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Academic & Research Computing Advisory Board
Meeting Minutes
February 25, 2002
Present: Randy Baker, Clare Billman, Gayle Bentley, Michele Ellington (for Caro Cassels), Van Haywood, Mark Litaker, Rod Mackert (chair), Fran Omar, Mimi Owen, Chris White
Absent: Roman Cibirka, Michael Miller, Kristy Stephens, Steve Vogel, Debbie Hatmaker, Andy Albritton, Anne Hinton, Kenda Rindt, David Wardlaw
The monthly meeting of ACAB was held in the President’s Conference Room, third floor of the administration building, where it will be held the remainder of 2002. Starting time was delayed due to the lack of a quorum. When a quorum was established at 1:17 pm, the meeting progressed as follows:
Reports of schools:
- Allied Health Sciences: Noted there is a proposal to the board of Regents to approve “multi-formatted distributed learning”, related to identifying other sites and using web-based and GSAM instruction.
- Dentistry: Faculty expressed a concern that student time be protected. If a course is made available on the web, then there should be time in the curriculum to view it, rather than assuming off-hours time is appropriate. Faculty also addressed the concern of having invest large amounts of time to learn programs for course developments (such as Dreamweaver, Visio, WebCT, Photoshop, etc.) for limited application. Clare Billman responded that if faculty will bring to the library the digitized content, and instructions for what they want to achieve, she will produce the course. Generally, lead time is about 3 months.
- Graduate Studies: no report, other than they have a request to place a statistical course on the web.
- Library: no report
- Medicine: no report
- Nursing: The school has a new dean, who has experience in “international distance learning”. Some questions have arisen from the Registrar about how to report courses that are online. Discussion concerning a course with >50% web have an “i” after the number, as well as be approved by the Board of Regents ensued. There seems to be some information and policy that is currently used by the registrar’s office that is not common knowledge. Nursing is also working with library on a student orientation course to using WebCT, and welcomes collaboration.
- Staff at large: no report
Dr. Mackert distributed the notes from his meeting with Dr. Barry Goldstein and Doogie Howser.
- Dr. Dale Chernich is retiring, and a committee has been formed to determine the future of IIT.
- Dr. Goldstein would like the board to include research as well as academic computing. The expanded board would be called ARCAB (Academic and Research Computing Advisory Board). This will require a bylaws change, which Dr. Mackert will propose and send to the board.
- Also, discussion ensued on what to do if a member cannot attend the meeting. Our board size of 19 requires 10 for a quorum. Suggestions included each representative sending a replacement, changing the definition of the quorum to minimally have one representative from each school, or meeting less often in person as a full board, using smaller committees to carry out the work of the board, and using email for discussion. Concern over the latter is that the format would block the good cross-schools knowledge sharing we are currently enjoying. Dr. Mackert will propose a bylaws change for the board’s consideration.
Ad hoc Committee Reports:
- Technology Expenditures: Fran Omar’s proposal has been funded for $69,000. After his meeting next week, he will send out a list of the proposal for input on prioritization.
- Intellectual Property Issues: a written report was distributed, which requests a survey of faculty and other schools to see where they stand. Recommendation is for a university task force, probably of this committee with others added.
- Teaching Technology: One obstacle to faculty use of digitized images in teaching is the loss of quality from 35 mm slides to current video projectors in the classroom. Several video projectors are being evaluated as to the best image for the cost, and a final report will be forthcoming.
The meeting adjourned at 2:00 p.m. The next meeting is scheduled for March 25, 2002. A reminder will be sent by email.
Respectfully submitted,
Van B. Haywood (acting secretary)