i/s Back Issues

Volume 14

No. 1  September/October 1998

Year 2000 Team Provides Resources for the Community

Gayle Willman

This article inaugurates a regular i/s column on Year 2000 (Y2K) issues, especially as they apply to MIT. Future articles will cover a range of topics, from assessment procedures and compliance testing programs to employee concerns about campus financial systems, such as those in Payroll and the MIT Credit Union. For this issue, the spotlight is on MIT's Y2K team.

Role of the Y2K Team
The Y2K problem has received ample coverage in the media, and has been the focus of earlier i/s articles. Given the scope of the Y2K problem, what is MIT doing to address it?

A five-person Y2K Team, led by Rocklyn Clarke, was formally assembled in September, though preliminary work had been under way for some time.

The Y2K team is working to assist the MIT community in managing an uneventful transition to the year 2000. It intends to provide

  Education around Y2K issues

  Communication about potential problem areas

  Consulting services to Departments, Labs and Centers

  Testing and assessment resources

  Assistance with legal and contingency planning

  Risk management reporting to senior management

"We aren't familiar enough with local systems to go out and fix every potential problem on the MIT campus, but we can provide the MIT community with information and many of the technical resources needed to facilitate Y2K remediation efforts," says Clarke.

Moving Forward
The Y2K Team is offering a seminar and hands-on course (see IS Training Services Offers Several New Courses This Fall for specifics). Additional workshops will be held throughout 1999, with special events during IAP.

The team is also working to create two campus-wide groups, one to work on compliance issues and the other on Y2K contingency plans.

It continues to maintain the MIT Project Year 2000 Web site at http://web.mit.edu/ist/help/y2k/

This site provides an overview of the problem, outlines steps to take, and offers a compliance list and links to vendors, conferences, and other Y2K sites.

The MIT community can also take advantage of the technical information in the MIT Libraries, particularly in the Barker Engineering Library (10-500).

Y2K Questions?
For help with specific Y2K questions, send mail to <y2k-help@mit.edu>. Requests will be logged by the Help Desk's Casetracker system. The team can also be reached at x3-2000. Members of the community are encouraged to join the Y2K mailing list at <mity2k@mitvma.mit.edu>. Subscription instructions are posted on the Project Year 2000 Web site.

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