Union College Web Policy Board
Minutes
January 23, 2001
Prepared by Tom Smith
Present: Gregg Roth, David Cossey, Peter Blankman, Jill Salvo, Doug Klein, Gail Golderman, Tom Smith, Jay Napodano
1. College web guidelines (nee College Web Policy): The group agreed that a couple of minor changes were still necessary to the third draf t, and that the statement should be re-titled to be "Guidelines" rather than a "Policy Statement" to reflect its essentially non-legal nature. Tom will submit to attorney for review and prepare a new draft for Board review.
2. Microsoft Internet Explorer vs. Netscape Navigator (not on agenda): Tom suggested making Internet Explorer the campus' officially suppo rted web browser. A lengthy discussion ensued, and it was agreed that it would be wise to postpone this topic until the next web board mee ting, after everyone has had a chance to do a little research and reflection.
3. Web policy board web site: Tom announced the creation of the web policy board web site. Gregg suggested establishing an email alias for users to contact the board.
4. New web staff: Roxanne De Hamel has joined us as the new web coordinator. She comes from Advance Management Systems, and brings experie nce with database and web design.
5. Hosting web sites for outside organizations: A faculty member requested space on the official college web server for hosting a site for a professional organization. After much discussion, the board agreed that these types of sites may be established and maintained on the c ollege web server dedicated to personal web pages (idol.union.edu), not the official college web server.
However, a couple of factors will encourage the potential site creator to consider using one of the many inexpensive (<$20/month) web hosting services available. First, idol.union.edu does not allow server-side scripting (e.g. cgi scripts), so very little interactivity (forms , discussion groups, chat rooms, etc.) will be possible with the site. Also, idol.union.edu will not allow people from outside campus to w rite to the server, which means that no one else (in a professional organization, for example)
6. Online advising project: Doug briefly described the online advising project. The server has been purchased, and it is hoped that a prot otype with a few faculty members will be up and running this fall.
7. Central scheduling software: Tom spoke briefly about the new central scheduling software (EMS Lite), which will alleviate many of the d ay-to-day headaches we are experiencing with our current software. If all goes well with the Lite version we may upgrade to the profession al version.
8. Frequency of meetings: We agreed to meet once per term. Next meeting will be scheduled as soon as the Spring term begins.
9. Virtual Union: Gregg suggested that the Virtual Union administrator let other server admins on campus know when they have been hacked. The easiest way to do this is to send email to security@union.edu.