TAG Meeting Notes 2014-05-07

7 05 2014

TAG Meeting May 7, 2014 12:00pm-1:00pm

Attendees:
Jeremy Brees, Tim Cannon, Teresa Conte, Kim Daniloski, Dave Dzurec, Tara Fay, Jim Franceschelli, Eugeniu Grigorescu, Calvin Krzywiec (guest), Andrew LaZella, Kristen Yarmey

TAG thanks Library Dean Charles Kratz for sponsoring lunch for our meeting today.

1. BYOD Strategy Draft

Calvin Krzywiec joined us as a guest to present and discuss a draft version of IR’s strategy for accommodating the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend. Cal is Assistant Director of Network Security & Engineering and served as chair for the IR Strategy Group tasked with studying BYOD. The group is currently seeking feedback from campus stakeholders to incorporate into a final strategy.

Cal explained that the group’s objectives were driven by increasing demand among students and faculty for access to institutional services from personal mobile devices. The group’s top priority is supporting BYOD for teaching and learning, while a secondary priority is protecting the security of institutional data.

For teaching and learning (see p. 2-4 in the draft), IR’s BYOD objectives include:

  • Investigate and implement untethered teaching/learning solutions
  • Focus classroom upgrades on providing collaborative, flexible workspaces
  • Leverage virtual desktop/application technologies and client devices to reduce reliance on physical lab infrastructure
  • Leverage virtual desktop/application technologies to provide ubiquitous access to lab software resources
  • Investigate and implement secure electronic assessment solutions
  • Expand lecture capture to additional locations

The draft identifies several barriers to BYOD implementation that were also raised by faculty members in TAG’s informal survey on specialized software and computer labs.  These include:

  • Expensive licensing fees for specialized software
  • Potential disparities in student computer ownership
  • Inaccessible and/or limited power sources
  • Security for electronic assessment/computerized testing
  • High demand on wireless network

The draft strategy recommends partnership with CTLE to support faculty needs as well as engagement with faculty during the implementation of BYOD-related strategies. Jim said that IR will work with TAG to recruit faculty volunteers to test out tools and services. While the precise timeline for rolling out these changes isn’t yet determined, there are some pilot projects already in motion. Faculty members in KSOM are piloting software for securing a browser (for computerized testing) using lab computers running thin clients. Teresa noted that the Nursing department would be very interested in piloting computerized testing tools in McGurrin. IR also plans to pilot test untethered teaching/learning options in the fall – TAG will get more information on this in the summer. Tim volunteered to participate in this pilot. IR has already been piloting Panopto lecture capture and will be looking to add this capability to additional classrooms for Fall 2014. Mobile printing is also in process.

Regarding network and authentication issues: Cal said that IR will be replacing the Cisco NAC client with encrypted SSID authentication, so that users will be able to log in to the University network from their device without downloading and installing CNAC. Once a device has been logged in,  it will stay logged in – users won’t have to reauthenticate multiple times during the day to stay on the network.

The second half of the draft (p. 4-9) addresses faculty and staff devices. One issue addressed is primary computing devices (for most faculty, our desktop computer). While currently primary devices are purchased and provided by the University, alternative models such as reimbursement or stipends for equipment and software purchases could be discussed.

Secondly, in order to protect institutional data, the draft proposes a three-tiered mobile device management (MDM) system:

  • Mandatory: This tier applies to all University issued devices and requires an enrollment in a MDM system that enforces the implementation of technical controls on the device, such as lock code, lock when idle, remote wipe capabilities, device encryption, and potentially even location tracking for locating a lost device.
  • Optional: This tier applies to all non-­‐corporate owned staff, faculty, and affiliate devices connecting to University systems, including email. Enrollment in the MDM solution is optional but the expectations of minimal technical controls and the requirement to notify PIR of a lost/stolen device are defined in institutional policy. Employees must agree to allow the University to wipe the device when it is lost/stolen or the employee separates from the institution.
  • Exempt: This tier applies to student devices. This tier has no requirements but offers guidance to students on how to secure their devices.

The draft proposes that a remote wipe could be partial rather than complete, “removing only corporate data.”

Kristen raised concerns about the Optional tier, which would apply to many faculty-owned mobile devices. Firstly, the exact definition of “corporate data” may need to be clarified. According to Appendix VIII (“Copyright”) of the Faculty Handbook, in most (but not all) circumstances, faculty retain copyright over works created as part of their normal teaching, research, and service duties – including research data, lecture notes, videos of lectures, syllabi, etc.  Kristen will look into existing University policies and documents to better understand what types of records (email?) would fall under this policy. Kristen also raised concerns about references to wiping data (including email) upon “employee separation,” which for faculty may take different forms (emeritus, phased retirement, terminal sabbatical, etc).

The BYOD Strategy Group will be compiling feedback into the next draft of the report. Kristen will write up summarized feedback from TAG’s discussion as a formal response to the draft document.

2. Brief Updates 

(The BYOD discussion took up most of the meeting, so updates were rushed.)

Identity Finder automated scans (Kristen)

Kristen has been working with Adam Edwards and Scott Finlon in Information Security to answer faculty questions about Identity Finder automated scans. Kristen has updated the Identity Finder FAQ with clarifications from Information Security.  There are still some faculty concerns about the scanning and reporting process (which was approved by the President’s cabinet back in June 2013); however, we have addressed as many as possible.

Information Security would like to begin the automated scans. TAG members present at the meeting felt ready to move forward with scanning faculty machines. Dave will report at this Friday’s Senate meetings that scans will begin. Kristen will work with Adam to coordinate a schedule and an all-faculty email notification.

Test Scanning Services (Jim)

Jim reported that IR will be changing the hours of Test Scanning Services effective Monday, May 12, 2014.  The service will continue to be provided from Alumni Memorial Hall, Room 001. Tests may be dropped off and results picked up Monday through Friday, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.  Based upon demand and operational requirements, immediate service while you wait may not be available.  IR will continue to strive to meet the needs of our customers and will provide a 24 hour turnaround of test scanning results.  Jim asked that faculty please plan accordingly as we approach the end of the Spring term.  Jim will contact regular users of the test scanning service with more details.

Desire2Learn (Eugeniu)

Additional Desire2Learn workshops are being planned for the summer – see CTLE’s workshop calendar for the updated schedule. Eugeniu also reminded TAG members that faculty should back up any student data (including grades, discussion forms, and dropbox submissions) in Angel that they wish to keep. Step by step instructions have been emailed out, but CTLE staff will also hold workshops on this during Senior Week for anyone who needs assistance (see ). Student access to Angel will be turned off as of May 30, but faculty will have access until July 31. After that, data stored in Angel will no longer be available.

PR Department/Program Website Initiative (Dave/Teresa)

We ran out of time for in-person updates on this project. Lori had sent Kristen updates via email. Kristen will post these notes to the TAG site in a separate update.

4. Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 1:05pm. TAG will not meet again as a full group until Fall 2014, but projects and communication (via email) will continue during the summer.

[Updated immediately after posting with correction to Cal’s title]


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Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn, Announcements, Classroom Mediation, Email, Minutes, Mobile, Network and Infrastructure, Security

TAG Meeting 2012-11-07

8 11 2012

On November 7, TAG held its third and final Fall 2012 meeting.

1. Code of Responsible Computing Committee update

Dave Dzurec (History) and Jim Franceschelli (IT Services) are co-chairing a committee charged with drafting an update to the Code of Responsible Computing. The goal of the committee is to create a single policy for faculty, staff, and students that will define responsible use of information technology at the University.

Dave and Jim have been reviewing acceptable use policies from other universities  and have almost finished a draft for the rest of the committee to review.  After review by the committee, the policy will go to VP/CIO Jerry DeSanto, and then it will enter the University governance system for full approval (probably in 2013-2014).

Faculty representatives on the committee (as appointed by the Faculty Senate) are Dave, Wesley Wang (Economics/Finance), and Bob Spinelli (Health Administration and Human Resources). The Staff and Student Senates also have two representatives each.

We discussed briefly how the new policy should be disseminated and shared with students and faculty after it is approved. Sandy asked whether new students/faculty/staff will need to sign off on the policy when they begin using University services to make sure they are aware of it. Kristen suggested incorporating a mention of the policy into the New Faculty Orientation. She will also suggest to the Associate Dean of the Library, Bonnie Strohl, that public patrons using Library computers would be informed of the policy in some way.

2. CTLE Technology Liaison

The Center for Teaching and Learning has two faculty liaisons (currently Anthony Ferzola and Marian Farrell) who provide an interface between faculty teaching and the CTLE’s resources. Faculty can reach out to the liaisons for support (e.g., teaching observations), and the CTLE can reach out to the liaisons for input on needed resources. The liaisons also run the faculty mentor/mentee program.

The CTLE wants to establish a similar faculty liaison who would specifically address academic technology questions and needs. They did a pilot project last year, with Sandy Pesavento (Education) serving as the faculty technology liaison, to see what role(s) a liaison should fill. Eugeniu asked TAG (including Sandy) for feedback on what a technology liaison’s “job description” should look like.

During the pilot year, Sandy did some technology trainings (higher order thinking, student response systems, smartboards, etc) and teaching observations (e.g., coming to a class to suggest technology tools that might be helpful to the instructor). One of the difficulties during the pilot year was that few faculty members outside of PCPS were aware that Sandy was available for consultation on technology issues, though, so a challenge for the future will be finding ways to promote the services the liaison provides.

We discussed other needs that a liaison could address. Several TAG members suggested a repository or database of some kind that would identify 1) educationally relevant technologies and 2) if/how faculty at Scranton and other universities have implemented them.  Katie noted that sometimes faculty don’t necessarily know what tools are available to them. Jeremy and Dave expressed interest in hearing from faculty members who have been doing pedagogical research with technology in the classroom – e.g., via Friday presentations like the Office of Research Services seminar series.

We also discussed the difficulty of knowing who to call for help – that is, CTLE supports faculty use of technology for pedagogy, but IT Services supports the actual hardware and software that faculty use in the classroom. Teresa suggested a flow chart to indicate who to call and when.

3. Windows 7 and Viewfinity

As Windows 7 is rolled out with new University computers, your account on your desktop/laptop will change from being an administrator account to a standard user account. This is a security measure to try to prevent users from downloading and installing malicious software. By default, standard users can’t install or delete applications, as administrators can.

We were concerned about this limitation when TAG first learned about it, but IT Services has put in a lot of work to figure out a good solution for faculty members so that this change doesn’t affect our work. Using Viewfinity privilege management software, faculty users can be automatically and temporarily elevated to administrators so we can install whatever software we need when we need it.

Kristen has been piloting Viewfinity as a faculty user since the middle of the summer, with excellent results.  There’s a small popup window that comes up each time you begin to install a program that asks for a “business justification,” but you can simply say you are using the program for teaching, research, etc – no lengthy explanation required. When you click OK, you are automatically bumped up to administrator while the program installs, and you are automatically bumped back down to standard user once the installation is complete. Commonly used software (Skype, iTunes, etc) is whitelisted to speed things up. Overall, the process is smooth and seamless — many thanks to Jim and the IT Services staff for finding a way to accommodate faculty needs.

Viewfinity has another big feature – Remote Desktop assistance! When you call the Technology Support Center, you’ll be able to share your desktop with the support staff so that they can help you easily from a distance. This service is in development and will be available soon. It will always have a prompt – your desktop won’t be shared without your approval.

Faculty members with XP machines will get Viewfinity via KBOX, so you’ll have Remote Desktop capability, but you will still maintain an administrator account (and XP) until you get a new computer.  Faculty members receiving new machines will have Windows 7 and a standard user account, with Viewfinity.

Viewfinity is not supported on Mac or Linux, so faculty using Mac or Linux machines are not affected by any of these changes.

Classroom and lab computers are all Windows 7 now, but they do *not* run Viewfinity — they have Deep Freeze instead. So you can install programs on classroom and lab computers, but those installations will disappear each time the machine shuts down. If you need to install software in a classroom or lab that you need to use frequently, submit a request to the TSC via Footprints.

4. Infrastructure for Computerized Testing

We were running out of time, so we didn’t get to discuss this agenda item. Jim suggested that a work group form to work on some possible solutions, since we haven’t made much progress on this issue. Jim, Teresa, Sandy, and Eugeniu will start to work on this.

5. & 6. WordPress Site Organization & Luminis Tab

No time for these agenda items either – Kristen will be in touch with TAG members via email.

TAG will not be meeting in December, so our next formal meeting will be in Spring 2013. TAG members will still be communicating and working throughout December and January, though, so as always please feel free to contact us with questions, concerns, or suggestions.


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Categories : Announcements, Minutes, Network and Infrastructure, Security

TAG Meeting Notes 2/9/12

13 02 2012

TAG held its first Spring 2012 meeting last Thursday.

Standing Committees:

IRAC

  • IRAC (the Information Resources Advisory Council) is meeting this Thursday and will be discussing the service catalog.

Learning Management System (LMS) Work Group

  • The LMS Work Group has chosen three vendors – Blackboard, MoodleRooms, and Desire2Learn – to bring to campus for demonstrations.
  • The three candidates have been asked to focus their demonstrations based on the Work Group’s list of top desired features, which included feedback from the faculty survey distributed by CTLE in December and January.  The faculty’s top desired features were mobile access and grading.
  • All faculty are invited and encouraged to attend the demonstrations. If you attend, you’ll receive a list of the top desired features so that you can mark it with your comments and concerns.
  • The group aims to choose a vendor by the end of the semester. Next fall, faculty will be able to choose whether they’d like to try the new LMS or stick with Angel – the two systems will be run in parallel for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Mobile Apps Work Group

  • The Mobile Apps work group met on Wednesday, February 8.
  • New mobile development will be in the form of mobile web pages – accessible either via the University’s mobile app or directly through a user’s mobile browser.
  • The February 8 meeting focused on identifying the top priorities for mobile development.  Mobile access to the Learning Management System (LMS) and Banner data were ranked highly by most of the work group.
  • Public Relations will be sending out a survey to users and non-users of the University app to get feedback on what users want to see in the app.
  • Full minutes will be posted when they’re are available: 2012-02-08-Mobile Apps Working Group Minutes

Luminis Work Group

  • This spring, an upgrade is planned for Luminis, the software behind the my.scranton portal.
  • Kristen and Anne Marie met with Joe Casabona from IR to provide faculty/staff feedback on the my.scranton portal.

Previous Action Items

Incidental Use Policy

  • TAG continues to work with IR to provide faculty feedback on new drafts of the Incidental Use Policy.
  • Jeremy explained that the policy clarifies the responsibilities of faculty, staff, and students when it comes to technology use. It does not add new restrictions to faculty technology use.
  • Jeremy and Kristen will bring this draft of the policy to Faculty Senate on 2/10/12 for discussion and further faculty input.
  • This policy is one part of a multiple-policy Information Security compliance program.   The Code of Responsible Computing will essentially be broken up into smaller, more adaptable policies.
  • The next part of the compliance program will be the Privacy & Confidentiality Statement, to be discussed at the February 13 IMAC meeting. IR has invited TAG to provide feedback on this proposed policy as well.

Academic Technology Plan

  • Anne Marie reported that other priorities have prevented progress on the Academic Technology Plan.
  • She will work with Hal on identifying the direction and goals of the plan, which are amorphous at this point.

Faculty Directory

  • We revisited the question of listing more than one department for a single faculty member in Banner.  This problem is not going away, since new faculty in Women’s Studies will be joint appointments.
  • Anne Marie reported that this issue seems to be dead in the water – there doesn’t seem to be a viable solution for adding another field to Banner.  It’s surprisingly difficult to create a new field in Banner, and when Banner is upgraded to a new version, custom fields aren’t carried through.  The field also would need to be maintained.
  •  We will revisit this conversation with HR in the future.
  • A short term solution may be a faculty photo directory that Anne Marie is working on with Maria Landis.  The directory will include portraits of all faculty members as well as their department listings, etc.

Computerized Testing

  • The new Learning Management System (LMS) may be able to provide a secure testing environment for computerized testing.  Eugeniu is looking at this.

Email Transition

  • January’s email transition seemed to go smoothly for most faculty members.  Most of the faculty have successfully migrated – only a few outliers (who requested later migration dates) remain.  Many thanks to the IT Services staff for quickly answering lots of questions from Kristen and other faculty members.
  • Training courses are still available for faculty who want assistance getting used to the new Live@Edu environment.  Next Thursday’s IT Forum will include tips and training for Office web apps and SkyDrive.
  • Eugeniu recommended using OneNote, synced to SkyDrive, for notetaking.
  • SkyDrive storage space can be used for pretty much anything, but any institutional documents that contain Personally Identifiable Information (PII) must be stored on Royal Drive.

Social Media Guidelines

  • At a recent meeting of the Committee on University Image and Promotion (CUIP), Public Relations distributed a new draft of the Social Media Guidelines, now integrated into the University Web Guidelines.   TAG gave feedback on an earlier draft of the Social Media Guidelines, much of which is incorporated into the new version.
  • Kristen will post the new guidelines for review by TAG members and other faculty.

New Incidents

  • Faculty should be careful to log out of Live@Edu and close their browser at the end of a session. Dave pointed out that if you don’t log out of Live@Edu on a shared computer, another user can access your account simply by going to Hotmail (also owned by Microsoft).

New Business

TAG policy workflow

  • The Incidental Use policy so far has been a good case study for how IR and TAG can work together on policy issues to address faculty needs and concerns.  We got to give feedback on the policy language and will present the draft language to Faculty Senate before the policy starts to go through the full governance process.
  • We’re working on solidifying this process with IR and the Faculty Senate Academic Support committee.

Content Management System

  • The transition from Tiger to the CMS server went smoothly.
  • So far about ten faculty members have approached the CTLE and developed a CMS website.  The process isn’t ideal – e.g., instead of creating a new page a user had to copy an existing page, etc.

Outage Notifications

  • Jeremy suggested that there should be a feed or web page detailing for each enterprise service 1) when the next scheduled downtime is and 2) what the status is of any unplanned outages.
  • Jim said there used to be a page like this, but it was hard to maintain.  It can be done, but where should it rank on the priority list?
  • We will keep this in mind and try to figure out how high a priority it would be for faculty.

Footprints

  • Footprints is working well as an internal tool for IR. Not many users are creating their own tickets, but it helps to track issues internally.
  • The knowledge base hasn’t been used much yet, and it’s somewhat hard to find.  We discussed the idea of posting a direct link to the knowledge base from the portal, after the Luminis upgrade.

Having run out of time, we adjourned. The next TAG meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 6, from 10:00am-11:15am in WML305.

————

Updated 4/24/2012 with a link to the 02/08/2012 Mobile Apps Group meeting minutes


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TAG Meeting Notes 12/1/11

2 12 2011

[Updated 12/08/11 with links to additional information]

TAG met yesterday to catch up on all our initiatives. Here’s the latest:

  • The Learning Management System (LMS) Work Group has formed and will begin meetings this week.
  • The Mobile Apps work group met at the beginning of November. Meeting minutes are available (PDF). The meeting was mostly dedicated to getting everyone caught up on the existing mobile app and mobile website.  The minutes indicate that any new mobile development will occur within the existing University app (made by Straxis), but this point seemed undecided during the meeting itself. Kristen is seeking clarification from group leader Connie Wisdo on this question.

Sandy Pesavento (education) has withdrawn from the group due to time conflicts, but Andy Berger (physics) has volunteered to serve as a faculty representative along with Ben Bishop and Kristen Yarmey.

  • The Novel Pedagogy Group has received funding from the College of Arts and Sciences to design a mediated classroom that will accommodate the new pedagogies they are exploring. The group is working with Jim and OIT to mediate the room, which is intended to be a model of what the University could do should it prove effective.
  • Members of TAG met with IR in early November to discuss the results of last summer’s TechQual survey. Kristen will post the results and highlights of the discussion on this site under a separate title.  We’ve been asked not to share the results, but we did post a summary of the discussion.
  • IR invited TAG to provide feedback on a rough draft of a new Incidental Use Policy during last month’s IMAC meeting. Jeremy will post specifics about the policy on the TAG site under a separate title.
  • IR is in the process of hiring a new manager to coordinate the work of the Office of Instructional Technology.
  • Progress is being made on the Academic Technology Plan. Anne Marie interviewed several faculty members and administrators to get a sense of what the Plan should include.
  • Faculty directory. At our last meeting TAG discussed the faculty directory’s inability to list more than one department affiliation for a single faculty member. Anne Marie discussed this concern in a Banner meeting earlier this week.  There are several similar issues with Banner not being able to describe employee designations (e.g., emeritus, program director, department chair…).  It seems like the University needs to have a larger conversation about data storage and sharing – Banner wasn’t really designed to handle all of these designations. Anne Marie will look into how other universities handle data sharing.
  • Computerized testing. Teresa spoke with colleagues at Villanova University and found out that they use Par software to conduct secure, controlled online testing.  The downside to Par is that it doesn’t integrate with Villanova’s LMS (Blackboard). Jim will look into Par to see what options we might be able to provide for computerized testing on campus.
  • Security Awareness Training. The email announcement for IR’s security awareness training program went out early by accident. All faculty are encouraged to complete the training program – it’s  a series of short videos, totaling around 60 minutes.  The idea is to expand a general user’s knowledge and understanding of security issues.  See Jeremy’s post from 11/14/11 for details.
  • We talked briefly about the Oracle outage on 11/10 and the wireless outage on 11/16. IR has an incident policy now that indicates how and what information about outages should be disseminated.  During the Oracle outage, information was displayed on my.scranton showing alternate ways for users to access Angel and email. RoyalDrive was not included, but this has been fixed.  Jim is meeting with the rest of the IR team this week to figure out what happened during the 11/16 outage. His goal is for IR to be able to send out early notifications when something is happening.
  • The email transition is a go! The email team itself transitioned this week. Students will be transitioned at the end of December after exams. We discussed the best time to convert faculty, and the best option seems to be January.  We’ll transition in batches, by department. Notifications with more details will be sent out on paper and via email, but here’s essentially what will happen:
    1. You will get email notification in advance, and a final email notice the day of the transition. If your department’s migration is happening at a time that will not work for you, you should contact IR right away to reschedule.2. Your email account will move to Live @ EDU during the night.  Server email will be migrated automatically.

    3. When you log in to my.scranton the next day, you’ll see a new tab with instructions for accessing your new account through the web portal, and instructions for migrating local mail [with Transend Migrator].  You will also need to update your mobile devices and any other email clients (Gmail, MacMail) with new POP3 information.

    4. Your email address will be firstname.lastname@scranton.edu. You will still receive email sent to your existing email (lastnamef2@scranton.edu), but you can’t send out email from that address, so you will need to update it in email listservs, etc.

    5. Training will be available that week to help you get started.  We asked Jim if short screencapture tutorials could be made available as well.

    6. Calendars won’t be migrated until later in the spring.

    7. Office 2010 will be pushed out around the same time.


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TAG Meeting Notes 10/27/11

27 10 2011

TAG met this morning to catch up on our projects. Here’s the latest:

  • A Learning Management System (LMS) Work Group is forming to review and evaluate alternatives to Angel. Connie Wisdo in ITDA will lead the group. There are six spots available for faculty participants, and (as of a few minutes after our meeting!) we now have a full slate of volunteers:

Tara Fay, Biology
Julie Nastasi, Occupational Therapy
Keith Yurgosky, Communications (part time)
Maureen Carroll, Math
Teresa Conte, Nursing
Wesley Wang, Economics/Finance

The group will also include 3 representatives from CTLE (including Eugeniu), 5 representatives from IR, and 4 students (graduate, undergraduate, and adult).  CTLE and IR will begin drafting evaluation criteria this month in preparation for the first full group meeting in December. The goal is to make a decision by May so that we can run both Angel and the new LMS in parallel in 2012-2013.

  • The Mobile Apps work group is forming to guide the design and development of mobile applications for teaching and learning. This group will begin meeting in November. Connie will lead this group as well, and it will include representatives from Alumni and PR. Faculty member participants are:

Ben Bishop, Computing Sciences
Sandy Pesavento, Education
Kristen Yarmey, Library

  • The University now has an in-house WordPress Network (http://sites.scranton.edu), available to be used for University blogs. Currently the only users are the Admissions office, though the Library will be migrating its blogs to the local server during Intersession. Anyone interested in migrating or starting a University blog should put a request in Project Tracking under “Systems.”
  • Continuing education opportunities. Wilkes University is hosting an Apple Education Seminar on November 17. Villanova University is hosting a Technology Expo on April 26, 2012.
  • IT Roadmap. Jeremy and Kristen met with IR to discuss their project list for 2011-12. The email conversion timeline is still uncertain, but IR expects that the first test conversions will begin in November and that student conversions may be done after final exams end. Faculty and staff conversions will likely be in January. IR will continue to communicate with TAG about the most optimal time for faculty conversions. Questions about the conversion came up during the last Faculty Senate meeting.
  • Faculty directory. TAG shared concerns with IR about the faculty directory’s inability to list more than one department affiliation for a single faculty member. The fix for this problem is more complex than we anticipated and will involve working with several University departments.
  • TAG will meet with IR on November 10 to discuss results from the summer TechQual survey.
  • CTLE has two upcoming events for faculty. On November 9, Margarete Zalon will lead a faculty-to-faculty exchange on management of bibliographic resources. On November 17, there will be a Faculty Advancement Series event on peer review and writing for journals. CTLE also has hired a new associate director, Brian Snapp.
  • CTLE is exploring options for classroom response systems (also known as clickers).  They have a demo scheduled with Top Hat Monocle, and a TechCon is researching other options. Sandy mentioned that there are tools like PollEverywhere available that utilize text messaging rather than clickers.
  • Jeremy, Sandy, Anne Marie, and Jim all attended the recent EDUCAUSE conference. Items of interest included Penn State’s open source WebLion application for program assessment, Pearson/Google’s new OpenClass learning management system, QR codes, mobile education, Google+, and Google Hangouts.
  • At the last Faculty Senate meeting, a motion passed that asks the Provost to provide updates on various academic initiatives.  The motion included the Academic Technology Plan that TAG members have contributed to.
  • The newly reconstituted IRAC group met, with two TAG members (Dave and Paul) serving as faculty representatives. Their recent meeting focused on the TechQual survey results, which will be discussed with TAG on November 10.
  • Teresa provided further insight on the Nursing department’s need for computerized testing. We discussed several options, including the purchase of Chromebooks or the use of specialized, restrictive software. OIT’s budget cannot maintain any new mediation, so the construction of a full computer lab would mean that other mediation could not be maintained. Jim would like to know if any other departments have this kind of need. TAG will continue to explore possible solutions to this issue.
  • This week’s IT Forum was on Data Security and Classification. (Kristen will post specific notes.) We discussed how faculty might be exposed to and educated about different data types and security procedures.
  • Jeremy reported on a classroom mediation issue in the Loyola Science Center. He asked if OIT could provide email updates to faculty to let them know if/when a computer or projector is not functional in one of the classrooms where they teach. Jim is exploring this idea with OIT.

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TAG Meeting Notes 9/29/11

29 09 2011

We had our first TAG meeting of 2011-2012 this morning.  We had a lot to catch up on from the summer, so apologies for the long notes! As always, post a comment if there are any questions or concerns.

  • New members. Teresa Conte joined us from Nursing as a replacement for Cathy Lovecchio. Ben Bishop (Computing Sciences) joined us late last spring, as did Lori Nidoh (representing Public Relations). S.P. Chattopadhyay is currently on sabbatical, and Kevin Wilkerson has returned from his.
  • Novel Pedagogy Cohort. Jeremy and a few other CAS faculty members have formed a small group to explore and implement new pedagogy techniques in their classes – some of which involve technology while others don’t.  Tools to be explored include lecture capture and clicker systems. If any other faculty are interested in innovative pedagogy, let Jeremy know.
  • Lecture capture.  A team of stakeholders (including TAG members Jeremy, Kristen, Sandy, and Eugeniu) met several times in the spring and summer to review possible products for lecture capture.  The final recommendation was a hybrid solution of Media Site (as a back end) and Crestron HD appliances for the actual capture. Implementation will start in the Science Center and then spread to other departments. Right now, IR is working on setting up the back end servers while VistaComm is implementing the front end capture devices. The goal is to have LSC lecture capture ready to go by Spring 2011, and then expand to other departments next year as funding allows. Sandy and Teresa noted that Education and Nursing would be very interested in implementing lecture capture in their classrooms. Thanks to Jason Oakey over in Instructional Technology for taking the lead on this project!
  • Office 2010.  The upgrade to Office 2010 for faculty and staff is tied to the email conversion (see below) due to the incorporation of Outlook.
  • Windows 7. The upgrade to Windows 7 for faculty and staff machines currently running Windows XP is held up due to a security issue. XP users are currently admin users on their computers. While this gives us a lot of flexibility and control over our own machines, it also introduces security risks – users can accidentally install malicious code.  When we move to Windows 7, IR will change XP users’ roles from admin to standard user accounts. By default, standard users wouldn’t be able to install or delete applications, but ideally there will be a way for users to obtain temporary admin status when they need to install programs. IR is currently working out these privilege management issues, so Windows 7 deployment is pushed back to (tentatively) Spring 2011.   Wesley asked about 64 bit vs 32 bit machines – Jim said that by default new machines will be 32 bit, but faculty who need 64 bit should let him know.
  • Email conversion. The Microsoft Live @ Edu email transition has been delayed by issues with identity management (e.g., automatically assigning set permissions to new hires, and removing permissions from retirees, departing employees, etc). IR is working on a workaround plan that would let us go forward with the email conversion while temporarily skipping over identity management. IR is aware of “crunch times” in faculty schedules, so faculty email conversion will probably wait until intersession or beyond.
  • Personally identifiable information.  Ben asked about security concerns for faculty members who don’t use University email.  Jim recommends that any University business, and especially any University business that involves confidential information, be done using University services (like Angel and Royal Drive). The Identity Finder tool is available to help faculty and staff find any PII that might be on their machines. IR also has security training videos that faculty can watch to get an entry-level awareness of PII.
  • Information Resources Advisory Committee.  IRAC had been inactive for a year but is now reconstituted. IRAC members will be providing input on IR’s service portfolio. TAG members Dave, Paul, Eugeniu, and Lori will be on it as CAS faculty, PCPS faculty, CTLE, and PR representatives, respectively.
  • TechQual. IR ran this customer service survey over the summer. Preliminary results just came in, but IR is still processing them and will present them to IRAC next month.
  • Loyola Science Center. Most of the IT work in LSC is done, but there are still a few equipment issues popping up in classrooms. IR will continue working on this. Remaining projects include lecture capture, the auditorium, and RoomView, a tool that will allow Instructional Technology to monitor and maintain classroom equipment (e.g., whether or not a projector has been left on).
  • Wireless. The wireless upgrade project was approved.  Phase I (freshmen residences, the new Mulberry Street residences, and the LSC) is complete and adds 350 new WiFi points to the campus. Phase II is currently underway and will add 252 WiFi points in 21 buildings (residences, St. Thomas, and the Long Center). Phase III is scheduled for summer 2012 and will include the remaining academic and administrative buildings as well as outdoor coverage.  This is a big improvement – many thanks to the Network Infrastructure staff!
  • CTLE liaison. CTLE used to have two faculty liaisons who focused teaching and pedagogy. They have now added a third faculty liaison, TAG member Sandy Pesavento, to provide input on faculty interests and needs regarding pedagogical uses of technology.
  • Mobile access to Angel. CTLE and IR experimented with Blackboard’s iOS app for Angel, but found it to be a very limited tool, particularly for teachers (e.g., faculty can’t enter grades or interact with Angel dropboxes).  So mobile access to Angel still isn’t conveniently available at this time.
  • LMS review. Our contract with Angel expires in 2013, so a review committee will begin exploring other learning management system (LMS) options in January. Connie Wisdo in ITDA will lead the group. Eugeniu said that we might have an opportunity to use a “free” installation of Blackboard temporarily (on top of our existing Angel installation) so that faculty could try it out. Dave asked whether or not we would be able to migrate courses from Angel into a new LMS. Eugeniu said that from our current version of Angel (7.4), we could export/import single courses into Blackboard, with some imperfections. If we upgraded to v8 of Angel, we’d be able to batch migrate courses. Blackboard would also complement our Royal Card and emergency notification systems, since they’re Blackboard products (Transact and Connect), but it might not be easily tied into Banner.
  • Academic Technology Plan. The Provost’s office has no updates on the Academic Technology Plan.
  • Mobile website and app. Lori shared some analytics to give us an idea of how the mobile website and mobile app are being used. The app has been downloaded 7,604 times (mostly by iOS rather than Android devices). An in-app poll asked about the user’s identity, and 57% of the poll-takers were current students, 28% were alumni, 10% were prospective students, with faculty, staff, and other community members making up only 6%.  New app modules include Admissions and the Library (live but still being tweaked), with an Alumni module on the way. An iPad version is also on the timeline for this year, and hopefully mobile authentication is on the horizon.  The m.scranton mobile site is getting plenty of traffic. The most commonly viewed mobile pages are the home page and the admissions and academics home pages. [Note: Stats on the mobile app are here (in PDF). Stats on the mobile site are here (also in PDF).] PR is also setting up automatic redirects from the full site to the mobile site for recognized mobile devices – right now, the only active redirect is from the full site home page to the m.scranton home page.
  • Faculty websites. We’ve figured out a good workflow for faculty websites with CTLE. Any faculty member who wants to create a new website in the CMS should contact Aileen McHale in the CTLE. The CTLE TechCons will set up the faculty member’s web space, and then can help him or her as needed with templates or other support.  Sandy and Anne Marie would like to encourage faculty members (and any other page admins) to keep their websites current.
  • Continuing education. TAG members interested in learning more about academic uses of technology should keep an eye out for continuing education opportunities, since funding may be available. Jeremy and Sandy will each attend a day of the EDUCAUSE conference, courtesy of the Provost’s office.  Anne Marie and a few representatives from IR will also attend. TAG members who do participate in continuing education are asked to report back and share conference highlights.
  • Computerized testing. Teresa reported on concerns from the Nursing department. Nursing licensing exams are all online, so the department uses computerized testing to help their students prepare for the licensing environment.  Nursing faculty have run into trouble finding places to conduct their computer tests – there isn’t enough space to accommodate large classes, and classrooms that do accommodate that many students have been booked for other courses.  An ideal solution would be a large “shared resource” lab (possibly run by CTLE/Library) that faculty could schedule for tests, with computers set up to restrict access to the testing environment. Anne Marie suggested that we look at how other schools have solved this problem. Teresa will get more details on Nursing needs. Jim asked if other departments have this need, and for what class sizes. Once we have more information, we can agree on a good solution and then seek funding.
  • Our next meeting will be October 27. TAG members are asked to keep collecting (specific!) feedback from other faculty members on technology concerns or issues, and we’ll keep sharing information here as projects continue.

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Note: Updated 10/24/11 with PDF docs of mobile app and website statistics shared during the meeting.


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Categories : Angel and Desire2Learn, Email, Minutes, Mobile, Network and Infrastructure, Security, TAG Administrative, Upgrades

Computerized Testing and Computer Labs

24 02 2011

TAG has recently received concerns about the computers in the Hyland 102 computer lab not working properly when they’re needed for computerized testing.

Upon hearing the concerns, IR’s response was that none of the problems had been reported to the Technology Support Center – and they can’t fix computers if they don’t know they’re not working.  IR recommended that faculty be sure to report malfunctioning computers to the TSC, so that the right people can take care of them – and said that classroom and lab resources get the highest priority.

Does anyone have any comments on this? Have you had similar experiences? Do you report problem computers to the TSC when you come across them?


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Categories : Classroom Mediation