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

Audio Bridge/WebEx Information:

• Conference: ITAC
• Software Application: WebEx
• Telecommunications: MCI
• Date: Friday, May 27, 2005
• Time: 11:00 AM - 1:15 PM Eastern Time
• Duration: 2 hrs 15 mins
• Dial In Number: 1-888-452-0455
• # of Ports/Lines: 15
• Conference Code #: 46805
• Audio Features: Silent Entry
• Service Level: Unattended

WebEx Session Info:

• Topic: ITAC Telecon/WebEx Session
• Date: Friday, May 27, 2005
• Time: 10:45 am, Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -04:00, New York)
• Duration:  2 hours 15 minutes
• Meeting number: 761 336 387
• Meeting password:  computer
• Teleconference: MCI audio bridge
  • Dial-in#: 1-888-452-0455
  • Passcode #: 46805#
• Host:  Marilyn Billone 
• Host's email address: mabillon@usgs.gov 

Please click the following link to see more information, or to join the meeting.

NEW USER? Prepare your computer in advance of the meeting by clicking New User on the navigation bar.

<https://usgs.webex.com/usgs/j.php?ED=85915387&UID=30537662>

To contact Marilyn Billone, call 1-703-6485658 or, send a message to this address: mabillon@usgs.gov

To add this meeting to your calendar program (for example, Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes), do the following:

* For all calendar programs (except Lotus Notes), click the following link, or copy the link and paste it into your Web browser:
< https://usgs.webex.com/usgs/j.php?ED=85915387&UID=30537662&ICS=MI>

*For Lotus Notes, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the attached iCalendar format (*.ics) file, and then choose View.
2. Click Import All. A new broadcast email message is added to your Inbox.
3. Open the new message.
4. Click Respond button. A menu appears.
5. Click Accept.

The host requests that you check for compatibility of rich media players for Universal Communications Format (UCF) before you join the session. UCF allows you to view multimedia during the session. To check now, click the following link: https://usgs.webex.com/usgs/systemdiagnosis.php

ITAC membership email abbreviation:   GS-W ITAC

Attendees:

The following members attended today's cyber conference call:

[Web Ex session facilitated by Dottie Harris.]

Agenda:

• Review pending/outstanding ITAC Action Items (ITAC members)
• Start agenda items for Maine meeting. (Jeff)
• BRIEF updates from those who attended ITEM meeting. (ITEM attendees)
• ITAC issues raised during Central Region Data Conference. (Jeff and Susan)
• Cell phone that has GPS capabilities (Sandy continue discussion from last ITAC teleconference/WebEx session on 4/15/05.).
• Review ITAC e-mail distribution compared to ITAC membership. (Jeff start)
• Other, if time

Discussion Notes:

• Reviewed Pending/Outstanding action items
  
• Mar15.2005.Telecon.1 - ColdFusion (CF) Survey
  Howard Perlman is working with CF now. What about the survey? Ken Lanfear said most cannot use CF right now. Twelve are reverse proxies. NatWeb is switching to a new Apache server, which will be able to use CF.
  
• Feb2005.GA.1 - Password Management Issue
  Topic at ITEM - "Anatomy of a Network Hack" - Speaker suggested to "use different passwords for everything, and keep the list in your wallet." You should have a different password for every system.
  • VPN works off Lotus Notes Internet password. Once someone gets in there, they can get into anywhere.
  • Brian Reece also recommended not using the same password -- to use separate passwords.
  • Most of this is out of our control.
  • If we are trying to have some simplicity, having different passwords is moving away from this.
  • It was agreed to keep the password issue as an agenda item for the ITAC Maine meeting.
    
• Feb2005.GA.3 - MS Enterprise Agreement and Desktop Cost Savings
  • Williamson e-mailed cost-recovery items to ITAC (Reference Sandy's email of 5/27/05 to ITAC on MS Office/XP/server Enterprise Agreement costs.)
    • In addition there is the costs for servers.
    • The number of servers is probably closer to 2,000 or 3,000, rather than 600.
    • What about AD costs? The naming convention is out there where they will be able to count the computers.
• Feb2005.GA.5 - Planning Dynamic Web Pages and District Web Page (Note: ITAC decided to combine this action item with Mar15.2005.Telecon.1.)
  • The Learning Web site, which uses CF, is the #2 hit Web site of all USGS Web sites.
    
• Feb2005.GA.10 - Paperless Forms Data Tracking Tool
  • This is a "slick product" even though there are some problems:
    • It doesn't reside on the server for very long.
    • Ther is also no control once the forms are sent out. You get it in their data format; no control over the format.
    • There is some resistance from supervisors (a management issue); they don't feel they have the time to use forms and enter/review information.
    • Sandy will talk to Doud Santoza, DOI, about this.
    • Security issue too.
• Jan07.2005.Telecon.2 - WebEx vs. Sametime (demo for STED)
  • Update on WebEx:
    • It's used more than Sametime.
    • It's good for a lot of people.
    • Sandy Williamson's administrative-type of involvement is down to 1/2 hour/day and to less than one e-mail/week.
    • Jeff Stoner uses WebEx for seminars. They set it up for those who don't/can't travel.
    • WebEx support is very good; they resolve problems quickly.
    • Cathy Hill used WebEx for her program reviews.
    • If there are other problems, Sandy needs to hear about them.
• Brief updates from those who attended ITEM meeting (ITEM attendees)
  
  Discussion:
  • Ken and Sandy attended.
  • DOI participants spoke frankly. They definitely listened.
  • It was a great opportunity to meet people face to face... especially the System Administrators (SAs).
  • Sandy mentioned that his discussions with Doud Santoza were well received.
  • The SAs asked many questions about Certification and Accreditation (C&A).
  • Discussion on both Publishing and IT - both being under the RGIO umbrella, which manages information.
  • Kevin Gallagher was good as a presenter. He definitely realizes the practical realities of working in the field.
  • Attendance for ITEM a concern was around ~400.
  • Jeff Dietterle and Kit Fuller presented "The Science of Testing Web Pages," which was great information.
  • USGS homepage was discussed, but not much. The Office of Communications sees it as "our newspaper to the world."
  • Presentations for ITEM are being put up on the Web now.
  • Connectivity with the SAs was great. It was suggested they should do a national one every other year. having a regional version of ITEM was also discussed, where the travel cost would not be as great.
  • ITEM could have been shorter; maybe in the future, some ITEM topics could be regionalized.
  • Pub 2006 - around April or May 2006 (Greg)
  • Discussion on GIS and Pub 2006 meetings:
    • Pub 2006 will be around April or May 2006.
    • GIS 2006 will be around March (?).
    • Greg Allord and Debra Spahr, CR IT Specialist, are talking about possibly combining the two meetings - a Central Region SA meeting with Pubs 2006.
    • Discussion if there should be a regional or a national Pubs meeting.
    • Scott McEwen said there could be a half-day overlap between Publishing and IT topics.
    • The conference will be 3 days.
• ITAC issues raised during Central Region (CR) Data Conference (Jeff and Susan)
  • [The conference was 3 days and there were 315 registered attendees (mostly from CR).]
    
  • 25 vendor companies.
  • NWIS Continuous records processing: Susan Trapanese sent three people from her staff to the conference. the staff from user groups were there. It was a good meeting for her people; their questions were answered.
  • Jeff Stoner went for a bit. He discussed Personal Computer Field Forms (PCFF) - there are good advances on this, mostly for NAWQA. Good for people in Jeff's office too.
  • Jeff suggested the presenter could do a cyber presentation on this at an ITAC meeting. Maybe as part of the handheld topic.
  • It was suggested that this should be regular agenda item at ITAC meetings. We should consider having Burl Goree be a member of ITAC.
  • NAWQA is developing software for handhelds, to be able to enter bio information.
  • Continuous Records Processing gets the whole Survey to do processing after each field trip, where it's checked and reviewed.
  • Steve Blanchard is participating in this. A survey went to Data Chiefs, negative results were shared.
  • Some field trips were delayed because they were unable to load programs. No problems with admin access, however.
  • There were problems with user-level access, timeouts, and password problems.
  • Burl Goree may come to the next ITAC meeting; he can speak on PCFF.
  
  
• May27.2005.Telecon.1 - Ken Lanfear will follow up with Burl Goree to see if he will be available to make a presentation at ITAC's August meeting in Maine.
  
• Discussion: Sediment is "falling through the cracks." We're hurting with sediment data.
• It's a surface-water issue.
• Sandy said we should ask Steve Blanchard to make the presentation.
  
• May27.2005.Telecon.2 - Sandy Williamson will ask Steve Blanchard if he will be available to make a presentation at ITAC's August meeting in Maine. Sandy will ask Steve and let Jeff Stoner know (before it is put onto the ITAC meeting's agenda).
  
• Cell phone that has GPS capabilities (Sandy to continue discussion from last ITAC teleconference/WebEx session on 4/15/05.)
  • Not much discussion.
  • Sandy can make presentation to ITAC about this.
    
• Review ITAC e-mail distribution compared to ITAC membership. (Jeff will start.)
  
• GS-W ITAC Group listing was reviewed and discussed:
  • GS-W ITAC E-mail Distribution Listing (As of 5/27/05):
  • Brian D Reece/WRD/USGS/DOI
    David C Leeth/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Donna J Hector-Sabin/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Donna M Schiffer/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Gregory J Allord/WRD/USGS/DOI
    GS-W NWIS Leaders (Susan plus three unit chiefs)
    GS-W RCS (ITAC members)
    James R Nicholas/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Jeffrey D Stoner/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Katherine Lins/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Kenneth J Lanfear/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Kimberley L Martz/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Margaret C Bunch/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Marilyn A Billone/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Sandy K Williamson/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Sonja K Sebree/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Stephen R Glodt/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Terri J Moore/WRD/USGS/DOI
    Timothy J McElhone/WRD/USGS/DOI

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discussion:

• Jeff Stoner led this discussion - Who should be on this list? Sometimes people are not taken off the list when they should be.
• There should never be non-members on GS-W ITAC (except for RCS-ers and NWIS leaders (Susan Trapanese plus three unit chiefs).
• Alternates should be included in listing; however, not all constituents.
• Do non-members know they don't have to reply to e-mails?
  • Most feel they do know this. We just should be more aware of who we are copying our e-mails to, and be more careful when "replying to all."
• Perhaps this is a non-issue.

Proposed Agenda Items for Maine meeting:

ITAC Meeting, Augusta, Maine - August 16-18, 2005

• Chris Leeth will have different demo products (paperless forms).
• Handhelds (Sandy Williamson / Burl Goree - ?)
• GPS cell phones
• ADR developments (Brian Reece / Timothy Stamey - ?)
• Web-mapping Interface with NWIS
• SLEDS

No other topics were suggested to discuss for teleconference.

Next ITAC teleconference/WebEx session will be Friday, June 17, 2005, 11:00 a.m. Eastern time.

We will review outstanding action items and continue to discuss agenda items for Maine meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 12:50 p.m.

Action Items:

Legend for AI Identifier:   May27.2005.Telecon.1 = month, year, location, & action item number for each ITAC meeting.

USGS :: ITAC :: Water :: Water Intranet :: WICAS

Address questions or comments to:

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