February 23, 2006

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February 23, 2006

• Please note we are recording this meeting.

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Focus group transcripts

• How are we using this data?
• Yes, we are still throwing the audio away
  afterwards!

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SAC - Current Open Slots

• 1 SCS
• 1 Tepper
• 1 MCS
• More will be coming up - if you are graduating,
  think about who you know that might be good to
  fill your space!

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Privacy Concerns?

• Some of you have expressed interest in hearing
  about privacy issues.
• What areas are you interested in?
• Who has access to your data?
• Who is doing what with your data?
• What restrictions are there on the use of your
  data?
• What kinds of data security measures are in
  place?
• Other?

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Agenda

• Computer Store Focus Group
• Linux Clusters
• Results from Mulberry Analysis Focus Group
• Your Turn

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Computer Store Focus Group
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Where is the Store?

• New location - who knows where it is?
• Have you been there since it moved?
• Did you like the new space?
• Did you like the old space better?

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Have you bought anything from the Store?

• since the start of the semester?
• since the start of the school year?
• since you were a freshman?

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What have you bought from the Store?

• Hardware?
• Did you receive help from the sales consultant?
• Did you use the hardware on display in the store?
• Software?
• Did you compare the Stores prices with other
  vendors prices?
• Other items?
• Convenience items?
• Peripherals?

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Have you been to the Stores website?

• Why were you there?
• Shopping around?
• Trying to order?
• Looking for other information?
• How could we improve the website?
• Price comparisons?
• Online ordering?
• Other ideas?

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How could we improve the Store?

• Would you like to see more computers on display?
• More software and what kind?
• More peripherals, media or other items?
• Other ideas?

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Other services

• Do you know where the Help Center is?
• Have you used them for support?
• What kinds of things?

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Feelings about the Computer Store?

• Whats the most important thing that you use the
  Computer Store to do?
• How valuable are the Computer Stores services to
  you compared to other vendors?

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Getting support

• If not the Help Center, where have you gone for
  computer support?
• Do you know what the Computer Maintenance Group
  is?
• Have you ever used their services?

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Paying for additional support

• Would you use a low-cost hardware support service
  (repairs, upgrades, warranty service)?
• Would you use a low-cost software repair service
  (OS upgrades, patches, recovery from viruses,
  data recovery)?

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Take our survey!

• http//www.cmu.edu/computing/surveys/store/
• Share it with your friends and enemies!

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Linux Clusters
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What Clusters are we talking about?

• The Computing Services Linux Clusters located in
  Wean Hall 5201, 5203, and 5207
• Hunt, Morewood, and West Wing Linux machines.

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Are the Linux clusters going away?

• We dont know yet.
• We need to understand the current use of these
  clusters WHO uses them? WHY do they use them?
  WHAT functions are important?
• The current support situation with those clusters
  is not sustainable, so we do need to figure this
  all out!

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Why do you use them?
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Unix servers vs. Clusters

• Have you ever used the public Unix servers to do
  the type of work youd do in a Linux cluster?

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Problems?
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Platform-dependence?
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Where do we go from here?

• We will be surveying faculty who teach in the
  Linux clusters
• and students who have logged in on those
  machines.
• Once we understand the situation better, we will
  be better able to decide on the right thing to do.

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Mulberry what we learned
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Mulberry how we learned

• Documentation review
• Help Center data
• Mail usage logs and server data
• Focus groups (including you guys)
• Surveys (to those with local mailboxes or shared
  address books)

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Mulberry what we learned

• Students dont care that much
• Staff and faculty care a lot
• Bboards arent driving Mulberry usage
• Lots of people have local archives
• Administering bulletin boards and shared mailboxes

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Students dont care (that much)
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Students dont care (that much)

• 11 of freshmen, sophomores, juniors forwarding
  their mail off-campus
• 9 of seniors forwarding their mail off-campus
• Vast majority of forwarded mail going to gmail

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Staff/faculty care a lot more

• More than 40 have used it since 11/27/05

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Bboards arent the thing driving Mulberry usage

• Only 33 of the 5677 users who viewed at least
  one bulletin board this calendar year recently
  sent mail with Mulberry.
• 30 of recent Mulberry users have viewed a bboard
  other than the misc.market boards this calendar
  year.
• Students hate Blackboard for discussion groups!

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Lots of people have local archives

• At least 621 Mulberry users are set up to use a
  local mailbox
• Only 311 of those sent mail with the program
  since 11/27/05
• A survey of all 621 users with local mailboxes
  had a reponse rate of 41 (people care!)

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Recommendations

• Improve Webmail
• Attachment size
• Push notification of new mail
• Consider alternate email clients
• Communicate, document, educate

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Recommendations

• Develop strategy for reading local Mulberry
  archives
• Open in another client (like Thunderbird)
• Recommend a mail conversion tool
• Develop strategy for administering bboards and
  shared mailboxes
• We have no idea. ?

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Questions? Concerns? Have info?

• jacquez_at_andrew.cmu.edu
• or send it to the list!