Open Access encourages the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society.

Open Access is the principle that all research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, and it’s gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers throw their weight behind it. [From the openaccessweek.org website]. There are two routes to open access:

1. publishing in an openly accessible journal, monograph etc.
2. archiving your work in a research repository such as TSpace, ArXiv etc.

I think this is a great initiative – I’ve always thought that research, particularly research funded with public money, should come with it an obligation to publish results for the benefit of society (who after all, paid for it).  I think its wonderful that the university would encourage faculty to publish works in open formats and open repositories.

However – the timing of open access week (October 19-23) comes on the heels of a University of Toronto Libraries decision to charge graduate students from other universities $200 per year to access collections held by the university.  This fee was already in place for members of the public who wish to use university resources.

The reasons given are the usual, that a multi million dollar budget shortfall forces fees like this – but if information from blogto (http://www.blogto.com/city/2009/10/are_robarts_library_fees_an_unfair_financial_burden_on_graduate_students/) is correct, then fees from Ryerson students, who we would expect to be the heaviest borrowers, would only make up $80k annually.  I think that the fees fly in the face of academic cooperation and with increasing budgetary pressures, when universities should be cooperating to avoid duplication and increase inter-library lending of resources, the university is instead closing its doors.

I would even go so far as to say that I support the elimination of the fee to the public – or at least eliminate the fee for those just wanting to access the library and not borrow resources.  With a published operating budget of $1.4 billion the recovery value seems so small.

The library itself should also consider its own mission statement “The mission of the University of Toronto Library is to foster the search for knowledge and understanding in the University and the wider community. To this end, we shall provide innovative services and comprehensive access to information founded upon our developing resources as one of the leading research libraries in the world” – apparently the part about the wider community and comprehensive access to information is only for those that can afford it.

ITIL v3 has 5 books at its core.  V1 and V2 had many more books.

On its own all of our computers, hub, switches are just stuff – until we but them together to accomplish goals and *manage them*.

V3 has a focus on value – IT people can provide lots of interesting and compelling services – but if it doesn’t align with business needs then it is of low value.

So how can we provide services that have value?

In the end even universities are about money – so we need to be able to generate and efficiently/effectively use it.

ITIL is not proscriptive – it it flexible and can include elements of exisiting process.  This also makes ITIL more difficult to implement.

Developing a process to manage information and data in your own environment.  Use metrics so you can actually measure things.

Start small – don’t go in trying to create an asset and configuration management database – instead do something like just document servers – this way the task seems surmountable.

70% of problems and incidents come from change.  So change management is important.

Roles – RACI – Responsible (what and by whom), Accountable (Who are the owners of the results), Consulted (who can assist, guide?), Informed (who else needs to know about it?)

The four Ps of integration – Products/Technology, People, Processes and Partners/Suppliers – you need all 4 to successfully develop a service.

Utility + Warrantee = Value in other words it needs to do what the customer needs and it needs to be fit for use (secure etc)

ROI vs VOI

Service Portfolio – the list of services that you currently offer as well as the services you have offered in the past and are working on offering in the future.

Business Impact Analysis – What are the vital business functions now and what will they be after implementation?

Demand Management – Are there patterns in our business?  How can we manage changing demands? *ROSI

Rather than reacting – try to agree with stakeholders and come up with agreed business requirements – stay head of the curve.

Role based catalog – show people the services that are relevant to them

Duke University has SLA templates that they are willing to share. (http://www.oit.duke.edu/enterprise/SLA-OLA/index.html)

Its very clear that i’m not going to remember most of this session – i’ll have to go back over the slides.

At 8am the temperature was nice and cool and I got off to a quick start, I wasn’t all that hungry yet so I headed north into the east edge of downtown St. Cloud.  As the sun rose it got hotter and hotter up to 30 degrees celcius.  I trekked around, getting caught behind closed roads (St. Cloud is undergoing two bridge reconstructions at once, causing some chaos) and for the life of me I couldn’t find Pete’s Place.  But I did find myself at one point at the corner of Courthouse Sq and Courthouse Sq.  By this time i’m getting pretty hungry so I head east across the Mississippi to where my iPod tells me there is a Starbucks – I figured if all else failed I could partake of that American institution.

Yep, I'm at the Corner of Courthouse Sq and Courthouse Sq

The Mighty Mississippi

Happily Starbucks was not resorted to – not long after crossing the 1st street bridge across the big river I rubbed my eyes at what I thought must be a mirage – a sign reading “Dutch Maid Bakery” – I was saved!  I asked in my usual touristy way what the nice woman behind the counter thought was particularly great among the glistening offerings under the glass.  I ended up with something called a Caramel Apple Bismark, which in the end turned out to be basically a giant (about 2x tim hortons size) donut, glazed with a caramel glaze and filled with apple pie filling – I have to say – it may have been greasy and I may have been tired from all that walking, but it was delicious.  Consider this my first grease injection of the day – again little did I know there was far more to follow.

Sweet salvation - breakfast at last

The Caramel Apple Bismark - Take note Tim Hortons

Providence struck twice along 1st street – a little way down the road on the right stood a mighty factory that proclaimed itself to be the Country Hearth Baking Co – and as luck would have it they had an outlet store.  I purchased a few things here – a locally made BBQ sauce that claimed to be the last word in BBQ, a powered black pepper gravy mix (now with sausage flavour!), a cornbread mix and a country biscuit mix – these were to be for Heather.  I also continued my breakfast with a tiny cherry pie, about four inches across which turned out to be both inexpensive and worth what I paid.

By this time I was getting quite sunburnt (as usual I had neglected to put any sunscreen on) so I turned south, staunchly refusing to cross back over big muddy by the same bridge I had come over on.  I walked down Lincoln Avenue and was able to knock a few more ‘todos’ off my list – I shopped for a while in a Target, purchasing 70spf spray sunblock, some body wash and shampoo (both of which I had intentionally not brought) and some tictacs, a ‘giant size’ package of passion fruit and cherry flavours!  After finishing with the target I crossed the street and saw a few more places I had wanted to visit – a liqour store and a grocery.  Now I wasn’t about to break the rule at SCSU that alcohol wasn’t allowed, but I also wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to visit a Minnesota liquor store.  I was huge, and amazing, and cheap.  Not only was the number of products staggering, but the variety of sizes they came in was incredible.  As a benchmark I found a 1.75L bottle of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum and found that it was priced at an incredibly reasonable $25.  Quite unexpectedly this particular store turned up another wonderful find – three bottles of Dan Ackroyd’s Crystal Head Vodka – a subject of much mirth and ridicule at our house, this vodka is filtered through diamonds and bottled in a painstakingly crafted crystal skull to more easily resonate with psychic energy – Dan Ackroyd has gone completely ’round the bend.

The grocery store was also pretty amazing, bubba kegs of root beer (think the heinekin ones), as well as one of my Minnesota regional dishes at the hot food counter – a food type known, rather  generically, as “hot dish” in this case with chicken and wild rice.  I purchased a small container, which I have yet to eat – but will fall victim later thisevening.

St. Cloud was kicking off their big annual city festival today, which included a big deal at the SCSU campus called the Lemonaid  Conert and Art fair – so after making my way back to SCSU, which made my whole walk total about 10km I walked out to see what the local artists were selling.  Now considering that Saint Cloud is only a city of 59,000 people the number of vendors and members of the public that attended to buy the wares of local artists was impressive – I was more than once tempted by a piece of art or something but had to remind myself that I had more than two weeks and at least two more plane rides left that anything I bought would have to survive.

Just a fraction of the number of booths from the Lemonaid Concert and Art Fair (there were about 250 vendor booths, all local artisans)

My usual pattern when i’m in a foreign city is that there are two criteria to establish that a food must be eaten.  These are: 1) If it is a local or regional food, or I have otherwise not heard of it or eaten it and 2) If everyone around seems to be eating one.  These rules will generally get you a good feel for the cuisine of the area and by using rule #2 you get to eat what the locals like.  So here were my food items of the afternoon and my comments:

1. Lemonaid 2 x $4 – now normally lemonaid sold at a fair or event like this out of a giant fibreglass lemon wouldn’t earn itself a second look, until you considered that this particular lemon had a lineup of 20 or 30 people and that the event itself was named after lemonaid.  In short it was the best, if not the cheapest lemonaid that I have ever had – served with lots of ice which helped counteract the sweltering temperatures.
2. Foot Long Corn Dog $5 – again, a fairly mundane food item, but I watched the people in the booth mixing up the batter themselves and saw a lot of people walking around with these golden brown monstrosities.  It was greasy but the cornmeal batter was amazing and crunchy and with my ususal topping of yellow mustard the whole thing was a pretty great entree into what was going to turn out to be an entirely unhealthy dinner.
3. Silly Bar $3.50 – Apparently a clone of the Dilly Bar, this product was made by taking ice cream that the vendor made themselves, putting it on a stick and dunking it in chocolate – I didn’t really see how that could go wrong and since the ice cream was a local product I opted to have a S’Mores flavoured Silly bar – which stood up quite well with any other simlar cold-stuff-on-a-stick that i’ve ever had.
4. Deep Fried Cheese Curds $5 – I was full, I really didn’t want anymore food.  The corn dog and the silly bar had satisfied my hunger and I just wanted to walk around and explore some more – that is until I took a turn that I hadn’t before and was faced with sign and yet another long line of people all ordering deep fried cheese curds.  These things were without a doubt the greasiest food I have ever eaten in my life – i’m sure my life expectancy is notably shorter because of their artery clogging punch – they should be made illegal.  They were also delicious, crunchy on the outside and melty and cheesy on the inside, to compare them to the cheese sticks we often see in restraunts in Canada is to do a grave injustice to the fryer-weilding dealers of death who cheerfully send me on my way with my mittfull of molten cheese heart explosive.
   

   Now who could resist a sign like that?

   

   100% Pure Artery Clogging Goodness - Deep Fried Cheese Curds

Its now about 8pm and i’m about to head out to see a performance by the Saint Cloud Symphony Orchestra.  I haven’t suffered a fatal heart attack yet, but I just found out that Michael Jackson just did – so maybe i’m ok at least for today.

So onto the streetcar I went, dragging my luggage for the trip across town on the 506 and then a trip south on the 511.  The ferry terminal for Porter at the base of Bathhurst is really quite nice – in fact considering how often the ferry comes, it shocked me that the lounge where you wait for it is better than most airport’s gate lounges in comfort and especially in view – large windows offered a commanding view of the channel and the airport itself.  The ferry ride was short and efficient, and as it arrived I braced myself for the endless lines, waiting and human-cattle-herding that seems to be the norm at airports.

Boy was I surprised.

All the staff were fantastically polite, and within about 20 minutes of my arrival on the ferry I was checked in, through security and eating complimentary shortbread cookies and drinking complimentary diet coke in the Porter lounge – which, by the way, also featured not only free wifi but about 12 iMacs for the use of waiting passengers.

Porter Lounge at TCCA

Basing my expectations once again on past expereince with airlines, once my flight was called and I boarded, I expected to wait on the plane for some unreasonable amount of time while the crew ignore you and the cabin gets hotter and hotter – and the seatbelt sign stays on of course.  Again Porter surprises me by having me in the air within 20 minutes of the beginning of boarding – *on time*.  The only complaint I could have about the flight was that it was too short – fifty minutes passed quickly with the staff distributing a snack box containing a shortcake, fruit salad AND a granola bar accompanied by orange juice in a real glass with Porter etched elegantly in its side.

Landing in Chicago was routine.  Midway is a nice little airport and I immedately was able to find the Southwest counter, check my luggage and move on to the gate.  Imagine my alarm as the time of my flights departure came and went yet the board still showed the flight as on-time.  Even worse none of the other passengers seemed alarmed.  I was almost an hour past the time of my flight when I finally realized that I had switched time zones and I had failed to catch up.  Boarding proceeded fairly normally though Southwest flights don’t have assigned seats, instead according to your ticket ‘class’ you are assigned a group and you can pick from whats availiable once you get on the plane.  It was only an hour and a half flight, so I grabbed the first aisle seat I could get in the middle of the plan, instead of fighting over the popular window seats.

Here is where the trouble starts.  We taxi out onto the runway after a fair bit of delay (2o minutes maybe).  As we are getting ready to fly – the skys crack open and it POURS.  I’m not talking just rain here – this was torrential downpour and winds that made the plan lurch side to side on the tarmac – according to the pilot the wind gusts were 60 miles per hour, which for me is 96 km/h!!  Needless to say we weren’t going anywhere – so we were pulled off to the side of the runway and the waiting began – and hour and a half of waiting actually – in a plane that didn’t seem to have air conditioning.  The flight staff really were friendly though – distributing ice water and asking the captain to let people use the washroom despite the continuing seatbelt sign.

We finally took off and arrived in Minneapolis – at 3:50pm.  Now my shuttle to St. Cloud State University left at 4pm from the Ground Transportation Annex-  the way I saw it, the southwest delay meant that I would miss that shuttle and have to wait until the 6pm shuttle – which would mean I wouldn’t get to SCSU until 8pm.  I claimed my bags and looked at my cellphone – 4:10pm – I had been right – too much time has passed.  I called Executive Express and asked them what my options were – to my delight they told me that I wasn’t at the main terminal and thus the shuttle wouldn’t even be to me for another couple minutes – to my great relief, with a little quick walking, I made the shuttle.

I sat next to a very friendly man (Steve maybe?) from Alaska who was travelling around with his wife, including a trip back to their hometown east of St. Cloud, MN.  He was very excited to show me the GPS unit they had been using on their travels, which had me pulling out my tablet and showing them what streets and trips and a pen interface can do.  He was in the middle of telling me all about his retirement job of working at a museum in Valdez Alaska when he said “i’ve got some reading material for you.”  He handed me a small pamphlet and said “maybe you’re already there, but you should read this.”  The pamphlet was titled “Steps to Peace with God” and was produced by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association.  It told me that we were all sinners and that only through Jesus Christ and admitting our sins could we ever have peace.  I had arrived in the midwest.

I arrived at SCSU and registered.  The only thing surprising about this process was the revelation that the SCSU campus is a completely dry one, no alcohol is allowed on campus at any time – all drinking had to be done at local bars.  I was shown to my room in Lawrence Hall, which is not the building where most of the resnet people will be located, but it had air conditioning and for the small premium it demanded control over temperature was worth it.  I unlocked my room door and was greeted with a strange sight – a loft bed on the left hand side of the room about 6 feet of the ground with nothing under it.  On the right side, even more strange was a loft bed with the bed at about 4 feet.  I ended up choosing the shorter bed, dropped my stuff off and headed out to a restraunt called Mexican Village with a few people I had met at last years resnet and who has also arrived early.  I had a dish called the chicken fundito, which I think, is a word that exists neither in Spanish or English.  It tasted great – think pulled chicken in a deep fried tortilla, swimming in cheese and jalepeno sour cream with a heaping helping of refried beans and a pitcher of margarita on the side.  The food wasn’t expensive, tax and tip and margarita all in only set me back about $20 but little did I know – the artery clogging experience of the (admittedly delicious) fundito would return the next day.  I returned to my room, used a chair to climb into my bed and fell asleep.

Lawrence Hall, my home during ResNet 2009

Mexican Village - home of the Chicken Fundito