MINUTES

UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE

October 1, 2001

 

Members Present:                                             Others Present:

Chairperson Richard Crosby                             Terry Smith

Scott Bennett                                                    Kathy Hughes

Andrew Farkas                                                 John Sharp

Diane Tanner                                                    Lance Taylor

Hank Camp                                                      Fred Sudler

Jeff Michelman                                                  Tony Turrin

Donna Mohr                                                     Debbie Abbott

Jerry Merckel

Kathy Brown

Zella Boulware

Judy Perkin

David Jaffee

 

Chairperson Crosby convened the University Technology Committee meeting at 10:03AM in the COBA InTuition Conference Room.

 

1.              Announcements

There were no announcements for this meeting.

 

2.              Welcome to New Members

Richard Crosby introduced Kathy Brown to the committee.  She joins the UTC as an Academic Technical Support Services Committee liaison.  Also, Hank Camp was introduced.  He joins us as the Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs and as the UTC committee vice-chair.  Two new expected students were not present.

 

3.              Budget Issues

Richard Crosby reported that there would be a significant shortfall in State budget dollars this year and into the future, due in part possibly to the terrorist attacks of September 11.   Targets for cutbacks may include currency, replacement budget items, IT labs, faculty & staff computers, central site servers, non IT-labs.  Donna Mohr suggested the possible implementation of fees related to computer courses/general fees and the committee discussed this as a future idea to support technology.  Richard agreed that he will explore this option, keeping in mind the November time frame for the Jan –Apr 2002 Florida Board of Education meetings.

 

4.              DL Action Team

David Jaffee reported the following statistics on Distance Learning courses as of 9/5/01:            

                                               Blackboard:     310 courses

                                                                       157 instructors

                                                                       6300 students (unique)

                        LotusNotes Learning Space:     22 courses

                                                                        11 instructors

                                                                        815 students (unique)

 

David also reported that the Distance Learning Handbook in now accessible through the CIRT web page.  Some future projects of the DL Action Team will be a ‘reorganizing a pedagogy’ series for faculty, improving the web page, promoting distance learning to students, and providing faculty with information/guidelines on copyright regulations.

 

5.              I2 Action Team

Lance Taylor reported no action in this Team but he is monitoring the situation, keeping an eye on price.

 

6.              MAC Action Team

Zella Boulware reported that the Team has been looking into some problems with attachments that may be related to AOL.  There is also a new video station available in the CIRT lab for Mac users.  Zella will also not be continuing her role as chair, but will remain on the Action Team.

 

7.              Pay-for-print

Andrew Farkas reported that a new contract with Xerox would be implemented soon with prices per copy increasing from 8 cents (on the copy card) to 10 cents.  Cash prices per copy will increase to 15 cents.   Lance Taylor summed that the essence of the change will be from placing copy machines everywhere where they are possibly needed to only where the copy machine can be expected to generate enough funds to cover it’s placement.  Richard Crosby summed up the discussion in saying that other long-term options are also being explored.

 

8.              Enhanced email for all Students

Kathy Hughes reported that this fall semester (2001) was the first time that IDs were automatically created for all registered students.  Kathy’s team created a web page so that students who registered could look up their user ID, reset their  password to the default, and forward their email to another account if desired.

 

Kathy also reported that the new servers would be run in parallel in October with migration set to occur this December.

 

Kathy Brown and Jeff Michelman questioned when the new email accounts would be ready for new students and if that time could be moved to approximately one week early of registration to help college orientation, distance learning, and possibly international students get ready for the semester.  Kathy Hughes will be looking into this issue.

 

9.              Bandwidth

Richard Crosby stated that there has been a vendor protest to the recent ITN and UNF may be possibly moving to a state contract vendor on a month-to-month basis while a new ITN is begun.  In this month-to-month time, our bandwidth could increase from 10 Megabytes to 21-33 Megabytes.  Segmentation of bandwidth may be an idea for the future, especially with housing willing to commit funds.  Richard suggested that an Action Team might be formed on this issue.  Jeff Michelman suggested that student representation might be needed on this Action Team.

 

10.          Campus Audio Visual

Kathy Hughes reported that over the summer, part of Instructional Communications that controls the projectors merged with Computing Services and is called now Campus Audio Visual.  Alan Pickett and the resources are still currently located at the same campus location and phone numbers.  Debbie Abbott suggested that to help alleviate any technology shortfalls of assigned classrooms, CIRT has 3 portable projectors available for sign-out.

 

11.          Security for Technology Classrooms/Labs

Richard Crosby reported that the campus has had 6 projectors stolen from classrooms in the past approximate 6 weeks.  Fred Sudler presented some ideas that may be explored to increase security such as: metal cages around the projectors, alarms with 110 db siren upon movement of the projector, titanium cables attaching projector to building structure, locking of classrooms, and security cameras.   Fred Sudler will be looking at demos of some of these ideas in the near future.

 

12.          Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Kathy Hughes reviewed new guidelines that were submitted by email to all UTC members and asked for approval.  Donna Mohr moved to approve the 4 documents.  Jeff Michelman seconded the motion.  The motion passed unanimously. 

 

There was some discussion by Jeff Michelman as to why these guidelines are not followed all the time, for end-of-year purchases for example.  Donna Mohr offered that end-of-year purchases are made on such short notice that it is difficult to get all the specifications targeted for each college at that time.

 

13.          Strategic Planning/Strategic Issues

Richard Crosby updated the UTC that this is currently in limbo.  Lance Taylor will be getting an update at the November State Information Resource Management meeting. 

 

Jerry Merckel asked how the technology resources for new building for Engineering Sciences were being planned.  Richard Crosby agreed and noted that this issue needs further discussion.

14.          Administrative Systems

a.       ERP

Richard Crosby updated the committee that several universities including Florida, Florida State, UNF, and UWF are looking at possibly becoming a consortium.  Currently, we need to replace our financial and Human Resource administrative systems. 

 

b.      Imaging

Lance Taylor reported that the 3rd phase of imaging, ‘Work Flow’, is in production in enrollment services and seems successful at this time.

 

15.          Currency Update

Kathy Hughes mentioned that with the discussion on Budget Issues, this was touched upon already.

 

16.          Other items not on Agenda

Jerry Merckel reported that the Accreditation committee will be visiting UNF next week. 

 

Lance Taylor reported that Heather Small was substituting for Marsha Dukes in minute-taking duties.