Technology Advisory Group

TAG met on Thursday, April 12 for our final meeting of the 2011-2012 academic year.

Standing Committees:

IRAC

• IRAC (the Information Resources Advisory Council) will be meeting this week.

Learning Management System (LMS) Work Group

• Blackboard recently announced that 1) they are purchasing MoodleRooms and 2) they will be extending support for Angel indefinitely.  (See this post for more information)
• The LMS Work Group will still be reviewing the three original options (Blackboard, Desire 2 Learn, and MoodleRooms), but will now also consider the option of staying with Angel for the future.
• Mobile support for the LMS is still a primary concern for faculty and students.

Information Management Advisory Committee (IMAC)

• The Incidental Use policy has been approved by the Cabinet. The final draft of the policy has been posted on the web.
• There is still some concern among faculty about the governance process the Incidental Use policy went through. Anne Marie noted that there are some issues (e.g., privacy and confidentiality) for which compliance with federal regulations, rather than consensus from faculty and other campus users, must be the goal.
• TAG was able to provide feedback on the policy language at an early stage, and we hope to continue to work with IR in that capacity on future policies.
• A privacy and employee confidentiality policy is still in the works.

Previous Action Items

Incidental Use Policy

• See IMAC discussion above.

Academic Technology Plan

• The Academic Technology Plan has been backburnered. Anne Marie said that it’s unlikely any progress will be made on the Plan any time soon, since there are too many other things going on on campus that are a higher priority.
• At some point, the next step will be for Anne Marie to meet with Jeremy and Kristen to identify a path forward.

Faculty Directory

• HR and the Provost’s Office are continuing to explore options for storing in Banner such faculty-related information as chair or program director status and departmental affiliation.
• Currently, Banner identifies a faculty member as a Chair, but does not specify of what department or departments.
• The Provost’s Office has volunteered to maintain this kind of data once a location in Banner is identified. This information changes from term to term, so frequent maintenance is important.
• The Provost’s Office would like to know what *other* information about faculty status or affiliation should be recorded that isn’t currently documented somewhere.
• In a related project, Anne Marie and Maria Landis are working to create web profiles for faculty members – similar to those done in the past few years for new faculty, which are highlighted from the Provost’s web site. This set of data will include faculty photos, and will be compiled and maintained manually in flat HTML rather than in a relational database. We discussed that this seems like a very ineffective way to gather, publish, and maintain information about faculty members. However, this was the only solution presented to the Provost’s Office by PR.  Eugeniu suggested that the web pages could be hosted somewhere else so that information could be pulled from Banner.

Networking Computers Follow-up and Resolution

• A faculty member contacted TAG with a concern about networking computers. The issue is now resolved, but it served to highlight some ways in which communication between faculty and the Technology Support Center and IT Services staff members could be improved.
• Jeremy met with Jim and Robyn to discuss the faculty member’s request and the TSC’s service response. On the IR side, the communication issues inspired some changes in the Support Center workflow.
• On the faculty side, TAG will work on encouraging faculty members to 1) report issues to the TSC either via phone (941-HELP), email (techsupport@scranton.edu), or Footprints, 2) if reporting by phone or email, to request a ticket number to be able to follow the TSC’s progress, and 3) provide as much information as possible to the TSC staff member (e.g., classroom number, symptoms, any attempted troubleshooting, etc) to speed service response time.
• Kristen asked if there could be an “other” category in Footprints for requests that don’t seem to fit under any other category. Anne Marie warned that then every request would be submitted as “other.” Jim recommended that faculty who aren’t sure what Footprints category to use should call or email the TSC, who will route the ticket to the proper category.

Leahy Hall and Classroom Technology

• Teresa C. and Sandy met with Dean Pellegrino to request that a TAG representative be involved in classroom mediation discussions regarding the new PCPS building. Dean Pellegrino agreed with this request.
• TAG and IT Services will work to keep each other informed on classroom mediation in the new building.

St. Thomas Hall and Classroom Technology

• The plans for the St. Thomas renovation have changed, so there are no longer plans to remodel classrooms in that part of the building, only faculty offices.

Lecture Capture

• The lecture capture end point devices are already installed in the Science Center. IT Services is currently working on configuring the back end MediaSite server.
• Testing will continue through the spring, with a goal of implementation over the summer for use by faculty in Fall 2012.

New Incidents/New Business

Faculty/TSC communication

• A faculty member contacted TAG about a ticket that she put in to the TSC. The TSC staff member who responded hadn’t read her initial request, so while the issue was eventually resolved, it took a few more emails back and forth than it should have. This seems to have been a one-time mistake on the part of the TSC staff member rather than a systematic error, but it renewed our discussion of how faculty can best communicate with and report problems to the TSC, and how TAG can relay that information out to faculty.
• We discussed the possibility of tutorials or screenshots on Footprints being made available, though faculty don’t necessarily have time to view tutorials.
• When Luminis (the my.scranton interface) is upgraded, Kristen will request that the faculty tab have TSC contact information clearly highlighted so that it’s easier to find.
• Jeremy suggested that TAG work with IR staff to incorporate that information into New Faculty Orientation.
• Other possibilities included communicating with faculty administrative assistants or emailing faculty at the beginning of the semester to ask if they need help adapting to a new classroom.
• The best way for the TSC to get information is to have a conversation directly with the faculty member experiencing the problem, whether via phone call to the TSC, email, or Footprints request.

Thin client computing

• IR is currently experimenting with thin client computers in the Library. The experiment has hit some road blocks, so the original computers were replaced, and the pilot is now continuing.
• Once the thin client model is proved successful, the next step would be to replace the lab computers in the Library and in Brennan, and then additional computer labs on campus.
• Faculty and staff computers are farther away on the timeline.
• One of the major benefits but also difficulties of thin client computing is software licensing – e.g., faculty would be able to log on to a virtualized environment from anywhere and have access to the software they need (SPSS, etc). But this is a very expensive process.

Faculty development specialist in CTLE

• CTLE is hiring a new staff member to work with faculty on pedagogical techniques. This position is not specifically targeted at teaching with technology, and in the job description, the requirements focus on curriculum development.

TAG Membership for 2012-2013

• TAG members should let Kristen know if they do not plan to continue serving on TAG in 2012-2013. She will send out an email reminder to all members.
• We plan to follow the same model of meeting as a group once a month, with different TAG members tasked out to serve as TAG representatives on various related committees or projects.

2011-2012 Recap and 2012-2013 Planning

• We talked about potential technology-related issues that faculty might face in 2012-2013 that TAG should monitor or be actively involved in.
• Dave mentioned that there may be some technology issues over the summer as faculty move offices, but to date everything has gone smoothly.
• One of the major concerns for next year may be the maintenance of departmental web pages in the University’s content management system (CMS). Maria Landis has reached out to each academic department to try to identify a point person for web page development and maintenance. There may be significant faculty concerns about the time commitment involved in departmental pages. Lori said that PR doesn’t feel comfortable creating content for academic pages, but at the same time, the pages need to be up-to-date and complete since they’re such an important factor in recruitment. We ended the meeting without being sure of whether and how TAG should play a role in these discussions, but it will likely be an issue that we will address in 2012-2013.

We adjourned for 2011-2012. TAG’s next full meeting will be scheduled for September 2012.