University Council on Technology
December 3, 1999 Minutes
3:00 p.m. to 5:00.p.m.
309 KSC
Kent Campus
Present: Cathy Bakes, David Cannon, Ray Craig, Lowell Croskey, Rosemary DuMont, Paul Farrell (chair), David Fuety, Barbara Hanniford, Judy Hirschman, Bev Robertson for Alice Iden, John Kerstetter, Paul Albert for Bruce Petryshak, Pam Ramey, Bernie Reynolds, Roberta Sikula, Don Tolliver, and Denise Zelko
Absent: Stephen Cabaniss, Peggy Doheny, Alan Evans, Pam Grimm, Barbara Hanniford, Judy Hirschman, Larry Jones, Mike Kreyche, Pam Mitchell, Arden Ruttan, Greg Seibert, Drew Tiene, Darrell Turnidge, Carlos Vargas-Aburto and Kevin West
Guests: Tom Klingler, Terry Kuhn, Steve Tapp and Mary Tipton
I. Welcome and Call to Order.
Paul Farrell (Chair) welcomed everyone and called the meeting to order at 3:09 p.m.
Approval of 11/5/99 Minutes
It was agreed that, in future in order to save time at the meeting, the minutes would be distributed by email in advance of the meeting. Corrections could be e-mailed to the Chair and UCT listserve (uct@listserv.kent.edu) in advance of the meeting or requested at the meeting.
A discussion took place on Reordering of the Agenda
Corrections to minutes of 10/15/99:
Add Barbara Hanniford to those present and delete Terry Kuhn from those absent from the 10/15/99 meeting.
A motion was made and unanimously approved to accept the minutes as submitted for both the 10/15/99 and 11/5/99 meetings. The approval includes the changes noted to the 10/15/99 minutes.
Don Tolliver stated that President Cartwright requested a solution to the current e-mail system being slow and inconsistent. A handout of the E-mail System Proposal was distributed by Don Tolliver.
The proposed system, consisting of commodity Intel servers running the Linux operating system, will be more efficient, faster and less expensive to acquire and upgrade. The change will be transparent to the end users. There is usually a three-year life for any system, but in this case it will depend on what we do with accounts for lifelong alumni.
It was proposed to approve the proposal as submitted. This was voted on and approved unanimously.
The suggestions received through e-mails have been incorporated into the body of the report and should be reviewed by those who submitted them.
Other material added to the report is basically an outline of the charge process of the procedures followed.
Because the subcommittee has not had a chance to meet to review the suggestions received, the Executive Summary is not complete.
Some of the appendices are not fully formatted but were included because they might be of use to the new committee. A list of other reports involving technology issues is included even though some are outdated and some are not yet available. This is an attempt to provide information to track down what we are doing or who might be consulted so an integrated technology planning committee would to locate source material more easily.
Comments were requested regarding the Executive Summary and the Report itself. It was suggested that references made to the Vice President for Business and Finance be clarified. It was stated that a paragraph be inserted at the beginning of the body of the report similar to the paragraph in the Executive Summary pointing out we are looking at responsibilities, not titles.
A new paragraph starting with The unavailability was added to page five of the Executive Summary and the next paragraph starting with Training will be removed after the committee approves that. The first paragraph under Institutional Information and Access will be deleted and this section will be replaced with the one Bruce Petryshak recommended.
A motion was made to accept the report of the subcommittee reflecting the above paragraph changes and the inclusion of an organizational chart. This was voted on and approved unanimously.
Two draft handouts were distributed regarding the Integrated Technology Plan. One document was the deliberations of the committee and one that had been discussed with the President by Don Tolliver.
It was suggested the two documents be combined. The sentence about articulating a vision and providing a basis for ongoing integrated planning should be included, since it was felt that creating a sustainable process for evaluating needs and progress in the technology area was a key issue and something to be emphasized. This draft will be worked on and sent out electronically.
There should be defined ideas by the end of May with a realistic date of December 2000.
Don stated actual membership needed to be discussed and stated that he wants input from the UCT in terms of membership, committee and recommendations for a chair. He also stated that he agreed with providing appropriate clerical support and professional staffing to keep the committee going.
Flo Cunningham was not able to attend this meeting and suggested the designer of the web pages meet with us. It was stated to Flo that the UCT was concerned about policy not the design. It has not yet been determined who, but someone from that area will come to the next meeting.
Rosemary DuMont circulated a model of the University web site. The model showed the levels of what is required. The first three levels, created by a designer, are a standard look with the fourth level being an internal design of the individual department. The committee is open to suggestions.
Interviews are now in progress for a Web Manager. This is a technical position reporting to John Perry. The successful candidate will work directly with upper pages, departments and Unix.
A suggestion given was to watch the download speed because, if it takes too long to download, people will move on and not wait.
At this time it was stated that the remaining topics have been on the agenda for a long time and it was asked if we want to reorder them and have a final discussion, or if there are any other urgent issues that need to be reported on or discussed.
Microsoft
Steve Tapp stated that the software acquired under the state-wide Microsoft License agreement is being distributed. There were 1,000 licenses sold the first week and close to 2,500 the second. The rollout was non-eventful and is going well.
It was suggested that it might be a good idea to try to persuade faculty to mention this to students who might have a use for it when giving out their syllables in spring semester.
Scheduling of next semester’s three meetings.
The next three meetings will be from on the following tentative dates.
February 4, 2000, 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
March 10, 2000, 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
April 28, 2000, 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
It was stated that D & E should become part of the Integrated Technology Plan. Staffing is difficult because of salaries, in particular at departmental levels. It was suggested that this issue be considered by the Integrated Technology Plan Committee.
An idea that the University of Dayton shared is that they offer ending sophomore students who are good at technology a full time job with tuition waivers. Since they are working full time and going to school part time, it gives them usually four to five years because it takes them this time to graduate.
Don Tolliver stated the in the Executive Officer’s review of the strategy in terms of how next years budget will be approached, this will be discussed.
Discussion took place on a possible technology literacy requirement. There is a major concern with 3,000 freshman coming in, who will be required to do something using technology on the campus, and who may not have the requisite skills.
Terry Kuhn stated that Undergraduate Studies has some experience with this from the time when they instituted e-mail in orientation. Adequate access to lab space and equipment for students was a requirement in orientation in A & S and F&PA. Even though it was unclear whether the needs could be met, it was decided to put in the requirement anyway as a way to encourage more mail use among students and faculty.
Adding a requirement to what is already in place will be difficult. Consideration might be given to creating a two-hour elective course in conjunction with orientation making it a three-hour package.
Establishing a universal requirement makes an institutional statement that would require revising the whole LER sequence. Rather than have a technology requirement, a technology course could be in either science or math. Having a course in the LER which would satisfy one of the current requirements would address the technology issue. Paul Farrell pointed out that the Computer Science course recently approved for LER status in the Basic Sciences category would not be suitable, since it is a concepts course offered to majors rather than a skills/literacy course.
If a technology literacy course were made a requirement, a major issue would be the vast number of seats needed.
A suggestion was made for the UCT to support English. Having the resources, they could deliver through a technological medium a very basic course that would be required of all students. This would not necessarily be a technology requirement but would put technology into a meaningful part of the curriculum.
It was also suggested that information literacy, which goes beyond knowing terms, addressing the global issues of finding and selecting databases and how to establish authenticity and similar issues might also be slipped into special courses in the English curriculum.
Another issue is the obligation to inform our students about copyright and the need to consider doing this soon. If the students are not informed about this then we are liable but if we make good faith effort it satisfies the University’s legal obligations.
The meeting was adjourned rather quickly at 5:05 p.m. because the fire alarm was ringing and we were asked to evacuate the building.
C: President Cartwright
Provost
VP Information Services