CITES Spam Control: Anatomy of a Campus-Wide Anti-Spam Implementation
Mike Corn, Security Services and Information Privacy, Office of the CIO
        Slides (724KB PPT)

Session Descriptions and Presenter Information

Peter M. Siegel is the first permanent CIO at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, named to that position in August 2000. Peter, who is also Associate Provost, is responsible for leadership in identifying the role that information and learning technologies can play in supporting the campus mission. As CIO, Peter works with the campus community to understand their varied needs and directions, and to nurture innovative use of information technologies within the colleges and among central units. In spring 2002, Peter reorganized the central computing, educational technologies, computer lab, and data and voice communications units into an integrated organization, Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services (CITES).
      In addition to his active community engagement and outreach, Peter is also involved in national and state professional organizations. He is a member of the EDUCAUSE 2005 National Conference Program Committee and is currently serving on the EDUCAUSE Security Task Force Executive Committee. He is also the out-going editor of the EDUCAUSE Review column, New Horizons. Peter is actively involved in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (Big 10 Plus) CIO group. He is active in forums relating to the intersection between information technologies and physical security, including recent U.S. Secret Service and State of Illinois activities in Homeland Security. Peter is an invited speaker in the area of computer security and national IT policy issues, speaking before computing, telecommunications, policy, and law enforcement communities.

Putting in place the 'right' technology organization for a campus community presents a challenge. The pieces of the challenge include the organization, the staff, the technology infrastructure, the applications, the services, and the policies and procedures. Getting this 'stuff' together in an integrated fashion to provide an excellent environment for higher education user communities is an ongoing creative adventure.

Annie Stunden has served as CIO and Director of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) at the University of Wisconsin - Madison since February 2000. UW-M is a 40,000-student research university committed to transformational change of the teaching and learning environment through the use of technology. With about 550 permanent staff and 250 student workers, DoIT provides technology services and support to the UW-M community, and selected services to some of the other colleges in the University of Wisconsin system.
      From 1996 to 2000, Annie was Director of Academic Technology at Cornell University. At Cornell, she led an organization of 70 permanent staff and about 200 student staff, who supported the use of technology tools by faculty and students in their teaching and learning, and by the campus community in their day-to-day work.
      Under Annie's leadership, Cornell's technology organization developed an effective distributed support provider model. She also redirected the Help Desk's focus to supporting technology that was heavily used by the campus community, though not generally available from other sources. A focus on a user-friendly and smart Help Desk – primarily staffed with part-time student employees – was a paramount and successful initiative. Other initiatives included reemphasizing and rebuilding the faculty support center, supporting the Training group to focus on "Train-the-Trainer" programs, and expanding the skills and capabilities of the network and telephone service teams.
      Annie was Director of Academic Technology and Network Services at Northwestern University from 1991 to 1996. From 1980 to 1991, she held key technology positions at the University of Rochester, first in the university's hospital and then in university administration.
      Annie served on the board of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN). She was a vocal supporter of the change in CREN's focus and is especially proud of CREN's work with "Tech Talks", a series of audio web casts featuring interviews with experts on IT topics such as technology transfer, networking, security, course management systems, and professional development for the higher-education IT community.
      Annie served on the board of CAUSE where, as head of the Professional Development Committee, she was active in supporting enhancements to the organization's professional development activities. That committee also spurred peer review of pre-conference programs and tighter relationships with other national organizations that engage in professional development. While on the CAUSE board, Annie helped to initiate, and continues to support, the decision that led to the merger of EDUCOM and CAUSE. Annie was also a member of the EDUCOM board's nominating committee and chaired that committee for one year.
      Annie has been deputy program chair and program chair for the Management Symposium of the Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS). She has served as program Track Leader and as a member of the program planning committee for the Seminars on Academic Computing.
      Annie has been a faculty member at the CAUSE Management Institutes, a leader of pre-conference workshops at CAUSE, EDUCOM, and EDUCAUSE, and a speaker and/or workshop leader at many conferences. She is invited to give talks and lead workshops for IT organizations in higher education, and obliges when possible.
      Annie has been in the technology business since 1959 and considers herself grandmothered in the field. She started as a developer of operating systems and compilers, but now often needs technical support for her desktop computer, which has more power than the machines she knew well in the early 1960s when they were running the national air defense system.
      In addition to being grandmothered in technology, Annie is the grandmother of six beautiful little people; she enjoys them, her garden, trash novels, and occasional quilt making.

In addition to discussing operational details of the recently announced CITES Spam Control service, Mike will also discuss the process of planning and developing the service, including an examination of the many issues that required resolution.

Mike Corn became Director of Security Services and Information Privacy in the Office of the CIO mid-December 2003.
      Mike's experience in Information Technology began in development, dating back to his days watching 1/2" tape spin on PDP-Lab 8's in the mid-1970s, and in working on atmospheric models of Mars at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Cray 1 Serial #2) in Boulder, Colorado.
      While at the University of Illinois, he has worked on a number of policy issues, including the University's policy on using Social Security numbers. He also helped formulate data marts in the original Information Warehouse, as well as database-driven web applications.
      Mike lives in Urbana with his aging Labrador, Shiva.

In partnership with a number of colleges, CITES has initiated a project to promote and support the use of Microsoft's Windows Update Service and McAfee's ePolicy Orchestrator across the UIUC campus.
       During this presentation, we'll discuss the project, and the opportunities these two products provide to campus technical support staff to simplify managing large numbers of Windows hosts.

Mike Corn became Director of Security Services and Information Privacy in the Office of the CIO mid-December 2003.
      Mike's experience in Information Technology began in development, dating back to his days watching 1/2" tape spin on PDP-Lab 8's in the mid-1970s, and in working on atmospheric models of Mars at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Cray 1 Serial #2) in Boulder, Colorado.
      While at the University of Illinois, he has worked on a number of policy issues, including the University's policy on using Social Security numbers. He also helped formulate data marts in the original Information Warehouse, as well as database-driven web applications.
      Mike lives in Urbana with his aging Labrador, Shiva.

A slightly eclectic guided tour (through slides, at least) of the new Apple Xserve Turing cluster implemented at Computational Science and Engineering / Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets (CSE/CSAR).
      Jonathan will cover what was in place before it; why CSE chose Apple; the planning, prepping, and building; and now managing the new machine. Throughout the presentation, Jonathan will touch on what went right, what went wrong, and what was unexpected.

Jonathan Booth has had an odd relationship with the cluster he now manages. As an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he had an account on Turing for CS320 (now CS420). A year later Jonathan was the teaching assistant for CS320, causing the CITES Workstation Services Group (WSG) no end of work creating accounts for his students and clearing the students' inevitable crashed jobs.
      Finally, after becoming a member of WSG a year and a half ago, Jonathan was drafted to help maintain the old Linux-based Turing cluster, and has since worked with his cohorts Benjamin O'Connor and David Weber at Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) planning, designing, building, and now maintaining the new Turing Xserve cluster.

As Linux becomes more widely accepted as a desktop solution, and as more Linux lab environments are deployed at the UIUC campus, the need for centralized authentication and authorization becomes increasingly important to ease system management. Within a large organization such as the University, leveraging existing central authentication, authorization, and directory services is ideal.
      The UIUC Active Directory (AD) offers options for Linux system administrators to ensure access to computing resources with a password that is becoming more universally known, thus eliminating laborious tasks involved with account provisioning and password management.
      This session will explore how Engineering WorkStations (EWS) and the Department of Computer Science (DCS) are using the UIUC AD to authenticate their Linux system users.

David Anderson is an undergraduate student Unix systems administrator working for the Technology Services Group (TSG) of the Department of Computer Science (DCS). David has been working on infrastructure technology since he was hired at TSG. Current projects include single sign-on environment for DCS computer resources, and implementation of a highly available and centralized cross-platform file service.
      Prior to returning to school, David was a Communications Computer Systems Operator with the United States Air Force where he worked in various capacities ranging from computer operator to network administrator. After his 8-year tour of duty, he returned to his hometown Champaign and took a job as a Unix system administrator with Amdocs, a cellular telephone billing software vendor, where he maintained HP Openview management software and a locally developed Electronic Document storage system.
      When David is not studying for classes or hacking away at Linux machines, he can usually be found playing jazz tenor saxophone with various bands around town.

Frank Penrose is a Senior Research Programmer in the DCS Technology Services Group. He joined DCS in 2002 to help prepare the department to move into the new Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science building. Current projects include implementing a new centralized file storage service for DCS, enhancing the integration of directory information into applications and systems authentication, and maintaining the server environment for departmental use.
      Prior to joining DCS, Frank was a Principal Consultant in Levi, Ray & Shoup's Network Consulting Group. While at LRS, Frank provided assistance with Microsoft Windows Server implementation and support for a large insurance company in Bloomington. Frank graduated from the University of Illinois in 1991, and worked for Administration Information Systems and Services (one of the previous names for AITS) for five years.
      When Frank is away from work, he and his wife Karen Athy-Penrose, who works at CITES, are busy shuttling their daughters to various activities.

Sean Stevens graduated from the University of Illinois in 2003. While a student, Sean worked for the Office of Continuing Education Information Technology Division and as a student manager for Engineering WorkStations (EWS). Since 2004, he has been a CITES Departmental Services consultant working with EWS.

Steven Zydek was hired by CITES in 1999 as a Unix systems administrator and assigned to the EWS group in CITES Departmental Services. Shortly after being hired, Steve took on the role of EWS Manager with oversight responsibilities that have included planning, budgeting, implementing, securing, and supporting virtually every aspect of ten EWS labs located across the College of Engineering campus.
      The EWS labs offer approximately 10,000 users access to a broad collection of engineering applications on a mixture of computing platforms. EWS currently offers Solaris, Linux, and Windows XP in their lab environments. To learn more about EWS, please visit www.ews.uiuc.edu.
      Steve spends most of his free time with his wife and two daughters. Occasionally he has time for composing, performing, and recording "indie-pop" music.

In looking at the current status and plans for the Campus Network Upgrade Project, progress on the first-year building upgrades will be outlined. Plans for the second year, resulting from priorities set by the Academic Network Advisory Group, as well as the role of the external consultant, Western Telecommunications Consulting, Inc. (WTC), will also be discussed.
       Ample time will be provided for a question and answer session.

Stan Yagi joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in August 2001, as Director of the Computing and Communications Services Office and Assistant CIO. The 2002 reorganization resulted in a new organization name (CITES), and a new title for Stan: Assistant CIO for Information Technologies.
       Stan heads five divisions within CITES: Communications Technologies, directed by Beth Scheid; Customer Support Services, directed by Mona Heath; Departmental Services, directed by Rich Williams; Network Communications, directed by Mike Smeltzer; and Systems and Technology Services, directed by Randy Cetin. Additionally, Stan has overall responsibility for the Campus Network Upgrade Project.
      Prior to accepting his current position, Stan served as Director of Information Technology Services at Queen's University, Kingston Ontario, Canada. Stan brought to the U of I an outstanding reputation as a leader and partner to academic departments, the library, and other groups in support of teaching and research needs. He has a long and distinguished career in Information Technology and is active internationally in the computing and communications arenas.

Illinois Compass
This portion of the presentation will look at the new enterprise learning system on campus, Illinois Compass. We'll be discussing key features, examples of use, new services to help faculty, instructors, and TAs learn the system, and other CITES services that support the use of educational technologies on this campus.

Smart Classrooms
In talking about smart classrooms, we will describe the current campus classroom-remodeling project that is incorporating presentation technologies into existing spaces. We will introduce some of the new construction projects planned for the coming years, as well as cover various classroom tools being developed on campus and commercially.

Leslie Hammersmith is Director for CITES Educational Technologies. An alumna of the University of Illinois, she received a Master's degree in Teaching English as a Second Language with an emphasis in computer-assisted language instruction in 1996. She was Program Coordinator for the intensive English program on the UIC campus from 1996 until 1999, where she developed internet-based ESL programs and began designing and delivering online faculty development workshops in educational technologies. She returned to the Urbana campus in 1999 as a Computer Assisted Instruction Specialist with the Center for Educational Technologies, becoming Assistant Director in 2001. In 2002, she became Director of CITES Educational Technologies.

Brian McNurlen is Senior Coordinator of Classroom Support and Training. He manages the day-to-day operations in CITES Classroom Technologies supporting the 120 Integrated Teaching Systems (ITS) on campus. He also consults with campus departments on their audiovisual and presentation technology needs. He has taught at the university level and published research in the areas of learning and instruction. He is currently working on his doctorate in Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Directory Services
CITES currently operates several directory services for the academic computing needs of campus, including ED (formerly ph), Novell eDirectory, iPlanet LDAP, and Microsoft Active Directory. These technologies provide service to many clients and applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
       CITES realizes that these services are lacking much-needed features and is currently working to create the next generation of directory services to meet UIUC's academic computing needs.
      Keith will provide an update on the CITES Directory Services Project, including the progress on integrating a new and improved directory service framework, and a look ahead to what UIUC can expect in the coming months and years.

Help Desk Consortium
CITES sponsors the Help Desk Consortium, a meeting of college and departmental people who provide direct computing support to their respective customers. Terry will provide more information on the consortium, including highlights of past meetings. You are also invited to discuss issues such as the value and purpose of the consortium, and to suggest future meeting topics.

Software Services Update
This portion of the presentation will highlight recent developments in Software Site Licensing and the Software WebStore. Andre will provide an update on the status of key WebStore enhancements and offer a brief summary of new product offers.

Andre Krabbe joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in June 2001 as Software Services Manager in CITES Departmental Services. Andre is a Champaign-Urbana native and graduate of the University of Illinois. Prior to his employment with CITES Departmental Services, he gained technology experience with ITT, NMHG, and more recently, as Vice President of Information Technology at Roberson Transportation.

Keith Wessel works for the Production Applications Group in CITES Systems and Technology Services. He serves as the project lead and service manager for the next generation of CITES' Directory Services.
      Although he has been working full time for CITES only since 2002, he is no stranger to the UIUC computing community. Keith began working for NCSA in 1992 as a software developer and system administrator. Later, while completing two degrees in computer science at UIUC's College of Engineering, he worked for CITES Workstation Services Group (WSG) and CITES Engineering WorkStations (EWS). His brief year and a half in the corporate world took him to Michigan where he obtained Six Sigma certification and project management experience with Ford Motor Company.
      When he's not working, Keith might be seen walking around campus accompanied by Apollo, his guide dog and faithful friend of over eleven years – the only dog on campus with a Master's degree!

Terry Wilson is currently Manager of the CITES Help Desk and CITES Customer Relations Coordinator. He has nearly 24 years of experience in IT at the University – 21+ with AITS, and the last three with CITES, most of which has been spent in customer service. He welcomes your input regarding improving CITES services in general, and Help Desk services specifically.

This session provides an opportunity to ask our guest speaker about the ideas presented in her keynote, the University of Wisconsin's Division of Information Technology (DoIT) in general, or about her experiences with UW - M's recent campus-wide network upgrade.

Annie Stunden has served as CIO and Director of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) at the University of Wisconsin - Madison since February 2000. UW-M is a 40,000-student research university committed to transformational change of the teaching and learning environment through the use of technology. With about 550 permanent staff and 250 student workers, DoIT provides technology services and support to the UW-M community, and selected services to some of the other colleges in the University of Wisconsin system.
      From 1996 to 2000, Annie was Director of Academic Technology at Cornell University. At Cornell, she led an organization of 70 permanent staff and about 200 student staff, who supported the use of technology tools by faculty and students in their teaching and learning, and by the campus community in their day-to-day work.
      Under Annie's leadership, Cornell's technology organization developed an effective distributed support provider model. She also redirected the Help Desk's focus to supporting technology that was heavily used by the campus community, though not generally available from other sources. A focus on a user-friendly and smart Help Desk – primarily staffed with part-time student employees – was a paramount and successful initiative. Other initiatives included reemphasizing and rebuilding the faculty support center, supporting the Training group to focus on “Train-the-Trainer" programs, and expanding the skills and capabilities of the network and telephone service teams.
      Annie was Director of Academic Technology and Network Services at Northwestern University from 1991 to 1996. From 1980 to 1991, she held key technology positions at the University of Rochester, first in the university's hospital and then in university administration.
      Annie served on the board of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN). She was a vocal supporter of the change in CREN's focus and is especially proud of CREN's work with "Tech Talks", a series of audio web casts featuring interviews with experts on IT topics such as technology transfer, networking, security, course management systems, and professional development for the higher-education IT community.
      Annie served on the board of CAUSE where, as head of the Professional Development Committee, she was active in supporting enhancements to the organization's professional development activities. That committee also spurred peer review of pre-conference programs and tighter relationships with other national organizations that engage in professional development. While on the CAUSE board, Annie helped to initiate, and continues to support, the decision that led to the merger of EDUCOM and CAUSE. Annie was also a member of the EDUCOM board's nominating committee and chaired that committee for one year.
      Annie has been Deputy Program Chair and Program Chair for the Management Symposium of the Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS). She has served as program Track Leader and as a member of the program planning committee for the Seminars on Academic Computing.
      Annie has been a faculty member at the CAUSE Management Institutes, a leader of pre-conference workshops at CAUSE, EDUCOM, and EDUCAUSE, and a speaker and/or workshop leader at many conferences. She is invited to give talks and lead workshops for IT organizations in higher education, and obliges when possible.
      Annie has been in the technology business since 1959 and considers herself grandmothered in the field. She started as a developer of operating systems and compilers, but now often needs technical support for her desktop computer, which has more power than the machines she knew well in the early 1960s when they were running the national air defense system.
      In addition to being grandmothered in technology, Annie is the grandmother of six beautiful little people; she enjoys them, her garden, trash novels, and occasional quilt making.

In the not-so-distant past, IT professionals instituted backup and recovery processes primarily to protect critical data and programs from loss due to catastrophic failures in hardware on server systems. The availability of such processes to provide protection against end-user mistakes on desktop systems was a natural extension for such processes.
      Today, the distributed nature of IT services and more pervasive reliance on the availability of IT assets make backup and recovery central to maintaining business continuity for campus units. Complicating this picture is rising user expectations for quick recovery of data from a variety of sources.
      This panel will explore the implications of new roles for backup and recovery services and technologies that units use to address rising needs and expectations.

CITES developed the Iris service to facilitate the management of CITES-managed switches by campus network administrators. Since its inception, the developers have striven to increase the feature-set and enhance the usability of this service in direct relation to requests from the campus.
       In his presentation, Chris will describe the present status and future goals of Iris. He'll also solicit feedback and feature requests from users of the service.

Chris Skaar, Iris Service Manager, is a member of the CITES Network Maintenance group in CITES Communications Technologies. He has worked for CITES since 2001. Previous to his current placement, he has held positions in the Operations Center and Network Design Office. He previously worked as a systems engineer for a small consulting firm in Sioux Falls, SD that, through several buyouts, eventually became part of McLeodUSA.
      Chris lives in Savoy with his wife and two children, ages 3 months and 2 1/2 years.

CITES Training Services is eager to hear your suggestions about the ways we can most effectively bring training to you and your campus constituents.
      Please join us as we share information about training opportunities currently in the works, and seek your suggestions for more valuable learning opportunities for you and the people you support back at the office.
      Visit the CITES Training Services web site at training.cites.uiuc.edu for more information.

Lynnell Lacy began working at CITES 16 years ago. Since that time, she has worn many hats of the User Services genre, including managing the Computing Resource Center in the early 1990s. Currently, Lynnell is Program Coordinator for CITES Training Services and she continues to manage CCSP and its biannual conferences.
       Lynnell is an active member and leader in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (SIGUCCS). She is also a member of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD).
      A lifelong learner, Lynnell will graduate this spring from Eastern Illinois University with a BS in Career and Organizational Studies. Lynnell plans to attend graduate school beginning fall 2005.
      In her free time, Lynnell enjoys spending time with her husband of 21 years and their 16-year-old daughter. She also enjoys spending time with good friends, conducting some public speaking engagements, working on the book she is writing, and exploring the underwater world of the Caribbean Sea.

Hector Mandel has been involved in IT at the University of Illinois since the mid-1980s. Hector has been involved in CCSP since its inception in 1990, having been one of the original members of the CCSO steering committee that recommended its creation.
      He came to CITES in 1994 as one of the first full-time CITES Departmental Services consultants. Currently, Hector works with CITES Departmental Services' Central Services team, focusing on UIUC Active Directory support, and with CITES Advanced Technology Training, conducting workshops and advanced training on various topics. Hector holds a Master of Computer Science degree from the University of Illinois, and premier certifications from CompTIA (CTT+, Security+) and Microsoft (MCT, MCSE+Security).

Philip Nyman joined CITES Departmental Services in 1997 as a consultant for LAS and the Alumni Association. Interests in technical training and service/project management developed during later work while supporting the CITES Training Center and managing the CCSO Resource Center, and have led to the current position of CITES Departmental Services Technical Trainer and Project Manager.
       Recent training offers include MS Project 2003 Pro and MS Official Curriculum SQL Server 2000 Administration and Programming. Phil has also designed and presented custom courses for CITES NetFiles, Express Email, and PC Security.
       A strong believer in professional development, Phil is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and holds numerous certifications from Microsoft and CompTIA, as well as the UIUC Professional Supervisor and Project Pro certifications.
       Phil also holds a Master's degree in Physics, enjoys puzzles, and a good game of pool.