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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN OSHKOSH April 21, 1998 The University’s "Plan to Address Year 2000 Issues" was adopted in April 1997. This One-Year Update Report provides detail on steps taken during the past twelve months to address the Year 2000 (Y2K) challenge and outstanding issues. The April 1997 Plan stated: "Information Technology (IT) staff will be responsible for central resources, to include the IBM mainframe and its application software, VAX computers, central servers, student labs, and the Polk Library computer. Units and departments will be responsible for their servers, personal computers, and related software." Information Technology Division: While there have been some adjustments to particular dates and timelines identified in the April 1997 Y2K Plan, there are no major slippages affecting the University’s ability to bring the existing administrative systems into Y2K compliance. The status of Y2K compliance for the three major administrative systems is as follows: Student Information System. The project to convert from the legacy Student Master File to PeopleSoft’s Student Administration is on schedule to meet the June 1999 cut-over date. The IBM mainframe’s operating system was brought to Y2K compliance in June 1997. Supporting software for the IBM mainframe is on target for completion by June 30, 1998, as projected in the April 1997 Plan. All computers in the student general access labs are Y2K compliant. Academic Computing’s servers and the AlphaServer (e-mail server) are Y2K compliant. Regarding Polk Library, the April 1997 Y2K Plan stated "the KeyNOTIS computer system in the library will be replaced by a new Year 2000 compatible system before 2000. This replacement will be part of a System-wide migration to a new automated library system, currently being directed by the UW System Library Automation Task Force." The Task Force is currently evaluating vendor responses to an RFP for the new library system. While hopefully UW Oshkosh and the other UW libraries will migrate to the new system before January 2000, it is possible that some libraries will not be able to install the new system in time. Therefore, UW System is taking steps to make the current library system Y2K compliant. This involves upgrading the operating system software for the hardware running the library system (the KeyNOTIS software itself is Y2K compliant). UW Oshkosh’s Polk Library is scheduled to receive the Y2K fix for its library hardware and operating system in Summer 1998. Departments and Administrative Units: The April 1997 Y2K Plan stated that "individual personal computers, department servers and similar devices are the responsibility of the department, as are any software systems installed locally." In Fall 1997, the Colleges and administrative units identified Unit Y2K Coordinators. The IT Division held seminars in March 1998 to review departmental Y2K responsibilities. At these seminars, the Unit Coordinators were informed that all Pentium-based computers are Y2K compliant as are campus PC operating systems. They were also informed that Academic Computing has purchased a campus site license for software that will check personal computers to see if they are Y2K compliant. If not, this software will "fix" the PC so that it is compliant. Additional software will scan computer files and look for applications that use date fields. A report is then printed showing the files where a date field was recognized. The user then needs to determine if that application will function properly as of January 1, 2000. At the March 1998 seminars, the Unit Coordinators were also reminded that they must contact vendors (local or external) for any locally-installed software. Y2K Funding Request: $50,000 was provided in 1997-98 for Year 2000. These funds have been used to purchase consulting services from Bob Eggert (former Manager of Administrative Computing at UW Oshkosh), consulting services from third party vendors, and student assistants. $50,000 is needed for 1998-99 for third party consulting services and student assistants. At this time it is not possible to state that the Y2K problems can be resolved without a final $50,000 installment in 1999-00; therefore the University should plan to make these funds available in 1999-00. In summary, the University has made major progress toward resolving the Y2K challenge. Continued special funding is needed to keep major projects (migration to PeopleSoft’s SA and AMS’s Advantage) on course. Return to top.
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Technology. Last updated: August 1999 |
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