LibertyRoad: Comments

Comment on "Philippe Petit"

Wed, 28 May 2008 09:40:20 -0500

It's admittedly not perfectly worded, for the most part I was cutting and pasting raw notes. To expand a little -

While there are tried and true methodologies for problem solving, there are different styles. "Ready, fire, aim" is preached by some, "Measure twice, cut once" by others. Perhaps there is balance to be struck by approach - picking the right style for the right challenge.

- KEVIN M MOROONEY

Comment on "Philippe Petit"

Tue, 27 May 2008 15:40:08 -0500

The balance points seem reasonably obvious to me. People need to understand their local "universe" to understand their place and what needs to be done.

I don't understand the comment about "balance in problem solving." That seems fairly binary to me.

- Richard Rauscher

Comment on "Imagine if - software licensing"

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:08:49 -0500

Another good point - I will introduce this as well into the document. It's about who you are, not where you are.

- KEVIN M MOROONEY

Comment on "Imagine if - software licensing"

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:41:11 -0500

"Site" is a term that has often been detrimental to our multi-location environment. Generally it is viewed as some single geographical space, but we've used incremental arguments to leverage more-encompassing arrangements at various times. (What about a building across the street? A few miles down the road? A few buildings a few miles down the road? A building on university land in the next county? A few buildings...? etc.) Where the line is drawn varies (most of our interest was in satellite-based program/licensing agreements)...but just another aspect to keep in mind, given the number of locations where Penn State folks are at...(

- STEVE H UPDEGROVE

Comment on "Imagine if - software licensing"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:34:50 -0500

There are excellent points - I have included them in the draft version of what's being built. The API concept would seem to have a duality to it - in that in an open source world, a changing API can always be worked around. In a proprietary, commercial relationship there would need to be terms associated with API availability and change management.

- kevin

Comment on "Imagine if - software licensing"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:12:25 -0500

First Principals informing standards requirements:

1: Interoperability, sure, but perhaps more importantly, suites/apps must support forward migration, with vectors toward open, non-proprietary formats. This is worth pure gold, not only when moving forward among platforms, but (again, perhaps more importantly) as we begin to think realistically about long-term repository implementation.

2: Standards ought to be understood to include APIs into suites/apps permitting us to mix/match/build our own suites from vendor and open source products.

As to specific formats - wiser voices than mine hopefully will chip in, but certainly we might desire a forward path from MS formats toward non-proprietary formats. PDF/A (PDF Archival) is a good present example of a destination format for repository preparation.

Oh yeah - standards ought to extend into means by which auto-generated and user-generated metadata might accrue to files/objects as they pass through their life cycles, from birth, to editing, to co-editing, to "publication"/distribution, to re-use, to ultimate preparation for deposit in the repository. Done right, things ought to be self-describing by the time we're ready to wrap them up neatly for retention/retrieval.

Why archive it if we can't retrieve it and reproduce it in, say, fifty years?

Not certain that we can put our foot down on all of this right this second, but the vendors ought to know we're thinking about it: that there is a booted foot, and that it might come down...

- Michael P. Pelikan

Comment on "Imagine if - software licensing"

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:16:54 -0500

One of the goals is to streamline negotiations, yes. However, the discussion isn't limited to commercial solutions but rather software of all types.

- kevin

Comment on "Imagine if - software licensing"

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:16:02 -0500

Interesting. Is the discussion just about contracts for commercial software, or does it include requirements for open-source software that we use? It seems to me that most of what's been said (standards-compliant, interoperable, etc) would be just as important for all systems. So perhaps the conversation should be recast to requirement for software, which could then drive contract negotiation.

- Derek Morr

Comment on "Imagine if - software licensing"

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:28:10 -0500

Thanks for the comment, Chris.

Standards rose early in the conversation - are there any in particular, or a particular way that you think standards adherence could be framed in a "principles" document?

- kevin

Comment on "Imagine if - software licensing"

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:08:40 -0500

Adherence to standards should be very high up the list. Our approach to IT at the University focuses less on vendor-specific technologies and more on interoperability. It would be great to set minimum compliance thresholds to keep standard support alive beyond the version that wins the RFP.

Additionally, protection of proprietary information is of increasing importance. With "The Google" making better strides everyday toward new services, where does the line get drawn for trust?

- Chris Kauffman

Comment on "Forum for the Future: An Energy and Environmental Discussion"

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:36:15 -0500

Power and efficiency are two items high on our list of concerns. The problem in doing the right thing comes down to the way power is used and paid for. There is no financial incentive to do the right thing. Two of our major needs at the current time are increased UPS capacity and increased A/C capacity.
On the UPS side we could purchase flywheels which would eliminate all of the batteries and the rather toxic materials in their manufacture as well as reduce power consumption. The problem is that the cost is nearly double up front.
The second need, A/C, also has options such as the use of outside air, etc. Again these options increase the cost to our department.
The payback to the increased up front cost comes back to the University by way of reduces electricity usage. Unfortunately there is no mechanism to recognize and fund these investments. To the departments it just does not make budgetary sense to make the investments on their own.

- Bob O'Connor

Comment on "Report on American Competitiveness"

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:28:47 -0500

The American Institute of Physics has a summary of some of the comments of the science world on the budget on its FYI Service. One of the most hard hitting comments in the summary was from the AAU:

The America COMPETES Act has little meaning if it is not funded, and this bill does not fund it.

When the metric for the health of an innovative company is the amount budgeted for R&D, what does it say about the health of our nation when the goals of the America COMPETES Act are not reflected in our budget priorities?

- Jim Leous

Comment on "Report on American Competitiveness"

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:26:10 -0500

It's a pity that the budget approved by Congress was a major blow to basic science research in the US. My former field, particle physics, was hit especially heavy...

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/1218/1

Eric

- Eric Aitala

Comment on "Forum for the Future: An Energy and Environmental Discussion"

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:16:12 -0500

Why don’t we look at our telecommuting policies and see if they could be successfully expanded to include more ITS employees and different types of positions?

The December 3rd issue of Penn State Live ran an article, Telecommuting a win-win for employers and employees ( LINK: http://live.psu.edu/story/27526?nw=1 ) on a Penn State professor and Ph.D. candidate from Smeal College of Business who looked at 20 years of research on flexible work arrangements. In the article, the researchers state that, “Telecommuting has mostly positive consequences for employees and employers, resulting in higher morale and job satisfaction and lower employee stress and turnover.” After reading the article, I immediately thought of some additional environmental and diversity benefits.

I did a little more research and found a lot of information on telecommuting, pros and cons, but much of it positive. In addition to the reduced levels of carbon dioxide released into the environment, other reported advantages for companies/organizations that provide telecommuting options include a decrease in costs due to reduced use of utilities and less need for office space.

The 1999 Telework America National Survey also attributed a reduction in absenteeism, increased morale and employee satisfaction, and reduced staff turnover. According to Teletrips.com, teleworking can improve retention of key employees by as much as 22% due to increased satisfaction levels, another significant way to save money. Employee safety levels can also increase due to less time traveling back and forth to work.

The recent Penn State Study seems to support these claims. The Study found that by giving employees more control over this part of their lives, telecommuters reported “more job satisfaction, less motivation to leave the company, less stress, improved work-family balance, and higher performance ratings by supervisors."

Here’s another excellent reason to think about telecommuting as a win-win, employers have the ability to recruit a stronger and more diverse work force such as handicapped individuals, mothers, and IT specialists who are not located within commuting distance. This particular benefit could strengthen our efforts to increase diversity within ITS while providing a larger pool of qualified job candidates.

I realize the success of telecommuting is dependent on a number of variables and will not work in all situations, for all types of jobs, or for all individuals. Considering the range and value of the benefits, however, I think it makes a great deal of sense to take a more indepth look at telecommuting and its many benefits.

- Debbie Ingram

Comment on "Penn State University Research Council presentation"

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:13:26 -0500

Recall that it is URC that has seen this, as opposed to ALC. URC isn't a body to discuss or decide upon funding of initiatives, but they are one to influence, that's for sure. Those numbers and the need for data center space did not surprise anyone, and the challenge is now to have the conversations to get all that must invest in the future to actually do so. It's my hope that in this strategic planning year, we might be able to get enough people on the same page to make a difference. But the data center space issue is much longer term - and we've just begun that process.

- kevin

Comment on "Penn State University Research Council presentation"

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:06:56 -0500

This presentation is an excellent overview of how ITS is directly helping faculty research. I had no idea the breadth and depth of the fields of study.

However, I am curious about the reaction from ALC as to the need for increasing data center space and allocating an additional $2-3M for compute capabilities. Is there any hope that they see the need, and are willing to share in the resources necessary to meet these needs?

- Robin

Comment on "A different kind of recycling"

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:21:25 -0500

Aw heck - not wanting to start a flame war, but...

Look - what if we just severed part of our relationship with our current Big Software Suite? I refer to Microsoft Office.

While there are arguably no perfect substitutes for all of the particular pieces that we site license as a bundle, it's also a fact (well, a guess, really) that 80% of Penn State MS Office users spend 80% of their MS screen time using that particular 20% of the MS suite their job requires (or less).

As for word processing, MS Word, which began as a fairly sprightly MS-DOS word processor that would fit on a single 360k floppy disk, has grown into a gargantuan behemoth. Its capabilities far exceed what is required for the simple capture of keystrokes. For formatting of formal documents on paper - fine, but fonts and formatting for emphasis or expression of personal style are no substitute in electronic documents for the well chosen turn of phrase.

There are other ways to capture ideas in keystrokes (wikis, or this blogging package, for example), and many of these compelling alternatives promote positive benefits such as:

* exchange of ideas among colleagues (without requiring attachments to email messages),

* collaboration and co-authorship (without embedded proprietary code),

* inherent repository building by accretion, and,

* findability / discoverability (something much more difficult with Word files scattered across fifteen or twenty thousand PSU hard disk drives).

I'm sure this suggestion is too much too soon, but just imagine....

- Michael Pelikan

Comment on "What is a wiki?"

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:55:45 -0500

I agree with Fred that the cost/benefit ratio has to be a factor. Like R, I try new technologies earlier than most people; I also abandon them in a heartbeat when I feel the benefit is less than the cost. In the case of wikis, Emerging Technologies has run a bunch of them for a number of years for various groups, and they've stood the test of time very well. If they're a passing fad, the passing is happening very, very slowly. For me, wikis are among the more useful and versatile collaboration tools currently available.

- Phil Devan

Comment on "What is a wiki?"

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:56:52 -0500

Fred Fenstermaker raises an important point, although I'd like to use it to identify intriguing opportunities.

We've left a lot of Stonehenges abandoned-in-place and receding in our wake. One could entitle a blog entry, "We've forgotten more than we know..."

The worst part is that we don't *know* what we've forgotten, nor do our legacy silos make it easy to search for things we can't identify or describe except in terms set by the silos themselves.

Plus, what works in one silo might very well not work in the next. Arcane disciplinary domains, mangled or non-existent thesauri, the occasional downright lousy user interface, and near-total non-interoperability all conspire to keep people stuck at the one or two places they feel comfortable digging for content. And we shouldn't be surprised if folks start to become numb to our suggestions to go someplace new.

Ah, opportunities! There may be ways to provide an underlying information infrastructure to begin to provide relief to those frustrated by the cycles of repeatedly building and replacing Information Stonehenges. Technology has a role to play here.

But for those who may never even have discovered just how much has already been known or forgotten at one time in the past (say five or ten years ago, or 500, or 1500), we have to turn to our teachers - and, we have to give those teachers better and better tools to achieve transparent "findability" across a landscape littered with Stonehenges, Leaning Towers, and Step Pyramids holding forgotten treasures.

- Michael Pelikan

Comment on "What is a wiki?"

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:37:38 -0500

I've always been on the early adopter side of the new technology adoption curve. That said, I have become a wiki fanatic, and not just because it was the latest thing to come down the 'pike.

The MAC group is currently using a very extensive wiki that acts as a collaboration whiteboard for our strategic plan, annual report and project brainstorming; a repository of project materials; a listing of work schedules and contact info for the group (we have 90% telecommuters); summaries from conferences attended; a collection of kudos for work we have done; and many more items. We continue to discover uses for our wiki.

While it took some of the MAC group a while to get the hang of using the wiki, we all agree that it has many benefits: collaboration and creativity have increased, telecommuters feel much more a part of the "office culture", information can't be "lost" in a slew of emails because it is organized and categorized in one place, the latest "version" of information is available to all, etc.

I firmly believe that the MAC group would not function as well as it does without the use of a wiki.

And, BTW, we've got the Computer Store folks also using their own, for the same reasons.

If you're interested in further examples of how wikis can help your work group, get in touch with me.

- R