Maine Perspective Front Page
UMaine Launches Y2K Awareness Program
The University of Maine's Y2K Committee is taking steps to ensure that the institution is technologically prepared for the dawn of the new millennium.
"The worst disaster at the beginning of the year would be a power outage," says Les Shaw, who chairs UMaine's Y2K Committee, formed in December. "In the event this happens, we will turn to our priority list of buildings that must stay open in an emergency. At the System level, part of the contingency is to rent generators for the campuses to have on hand for the beginning of the year.
"We are also taking cues from the last full-scale emergency situation to hit campus - Ice Storm '98. We're using information from that storm to go back and double-check our Y2K contingency plans," says Shaw.
Just because the power is on one minute after midnight Jan. 1 doesn't mean things will be stable, says Shaw. "What we're hearing from the power company is there may be temporary sporadic outages for the first week. The first week in January will be the real test."
Shaw is the UMaine representative to the University of Maine System's Y2K Committee, which is working with a consulting firm to ensure that timelines are met and progress is being made on each campus to identify and resolve the most critical year 2000 issues. The Y2K committees of the System and the campuses are responsible for Y2K problems that may threaten life, such as inoperative fire alarms or the 911 emergency system, and that may jeopardize the institutions' missions, such as inability of students to register for classes, and disabled security systems and environmental controls.
On the System level, UNET had a Dec. 31, 1998 deadline to be Y2K compliant. It has met the deadline and is testing those programs now.
"At UMaine, we did an inventory in fall 1998 to identify what was on campus for technology. From that inventory list, we set the categories to be addressed," says Shaw, assistant director of Information Technologies. "However, my biggest concern still remains that we have not found everything, especially all pieces of research equipment. We've asked building managers and technicians to help identify them."
Inventoried technology on campus has been categorized into four levels: Level 1, that which could be life-threatening; Level 2, technology critical to the University's mission; Level 3, that which is mission-critical to departments or units; Level 4, desktop technology that is the responsibility of individuals.
"By the end of the summer, my hope is that we have addressed all Level 1 and Level 2 technology to make it Y2K compliant, and we have campuswide contingency plans that are incorporated into the University's Emergency Management Plan," Shaw says. "We will try to help people at Level 3 and Level 4 if time and staff allow, but the Y2K Committee does not have responsibility for fixing this technology. We will refer members of the University community in the right directions for seeking answers to their departmental or individual Y2K compliance questions, and help them with our awareness program."
Later this month, the Y2K Committee will launch a campuswide awareness program to educate users. Leading the awareness program will be the Committee's new Y2K analyst Ray Walters. (See related story page 6.) An important resource in the awareness program will be a user's guide to Y2K questions and answers. In it will be what members of the University community can expect as Jan. 1 approaches, proactive steps to ensuring Y2K compliance, and where to go for help with Y2K concerns, including Website resources.
There are Y2K software packages on the market to locate problems. However, people need to be cautious about being lulled into a false sense of security with Y2K software, says Shaw. "For instance, some of this software may look only at databases and not spreadsheets. There are programs on the Web to run against your computer to tell if your operating system is Y2K compliant. If it's not, most newer computers have fixes in the form of manufacturers' Y2K patches to download; check the manufactures' Web pages. Some of the older equipment cannot be updated.
"The chances are greater that computer users will not have Y2K problems or will have quick-fixes if their equipment was purchased in the last four years. But they also need to know that newer equipment or software doesn't ensure Y2K compliance. There are 5-year-old computers that are compliant and 6-month-old equipment that isn't," says Shaw. "Even Windows '98, marketed to be ready for the year 2000, is not fully compliant."
UMaine's Y2K Committee is not only concerned about the date Jan. 1, 2000. The date 9/9/99, which was often used in earlier programming to indicate the termination of a program, also is a focus. And even if your equipment or software survives past 1/1/2000, there's 2/29/2000 - the first instance of a leap year after the turn of the century.
"My biggest caution is people don't put off checking the Y2K compliance of their technology until the end of the year. We're hoping after the semester ends and people have more time to look at their individual technology issues, the calls for help start coming in. If people wait until fall to see if they have a Y2K problem, they will run out of time and help may not be available. If people wait until Jan. 2, in some instances data could be corrupted or equipment and programs will fail to run.
"As we get closer to 2000, people are understanding the issues more and taking a middle-of-the-road approach. There will be Y2K problems and inconveniences, but we don't foresee major disasters.
"People should be proactive. There will be people who will do nothing, but it won't be because they weren't warned."