SUNYConnect Advisory Council
DRAFT Minutes for meeting held December 13, 1999
Posted to lists 12/20/99

Present: Laura Cohen, Carey Hatch, Eleanor Heishman, Germaine Linkins, 
Tom Neiss, Pam Peters, Mike Pisa, Larry Randall, Dan Schabert

Absent:  Pete Genovese, MacDonald Holmes, Maureen Zajkowski.
Vacancies:  SUBOA representative

Next meeting is February 7th in Utica.  Executive Committee will meet by 
conference call on January 26th at 10am.

1. Minutes:  11/2/99 (summary) minutes approved with no revisions.  
From this meeting forward, SAC will issue only one version of 
minutes.  These summary minutes will go to SAC members for approval 
and then to constituent lists (SUNYLA, SCLD) as DRAFT.  Final 
approval will still take place at the next SAC meeting.

2. Membership: Mike Pisa was welcomed as the new COA representative.  
Mike is Director of Computing at Oswego.  There is still no action 
on the SUBOA vacancy.

3. Regional meetings on Ex Libris:  Carey and Larry reported on Albany, 
Westchester County and Syracuse meetings.  Buffalo's gathering was 
today (12/13).  All were well attended; Maureen did a great job 
presenting the LMS selection process; library staff were interested 
in the vendor selection process and the prospects of migrating to a 
new system.  Handouts from the meetings are available on OLIS web 
site.

4. SUNYConnect Financial Plan:  Larry presented the beginnings of a FAQ 
to answer questions about the Financial Plan.  Some questions came 
out of SCLD section meetings; Larry will also ask Maureen for 
questions from the LMS regional meetings.  There is some concern 
campuses don't know enough about the plan or SAC activities in 
general.  Group felt the distribution has gone to SAC and SCLD 
appropriately, but we have no control over local campus 
distribution.  FAQ and Financial Plan are available on the OLIS web 
site.  Laura Murray is revamping the web site and hopes to have it 
up by early 2000.  Suggestion to create a chronology of LASG/SAC to 
post on web site. (who would do this?)

5. SAC Bylaws need to be distributed as approved in November.  Pam will 
get bylaws to lists with a reference to OLIS URL.  Carey will make 
sure web site is updated.

6. Contract negotiations:  Carey reported on progress with Ex Libris 
contract discussions.  Contract Advisory Team has met via conference 
call and has been very helpful.  Issues at the forefront include 
support, acceptance testing, payment plans and Oracle versions. 

7. LMS Planning Team:  Considerable portion of meeting was spent 
discussing questions and documents from the LMS planning team.  
Major planning issues revolve around selection of hardware for hubs, 
software and database design, criteria for hub and stand-alone 
configurations, and criteria for campus readiness and migration.  We 
need to focus on criteria for hubs and stand-alone implementation so 
campuses can make a decision.  Hardware selection and 
software/database design-which feed into network configuration, 
staffing needs, costs, etc.-will help campuses think about their 
options for becoming a participant (member of cluster), hub/host, or 
stand-alone site. 

The group addressed each of the questions raised by the Planning Team 
in a November 17 memo from Larry Randall to SAC Executive Committee. 
The charge to the Team was clarified as follows: (1) the team will 
continue to develop criteria for identifying campuses as hubs, general 
participants or standalones, but will not address the process by which 
those criteria are applied, which is SAC's responsibility; (2) the 
charge to define the types of implementation activities to be 
coordinated centrally or locally is withdrawn and will be the 
responsibility of OLIS with input from SAC and such advisory groups as 
may be appointed.  Many issues are working themselves out as we move 
through contract negotiations and get closer to hardware selection.

It was agreed that OLIS needs to create an extended group, drawn from 
the Planning Team and the SUNY community (SUNYLA, COA, etc.) which will 
be able to review the technical issues before us: hardware, 
software/database design, and networks.  The Planning Team should 
continue to flesh out MOUs that clearly define responsibilities of 
participant, hub, or stand-alone sites.  The group decided that the 
migration criteria survey should be distributed as early as possible, 
but that a campus should be asked to sign a participant MOU (or 
contract in the case of community colleges) only as the time approaches 
for its implementation.

A timeframe was suggested for the next six months:

December-January: RFP for hardware issued.  Need review by extended 
group, as discussed above.
January: Trial run of LMS migration survey.
January: Extended group meets with Ex Libris to discuss software and 
database design issues.
February-March: Target date for having contract in Controller's 
office.
By end of March: Issue RFPs for campus hub and stand-alone sites.  
Meet with potential hub sites.  We must have hardware and network 
specifications in those RFPs.
June: get started with LMS software testing (may depend on Oracle 
release compatibility).


8. LMS Migration Criteria Survey:  Draft survey was reviewed and 
several suggestions were provided.  Larry will take survey back to 
Planning Team and ask them to "test" document with their own 
campuses.  Following that (end of January, perhaps), the survey 
could go out to all campuses. 

Meeting adjourned 3:30 pm.
Recorded by Pam Peters, Secretary
SACMinutes12131999.doc	DRAFT	12/14/1999