Meeting Minutes
February 24, 2003

Present
Mac Avery, Jeff Buffington (for Robert Dixon), Linda Crouch, John Culshaw, Malinda Miller-Huey, Gary Pollock, Judy Poynter, Paula Vaughan

Tech Dev team

• Most of the effort of this team has been directed toward PLUS. They recently discovered that the PIN was viewable on source with one option that was being pursued so a different method is being investigated. The most promising option involves in-line frames and passing login and password from the portal.
• The hardware has been ordered. Servers may be in this week; the switch should arrive mid-March (we have a switch we can use in the interim).
• Channels that are almost complete: weather, forecast, search, web cam
• Channels that are being spec’d and/or programmed: GPA calc (based on A&S logic), Survey (using Virginia Tech’s channel with modifications to capture additional information about the person filling out the survey); Bookmarks and Tree Menus (to accommodate fixed bookmarks and personalized bookmarks); Ralphie’s Guide (moving the content into a channel); Course Lookup (modifying to use database).
• Channels that are just getting underway: Student Employment, Advising Links, Student Profile.

Prototype Features (discussion based on handout)

• If there are no features to put on the Financial tab, should we even launch with a Financial tab?
• Email Account Management needs a better name.
• News includes campus news and departmental news.
• Survey will be portal-specific for the prototype. In the long run, the survey will be able to change (with one survey running at a time).
• Bookmarks: Core needs to review the proposed fixed set of tab-specific bookmarks.
• Bookmarks: Can we show academics bookmarks based upon grad vs. undergrad student?
• Bookmarks: The student life list is very long. Is there a way to consolidate (given that students can subscribe to those bookmarks they’re interested in)?
• Bookmarks: Work with John Culshaw to come up with an appropriate set of library-related bookmarks.

Announcements task force (discussion based on handout)

• Vital announcements definition/examples: add weather/environmental alerts and facility closures.
• Re. charging for announcements: this would require a billing mechanism of some sort, but Core is in favor of pursuing this for the following reasons: to help offset the cost of resources required to review and submit announcements and to maintain the portal; to help control volume; to help verify university affiliation since a valid speedtype would be required).

Testing task force (discussion based on handout)

• Three rounds of testing proposed: technical, testing subteam channel/function-specific, full multi-user scripted test.
• Team expressed concern about the time available to test thoroughly.
• Team noted the importance of testing on the production hardware.

Deployment (discussion based on handout)

• Team recommended that seniors be kept in the prototype audience.
• Load testing: Housing’s tool may only be available for a limited time. For the tool, testers can designate the length of time and the number of users. Simple scenarios are recommended; it doesn’t work well with java or applets.

Lock Down

• Main, Academic and Financial tabs will be locked down; My Page will be open. How should Student Life be set up? Are there channels within Student Life that the student must see? Should it be left customizable in order to be a proof of concept test for adding and removing channels?

Naming (discussion based on handout)

• Final choices for student survey: My CU, My CU-Boulder, Buffalo Information ?Network? ?System? ?Gateway? ?Corral?, Buffalo Express, CU Express, (and late entrant: Buffalo Roundup)

Success Criteria (discussion based on handout)

• Drop content provider from the useable/understood criteria (it’s covered in the content submission process criteria)
• Set announcement delivery time to 16 hours for non-emergency vitals and 24 hours for non-vitals.
• Support is currently spread out across multiple units for PLUS. Need to work through this for the Portal.

Next Meeting
to be scheduled.