AI Identifier

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

Aug2005.ME.1
(Merged with Sep16.2005.Telecon.1)
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Katherine Lins and Sandy Williamson

Issue: PCFF

Description of Action Item: Moving forward with PCFF.

Status of AI/Comment: Katherine Lins will work with Sandy Williamson (NAWQA representative) to talk with Water Quality about the issue of moving forward with PCFF.

9/16/05 - update - Sandy made some phone calls. Sandy and Steve Glodt will talk with Frank Crenshaw at NWQL about PCFF. Maybe Kathy Fitzgerald can join them. Steve will see about this. Sandy will also talk with Tim Miller.

10/21/05 update - Merged with action item Sep16.2005.Telecon.1.

COMPLETED

Aug2005.ME.2
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Katherine Lins, Jim Nicholas, Stephen King

Issue: C&A training

Description of Action Item: Katherine Lins will talk with Kevin Gallagher to see that C&A training announcements go out to Senior Management. Jim Nicholas will follow up on distribution of announcement about critical need to accomplish C&A with buy-in from WSC Directors; it can include training announcements from Gary Neverdon. (Reference e-mail Gary sent to ITAC on 8/17/05.) Stephen King will make numbers available to ITAC about the assessment study that was done on amount of time it has been taking to complete C&A tasks, etc.

Status of AI/Comment: 9/16/05 - update - Training is taking place. Jim Nicholas will talk with Cathy Hill. Katherine Lins will help Jim Nicholas prepare wording for this.

10/21-05 update - Jim Nicholas will follow up on this.

Completed; Sept16.03 - supersedes this one.

Aug2005.ME.3
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Terri Moore

Issue: Password Management

Description of Action Item: Terri Moore will follow up with Roy McCullough and Ellen Rierson regarding adding links to the password management Web page. Roy will also research tools that can be used to generate passwords and add to the Web page.

Status of AI/Comment: 9/16/05 - update - Ongoing; Roy has been doing this. Terri has requested that ITAC members let her know of anymore links to add to the Web page.

10/21/05 update - Completed. Feedback was forwarded to Roy McCullough. Terri will send an e-mail to him.

Aug2005.ME.4
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Terri Moore, Sandy Williamson, and Jeff Stoner

Issue: Enterprise hardware contract observation and suggested change

Description of Action Item: Terri Moore will follow up with Kevin Gallagher regarding either extending the current desktop/laptop contract for rest of FY05, or the possibility of obtaining an end-of-year buying waiver to get us through closeout. The concern is the current contract expires on 9/1/05 and the new contract takes effect the same day. We need acquisition procedures put in place immediately for end-of-year purchasing. Jeff Stoner, ITAC Chair, will communicate ITAC’s collective input: Bulk buys work for desktops—not for laptops. Sandy Williamson will draft ITAC’s e-mail on this issue.

Status of AI/Comment: 9/16/05 - update - COMPLETED - The year-end part never happened. Terri has not heard from cost centers. Sandy drafted e-mail, and Jeff Stoner sent it to Kevin Gallagher; he never received a reply. ITAC agree to call this action item completed from the stand point of bad timing, but at least the message may be used for future enterprise contracts.

Aug2005.ME.5
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Katherine Lins

Issue: Cobell Case impacts

Description of Action Item: Katherine Lins will talk to Kevin Gallagher to prepare e-mail to go out to WSCs about the impacts of Cobell case. Need to give heads up to WSC Directors, who will copy SAs, about possibility of shutdown of USGS Internet, as a result of the case.

Status of AI/Comment: 9/16/05 - update - COMPLETED. The e-mail went out; waiting for decision. The judge will be ruling on the Cobell case within a week or so.

Aug2005.ME.6
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: ITAC Members

Issue: 24x7 network support

Description of Action Item: ITAC members will review Kevin Gallagher’s draft of white paper for procedures for 24x7 network support. Comments will go to Brian Reece who will compile results. (Reference: Kevin’s e-mail of this very rough draft for ITAC review on 8/16/05.) Deadline to review: in 3 weeks; ITAC comments to Brian by 9/2/05.

Status of AI/Comment: 9/16/05 - update - Brian Reece told Jeff Stoner that this is completed. Jeff will follow up on this with Brian.

10/21/05 update - ongoing; will follow up with Brian Reece about these comments.

11/18/05 – update – COMPLETED. Brian Reece will pass on to ITAC members e-mail from Mark Hamill.

Aug2005.ME.7
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Katherine Lins and Kevin Gallagher

Issue: ColdFusion

Description of Action Item: Katherine Lins and Kevin Gallagher will talk with Karen Klima about creating a team researching ColdFusion. Kevin can decide who will lead it, etc.

Status of AI/Comment:

Reference Katherine's e-mail of 8/22/05

9/16/05 - update - Ongoing. Katherine e-mailed her request 8/22/05, to sit down and discuss this wil Karen Klima and Kevin Gallagher. There has been no follow-up.

10/21/05 update - Katherine will meet with Karen Klima on Monday, 10/24/05. Will have some funds to look at some new applications useful to the Bureau - CF being one of them.

In WR, three offices are using CF. Terri will verify this Need to work with cost centers. Web pages are developed with reverse proxy for CF. Katherine will relay this to Karen. Need an enterprise solution to include NatWeb. (Lessen learned from Katrina.)

Discussion followed. There is increasing interest in CF.

11/18/05 – update – On Idaho meeting agenda.

1/27/06 update - COMPLETED. Chris Leeth will review this action item.

Aug2005.ME.8
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Sandy Williamson

Issue: BLOGS and RSS

Description of Action Item: Sandy Williamson will, at a future meeting, present information on how BLOGS and RSS can be used for IT communication.

Status of AI/Comment: 9/16/05 - update - Ongoing. Nothing has happened yet. Katherine Lins sent an e-mail to Ronald Kirby and Bob Hirsch on this on 8/29/05. (Reference e-mail.) Sandy encourages the ITAC to get the word out that there are informal BLOG technologies to communicate with outside scientists. The policy implications need to be taken into account. That unless one is citing an official report, the communication is informal at best - not a position of the USGS.

10/21/05 update - Is this up to ITAC? Should this action item be deleted?

Discussion: Publishing arena is in stat of flux right now. Sandy basically wanted to just make it known that this type of technology will get info out there. It was heard that security issues may go out in BLOG form. Terri Moore will follow up on this with Melna Jones, GIO, WR Security Officer; she had forwarded this info to Sandy to talk with GIO about using this to convey security information. It's a challenge to come up with some good rules for this; need some control over the scientists: Who is "allowed" to respond to a BLOG? ITAC can be proactive in this.

Maybe Charlene can talk about this topic at ID meeting.

Can review original guidance for the WWW.

A new action item resulted from this discussion.

11/18/05 – update – ongoing. Item on Idaho meeting agenda.

1/27/06 update - COMPLETED