, or forever
  • What if we have videos that can only be viewed one at a time?
    • Short answer: we don’t offer that functionality; could be done with separate folders or manual setup
  • Create a playlist within a folder
  • Copy and delete specific folders
  • Copy videos by bulk from one folder to another (for sections, new semesters, etc.)
  • Similar management available at both the folder and at the individual video level.
  • Outputs for mp4:
    • Picture-in-picture, side-by-side, tile all streams
    • Increase or decrease quality of video
    • RSS, iTunes podcast, etc.

 

Analytics/Folder Stats

  • Download as a CSV
  • Views / Minutes Viewed / Average Minutes / Unique Users
  • View by Day, Week, Month, Year, All Time, Custom Range
  • View for all videos in a folder, or analytics by specific video
  • View by Panopto user
  • Views by video time (when students leave)
    • Analytics not tied back specifically to Canvas
  • Creators can also see their own folders’ analytics
  • SCORM packages created for every video
  • Can we find out across the institution what are the most popular videos, can we do that?
    • Yes; as long as you have permissions for all the videos
  • Bulk meta-data exports:
    • Output → download media
    • Site-wide export tool

 

Canvas Integration

  • Rolling synchronization: keeps permissions in sync
  • Can launch web-casted content into Canvas
  • SSO
  • Panopto recordings button integrated into course menu
  • Choose course / folder
  • Create video by uploading or from the Panopto recorder directly in the course
  • Search for videos from within Canvas
  • View analytics directly in Canvas
  • Panopto tool directly in WYSIWYG tool bar
  • Full viewer launches a separate web page
  • Integrate video by course or aggregate
  • Videos are housed on Panopto’s servers, not inside the Canvas course
  • Manage videos through the folder structure / organize videos in course folder
  • License includes classroom recording and student / teacher creation and upload
  • Permissions can be provisioned from Canvas to Panopto
  • Teachers are provisioned with their permissions/roles mirrored
  • Students are provisioned with their roles mirrored
  • Groups are mirrored between Canvas and Panopto
  • Grant access to anyone in organization, open on the web, etc.
  • Groups are just-in-time

 

Timeline

  • Integration = matter of hours
  • Timeline can vary, according to institutional preparation (“Matter of hours. A couple of days.”)
  • Set-up is literally filling out one form

 

Student

  • Create a sub-folder “drop box” within a provisioned course → gives students access to create and upload video
  • By default, drop box is private between student and teacher, but can be made public within a course
  • Once a video is in the drop box, it can be moved to another folder
  • Can multiple drop boxes be created for group work?
    • Yes. Drop box is a one-step setup, but you can get specific with permissions. Create multiple sub-folders for different kinds of student work and collaboration.
  • Role-mapping: Roles in Canvas are mirrored in Panopto
  • Provisioning is customizable at the integration level. Customizing is included in the price.

Notes for Ensemble Demo April 26, 2016

Presenters – Scott Nadzan from http://www.ensemblevideo.com

 

Accounts & Access

  • Supports LDAP, AD and CAS
  • User Roles
    • Institution Admin (Top-level “Middlebury”)
    • Org Admin (e.g. Biology, Communications)
    • Contributor (e.g. faculty)
  • Everyone can see the navigation across the top of Institution>Organization>Library; view/manage others depending on user role
  • LDAP Group Support(100k groups; rep will check support or suggest to limit group exposure)
  • Authentication and user management
    • CAS(supported in self hosted not cloud hosted) or Shibboleth.
    • Can Ensemble read user attribute from CAS or Shibboleth?

 

Storage

  • Deployment Options: http://www.ensemblevideo.com/video-platform/deployment.aspx
    • Self-Hosted
    • Cloud-Hosted
      • CAS is not available for this option
      • Cloud hosting: Option starts at 200GB, Level II 500 GB, Level III 1 TB, monthly streaming quote for level we choose
      • Cloud Infrastructure:
        • -3 sites, Scale Matrix CA, TX & Amazon. Headed to Amazon or Azure
    • Hybrid-Hosted (2 options – primary on-campus w/ cloud caching OR primary in cloud w/local caching)
      • -Hybrid Deployment: Software as a service and local hosted options, both recommended. Manual transition from one deployment to the other.
    • Multi-Tenant
  • -tech and security information available

 

Accessibility

  • ‘Responsive Interface’, size adjustable and resizable
  • Adaptive Streaming: yes – Client type(computer, tablet, phone) and bandwidth automatically identified and quality adjusted
  • Annotation, clickable searchable annotation on video
  • Use their captioning utility or caption, upload caption file, can submit to caption editor, can create caption track, searchable, currently only support one caption, next player will support multiple tracks
  • Search includes captions

 

Canvas/Moodle/Wordpress

  • Video embed through using button in WYSIWYG.
  • Playlist can be embedded
    • Playlist stored with Ensemble
    • Is automatically updated as videos are added
  • Videos can be added with attachments of associated files (ppt, pdf, etc.)
  • Can record video, audio and screen

 

Content Management

  • Upload Workflow’s 4 options
  • Download, Embed, Permalink & Share options can be enabled or disabled (permission at institution level possible)
  • Embed codes, iframe and java
  • Can use named urls
  • Playlists, can enable downloading
  • Shared Library, video’s shared to you (Restricted/Licensed Content)
    • Can restrict streams per video
  • Preview image of video
  • Can deploy a snippet of a video

 

Other

  • Pricing:
    • Self Hosted based on FTE, Midd’s Carnegie # 3,300
    • Cloud based upon capacity (storage and streaming)
      • -Set default and/or custom quotas at the institution, organization, and library levels
    • Ala carte model
      • Ensemble Live
      • Live Stream
      • Live Capture
      • Ensemble Studio
  • Exit Strategy/Large Scale Video Extraction:
    • MPEG4 download available, one by one
    • FTP download available
    • Or hard drive
  • Editing:
    • -Minimal: trim, start & stop
    • -more with screen capture

 

Overall Questions:

  • Per class libraries vs per user: either depending on use case
  • Record from mobile? Yes. (Recording requires separately-licensed app on mobile or desktop)
  • Can you manage the video before the upload is complete? No, but you can after the upload but before the processing is complete.
  • What’s the student view like? Some places use a public or student “portal” like the YouTube homepage with recommended videos, but it’s mostly expected that students will view/interact with videos primarily through Canvas. Admin interface is for admins.
  • Annotations? Text only; editor only (not students, though rep will investigate “team” features for group collaboration).
  • Unicode support – yes; RTL – need to check

Notes for Panopto Demo April 19, 2016

Presenters – Jeff Davis and Andy Tumas from Panopto

Project: Video Streaming Service

Use cases

Student presentations, screen and lecture capture, academic assignment, videos from Communications to promote Middlebury, Athletics events, live streams

 

Accounts & Access

1) How are accounts created when we have SSO? Are accounts pre-created in bulk, are they created when a user signs in, some other else model?

  1. We can discuss in more detail, but since Middlebury uses Canvas ( Moodle as well?),  if possible, it makes sense to provision access control from Canvas.

2) Can your solution restrict access to content based on Groups in Active Directory or LDAP?

  1. Yes,  http://support.panopto.com/Documentation?cat=Active_Directory

3) How are personal or shared quotas handled?

  1. Panopto does not enforce a limit on storage so there should be no need to apply quotas.

4) Can we programmatically provision shared-spaces with a quota?

  1. Panopto does not enforce a limit on storage so there should be no need to apply quotas.

5) Does this application or service PROCESS, STORE, or TRANSMIT any REGULATED DATA?

  1. No. However,  we would have liked to clarified a bit more with a text box. Panopto only stores a user’s first name, last name, e-mail address (Directory Information) and is not considered PII.

 

  • If adopted, Panopto would need to integrate with both Moodle and Canvas for one year.
  • Supports CAS, AD, and SAML 2.0
  • A brief look at their API documentation suggests that we should be able to provision accounts and course-groups on request via the Course Hub as we do with Canvas, Moodle, SANSSpace, etc.
  • Either CAS or SAML 2.0 (ADFS) for SSO authentication in combination with this provisioning via their API.

Storage

1) Is it possible to have a hybrid solution where some content is served from your cloud solution but you have a locally hosted content on our campus for other data? How does that change pricing?

  1. Panopto does not offer a hybrid solution, either hosted or cloud based or we Panopto can be deployed on-premise.   However, when we host, there are no storage charges, so hoping this helps with the discussion.

2) What are the maximum file-size/length/quality limits for upload? Can multi-hour videos be ingested?

  1. There are no size limits, and yes, multi-hour videos can be uploaded.

3) Can individuals have their own space?

  1. Panopto is managed through a folder structure, and yes,  Faculty,  Staff, and Students can have their own folders.

4) Is there the concept of quotas? Can we programmatically create shared spaces with specific quota? E.g. Create 12 shared spaces with each having 10GB of quota?

  1. No concept of quotas since storage is unlimited.

 

Accessibility

1)  Does your solution support closed-captioning files?

  1. Yes,  we provide Closed Captioning as a Service,  or Middlebury can partner with one of 3 integrated partners,  including:  3Play Media,  Automatic Sync Technologies,  and Cielo 24.

2) Can it create closed-captioning files?

  1. When one of the services mentioned above is utilized, Panopto provides the ability to download the caption files that have been generated

3) What other accessibility features does it have?

  1. Panopto’s student-facing interfaces (viewer, embedded viewer and folders, session list view) Support 508 and WCAG  2.0  accessibility.  Panopto provides keyboard navigation and compatibility with NVDA, JAWS, and Voiceover screen readers.  508 compliant captioning also supported.

 

  • Search occurs within a recording and across multiple recordings.
  • Search will include captioning and transcriptions of audio, character recognition in video, and notes (See answer to “What kind of metadata does your platform support?” below.
    • Text must be present in video for a while to be recognized.
    • Captioning uses speech recognition
  • Captioning displayed on side of video, working to overly captioning on video playback.
  • Captioning in English, only.
  • Can ingest captioning files.
  • Uses adaptive streaming, will adjust the quality based on connection speed of viewer.

 

Canvas/Moodle/Wordpress

1) Does integration with Moodle & Canvas cost extra?

  1. No,  the cost of Panopto includes support and integrations.

2) Can you describe the integration process for Moodle and Canvas?

  1. Panopto supports the majority of higher education LMS platforms, including a feature rich integrations with Canvas and Moodle.   Both integrations includes SSO, ability to provision access control, controlled publishing to Canvas or Moodle, and rolling course synchronization for enrolled students.   Please see links to integration overview videos below:
    1. Canvas: https://howtovideos.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=4aa35170-f031-42b8-9000-2ca05f86f3ce
    2. Moodle:  https://howtovideos.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=2c72e277-0d69-4b34-a32d-56e73985991f

 

3)  Do you have an API that we can use to pull lists of videos to which a user has access to provide browsing interface from within our web applications (Moodle, WordPress, Drupal, etc)?

  1. Yes, API Documentation.  This may also be accomplished through a embedded playlist.

 

  • Users may use Moodle or Canvas to access Panopto, or they may access Panopto directly.
  • Faculty and students may add Panopto videos/presentations via a button in the WYSIWYG editor.
  • Uses embedded iFrame.

 

Content Management

1) How does asset management work in your platform?

  1. Panopto organizes recordings into a Parent/Child Folder structure.  Recordings are uploaded to folders.  User roles, individual accounts, or groups will have access to these folders and, in turn, access to the recordings within those folders.

2)      Can lots of people manage a particular group of videos?

  1. Yes, there is no limit here.

3) What is the process for a professor to upload a video on your system and embed it in the LMS?

  1. If created with the Panopto client, the professor would simply choose the Folder that is associated with their LMS course.  The Canvas/Moodle integrations will embed the recording in a list view automatically.  If created elsewhere and uploaded to Panopto, the professor would simply upload to the associated Folder.  Panopto can also provide embed codes for individual recordings.

 

  • Video can be captured from multiple devices: Windows, Mac and mobile devices.
  • Video and slides from multiple devices can be captured and synced for playback.
    • All streams recorded, viewer may choose which stream they view.
  • Titles of slides (powerpoint or Keynote) become a timestamped table of contents that can be clicked to bring viewer to a point in the timeline.
  • Slides presented as jpg thumbnails to move to point in timeline.
  • Notes can be added to a table of contents
    • May be public or private
    • Many students can contribute notes to same video
    • Student notes can be marked private globally
  • Synced videos may be presented as picture-in-picture
  • Presentations may be embedded in other web sites.
  • A Dropbox folder is available for student assignments, only faculty and student may see content.
  • Homepage of Panopto can be curated or display most popular, recently added, etc.

 

Other

1) Is there a browseable view (a “library”) where users can search across all files available to them?

  1. Yes, Panopto provides a searchable library portal.

2) How are videos served/streamed? Is HTML5 video markup supported or is a plugin (Flash, Silverlight, etc) required for playback?

  1. Adaptive playback with HTML5 support.  The viewer will default to use Flash if available.  If not, it will play in HTML5.

3)  How do you support live event streaming?

  1. Any recording can be live streamed by using the Panopto client for Windows or Mac.
  2. Url can be set in advance

4) What are your value added services, if any?

  1. Panopto offers Emerald Support,   which includes 365 x 24 x 7 end user support,  as well as one(1) day on-site training.

5) What kind of metadata does your platform support?

  1. Panopto indexes video in a number of ways:  Contents (automated contents generated PowerPoint and Keynote slides), Slide text (fully searchable), Notes, Discussion, Captioning, Smart Search (OCR and ASR).  Contents although automated, can be edited.  The Panopto Editor provides for manual entry of metadata/tags/topics at any time stamp in the video timeline.

6) What options are available for content creation and interactivity?

  1. During a live webcast viewers can interact through a discussion panel which is similar to a chat window.  They can ask questions to the presenter.  After a recording is completed, Panopto allows for 3rd party web sites to be embedded in its Viewer as a secondary source.  This allows you to use your existing polling/quizzing tools within Panopto.

7) Unicode support?

  1. Yes.
    1. Does not support right-to-left text.

 

Notes for Kick-Off on April 5, 2016

Agenda

We will be starting the new ACTT process with a Kick-Off meeting. This is an open, non-mandatory meeting for anyone who is interested in learning about the Academic Cyberinfrastructure Transformation Team to attend. We will introduce the new team members, structure, and thoughts on how the Team activities will be evaluated.

This is an open meeting, please share with anyone who is interested in learning about the ACTT

Notes

  • Mission: “Our mission is to evaluate and recommend technology services and innovations for teach, learning and research.”
  • Joe is teaching a course on “Design Thinking” this semester. Design Thinking includes an “Empathy Phase”

Q&A

    • Q (Melissa/CNS). How will information and requests trickle up?
      • “I have many day-to-day projects where I would love to have a license that exists on the Midd campus, but not the MIIS campus, or I would like to build a server with 1TB of storage to host a web site”
      • “My research center, CNS, is becoming such a large consumer of storage and bandwidth”
      • “On a request from Laurie Patton, I am researching a cloud services that could host our information”.
      • Answer – Joe – Anyone who wants to make a request for technology or technology services for academic use may approach the team. Happy to be an entry point for requests that may go to ITS or other groups.
      • Jim – we have to account for the resource requests during the budget request process.
    • Q (Melissa/CNS). We are a collection of researchers that become PI on large grants, we need to inform others of the implications on the projects that we are running…  So we can write it into
      • We are giving money to non-Middlebury developers to do things that could be done inside Middlebury
      • Jim: not necessarily opposed to using outside resources…
    • Q (Jim): May be Amy McGill can weigh in on the MIIS budget process and how funding decisions are made.
      • Amy McGill
        • MIIS Research Centers are funded with base productivity requirements
        • Campus community infrastructure is for day-to-day use
        • Research Centers seek their own funding for larger projects that need additional resources, they do typically provide for initial as well as on-going maintenance costs.
    • Q. ACTT contribution to the Strategic Planning Process?
      • t.b.d.
  • Q (Melissa/CNS).  Is it too early to start making suggestions for agenda items?
  • Q (Melissa/CNS).  I would love to explore the ability to share licenses across campuses.  We pay out of grant licenses for Tableau, for image processing software…  I drool over some of the licenses that the Geology department has.  This is not a simple request, but I would love to tackle it as a subject.
    • A (Zach/ITS-SR): Let’s talk; more productive if we can get an idea of the specific titles you’re interested in, so we can check what licensing models are available.
  • Q (Melissa/CNS).  I would love to talk about our data storage and access to bandwidth.  Because we use satellite images, large data sets, we are becoming something of a hog on the MIIS systems.   I would like to open a discussion on how we can meet CNS’s research technology needs including storage, bandwidth, and some security issues.
    • Joe: Has anyone done a “needs assessment for the department”?
      • We don’t have a department, we are a research center within a larger campus.
      • I have done a casual needs assessment. 13 TB of storage, external drives, google drives, drop boxes… Need access across three offices.
      • Jim:  ITS can help with a needs assessment and identify appropriate technology solutions, perhaps on campus or in the cloud, ideally consistent with other larger IT initiatives for Middlebury and work with CSN to identify, implement solutions.  We did this for the Middlebury DC office a couple of years ago that included the CSN operation there for example.
  • Q (Bob/MIIS).  Working toward equitable cyber infrastructure across VT and Monterey campuses seems like a an appropriate activity for the Team.

Actions

Joe to build form for collecting evaluation requests.

Notes for Core Team March 29, 2016

[RE] Introductions

We all knew each other from the CTT, so this was a chance to reaffirm a commitment to looking at technologies and the services around them that make them successful. The re-boot to the ACTT structure provides definition and focus, while sticking to the mission to evaluate and recommend technology services and innovations for teaching, learning and research.

Review Charge and Process

We reviewed the slides at go/delta, paying attention to the responsibilities of the various Team members. The Extended Team is made up of experts, Program Teams, and Project Teams.

Program Teams

The Middlebury Institute of International Studies is in the process of forming a Team, similar to the CTT, that will focus on cyberinfrastructure conversations pertaining to Monterey. They will have their own sponsorship (Amy McGill) and leadership (Bob Cole), set their own agenda topics, and determine how they will communicate together. Bob and Amy will share information between the MIIS Team and the ACTT.

Other Program Teams may develop in the future. MIIS has a head start, the DLC is a good hub for these conversations.

Project Teams

Small Project Teams carry out the charge of the evaluation. Their activities may include gathering requirements, identifying solutions, contacting vendors, and starting drafts of recommendations. These Teams will share information with the Extended Team, this allows the Project Teams to be nimble while still gaining a variety of perspectives. The ACTT Core Team is responsible for the final proposals.

Academic Cyberinfrastructure

We agreed on the importance of looking at the practices and people associated with technologies. Joe presented a short definition of cyberinfrastructure, others provided their own understanding. The Core Team is currently working on a shared definition that will help describe what we do. Joe will start share his definition, others will contribute.

 

Make Decisions About Communication

We decided an email group and slack channel, Joe will make these happen.

We have started building a schedule of meetings.

Plan Open Kick-Off for April 5th

Joe will present the slides avalable at http://act.middcreate.net/site/. Everyone will provide their own input. MIIS will have a number of people who are interested in their Program Team attend.

Set Agendas for Future Meetings

Future topics include video streaming, RStudio, and the Academic Cyberinfrastructure Inventory. There is also an interest in learning about GoogleAppsforEdu and One Drive, especially knowing what will be available for the fall. Joe will confirm presenters, then we will share the topics and dates as far out in advance as we can.