Advisory Council on Technology
10/2/98 Minutes
3:30 p.m. to 5:00.p.m.
316 KSC
Kent Campus
Present: Johnnie Baker, Cathy Bakes, Laddie Wolf for Lowell Croskey, Peggy Doheny, Paul Farrell, Brad Foust (Undergraduate Student Senate), Pam Grimm, Barbara Hanniford, Judy Hirschman, Alice Iden, Larry Jones, Mike Kreyche, Scott Weitzenhoffer for Alan Evans, Terry Kuhn (chair), Jeremy Odhe (Graduate Studentate Senate) Bruce Petryshak, Bernie Reynolds, Ilee Rhimes, Roberta Sikula, Drew Tiene, Darrell Turnidge, and Scott Grossen for Denise Zelko
Guests: Bob Hart for Greg Seibert and Arden Ruttan
Absent: Ray Craig, Rosemary DuMont, John Kerstetter, Pam Mitchell, Pam Ramey and Steve Tapp
I. Welcome and Call to Order.
Dr. Terry Kuhn (Chair) called the meeting to order at 3:37 p.m.
II. Discussion and Approval of 4/24/98 Minutes
Terry Kuhn asked for discussion, comments and/or approval of the minutes
from the 4-24-98 meeting. Paul Farrell stated that his name should be added as being absent.
A motion was made and voted on with all in favor to accept the minutes with the change noted.
III. Old Business
Terry Kuhn asked if someone could give an update on faculty refresh. Scott Weisenhoffer stated that Alan Evans knew Steve was going to be gone and wanted to defer this to another meeting. Kathi Meeker stated that an order was placed with Dell for another 50 computers. Terry Kuhn stated that Steve sent a note stating that faculty refresh was moving along, but they are a little behind in terms of installation.
Ilee Rhimes stated that an issue which came up was to get the computers installed over the summer so faculty members could have access to them when they return in the fall.
Cathy Bakes stated that she didn't know the criteria and didn't know how they fell on the faculty refresh of who is getting what and when. Cathy asked if the criteria had been established and how the pecking order had been determined. Ilee Rhimes responded that the provost and deans developed criteria of those who were to be included in faculty refresh.
Cathy asked if there was a list available and Ilee suggested she call Louis Muir or the deans.
Terry stated that this will be deferred until the next meeting.
Bruce Petryshak stated that they installed a new enterprise server and a new operating system from IBM would be installed during the first quarter of 1999. A SP2 upgrade for the parallel processor is planned for this fall as well as the new Information 3000 system, a totally voice activated system. Ilee Rhimes stated that the upgrade of the enterprise system significantly reduces costs and allows money to be reallocated to other areas. Bruce Petryshak stated that we are getting a better price, more functionality and more processing power.
Ilee Rhimes stated that Bruce is continually fighting the problem of staff retention . His people are continually called and repeatedly being raided. Bruce Petryshak stated that in some areas there has been a 40% turnover.
Paul Farrell asked about testing of the Information 3000 system for different accents. Bruce Petryshak stated that intense testing had been done in regard with more to come. He stated that it comes with a database of several thousand different pronunciations of names and different dialogues. Bruce said his name was tested and mispronounced by three different people and it found him each time.
Terry Kuhn welcomed Judy Hirschman in her new role as Associate Dean of Learning Technology Services and stated that she would be a new ex-officio member of this group. Terry stated that he had a letter from Lyle Barton questioning membership. Terry stated that Judy did not have to comment on this and asked if there was anything she wanted to report. Judy Hirschman stated that she has only been there a month and really didn't have anything to report. Judy stated that there were a lot of interesting things going on in Moulton Hall, 19 courses are being offered in the distributed format and detailed where microweb courses are working.
Terry Kuhn asked if it is possible for go to a web site and see what is currently being offered on the web. Judy Hirschman stated that this would probably be ready by next week. They are working on identifying the courses because someone would develop one and they wouldn't know it. Roberta is developing a system that will be able to identify this for the course catalog into the three category types, web based, vtel and I Link. The departments will be educated because terminology is not universal on campus. There was a page developed which is kind of the home page with KSU Web courses flashing and the end of the Kent Home Page and will take you there and you will be able to get admitted and register on line. There should be six to eight web classes available by spring.
Terry Kuhn asked if there was anything the group could do to help getting the awareness out there as to what is available. Roberta Sekula stated that they were trying to get a consensus on definitions of types of distance learning so classes can be coded as web based and also flagged with other notations as they apply. Once these are properly flagged we can go in and see that this is a web-based course we can click on it and go to a detailed page where you can get the information you need. This is set up now, management needs to flag the courses as distance learning once the definition is determined.
Terry Kuhn asked if these would be separated from the other sections so a person would not have to look at all of them to find a web-based class. Roberta stated that this could be done through a search engine.
Judy Hirschman stated that they are asking and identifying faculty whom are interested. Limited resources are trying to be matched with the Provost's priorities and do some of those first so we can't say that anyone who wants to do a web course will be able to do it by next spring or fall.
Paul Farrell asked if all courses were web based and searchable and who is making the decisions as to whether to offer courses as web based courses and what courses should be offered in a web base. Roberta Sikula stated that all courses are web based and searchable through the Kent Homepage. They are working on getting the definitions agreed upon then we will work with the individual in each department who builds the schedule of classes.
Terry Kuhn stated that we are in new territory here and we don't want to put too many constraints on it out of fear it might not go right and kill it before it has had a chance. At the same time, we want the faculty with the expertise to look at it and say yes or no because they are the ones who have the expertise. The quick answer is the faculty at that level, which means one group, maybe one time. If it is an existing course it would go back only to the first level of that process and if the content is consistent and the only thing changing is the delivery format then the faculty involved with that contact would just say ok or not ok
Johnnie Baker stated that this is for an existing course, Terry stated yes and if
it is not an existing course than we are in for the normal curricular procedures.
D. Network Computing
Greg Seibert stated that Phase one of the backbone has been in place for some time, phase two is being finished now and is in final testing. The Music and Speech building has been wired and we are proceeding to put the network equipment in and get everyone hooked up. The other three buildings and the first phase of the intrabuilding wiring, White Hall, the Art building and Nixon Hall are in good shape. The network equipment is here and work should begin by the end of the month. Construction is proceeding now in the other seven buildings, the personnel area of Terrace Hall, Smith Hall, Oscar Ritchie, McGilvrey, Physics, Child Development Center and Henderson. These should be done by the end of the semester. The next ten buildings, the Gym Annex, Math and Science building, Williams Hall, Van Duesen, Taylor Hall, Cuningham Hall, Library, Convocation Center, Kent Hall and Business Administration will be bid out in mid-October with construction starting between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Satterfield Hall, Bowman Hall and WKSU Broadcast Center have been engineered in case the money set aside will cover them.
Those buildings selected for intrabuilding wiring will be Art, Oscar Ritchie, Nixon, Terrace, the Personnel area in Terrace, Child Development Center, Stockdale, Smith, McGilvrey, Henderson and White Hall. Once the contractor is chosen we will be working with representatives to layout the construction schedule so it will be the least disruptive as possible.
The all Campus Card is going well. Over 5,000 photos have been taken and will continue to be marketed aggressively to get all the graduate and undergraduate students in and let them know that they really need one of these cards for fall semester. It will be opened up to faculty and staff in a few weeks. We are also working on installing the various pieces of networking to support the devices that the card will enable on campus.
The vBNS proposal with NSF was reviewed and put in the must fund category. This will provide for an enhanced Internet and two connections that we hope to install this fall and have running in January. With this program we get the access fees, over $130,000 waived and 28 times the current access.
We have an arrangement with Warner Cable but they found several problems and are not ready. We have given them an ultimatum and if they don't have it ready within a couple of weeks we are going to back out of that deal. This situation will be rectified by summer.
We are in the middle of planning on the telephone switch project. We are still working to have something for installation over winter break with the fallback date being Spring break.
We made the Yahoo Top 100 again moving up from 82 to 72 and we are very happy about that.
Classrooms of the future will have the capability for roaming. As more students and faculty get laptops and as we get ports into the classrooms you will be able to take your laptop with you and it will work. This is called a flat network. You keep your identity and can connect anywhere. You just plug in to any jack that is not a security jack, which is protected by password or where you can't get in at all, and get into your work file. This is the cutting edge and there are a lot of bugs in the hardware, but we want to get this feature up and running while we have this migration period rather than implementing it later.
As far as network access, the Rec Center will be a very technology savvy building with all campus card access, web cameras will be placed in strategically interesting places such as the pool or climbing wall so you can look and see how busy it is. No cameras have been put up yet but are being tested.
Negotiations are in process for a new video switch called MCU; we do get an OBR grant of almost a million dollars to put in a v-tel site that we have been very successful in using. Sometime during fall semester we will have one at each regional campus that doesn't have them, there will be four more in Moulton Hall and an additional one at the library. We have outgrown the switch we have and are putting a new one in. We will have links to the department of administrative services, their switch over to Bowling Green and we are already doing classes at Lorain Community College.
KSU has been awarded 2 separate conferences, the Campus Card Users Group, which we will host this fall and the Residence Services Conference for 1999. These are two prestigious conferences and we will get some national attention from them.
We are working with Steve's group on proxy servers, which will be up and running in June. This will alleviate the problem of being able to access controlled library resources from off of our network.
There is another technology that we are working on with Steve's group called L-Dap Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. This is a central depository of all kinds of demographic, network access and security information with all kinds of stuff you put in one place and then everyone can get to it. This will alleviate the one-person log on.
The installation and provision of 184 digit lines are now being used by faculty, staff, administrative staff and graduate assistants with appointments. We are now in the process of enforcing these limitations. A series of letters went out to students who are using the lines and don't have authority any more. They will be reminded and weaned off. The Remote Access Task Force will be reconvened to take up the issue of student access. We will look at the results from the Undergraduate Student Survey and review the needs of the student body and explore the options. There are still 40 lines open for all kinds of access and the 672-MAIL, mail access, is open for everyone with no busy signals. The two NET digital access lines are hitting peaks of 50 to 60 people with 184 lines available so there is room for expansion.
Ilee Rhimes brought up the cost factor and stated that it might not be possible to expand beyond where we are because of the expense. Bowling Green is charging everyone $12.00 a month and it is causing quite a stir and a lot of discussion. Terry Kuhn stated that he, as a copyholder, received a note that was sent to all the graduate assistants on appointments asking if they would like this capability to get in. Terry stated that we had endorsed this policy and asked where we were on it. Greg Seibert stated that the service has not been heavily advertised and because we have not been saturated we haven't enforced getting off. We want to get this in place because the statistics show that the numbers are getting higher and the policy been endorsed last semester. Graduate students and staff without appointments can obtain forms from the help desk. The undergraduate student body is what needs to be dealt with.
Cathy Bakes asked if undergraduate students with appointments fall into the same category as graduate students with appointments. Greg Seibert stated that these would have to be looked at case by case and direction from council would be sought. There is a mechanism in place to allow for exceptions.
Terry Kuhn asked if we got complaints from other vendors or if we are in competition with any other vendors who would sell this service. Greg Seibert stated some universities offer this service at some level, some outsource to MCI, AOL, but a lot of universities still offer this service stating that it is part of the university mission offering it to a closed society.
Paul Farrell asked if the information in the survey could be shared. Greg Seibert stated that this would be posted to the listserv.
Julie Burke stated that New Media Services is a geologically distributed department and has been elected to become a member of the New Media Consortium, a national private consortium. It is a prestigious organization for us to belong to and allows us to be a beta test site and makes us eligible for computer hardware and software discounts for customers. We are moving into the area of video, especially video support and are currently working on a project to train students to work with video to have a lot of engineering and technical support. The calendar of summer seminars will be released next week. We are preparing the resource center, our second instructional lab with equipment and hope to complete this by early June. The second lab will be the high-end training lab. Each workstation will have its own equipment, Premier, Photo Shop, scanner, printer and camera. One half will be Mac and one half will be PC. This will be an intensive multi-media lab. There has not yet been an appointment for the position of Director of Faculty Development.
John Kerstetter stated that they are still working on the merger with Teleproductions, which will be finalized for the new academic year and are struggling with supporting the classroom teaching. The Classroom Enhancement Committee is working on a master plan so the classroom moves from being orphans in many cases to a major component of our facilities planning. We are working with a lot of departments that are buying their own equipment and trying to standardize as new things come out. The overall look is what we need and that might come from this committee, Keith Ewing's committee is working with the architect's office. This is a complex situation and it is uncertain how to fund it and how to set priorities. The copy center in White Hall is still operational but is being transferred to Audio Visual Services from the Marketing Development Department. We will have a copy center in White Hall that will offer additional services such as binding and do more sophisticated copying. Offices that have big runs they don't want to run on the office machines can go to the copy center in the library. Pick up and delivery service will also be available.
Terry Kuhn officially declared the rest of the agenda done and stated that the handouts he passed out on most of the remaining items on the agenda would keep for discussion including a couple that came in after the agenda came out.
Terry referred to 5. D. Recommended packages and asked if word processing is Microsoft Word, e-mail is Eudora, spreadsheet is Excel, presentation is PowerPoint and data base management is Access. The question was asked if we want to say anything about this or will it just take care of itself. Greg Seibert stated that the way technology is moving defacto standards are being set. We will have an ingrained constituency for WordPerfect, Pegasus Mail and we will continue to support them and will do nothing to block those or prevent people from using them, but the overwhelming majority of people are going to Eudora, Word and the whole Microsoft suite. Terry asked if anyone would profit from this or just let it pass. After discussion it was decided that the refresh program will take care of it. From the educational side, technology education is very market driven and continually monitored. What is happening out there varies from campus to campus so variety is needed. Steve Tapp stated we provide the students the tools to use and he is pushing the students to use Microsoft Office as they come through the lab. WordPerfect is still available but they would have to dig for it. Faculty and staff are a different issue. We use the tools we have to get our work done. Compatibility is a big reason for faculty and staff to consider using a common package. Packages are available which will convert many packages back and forth and will even read a Mac disk on a PC. If this is an issue that keeps coming up maybe then we should look at the university to site license one of those packages.
It was suggested that the University get an appointment scheduling system for the whole University since hours and days are spent trying to get meetings together. Steve Tapp stated that Christine Shih was looking at the Netscape Calendar. Greg Seibert stated that this might be something that the UCT might want to endorse. Terry Kuhn stated it would be a real service to people if we could offer insight and recommend an accommodating package.
Terry Kuhn stated that the item 3. Reporting Lines needs to change Vice President of Business and Finance to Chief Information Officer.
Paul Farrell stated that there were other minor changes in the by-laws, Terry stated that they were several editing changes especially relating to names of positions and appointments. Those were approved the last time we did by-laws.
Barb Hanniford referred to item 7 committees number 3 council members are expected to participate on at least one standing committee, how is this going to happen everyone is assigned to a committee? Terry Kuhn stated that nothing had been done procedurally but agreed that each council member should participate. Terry stated that there was another question on the other side of that and preferred to leave it open. That question is, are the committee members limited to council members? Terry stated that he thought the chairs could pick individuals with expertise to serve but should also include council members. Paul Farrell stated the context was that the committee should primarily be from council members, but could involve other people. The council decided this was a reasonable procedure.
Ilee Rhimes stated that he, Paul and Myron had actually discussed this but it does not preclude that the subcommittees are using other people outside the council as resource people. Terry Kuhn stated that the email copy had some language about committee operation charges. It did not deal with membership. Paul Farrell stated that it should be prepared by each committee chair and presented to the council chair in the spring for approval for fall. Terry Kuhn stated that we have not done this.
Terry Kuhn asked if there was any more discussion regarding the by-laws. Paul Farrell stated the graduate representative last year said it was a non-standard practice in the university that normally graduate and undergraduate senate appoint their people; they don't nominate them to an office of the university. Paul asked if anyone was familiar with the normal practice for student representatives on university committees.
Brad Foust from Undergraduate Student Senate stated the usual appointment process for the undergraduate level is that the senator or whoever is in charge of that particular committee would advertise looking for names or recommendations. Those persons would submit a mini resume or a statement of their qualifications and then he would appoint a person based on the qualifications to the committees.
Terry Kuhn asked to pass this provisionally making it contingent upon checking to make sure it is as stated for both graduate and undergraduates. Paul Farrell stated since the graduate representative was not there he would mention it to him. Paul stated that the words "by the Vice Provost of Research & Graduate Studies upon the recommendation of" be struck from item 12 and "by the VP of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs upon the recommendation of " be struck from item 13.
A vote was taken and unanimously approved to change the by-laws as stated above.
Arden Ruttan handed out copies of the March 16, 1998 Job Opp and the criteria used to evaluate the candidates. Arden stated that the position was also advertised in the Chronicle of Higher Education , Communications of the ACM and EDUCOM. Twenty- eight (28) applications were received. The committee started actively working in June when there were a substantial quantity of applications to work with. At that time the internal criteria was applied to give a consistency in the screening process. With that, we found 5 candidates that justified a telephone interview with three substantially qualified to invite in for a campus interview.
On-campus interviews were scheduled for these three people. However before the first interview transpired two candidates called and withdrew. This left us with two candidates, one that we invited in and one that we had not finished processing yet. The applications were looked at again and the consensus of the committee was that there were no additional applicants that were even marginal. This left us with two candidates and the charge was a minimum of three. At this point, Ilee recommended that we postpone the search until the beginning of the semester, which is where we are now.
We found excellent applicants who met all the criteria. However, the problems came when they, as Assistant Directors of Academic Computing, had 20 to 30 staff members of their own and they were looking to come here with a staff of five or six. When the question of how our Academic Computing Department compared to what a standard Academic Computing was raised, the candidates were very leery of coming to Kent.
Our screening criteria asked for someone, who by the time they had achieved the skills, probably already has a fairly large staff. We went back and looked at the criteria to see if it could be lowered and be happy with the applicants we had, but the answer was no. By asking for administrative experience we lost people who could do advocacy. Salary was not an issue, it was how did our Academic Computing Department compare with others.
This leaves us in a situation where the position needs some redefinition and perhaps a decision whether the administrative skills are what we are looking for or a more advocate position.
Ilee Rhimes stated that there is a meeting scheduled with the search committee next week to determine what to do in terms of the next steps and move forward..
Paul Farrell stated that it was unrealistic to ask for university wide administrative experience. Realistically what you could hire in this position is someone who has had departmental or college level administrative experience. The budget is also an issue.
Terry Kuhn asked that any input on this be sent to committee members and Ilee.
Paul Farrell suggested that it would be useful if Ilee and Arden came back for a wider range discussion about how we envision the future of Academic Computing. Some of the problem is that we have not established what Academic Computing should do therefore making it difficult what a director should do. Cathy Bakes stated that the knowledge of technology was important to work with and have the respect and creditability of faculty. Ilee Rhimes stated we need to balance the understanding of technology and the ability to get things done and this is where the administrative experience comes in. Someone who can actually make it happen. Ilee agreed that more discussion is needed on this.
Johnnie Baker brought up that the principle needs to be added to the by-laws, that if additional administrative members are added corresponding faculty members should be added to keep balance.
Ilee Rhimes stated that Danny Wallace is going to chair the Integrated Technology Planning Committee and has an appointment on the University Strategic Committee as well. The charge is expected to be sent out this month. Ilee stated that the committee will be emailed the charge rationale report. Comments can be emailed back to him. Ilee stated that the Technology Integrated Planning Study is now tightly linked with the Strategic Planning Initiative. Ilee stated that it has slowed down so they didn't get ahead of it and now is a part of it. Once the committee is formed it will be decided if it will have a formal facilitator. It is planned to have the first meeting in November. Ilee stated that rather than have the council responsible for putting together the report the responsibility should be to make things happen and then bring it back to the committee for endorsement.
No report was given
Cathy Bakes commented that internal messages needed to be addressed and stated that we need a policy to deal with this. Ilee Rhimes stated that Rosemary DuMont is looking at this now and that it has been stopped until a reasonable policy dealing with it has been formulated.
Terry Kuhn stated that the reason for bringing this to council has gone away because OBR has changed their mind. They want the infrastructure money for technology going equally to institutions rather than putting money out on a competitive basis.
Greg Seibert asked what mechanism KSU will use to target dollars. Ilee Rhimes stated that he will find out and let us know at the next meeting.
Terry Kuhn stated that this item would be taken up at the next meeting.
I. Cookies reactions
No report given
J. Policy on Responsible Use of University Computing Resources
Ilee Rhimes stated that he has a draft copy and will send it to the members via email to be read and commented on.
K. TECHLink statewide distance education initiative
No report given
Terry Kuhn referred to the items that have not been discussed and asked if any were FYI's. Terry stated that the Chronicle has come out with an article on the NSF/vBNS grant. Paul handed out the University Press Release. Greg Seibert stated Kent State was the recipient of this high performance grant and we are now one of the elite 131 schools that have been funded.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:17p.m.
C: President Cartwright
Provost
Ilee Rhimes