ITAC Agenda, Nashville Meeting 5/1-3/2001

Water Resources Division
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ITAC Meeting Agenda
Nashville, Tennessee District Office
May 1-3, 2001

Monday, April 30, 2001 - ITAC travels to Tennessee District Office in Nashville

Tuesday, May 1, 2001

8:00 AM	Welcome and Introductions (Slifer, Gain) Introductions (All Members): Isabelle Halley and Mark Nilles are unable to attend this meeting. ITAC Membership: ITAC Membership rotations in the upcoming year may include the following: Bill Carswell started in May 1998. Bill Carswell is a departing ITAC member. Bill is accepting an assignment to become a member of the NWIS Executive Steering Committee (ESC). No Replacement: SR Staff Decision. Carl Goodwin started in February 1998. Replaced by Grady Moore, District Chief, NY Grady will arrive late Tuesday afternoon. Scott McEwen started in February 1998. (Jim Bettandorf is the next Regional Computer Specialist in line for ITAC membership.) This meeting is Barry Hill's last meeting. Gary McMahon started in August 1998. Welcome Leo House. Happy Birthday! Related Documentation: /cpac/members.html
8:30 AM	Expectations and Concerns for this ITAC Meeting (All Members) Expected Outcome: List of ITAC member expectations and concerns for this meeting.
9:00 AM	Review Agenda and Goals for Meeting (Merk) Expected Outcomes: Review Agenda and Goals for this meeting and amend accordingly. Related Documentation: URL link for Tennessee ITAC Meeting Agenda
9:15 AM	Office of Information (Blanchard) Expected Outcomes: Report Out on Bureau IT/IM organizational change status.
9:45 AM	BREAK
10:00 AM	District Introductions and Presentations (Gain) Expected Outcomes: A briefing by the Tennessee District Chief on general District topics, by the Site Administrator on computer implementation topics, and other District employees on some interesting computer-related applications or innovative ideas to share. There may be cooperator presentations on how they view computer interactions with the District or USGS in general (good or bad). Sometimes outside agency thinking on database and equipment decisions broadens the scope of our awareness.
11:00 AM	Town Meeting: Brief Presentation by the Chiefs of AIS, DIS, and NWIS (All District Employees are invited). AIS -- Steve Blanchard/Isabelle Halley (X5298) Related Documentation: Status of AIS Releases DIS -- Tom Wood Related Documentation: DIS Program Office Update NWIS -- Alan Lumb Related Documentation: NWIS Program Office Update CAPP -- Greg Allord
11:30 AM	Town Meeting -- Questions and Answers (ITAC and All District Employees)
12:00 NOON	LUNCH
1:00 PM	Town Meeting Discussion (ITAC Members) Expected Outcome: List of Action Items and Critique of Town Meeting.
2:00 PM	Review Action Items from Previous Meetings Expected Outcomes: Status report on action items which are not completed. Related Documentation: URL for Action Items from previous meetings
2:30 PM	Feedback from GIS meeting in Denver on the week of April 21 (Williamson)
3:00 PM	BREAK
3:20 PM	Infrastructure for Serving Maps in the District Office (Williamson) Gateway to the Earth Atlas EROS Data Center Enviromapper for NWIS
4:00 PM	Publications and Telecommunications: Telecommunications support for publishing activities (Williamson). Some specific topics follow: Status of VBNS Cost to make Madison a gateway? Other public web-intensive sites Telecommunications Future Plans Remote Field Offices Telecommunications Expected Outcome: At the last meeting, Bob Wakelee made a presentation on telecommunications support for publishing activities. Improved bandwidth for the cooperators - possibly thru the Universities is being investigated by OPS and should be reported on during the agenda item.
4:15 PM	Adobe Software Procurement: (Allord) Objective: Discuss the status of the procurement for Visual Identity fonts and requirement for Adobe Type Manager for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98.
4:30 PM	Proposed Supported Computer Environment for USGS Publications Professionals (McEwen and Allord) Objective: Discuss the draft to communicate the publishing plans and activities. Includes the District Issues concerning software publishing packages, rationale, analysis, conclusions, "what's on the horizon", etc. Expected Outcome: Greg will send an email as a "heads up and awareness" to ITAC and WRD publishing employees, many of whom may not have attended the PIG Conference last summer. Related Documentation: DRAFT provided by Scott McEwen: http://wwwrcolka.cr.usgs.gov/uo/comp/pubs.html
5:00 PM	ADJOURN for the day

Wednesday, May 2, 2001

8:00 AM	Recap previous day action items and review agenda (Merk)
8:15 AM	NWIS Status and Plans (Lumb): Briefing and status on the upcoming releases of NWIS as well as other issues. Expected Outcomes: Detailed Presentation of NWIS Status followed by a discussion. Related Documentation: URL for NWIS Presentation.
9:15 AM	External Review of NWIS (NWIS Review Subcommittee members) Expected Outcome: Status report from the ITAC group which worked with NWIS and the contractor on the NWIS review process, expectations and products. Steve Blanchard and the NWIS Review subcommittee team will report on recommendations from the ITAC subcommittee, reactions from the Senior Staff meeting, what has happended since the Senior Staff meeting, summary of AMS future tasks and contract funding, NWIS Executive Steering Committee members and plans. Related Documentation:
11:00 AM	NWISWeb and NATWEB -- Lumb Susan Trapanese will be on Conference Call (X5632)
12:00 NOON	LUNCH
1:00 PM	FUTCOM4: report back from ITAC FUTCOM4 subcommittee and the timeline. (McEwen and others) Process to flush out NWIS Architecture to include the DIS and the ITAC will be presented by Alan Lumb. Expected Outcomes: The FUTCOM report will be delivered with an eye on leading the Bureau Direction in light of the reorganization. This FUTCOM will focus on the WRD DIS and NWIS Architectural Issues Team issues. Suggested steps for FUTCOM to follow. Frame the state of computing in the water discipline to set the stage. Frame the premises. Review issues of the AIT and prioritize. Related Documentation: {URL} goes here. Scott McEwen will present a draft charge back to ITAC. A ITAC subgroup, led by Scott McEwen and including Greg Allord, Nelson Williams, and a GIS representative, will revise FUTCOM. ITAC suggested breaking down this report topics into groups. Database and telecom futures are to be included.
3:00 PM	BREAK
3:15 PM	FUTCOM4 (Continued)
5:00 PM	ADJOURN for the day

Thursday, May 3, 2001

8:00 AM	ITEM 2002 -- (Wood) Under auspices of GIO. Bureauwide. Will be a training track for SA's. Bob Pierce, Kathryn Lins, and Ann Frondorf have roles for the ITEM meeting schedule for Summer 2002. Location probably not Charleston. Perhaps Denver. Meeting today in Reston
8:30 AM	Firewall Project Update (Wood)
9:00 AM	Revisit/Review OI/DIS increased funding and field support prioritization worksheet (Wood) Objective: The task is to prioritize Wish List for End of Year Request for Steve Blanchard to give to Bob Hirsch. Related Documentation: The task is to prioritize Wish List for End of Year Request for Steve Blanchard to give to Bob Hirsch.
9:30 AM	Consistency of Internal Web Pages (Nelson Williams) Background: Excerpts from April,2001 Email between Lorna Schmid and Kevin Oberg: "5. This is a question about consistency. When I want a WRD internal page, I tack on a usgs/ at the end of the url (like http://water.usgs.gov/usgs/) - although sometimes I have to use a uo/ at the end instead. I think that this should be standardized instantly. If we force our users to go to internal pages to look at things like safety - there had better be clearly defined what for this to happen. Furthermore, there is no consistency in how USGS as a whole implements internal pages. Internal stuff at the HQ level is http://internal.usgs.gov/. So what is the correct way???? If we are moving a lot of stuff up to the bureau level - these things MUST be standardized!" "Standardization is nice. Instantly, well. . . The :8888 is the port they chose to use for their intranet. They even went back and forth -- at one point they were using /usgs also and then went back to :8888. The /uo was an idea that emerged in the western region. I can send the idea forward to the isct members, gateway team itac, and remnant spider group and see what comes out of it -- if there was consensus as to what should denote intranet we could certainly do redirects and make it work. Nelson Williams is the WWW rep on the ITAC so by cc to him I'll let him take it up."
10:00 AM	BREAK
10:15 AM	Develop Dates and Locations for Next ITAC Meeting (Slifer) Expected Outcomes: Date Validation, Location, and Action Item to get OK from District Chief.
10:30 AM	ITAC Action Items Review (Slifer) Expected Outcomes: List of ITAC Action Items from this meeting.
10:45 AM	Work the BIN Issues (Slifer) Expected Outcomes: BIN List / Next Steps
11:15 AM	Develop and Prioritize Agenda Items for Next Meeting (Slifer) Expected Outcomes: Draft Agenda for next meeting
11:30 AM	MEETING ADJOURN -- ITAC leaves Tennessee District Office

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Last modified: Mon April 23, 2001 17:37:43 EST

ITAC Meeting Agenda Nashville, Tennessee District Office May 1-3, 2001

ITAC Meeting Agenda
Nashville, Tennessee District Office
May 1-3, 2001