On October 3, TAG held its second Fall 2012 meeting. [Yes, that was more than a month ago — many apologies for taking so long to post the meeting notes!]
1. Departmental Websites and the CMS
We’ve been discussing departmental websites for quite a while. Lori Nidoh (PR) brought us some analytics from the University website (June 2012 – September 2012, all excluding internal traffic) to give us a better idea of how these pages are being used:
- The Undergraduate Programs page is the 5th most visited page on the University website – after the home page, HR vacancy list, HR home page, and Admissions home page. (report)
- From the Admissions home page, the Undergraduate Programs page is #5 on the list of what pages users visit next – indicating that prospective students are indeed looking at departmental web pages. (report)
- This spreadsheet shows the most heavily visited scranton.edu/academics/ pages.
- Lori broke out additional analytics on a few department and program pages to give us a sense of how they are used: Biology, OT, PT, and Pre-Med.
We continued to discuss options for how to keep departmental pages up-to-date. Eugeniu noted that the CTLE TechCons help faculty members with their personal websites, but that access and permissions in the CMS (content management system) are an issue for departmental pages – a department wouldn’t necessarily want to grant publishing rights to a student who is editing their page, but it’s hard to catch quirks and mistakes if you can’t publish and review your recent edits. Lori asked that any observed CMS quirks be reported to PR.
Jeremy will be convening a group of interested faculty to discuss this concern in more detail offline. The group will outline a proposal for how departmental websites could best be maintained, in collaboration with staff from Public Relations and Academic Affairs. Teresa Conte (Nursing), Katie Iacocca (OIM), Kevin Wilkerson (CHS), and Sandy Pesavento (Education) volunteered to participate, but any interested faculty (especially those with experience using the CMS) can join the discussion.
2. FERPA Considerations for Cloud Computing
Kristen asked for input on what cloud computing tools faculty are currently using and how those tools are being used for instruction. She noted the distinction between “internal cloud” services (e.g., Royal Drive, Angel) versus “external cloud” services (Gmail, Dropbox, etc).
Kristen will meet with IR staff from the Information Security office to nail down specifics on what faculty can and can’t do with these cloud tools in order to comply with FERPA regulations (see previous FERPA post for details).
3. Faculty Input on the IT Tactical Plan
Over the summer, TAG was asked by IR to respond to a number of technology questions posed by Jerry DeSanto, VP/CIO. Planning and Information Resources is in the process of creating their 3-5 year IT Tactical Plan, and the questions were targeted at the expected needs of the faculty in the coming years:
- How can IT better support faculty research?
- Given the influx of new, younger faculty what kinds of technology needs/support do you anticipate they are going to need?
- How do you see the classroom experience changing over the next several years, and how can IT assist in this evolution?
- What new academic programs do you see developing over the next five years, and how can IT help?
- With the President’s stated intentions about the University and globalization, how do you see this playing out with web-based education, study abroad, and perhaps the development of satellite campuses in other parts of the globe?
Jerry asked for feedback by November 1 such that faculty input could be incorporated into IR planning. Jeremy asked the group how TAG would like to gather faculty input. We decided on a two-pronged approach – a brief survey sent to all faculty, and a more detailed response from TAG members. [Update – see the results in Jeremy’s 2012-11-05 post, Feedback Regarding the IT Tactical Plan.]
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