ELECTRONIC DATA SERVICE
MINUTES OF MEETING, NOVEMBER 22, 2000
Present: Cooper, Jack Pinnell, Richard McTaggart, Judy (Recorder) Rahman, Shabiran, Moskal, Susan (Chair)
1. Minutes of Previous Meeting October 25, 2000:
Accepted with minor spelling corrections.
2. Business Arising:
Add the following to the agenda:
TDR Webpages under OMG Report
Data sets (Shabiran) as item #6
Research Data Centre as item #7
3. TDR OMG Report (Richard):
An OMG meeting has been called for early December. It will be held in Guelph and this will allow an opportunity for Richard and Helene to tour the DRC facility.
The web pages are scheduled to go live by the end of November. Members of the EDS group expressed concern about the timing. It was felt the beginning of term might be a better time and that an announcement should be given to our users that changes are coming. Action: Richard will take this feedback to Doug Horne.
Doug, Bo, Helene and Richard have compiled budget figures for hardware, operating and staff costs (for the Ernst & Young report) These have been sent to the TUG chiefs.
Richard sent his comments and Susan Moskal's feedback on the TDR web pages to Doug Horne. The EDS group continued to examine the web pages at today's meeting. Richard will take any unique changes suggested today to Doug.
4. Newsletter (Shabiran)
Shabiran sent a message soliciting suggestions and articles for the next newsletter. She would like to receive the material by December 14. Two suggestions already received are:
1. keep one copy of the newsletter for the Research Data Centre on an ongoing basis
2. continue to include an excerpt written by staff at the Centre on a regular basis
Jack Cooper suggested he could write something that expands on the options available for saving data.
Richard suggested it might be useful to look at other data centre newsletters to see if they follow certain themes, topics, etc. Action: Richard will look at other consortial and data centre newsletters and report back to the group.
5. Advisory Committee Meeting (Susan)
Discussion was held on when to schedule the next Advisory Committee meeting. It was decided this should be after classes are over. The date was set for Wednesday, December 13,2000; time 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Room 428 Porter or Davis Conference Room depending on availability.
Possible agenda items include:
1) TDR Website
2) Survey of Needs (what new datasets would be useful?)
3) Survey of data faculty already have and how to make it more accessible
The notice will be sent out on the listserv. Action: Shabiran will ask Val Huggan to send a copy of the names on the listserv to Charles Woods.
6. Data Sets (Shabiran)
Shabiran reported she has completed her work with the DRC datasets on tape. John Wilson is now working with Steve Breen to resolve how to deal with those datasets that were not located.
7. Research Data Centre (Shabiran)
Plans are in process for the design of the Research Data Centre which is scheduled to open in May. Shabiran will be assisting with the design. Pat Newcombe (Statistics Canada) will be the new staff member. Shabiran will arrange for the EDS group to meet her.
Next Meeting: December 6, 2000; Porter 224A; 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.