October Minutes

Technology Council Minutes

October 4, 2006

1:30 P.M.

 

The monthly meeting of the Technology Council was held on Wednesday, October 4, 2006 in room 1118 at 1:30 pm with Carol Briggs-Erickson as facilitator.

 

 

The meeting was called to order at 1:40 pm. Carol is very excited about chairing the Technology Council even though this is her first time chairing a committee. She is anxious to work more closely with I.T. and to be a part of discussing where technology is going.   She thanked everyone for coming and announced that there were several other commitments for other members at the same time so attendance would be low.  

 

The agenda minutes were entered for approval. Carol noted the plagiarism software spoken about in previous meeting is called ‘Turnitin’ under Blackboard presentation. There were no other changes. The minutes were motioned by Sue Meeuwenberg for approval and seconded by Connie Mundinger.  

 

 

There was no old business to be covered.

 

 

Kam has given Carol some information to share. Carol would like to see some bylaws

established for this Council. There are some really good bylaws set up for the Instructional Affairs Council and she suggests this Council take a look at those. These bylaws will be helpful in determining such things as who can/will sit on this council for a person who may not be available. One concern is who will now be able to enter a vote in representation for the library now that she is chairing. It would also help determine a quorum needed to proceed with our meetings in case of low attendance. Carol would like to see a separate committee established and draft something to bring back to the Council. Becky Evans has agreed to work on such a committee. Other names suggested are: Kelly Conrad, Jean Roberts, and Rosemary Zink. Carol will speak to these people to see if they are able to serve. 

 

Funds have been ear marked to add 15 new video cameras to the classrooms. 

The assignment areas were based on a report from Tom Race who keeps track of which areas request and use equipment.   Sue would like a copy of the rooms listed to share with her department. Planetarium, 262, 230, 233, 248, 344, 348, HE 1306, 1312, 1204. There will also be 3 new systems for check out. Kam would like these rooms approved by the council. We may not be able to do it today because there is not a quorum.   

 

Question: One of the rooms suggested is room 262 which is the dance studio. The first

3 rooms; 230, 233, and 262 are listed not because of high usage but other reasons. We will put this under old business and get back. 
 

We would like to identify the 3 levels computer users on campus. The first (high level

usage) are the students; the second level are the power users on staff (people who use lots of RAM for certain programs such as video), and the third level are the basic users who don’t need a lot of power. They are in the stage of identifying these users now so some of these high level computers can be moved down to the regular users. 

 

Scott: Right now we are in a 3 to 4 year computer replacement. Eventually we

will go into the recycle. Right now we have computers all over the place. Once we get this modeled out, it will make it a lot easier to identify the users and the needs. We will have the same type, same color. We will take a look at rather  we replace the older computers first or those who have requested a new system.

 

Sue: I think the best place to start right now would be to look at who cannot do their work?

 

Scott: My suggestion to Kam was that we first must get rid of the 6 to 7 year old

computers before we can get into the power users. Out of the 150 slated for this fiscal year, 44 will go to the CAD lab then we can determine where the other 106 will go and what style they will be. We have done the inventory and know who has what. 

 

Sue: There are some who will think their computer is too slow.  

 

Scott: For instance, the ones in Information Commons are relatively new so they will be

 rolled down to the older computer users. It could be said that instead of getting 100 computers, it’s like getting 300 new. Anything older than 1998 will be replaced and those with X amount of ram will be replaced. Once you get the cycle going, it will start to roll out okay. 

 

Sue: How old are the computers in CAD lab? They are 1998. 

Connie: So we won’t be able to roll out those computers either because they are too old. 

 

 

Scott: What Kam wants from this group is to decide how we are to roll out the 106 and

 to which area. Or do we take this 106 and put them in Information commons and roll out the nice all-n-ones to others. 

 

Carol: Could someone make a motion that we table this until we have a quorum?

 

Sue motioned that we table this discussion and look at it as a big group but would like

 Scott to make a formal recommendation.

 

Scott noted that the I.T. team is now putting together a life cycle plan and that plan will

outline who has what and from that plan, we can begin to identify who is in need of replacement.

 

 

 

 

Scott shared with group that the web advisor test server was brought on line today

(10/4) The live server parts also arrived today. We have been running test on everyone. This server will house all the Web-based student information. 

 

Question: Will this be for fall? Scott didn’t want to say definitely yes but that is the hope he believes.

 

 

Julie did not have any update and hope they will have a meeting soon.

 

The Web advisor project is moving along. The new backup system is installed.

It will be doing backup every 30 minutes. If we ever have a crash, we won’t lose a days work. Backs up are done from the server to new storage device. This device is attached to two things: tape archive and to our Internet connections to a vault in Grand Rapids. So if a big meteor hits our Data Center, we have backup off site in Grand Rapids. It stores everything.  It gives us two things-3 doubles of everything and off site solution. The other thing is the AD migration which starts next week. We will be sending out notification to all areas letting them know of their scheduled time for migration. This is all leading up to single sign-on. We will be converting everyone over within the next month to the windows login. Please encourage others to be at their desk we come.

 

Question: Will passwords change? 

Answer:    Passwords will change, but if the user is not at their desk, we will assign a

       generic password. 

 

Question: Will we be able to send email to all students on Outlook?

 

Scott: We are not moving everyone off GW at once but once we have completed the

AD (Active Directory) migration and everyone is on Windows, it will be a lot simpler to send out email to all students. 

 

Sue: When people go out to MCCs website to faculty/staff pages, where will classes be housed?

 

Scott: We will be discussing in more detail. We will have to create something.

 

Sue:    I’m just a little concerned with enrollment issues. Where will students go to look

 for class availability   Sue acknowledged Pat Werly for the work in keeping the information up to date and available to students.   

 

At next meeting we will determine if we want to change meeting time to 1:00 instead of 1:30. 

 

With no further announcements or business, meeting was motioned to be adjourned by Connie Mundinger and seconded by Sue Meeuwenberg.