ITAC Conference Call - March 9, 2010

Roll Call:

Arizona fact-to-face minutes –

Minutes are in good shape, and Bob sent out to ITAC for final comments.

Executive Secretary duties –

David McCulloch reported for Katherine.

• Kim Martz will take notes via phone – we will see how this works out.
• Kim will also maintain responsibility for keeping the ITAC website up-to-date.
• Sheri Alcalde will be responsible for logistics of meetings – Hotel, Travel, etc…

SharePoint Update

• David McCulloch reported that there is no further word on SharePoint
• Terri Moore suggested contacting Patty Damon – David has already contacted Patty
• ACTION – Terri will follow-up with Patty regarding status of SharePoint

• 2010 Goals
  
• Sandy commented that ITAC website should allow for historical goals to be accessed. ACTION – Kim will look into doing this (COMPLETE – 3/11/10 – Reference http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/itac/docs/ - also “Historical Documents” link in the left navigation bar)
• ACTION – Updates to Goals: (Web updates) (COMPLETE – 3/9/10)
• Goal 1
• Remove 1st bullet
• Remove ICOM and FCIG; add BUTST and BWTST
• Add bullet for GIS capacity building – David McCulloch will submit language after the call
• Goal 2
• Update acronym for FCIG
• In heading, change WRD to Water Science Centers
• Remove 2nd bullet; David McCulloch will incorporate it into Goal 1 (GIS)
• 3rd bullet – Intermediate class (?); little interest expressed. There will be modules at ITEM; Kevin talked about doing a webinar on advanced issues. Terri suggested changing this bullet to – send out annual IT training needs survey to IT System Administrators
• Goal 3
• Change WRD to Water Programs and Water Science Centers
• Remove bullet 2 and incorporate into David McCulloch’s text

Current on-line goals for 2010 with suggested changes incorporated –

Goal 1—Identify and address emerging IT issues to promote technology exchange.

• Maintain communication with other Water IT-related interest groups (STED, SUNTAC, BUTST, BWTST, NWIS) with the goal of identifying new or common interests and avoiding duplication of effort.
• Facilitate technology transfer to WSC staff by hosting a series of at least 4 ITAC-sponsored webinars per year on emerging technology topics, such as high-performance computing methods, including parallel computing cluster technologies, web-mapping, use of GIS, log archiving, etc.

Goal 2—Assist Water Science Centers in standardizing IT technologies and prioritizing expenditures

• Mobile Computing—Mobile Computing has proven invaluable to the hydrologic data collection community in WRD. It is enabling data collectors to acquire data--be it from instrumentation or via field forms--in the field and upload it efficiently into NWIS in less time and with greater accuracy than past, manual methods. ITAC supports mobile computing, will continue to monitor the progress of the Field Computing Integration and Support Team (FCIS), and will continue a sponsorship role.

• Send out an annual IT training needs survey to System Administrators.

Goal 3—Represent Water Program and Water Science Center IT needs and interests to other parts of USGS

• Communicate to Bureau the needs of WRD users (issues of IT security, network capacity, Collaborative communication, eWeb, C&A, AD, network storage.)

• C&A streamlining-Assist Water Science Centers in reducing the labor required to maintain C&A documentation and in satisfying the continuous monitoring requirements of NIST SP 800-53A.

• Support for the Water System Administrator community.

• ACTION – ITAC members to come up with a major goal for #2 by the next face-to-face meeting. Kim will update the goals on-line and the group will polish these up on the next conference call
  
• Replacement for Sandy Williamson – There has not been much discussion on this. Sandy reported that he has talked with his supervisors and they are open to discussion. ACTION – Put this on the agenda for the next call.

Google / Watershed Maps –

Bob suggested adding this as an agenda item for the next face-to-face meeting. Sandy suggested this could also be discussed as a special meeting or webinar. Bob will check with Mark Anderson and make a decision; added to webinar list for now.

Webinar List

• Geotagging - Sandy’s webinar will be given at the end of March. Draft memo is in to Katherine for approval. Ramona will send out to her group.
  
• Webcams – Dave Yancey – Postpone this until June. Dave is giving a presentation at the data conference in May
  
• Webstats – Ramona forwarded archived Webstats presentation to ITAC; Ramona noted that this webinar can be repeated if there is a need to do so. This would be late summer.

Next Face-to-Face Meeting –

Bob has received tentative approval for Iowa to host the June 2010 (week of June 21) face-to-face meeting. The space is small, but we should be able to make it work. The Town Hall meeting may be held in a separate break-out room that can be reserved.

Other Business

• October face-to-face – Bob asked ITAC members about moving the October meeting back to September due to upcoming DOI initiative to reduce travel. The group concurred. Discussion about the meeting being held in Hawaii. Additional discussion on next call.
  
• Sandy commented on WebEx. We are still waiting to see if we have more seats for WebEx. If travel restrictions are put in place, this needs to be considered. DOI will need to encourage the use of tools such as WebEx.
  
• Iowa Agenda – Bob is starting to collect suggestions for the June meeting in Iowa.
• Scott McEwen – comparison of MyUSGS and SharePoint (Scott will either attend or call-in)
• Bob requested that ITAC members send him suggestions / ideas

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Action Items:

ACTION – Terri will follow-up with Patty regarding status of SharePoint
ACTION – Kim - ITAC website should allow for historical goals to be accessed.  (COMPLETE – 3/11/10)
ACTION – Updates to Goals – Web updates (COMPLETE – 3/9/10)
ACTION – ITAC members to come up with a major goal for #2 by the next face-to-face
ACTION – Replacement for Sandy Williamson – add to agenda for the next call.

Reviewed and updated Outstanding Action Items