MINUTES

UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE

College of Business Administration InTuition Conference Room

December 2, 2002

 

Members Present:                                             Others Present:

Richard Crosby, Chairperson                            Ron Hanson

Lisa Beck                                                         Kathy Hughes

Scott Bennett                                                    John Sharp

Katharine Brown                                              Terry Smith

Larry Daniel                                                     Lance Taylor

Jace Hargis                                                       Tony Turrin

David Jaffee    

Marianne Jaffee

Bob Jones (rep. Andrew Farkas)

Jerry Merckel

Jeff Michelman

            Rama Rao

            Rick Roberts

 

The University Technology Committee meeting was convened at 10:05AM in the College of Business Administration InTuition Conference Room by Chairperson Richard Crosby.

 

1.                  Announcements

 

a.       Kathy Hughes introduced Lisa Beck as the new SGA Vice President and new student representative of the UTC.

b.      Kathy Hughes stated that the student email policy has been approved by the President’s Council.  She requested that Chairperson Crosby meet with Tom Serwatka of the President’s office regarding a letter to be sent out by the President.  Lisa Beck suggested that this information be disseminated in the Student Handbook, the Spinnaker and through Student Update.  Larry Daniel stated that the College of Education & Human Services has a link off their syllabus pages for policies.  Katharine Brown suggested that this be included in the Catalog as well as a link from the registration page. 

c.       Kathy Hughes stated that the web policy has been approved by the President’s Council.  Because this is a News and Publications policy, Dan Dundon will be responsible for dissemination.  At a minimum, it should be sent to Deans/Directors and web administrators. 

d.      Kathy Hughes reported that Christy Rouzie will be leaving the University at the end of February to stay at home with her new baby.

 

2.                  Approval of Minutes

The minutes from the November 4, 2002, UTC meeting were approved as submitted.

 

3.                  Distance Learning Action Team Report

Jace Hargis stated that the Distance learning Action Team had met on November 18th and discussed 3 major issues:

 

a.       on-line evaluations for Distance Learning courses (which may become an option for off-line courses)

b.      Action Team charge from the UTC

c.       Satellite TV Conference Room

 

Ron Hanson was introduced to discuss item 3.c above.  He stated that UNF originally had a large classroom on the 4th floor of the Library for this purpose.  There was discussion that this room should be re-located to the University Center; however, that never materialized.  He stated that the State gave each institution an additional satellite dish which is currently located behind the University Center un-used.  Marianne Jaffee has met with Hank Camp on this issue and will continue to meet with additional staff (including George Androuin) and have an update at the February 2003 UTC meeting.

 

Another issue that was discussed was on-line tutoring.  David Jaffee has been working with the Center for Student Success and Retention to provide this for all students and will report back to the UTC at the February 2003 meeting.

 

4.                  Mac Action Team Report

Chairperson Crosby stated that since Zella Boulware was unable to attend today’s meeting and had no report.

 

5.                  Network Acceptable Use Action Team Report

Katharine Brown reported that the student surveys have been collected and are being analyzed and the data should be ready by the second week of December.  The faculty survey is on-line today (look for notification in Campus Update) and the raw data from this survey should be available by the first of January. 

 

6.                  Information Technology Security Action Team Report

Terry Smith stated that this Action Team will be meeting soon and that the College of Computing Sciences and Engineering will demo what they use to keep the network safe. 

 

Jeff Michelman raised the issue of the alarms on projectors (based on an email from Scott Piersall where an alarm went off and UPD did not respond).  Kathy Hughes reported that this alarm is just a “panic alarm” that is a loud audible alarm.  It is meant to be a deterrent; however, it is not linked to the UPD.  She also stated that there are also cages that can be added (as has been done in the College of Business Administration).  Intellikey locks are also being placed on all technology classroom doors; however, there is no status on completion at this time.  This issue will be discussed further and an update will be given at the next UTC meeting.

 

7.                  Academic Technology & Support Services Committee Report

Katharine Brown stated that this committee had met on November 7th and will meet again on December 5th.  Most issues have been forwarded to the Distance Learning Action Team.  The following items were discussed:

 

a.       classroom computer configuration survey – the data is being compiled and reviewed;

b.      Instructional Communications looking at increased faculty support for videography.  This has been tabled for now.

c.       Alison Cruess and Decato Burke discussed classroom configurations and the fact that there is no real process for determining this.  Survey results are currently being evaluated and may shed light on whether a formal process is needed.  Following a discussion on this, it was determined that the faculty should be surveyed on an ongoing basis to determine their satisfaction with classroom configurations. 

 

8.                  Blackboard Proposal

Tony Turrin discussed his handout “Blackboard v6 Learning System (enterprise version) Proposal – Executive Summary.”  He stated that the current Basic Edition can no longer fully meet our needs and recommends that the University purchase version 6.  Blackboard Basic Edition was piloted in Spring 2000 and went into production Fall 2000 with approximately 270 course sections.  The usage has increased to approximately 700 course sections this term.  One of the major issues is that we are currently in violation of the licensing agreement (we have over 9,000 users this term – agreement calls for “up to 3,000 users).  Tony stated that this term the number of course sections breaks down by college as follows:

     

      College of Arts & Sciences                               353

      College of Business Administration                      65

      College of Education & Human Services             90

      College of Health                                              126

      College of Computing Sciences & Eng.  20

 

The costs for the new version are estimated as follows:

 

      $33,250 per year for teaching/learning environment

$15,000 to $49,000 per year for portal tool (Scott Bennett will clarify this issue with SCT as to whether they will provide the portal)

      $31,000 to $80,000 for new server hardware

      Additional administrative support costs

 

 

Several UTC members raised the issue of whether or not a comparative analysis with other similar products should be done.  It was requested that Tony meet with the Distance Learning Action Team, other interested Action Teams and the Associate Deans to determine the impact (to both faculty and students) if we switched to another software product.  Tony will provide an update at the next UTC meeting.

 

9.                  Email for Alumni

Kathy Hughes reported that she hopes to have a prototype early in January (the College of Business will pilot this).  Addresses will be userid@alumni.unf.edu  and should be transparent to students.  She also stated that there will be some hardware and support costs and she will report back at the February UTC meeting.

 

10.              Project Status Update

Kathy Hughes reported that the VLAN migration is 85% complete.  Chairperson Crosby asked whether network problems have been stabilized.  She stated that there are still some issues to be dealt with. 

 

11.              New Business / New Issues

None at this time.

 

The next meeting of the University Technology Committee will be held on Monday, February 3, 2003. 

 

The meeting was adjourned at 11:45am.