Technology Council Minutes
January 17, 2007
  1:00 PM

The first meeting of the year for the Technology Council was held on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 in Room L167-169 at 1 p.m. with Carol Briggs-Erickson as chairperson.

Attendance:

I. Welcome/Approval of Agenda and Minutes of Prior Meeting

The meeting was called to order at 1:00 pm. A review of the attendees and invited guests was done. Carol noted that there is still a need for 1 Administrative representative and 1 student representative. Carol has sent a note to Diana, VP for Administration for suggestions for an Administrative representative.

A change to the current agenda was entered: Tactical Plan by Scott O'Neal is added prior to CIO update today. A change was also entered in the attendance to the November meeting. Please note that Kam was marked present and he was absent, and Julie Weller was marked as absent and she was present. With no further changes or additions, minutes were approved.

II. Old Business

A. By-Laws

Carol began by reviewing the By-Laws and noted that there is still a need for a vice-chair. Kam has agreed that he will serve as vice-chair this year and will facilitate in Carol’s absence.

Sue: Noting that she is on this committee in the capacity of Distance Education coordinator, she had hoped that someone from CIS would represent the department on this committee. She was thinking of Tim Trainor.

Kam: Noted that he has spoken with Tim Trainor and asked him to join as a non-voting member. Tim is planning to be here today at 1:15 p.m. as he has a class.

Question: Do we have enough voting faculty members with Sue being here in the D.E. capacity?

Carol pointed out that under Section Meeting Section III: It is important to have the needs approved. We don’t have to approve today and approve again next month.

B. Adding 15 video projection units

The committee reviewed the informational report from Scott on the video projector implementation; no action needed.

Question: How was the decision made as to what classrooms received the new projector units?

Kam: It was determined by the usage report received from the media department. This report shows in which areas equipment is requested for and how many times per week.

[Discussion followed later in the meeting regarding the methods of choosing the rooms that should receive new equipment. See CIO report (D) in section IV.]

C. Identification of three levels of computer users

Scott: It is important to bring forth the distinguishing factors as we rollout computers and decide what it will take to give to everyone needed.

We have looked at the super-user as being those who do a greater amount of processes in a week as opposed to someone who does just email. Perfect example of super-users would be the CAD and Graphics department. The jobs they perform take more time to do with older computers.

For students, of course, we want to make sure they have the latest and greatest. So it is safe to surmise that the super-user as being one who does a lot of processing- i.e. CIS, Graphics, CAD, Datatel Query. A super-user's computer would have 2GB of memory (RAM), a 128MB graphics card, and 3Ghz or faster processor.

Note: CAD is already done. We have identified some other users and are asking for help in identifying others. Kam said that anyone with suggestions could email him.

III. New Business

A. Meeting Times

After polling the committee it is agreed that the Council will meet the 2nd Wednesday of each month at 1:15 p.m.

B. Role of Council

Kam: It is not the role of this council to just get updates on the projects and the happenings in I.T. It is his hope that this council become very active in as far as when vendors are here, the council will be the group the vendor presents to and when Educause or someone like Educause has something, this council would attend. Kam is hopeful that 15 minutes can be set aside to discuss the technology out there and to share that info during the regularly scheduled meetings.

For Instance:

MS Vista (How does that affect us?) It can be helpful as we continue to help the College move forward.

Kam also noted that this council would become a leader in sharing this new technology to the others in the college community. He asked that everyone bring an idea to the table.

Joe Doyle asked if this council would vote on recommendations to being taken to president’s cabinet. The answer is yes.

Kam: This council is in charge of the strategic plan and that plan can change each year. We should be overseeing the actions listed on the strategic plan and make sure they are carried out.

Carol stated that the council should be proactive on these items and the strategic plan should be in the council’s bylaws. It is also noted that the final point under functions- in the by-laws document should read the OIT Strategic Plan rather than OIT Master Plan.

V. Committee and information reports

A. Datatel

Noted: Teresa was unable to attend. Kam reported that Payroll and Web Advisor are both live now. He said the biggest module of all is Student Services and that in February and March, financial aid will be assigned to students. If a student needs to submit 4 pieces of information and the student only submits 3, the system will generate an email to the student and with Active apply *Insert apply; if they need something, the system will identify what information is needed. It also gives a list of those who have not completed the application process.

Question: Jeff asked if it is the strategy to launch all the modules, then go back and get the modules to do what one wants it to do?

Kam: Finance is working on some of that now. The goal is to get the modules up and running and then get the bells and whistles in place.

B. Web Committee

The Web Committee has not met.

C. Tactical Plan

Scott presented the council with the Tactical fact report and explained that the report reflects all the goals outlined in the strategic plan and the need now is to begin filling out the boxes that will reflect the strategy (How do we get where we need to be to fulfill the requirements outlined.)

The Tactical Plan Group will meet on Friday to decide how to accomplish these projects. Scott invited the council to be a part of the plan. All may not be able to attend but Scott welcomed emails with ideas.

Question: Tim wanted to know what the procedure for prioritizing the lists once all the lists are in place.

Kam said that the projects should be brought to the Technology Council and then decided upon. Kam said we need a system developed that will take a look at how projects are moved from the list. Is this something the cabinet decides? Becky wanted to know if part of this is billed into the plan and if it was the Council’s job to decide where it fit into the plan. Kam said the Council can make a suggestion. The scenario he used is if there are 3 different departments with needs, would it be right for I.T. to make the decision to stop working on one department's problem and take on another’s. Should I.T. decide this?

Everyone is invited to attend on Friday, January 9, 2007 at 1:00 p.m.

D. CIO Monthly Report, Strategic Plan Update, Projects

What has happened in OIT

College has been converted to WIN from Novel

Staging now for faculty / staff to MS Outlook—March 5, 2007

Friday March 2, 2007 through March 4, 2007 Sunday-all systems will be offline

Mark and Scott are working on creating training sessions. These will be mandatory training. Several training opportunities will be offered and will include Datatel Web Advisor training, and how to do, for instance, class rosters. Handouts will be given out of screen shots. It will be a basic "How To" for Outlook and then later on an advanced training session will be offered.

Copies of the training material will be available in the library and Outlook books may be checked out in the OIT office.

Tim asked if it is an option to run the two email systems parallel? The answer is no.

Scott explained that the exchange server and the GW server cannot run parallel because the domain is the same and the server would not know where to send the email. You would have to give everyone two email addresses. Tim’s concern was that if they do not run parallel, what would happen if someone’s email did not work properly. GW server will not be going away, it will be dormant.

Kam announced that we will clone the email server and do testing to see what problems we run into.

Question: Sue asked if we could create a couple of dummy accounts. We could.

Carol asked if the Outlook used at home would have the same appearance as on campus because there are some differences from off-campus now with GW. Kam said that OWA (Outlook Windows Account) is very similar and the same tasks can be performed.

During the training the trainee will have the same rights as he or she has in their offices. If they are not allowed to see certain parts of the student profile information, they will not be able to see it in training. The same goes for the budget info. Whatever you have access to view in your office, it will be identical.

Sue asked who will decide who has rights to classes and the security for those rights. Answer: Jean Roberts will be doing this. Kelley noted that this is a big chore. One cannot do a security set for individuals, it will be done by job title. Tim asked that adjuncts not be forgotten. Kam announced that there will be some weekend and evening training times offered. He also noted that the password reset was completed in a timely manner for the adjunct faculty member in mind. They are only on campus a short time and may not login, with the new password reset tool, if they forget their password, they will be able to get another one without having to wait.

There were 15 technology computers with DVD, projector screen, projectors and document cameras (newer version for Overhead projectors) approved during last budget. He said one can use any kind of paper with these cameras. These cameras are very popular. There will be 5 rooms in library that will have Document cameras. At this point we are working with facilities to secure power for the locations. A list of the projected rooms to receive the new equipment was announced; 248, 1306, 1312, 1204, 344, 348, 1320, 338, 131, 236. Next year we will ask for the same thing again and we will be able to do 0-15 other rooms.

Question: How was the decision made as to where the new equipment would go? Kam explained that it was due to requests for equipment. Tom has a report that shows the number of times equipment was requested for the rooms.

There will be 3 laptops for check out available. One laptop was dedicated to Tom O’Brien because they do a lot of presentations and the other 2 are left open in case we haven’t captured a room. There are many times faculty/staff request a laptop and none are available so they have to pay the $250.00 to rent the projector for the day. These projectors will be checked out at library or conference center.

There was some discussion on how the choices were made to determine who got the new equipment. Becky felt that instructors from the English department would be left out because they may have been holding back on ordering the usage of equipment and incorporating the use into their teaching because they wanted to wait until they got their own equipment. Kam pointed out that the only way to know who needed the equipment was to go by the request for usage. It is not that the equipment was not available to these instructors but rather they just didn’t order it. Kathy mentioned that in the Science area they is a cart to use but cables are all over the floor. Joe said if this is found to happen, user should call facilities.

Kam noted that the objective is not to have carts pushed all over. He said a new way of setting criteria can be looked at next year. Tim asked who decided to order screens? He said that instructors could opt not to use screens but to project on the wall. Kam explained that we received such a great quote from the vendor that the price of the projectors was a real bargain. A question was asked if the projectors would project on the whiteboard and the answer is that no, there is too much of a glare for this.

Another project is the upgrading of the network cables on campus as we start the moving of everyone’s phone system to VoIP on campus. Kam acknowledged Catholic Central for their donation of the PBX box on campus. The program approved for replacement and upgrading of technology will be broken down this year and next year. We will have more wireless and continue to roll-out the computers. There are 400+ computers that are over five years old.

E. Subcommittee BlackBoard upgrade or LMS replacement

Mark Porcaro has been elected chair of the LMS (Learning Management Systems) Subcommittee. They are looking at 3 new systems to replace Blackboard: Educator, Angel, and BlackBoard Enterprise. A timeline has been created to invite vendors within a couple of weeks of each other to come and show us what they can offer. A comparison list of the pros and cons will be created of each system. After this information is gained, the committee will talk to other colleges and/or visit them onsite to see which system they have chosen and what the advantages or disadvantage are.

The Cabinet approved moving to Blackboard Enterprise for one year--which is the recommendation of the Committee. This will integrate with Web Advisor and all the other colleague systems. This will take place this summer and Mark is working with the vendor to see if they can get us a period before July before billing us. Cost efficient.

It will be seamless migration for faculty. There will be some upgrades to BB7. There will be an interim period where we will still be using BB6 and there will be a testing out period of BB Enterprise before moving over entirely. Scott is working on server requirements. Right now the server is housed in Ann Arbor and we have not heard from Neil Streeter in 2 weeks.

We have outgrown the basic version of BlackBoard. Mark noted that it took Scott 2 weeks to populate the classes. Some of the things we want to do are not available.

Some times that have been set up to look at the systems:

BB is on 1/30/07 from 2-4 in Room 1118;

Angel will be 2/6/07 from 2-4 in room 1118.

Mark is waiting on contact information from Delta who uses Educator and we can secure them. Right now we are looking at 2/15/07 as tentative date.

Sue noted that communication to faculty is important. Kam noted that we can work on it together so we can make sure communication is properly sent out to faculty.

V. Announcements

We just received approval for the purchasing of “Class Climate” software. This is online class evaluation software. It does lots of trending. 150 pages scanned per minute. It has a nice reporting feature. Go to Scantron website to view more about this product. It prints on regular paper, no special forms are needed. You can have hard copy of the survey or the online version.

Kathy wanted to know if it is comparable to the BB online survey used. It is similar but not the same. It will be a webpage where they will go and take the survey.

Kam: It does integrate well with Datatel. Implementation time is unknown. OIT will just install the server.

Sue: Would like an evaluation for all online classes. From this meeting alone, faculty needs to be aware of Web Advisor, MS Outlook, and BB Enterprise. CIS and OIT working on game plan for rolling out 2007.

Kam: I am working with Sprint/T-mobile for deal on pricing and phone service.

Technology show will be held again in September.

With no other questions, or announcements, meeting was adjourned at 2:15 pm.