Minutes of the Academic Information Technology

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO
5240 N. Jackson Avenue, M/S UC43
Fresno, California 93740-8023
Office of the Academic Senate
Ext. 8-2743

October 20, 2008

Members Present: O. Benavides (Chair), J. Cagle, B. Auernheimer, K. Moffitt, R. Parker, D. Nef, R. Amarasinghe, S. Seepersad, E. Nelson.

Absent: L. Newlander, P. Newell, L. Harding, C. Won, M. Bach, D. Martin.

The meeting was called to order by Chair Otto Benavides at 12:10 p.m. in the Education Building room # 499.

1. Minutes. MSC to approve the Minutes of 10/6/2008.
2. Agenda. MSC to approve the Agenda as distributed.
3. Communications and Announcements.
   Brian Cotham, new director of Procurement, was introduced.
   E. Nelson is finished with the data analysis from the Faculty
   survey last spring and will report next meeting (November 10th) of
   Academic Information Technology (AIT).
   The Accessibility Awareness Fair was held on October 13, 2008.
4. Faculty Laptop Group – B. Auernheimer.
   The committee was asked to designate a member to serve on the
   Faculty Laptop Group. R. Parker will serve on the Faculty Laptop
   Group overseeing the selection, planning, and rollout of the faculty
   laptops.
5. Computer Security Report – K. Moffitt.
   An AIT ad hoc group met to discuss the problem of laptop theft
   prevention. Kathy presented some ideas on laptop theft
   prevention. Some ideas about a systematic approach to solving the
   problem discussed included:
   1. Publicize the data levels and data security policy (see note
      below).
   2. More intense public education regarding the need for data
      security.
   3. Creation of a secure partition on all university notebooks and
      education/help on how to use it.
   4. Encrypting all flash drives, external USB drives, and other
      portable storage - when those are likely to be used for sensitive
      data storage.
   5. Consider recommending an encryption program like Truecrypt
      or something equivalent.
   6. Consider a hardware solution for encryption instead of a
      software solution.
   7. Automatic backup (when re-docking and at regular interval).
   8. Labeling all portable devices with a business card or label with
      contact information on owner.
   9. Password protecting Word, Excel, Access, etc… files that have
      confidential information.
   10. Cable locks for laptops in offices.
   11. Always lock office door.
   12. All encryption passwords need to be escrowed somewhere.
   13. R. Parker shared some ideas from the Information Security
       Committee. An Information Security policy document, which will
       become available soon, will address data encryption for laptops,
       flash drives, external USB hard drives, and mobile devices such as
       cell phones, PDAs. He suggested that we should focus on the
       possibility of automatic backup. Labeling and identifying the
       laptop and other devices, password protection could be included.
       As the AIT Committee discussed these issues and ideas, a
       suggestion emerged to review policies and practices associated
       with faculty using laptops off campus (issues such as
       responsibility, loss or damage, insurance, etc.)
6. Academic Technology Advisory Committee (ATAC) Report.
   Chair O. Benavides
   Otto gave an update on ATAC activities and current agenda items
   and projects.

MSC to adjourn (2:30 p.m.)

The next scheduled meeting of the Academic Information Technology
Committee (AIT) will be November 10, 2008. An agenda will be sent out
prior to the meeting.

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