ITAC Cyber Meeting, 3/15/2005

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ITAC Teleconference
May 27, 2005 -- 11:00 am -- 12:30 pm ET

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Conference Date: 5/27/05
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Topic: ITAC Committee (15)
Date: Friday, May 27, 2005
Time: 11:00 am, Eastern Standard Time (GMT -05:00, New York)
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ITAC membership email abbreviation: GS-W ITAC

Attendees:

The following members attended today's cyber conference call:

Marilyn Billone	ITAC Executive Secretary -- Reston, VA
Donna Hector-Sabin	Administrative Officer -- Madison, WI
Jeff Stoner	ITAC Chair -- Mounds View, MN
Sandy Williamson	National Water Quality Assessment -- Tacoma, WA
Ken Lanfear	Chief, WICAS -- Reston, VA
Katherine Lins	OWI Chief -- Reston, VA
Greg Allord	Chief, CAPP, Madison, WI
Brian Reece	Data Base Management -- Austin, TX
Tim McElhone	Acting, NR Regional Computer Specialist -- Lansing MI
Chris Leeth	Studies Section Chief -- Atlanta, GA
Sonja Sebree	World Wide Web Development -- Lincoln, NE
Terri Moore	Information Technology Specialist -- Sacramento, CA
Steven Glodt	National Water Quality Laboratory

Agenda:

Review of Outstanding Action Items
Other

Discussion Notes:

Revise Dates for Maine meeting in August?

Next ITAC meeting is scheduled to be in the Maine District Office on 8/23-25/05; however, Katherine Lins requested we have the meeting one week earlier (8/16-18/05). Greg Allord has conflict but can work around it. We'll stay with the original dates only if 8/16-18/05 does not work for the Maine District Office; Jeff Stoner will check on this. [Note: Jeff e-mailed ITAC members on 3/15/05 that the new dates for the meeting will be 8/16-18/05, which is fine with the District Chief, Robert Lent.
Review of Outstanding Action Items
Additional Discussion of Some Outstanding Action Items:

Feb2005.GA.1: Password Management Issue

This policy needs to be set at DOI; need to match the two systems (DOI &USGS)
Complexity rules for passwords are still different for Lotus Notes and Microsoft applications; this is the problem.
Have to be careful of having a password that fits all systems.
Security asks us not to use the same password for all systems; however, the syntax should be similar.
ITAC needs to send e-mail to Ellen Erickson and get her engaged in the issue. We should put pressure on them to do it.
Terri Moore took up this action item.

Feb2005.GA.3: MS Enterprise Agreement and Desktop Cost Savings

Sandy Williamson thought Jim Bettandorf had more information than what he actually had.
Jim asked for numbers from Paul Exter; no reply yet.
We were proposing that a memo go out to Water to suggest there may be cost avoidance if Districts limit the number of desktops and laptops running MS Office. The MS EA is still in work and Paul has no update at this time.

Feb2005.GA.5: Planning Dynamic Web Pages and District Web Page Design

Chris Leeth is moving forward with this. He's in touch with David Boldt and Howard Perlman working with ColdFusion (CF), testing implementations.
Ken Lanfear said, "If it's simple, PHP will do nicely."
Should prioritize a suite of services in order of value.
Eventually, NatWeb will have full Microsoft capabilities.
Chris Leeth is already doing quite a bit of stuff with CF, including graphs.

action item icon March15.2005.Telecon.1: Ken Lanfear will check into conducting a survey (find out who is using ColdFusion), look into usable results, and pull team together.

Status of DOI Web/computer training concerns across the regions.

Feb2005.GA.7: Computer Performance of DOI Online Training (Completed)

Time is needed to generate a listing of those who should no longer be within database.
Still some issues; Cascade Volcano Observatory employees are still having trouble printing out certificates.
DOI Help Desk is extremely swamped with issues.
Arizona District Office uses a CD for their Safety training; need to do this for IT training too. Is a CD available for IT?

action item icon March15.2005.Telecon.2: Terri Moore will keep pressure on DOI by continuing to send them e-mails about any problems with DOI University online training. Terri will also check with Roy McCullough on availability of training on CDs.

Feb2005.GA.10: Paperless Forms Tracking Tool

Alaska Science Center is doing something similar.
It was suggested to introduce this as an ITAC agenda item for the August meeting.

Feb2005.GA.11: Map2PDF Demo

Greg Allord suggested continuing to work with GA DO; alert offices that are creating PDFs as to the viability of Map2PDF.
Terri Moore said that Donna Schiffer was wondering if a Map2PDF demo could be done at the Data Conference in Central Region. The meeting's agenda is already pretty well set.

Jun2004.AK.8: Information Integration and Exchange/GIS and Benefits of Cross-Discipline Database Sharing

Sandy Williamson says there is only one problem: that our 50-seat license is not capped. If we go over 50 seats, we pay per minute/per person. Sandy is now asking employees to enter the number of connections for future WebEx sessions so that he can have a handle on this.

ADR update

Senior Staff had presentation by Bob Swanson and it was well-received. Tim Stamey, GA DO, is the Project Lead. CAPP is also involved. Katherine Lins will have something more to report at the August ITAC meeting.

Next ITAC teleconference call: Fri., 4/15/05, 11:00 a.m. EST.
We'll continue to use Fridays for ITAC teleconferences.

Adjourn: 12:15 p.m.

Action Items:

Legend for AI Identifier: Mar15.2005.Telecon.1 = month, year, location, & action item number for each ITAC meeting.

AI Identifier

Person(s) Assigned / Description of Action Item / Status of AI/Comment

Mar15.2005.Telecon.1
(Feb2005.GA.5 merged with this AI)

COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Ken Lanfear and Sandy Williamson

Issue: ColdFusion Survey and Planning Dynamic Web Pages and District Web Page Design.

Description of Action Item: Ken will check into conducting a survey (to find out who is using ColdFusion), look into usable results, and pull team together.

Status of AI/Comment: 5/27/05 update -- Ongoing

May be able to have CF on NatWeb. Ken will check into it a little more.

Ken will follow up, whether CF can be used on NatWeb. He will confirm this. He'll report on this before next conference call or by the August meeting.

From Feb2005.GA.5 --

Status of AI/Comment: 3/15/05 update -- [Note: This action item was combined with Feb2005.GA9.] Dynamic Web page is still being worked on, with help of David Boldt; not much to report yet. Comparing PHP (zero cost and it's already on NatWeb) vs ColdFusion (CF). Brian Reece and Sonja Sebree volunteered to be on the team with Chris Leeth and Howard Perlman.

Sonja contacted Wyoming and Missouri Districts about their Web pages. Ken Lanfear will be working on this too. He said the Vis-ID designs work well. Sonja will report back on this at the August meeting.

Meanwhile, we can use the Water Web template, while waiting for HQ template, which was supposed to be out by the end of 1/05. (New date 3/29/05?) Ken will send out Web page template to ITAC.

[See March15.2005.Telecon.1.]

4/15/05 update -- Chris Leeth thinks ColdFusion (CF) is the way to go. It's better for the smaller districts. The Dept. uses it. Safety training is done in CF. Chris is moving forward with it.

Brian Reece said CF can make dynamic Web pages. Database isn't available in NatWeb directly, but NatWeb is working on it; it's something they need. There is a firewall/C&A issue.

5/27/05 update -- DOI uses CR tools exclusively. Chris trying to talk with Dept. staff. Do we want to push this forward as a group? Would be good to get templates for this, based on what Districts/Water Science Centers (WSCs) want to be dynamic. When do we make the transition (to a group thing)? Targeting WSC Webmasters. Maintenance will be an issue.

Need to find out if we have some CF licenses already. Chris will call Kevin Gallagher to see what he has done so far. Sandy will ask Doud Santoza, DOI CTO, about this. (Are they aware of Adobe contract?)

Sandy Williamson will meet with DOI folks.

6/17/05 update -- Terri Moore asked Lorna Schmid the status of NatWeb, and is waiting for a reply. Sandy will still meet with DOI folks.

7/29/05 – update – Ken talked to NatWeb Team. No real ColdFusion (CF) applications are being used. He did not see a lot of interactive application other than maps. There may be a small number of employees out in the field that need CF.

Discussion: Arkansas and Illinois are not on NatWeb; all other WSCs are. A number of sites are still on reverse proxy. Why aren’t others using virtual hosting? CF is good for dynamic applications. Not many Web sites have dynamic applications. Water employees need dynamic Web page content. If folks were more familiar with tools, such as CF, there might be more interest in developing dynamic Web pages at the Water Science Center level. Are we at that stage of development to advance this technology to the field?

Chris said the tools are a way of getting and holding cooperators; we need to market the USGS, and this is a great way to do it. He will continue to look into this; it will be put onto the next ITAC agenda.

Ken Lanfear will talk to Karen Klima about using CF for Enterprise support. CF is still on the agenda for Maine.

California WSC may use Nevada’s WSC Web site as an example (uses CF for Annual Data Report).

8/18/05 update - COMPLETED

Mar15.2005.Telecon.2 COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Terri Moore

Issue: DOI University Online Training

Description of Action Item: Terri will keep pressure on DOI by continuing to send them e-mails about any problems with DOI University online training. Terri will also check with Roy McCullough on availability of training on CDs.

Status of AI/Comment: COMPLETED - Comments sent to Roy McCullough regarding continual problems accessing DOI on-line security training. Roy provided a paper copy and CDs for individuals that were having problems accessing the Web site from the field. Roy commented DOI would be revamping the security training again next year. Terri will request to remain in the test group.

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Address questions or comments to:
Kym Burns, ITAC Executive Secretary
(703) 648-5609

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Address questions or comments to:

Kym Burns, ITAC Executive Secretary
(703) 648-5609