TAG Meeting Notes 4/12/2012

16 04 2012

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.


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Categories : Announcements, Minutes

TechQual Survey Results

8 12 2011

Last month, members of TAG met with representatives from IR’s Office of Planning & Institutional Effectiveness to discuss results from the TechQual survey that faculty were asked to fill out over the summer.

At this point, IR is working through the results and meeting with focus groups to get a deeper understanding of what the results mean for planning and operations.  IR will not be sharing the full results directly with the University community, but the next IT Matters newsletter will include evaluation and reflection on the survey results as a whole.

During the TAG focus group, we looked specifically at faculty responses to the survey.  Only full-time faculty were included in the survey, and there was a 21% response rate.  This is the second time TechQual has been administered on campus – it was first administered in 2008.  The survey respondents were split differently in 2008 than in 2011, so IR is not able to compare the answers directly, but there is some indication of changes over time.

The TechQual survey looks at three major areas: Connectivity & Access, Technology & Technology Services, and End User Experience. The survey instrument asks respondents to rate each item in three ways: in terms of 1) minimum service level, 2) desired service level, and 3) perceived service level.

Overall, the survey results indicate that for faculty, IR is not meeting mean desired expectations. In some areas, IR is not meeting mean minimum expectations.  Adequacy gaps, or the difference between minimum and perceived performance, were larger for faculty respondents than for staff.  There was evidence that faculty user experiences varied significantly, with some responses being overwhelmingly positive while others were negative.

Although direct comparisons could not be made to the 2008 survey data, there was a trend of rising user expectations for minimum service levels. At the same time, users’ perceived service levels were generally about equal or slightly higher, suggesting that IR is holding steady or improving in some areas.

The good news is that some of the key areas identified for improvement have already been addressed or will soon be addressed. For example, faculty respondents’ perceived level of service for wireless connectivity was below their reported minimum levels of service, but the campus wireless network is scheduled (pending the approval of funding) to undergo additional upgrades that will significantly improve connectivity in academic and administrative buildings.

Classroom technology had the largest adequacy gap for faculty respondents. We spent some time discussing what kind of classroom technology needs faculty experience.  Most campus spaces are designed either for using technology (e.g., all seats face a display screen; projection screen requires dimming lights) or for not using technology (e.g., seminar-style seating). TAG members asked for classroom environments that allowed spontaneity and collaboration.  We also discussed how faculty and IR can best communicate about technology problems in classrooms (e.g., if a broken projector is reported, can the instructors of the next scheduled classes be notified?). Jim is currently working with OIT and the Technology Support Center staff to figure out solutions to these kinds of questions.

On a more TAG-specific note, in the End User Experience portion of the survey, faculty respondents noted that for “Opportunities to Provide Feedback” their perceived service level was approximately equal to their minimum service level. This result suggests that TAG needs to continue to raise our profile as a communication channel between faculty and IR.

We ran out of time to fully discuss all of the faculty results, but other areas identified for improvement included mobile access and the website/my.scranton portal – aspects of which are currently being addressed by IR teams with faculty representation (the Mobile Apps Work Group and the Luminis Work Group).

[My notes on this meeting were a little rough, so if anyone notices errors or omissions, please let me know and I’ll correct it ASAP! – KY]


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Categories : Announcements, Classroom Mediation

Communicating about Campus-wide outages

17 11 2011

Last night, internet connectivity on campus was down between around 7:00pm to about 9:15pm.  With the network down, the only way to find out what was happening was by calling the TSC.  Jeremy and I called the TSC at different times, and we got different information about when the network was expected to be back up.

While there weren’t many faculty on campus at the time, we thought it might be a good idea to discuss communication about campus-wide outages.

In situations like this, what’s the best way for IR to update faculty about what’s happening?

Please let us know what you think.

(Many thanks again to Tim and Cal for the rescue operation!)


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Categories : Announcements, Network and Infrastructure

Track your tickets with Footprints

25 07 2011

At today’s IT Forum, Jim Franceschelli and Jason Wimmer presented on Footprints, the software that IT Services uses to track service tickets.  The U has been using Footprints for about two years, logging about 12,000 tickets so far.  This summer, IR has rolled out a new end user interface for Footprints, which is intended to help IT Services staff serve users more efficiently.  My notes on what faculty should know:

    • To date, there have been three ways you can report a problem or request a service from the Technology Support Center – you could call  (941-4357), email them, or walk up to the TSC desk in AMH.  Now, you can still use those three methods, but you also have the option of reporting a problem electronically through Footprints.
    • To get to Footprints, go to my.scranton.edu > University Links >  Footprints (under Administrative Links).
    • You’ll see three main options in the Footprints “Service Catalog”:

1. Report an IT Problem. Use this when something’s wrong and you need it fixed.  Pick the category of your problem (computer, phone, enterprise applications, audio/video, Royal Card, or cable tv), choose a subcategory from the options listed, fill out the form with as much information as possible, and then save it to submit the ticket. If you’re not sure exactly what category or subcategory to choose, just do your best – the TSC staff member reviewing the ticket can change the category to reroute the ticket if needed.

2. Change Management. Faculty probably won’t ever really need to use this option – it’s for modifications to existing University applications (changing Banner forms, querying Banner, etc).

3. Request an IT Service. This is for things like requesting multiple PCs for a special event, moving a VoIP phone, etc. You can also use this section to request installation of special software on a University PC. Just like #1, fill out the form with as much information as possible, and “save” to submit the ticket.

  • You can also use Footprints to check the status on a ticket, whether you called/emailed in a problem/request to the TSC or entered it into Footprints yourself.  Click on “Home” and choose from the dropdown menu of “My Requests” to see active and closed tickets. You’ll be able to see TSC staff members’ notes on what’s going on with your request (e.g., if you’ve reported a problem with ANGEL, Jason might leave a note that says that he’s waiting for a call back from ANGEL support staff).
  • Footprints also holds a Knowledge Base (see the link on the top of the page, next to Service Catalog), which holds keyword searchable solutions to common problems, written out by IT staff members.  Solutions are posted either in Q&A format or as step-by-step instructions.  The solutions are reviewed every six months to make sure they’re still accurate.  There are already 80 solutions posted, with more on the way.
  • Any University community member can contribute to the Knowledge Base – so TAG can use it to share technology shortcuts or tips that might be helpful to other faculty or staff.  Just write up your instructions and email them to ITServices@scranton.edu.

Hopefully, the end-user interface of Footprints will resolve some of the faculty concerns about communication with IR that TAG heard back on our Fall 2010 faculty questionnaire – so please give it a shot and let us know how it goes!

I’ll link to Jason and Jim’s slides when they go up, but in the meantime, post in the comments if you have questions.


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Categories : Announcements, Technology Training, Tutorials, Upgrades

IT Forum on Footprints

14 07 2011

There’s a summer IT Forum coming up about Footprints, the software that IR uses to track service calls to the Technology Support Center.  I’ll be there and will post any updates of interest to faculty – but all are welcome to attend.

Here’s the announcement and registration info, as posted to the my.scranton portal:

Summer IT Forum
July 25th, 2011
BRN 509
11:30 am – 1:00 pm

Footprints Client View
The next IT Forum will highlight the use of Footprints from the view of the University Community. FootPrints is a ticket tracking system utilized by the University of Scranton Planning and Information Resources (PIR) Division, for information technology (IT) requests. It tracks IT service tickets and provides communication among PIR departments and our customers. Students, staff and faculty can submit a ticket to request assistance with an IT-related problem or check on the status of a ticket. They can also search through knowledge base articles that have been submitted by IT support staff on a variety of issues. Faculty and Staff can also use Footprints to submit Change Management requests (modification to existing applications, new applications, or report / query requests) and to request special IT Services (such as PC Setups, VOIP, Port Changes, RoyalDrive, etc).

Presenters: Jason Wimmer, of IT Development and Applications and Jim Franceschelli, Director IT Services

All members of our community are encouraged to attend. Lunch will be served however registration is required. Registration is now on the portal, under University Links-Events/Facilities, select IT Services Training and Event Registration.


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Categories : Announcements

Talking with IR Staff: Feedback on Faculty Communication

4 01 2011

As devoted TAG followers know, we ran a survey last fall to get feedback from faculty members on their communication with IR.  As a counterpart to the survey, Jeremy and I had a chance to sit down with some of the IR front line (Technology Support Center) and second line support staff to get their feedback on their work relationship with faculty.

The attendees of the discussion were promised confidentiality, but they agreed that TAG could share a summary of our discussion with others on campus.  Please take a look and let us know if you have any thoughts on this issue after seeing it from both sides.


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Categories : Announcements

Meeting Notes 11/11/2010

11 11 2010

Another month, another TAG meeting.  We had a packed agenda today and did our best to at least touch on each issue.

New member:

  • Anne Marie Stamford, Assistant Provost for Operations, has joined the committee as a representative for the academic administration.  Anne Marie was invited to join after we realized she was dealing with some of the same questions as TAG (e.g., how to get feedback from faculty on technology issues). Welcome, Anne Marie!

Follow-up on survey results:

  • The results from our 2010 survey on faculty communication have been posted to the TAG site, both summarized and in full.
  • Jim, Jeremy, and Kristen drafted up responses to the “Top 9” major concerns from the survey comments.  TAG members have until Monday to make any edits/suggestions.
  • What’s the best way to distribute these “Top 9” responses to faculty?  On one hand, we want to get the information out quickly rather than holding it back – and some of the issues (i.e., requesting new computers) are time sensitive. On the other hand, we do want people to actually consider and respond to the “Top 9,” not just ignore them as tl;dr.  Our current plan is to post them (individually) to the TAG site, and then send out an all-faculty email with the first response on communication, and links to the next 8 responses.  If we don’t get a lot of feedback on the other 8 responses, we can also send out updates on the next 8 posts at regularly spaced intervals (e.g., 2x/week).  Jeremy and Kristen will coordinate this with Anne Marie.
  • Sending email to all faculty that includes non-scranton.edu links is somewhat of an issue. IR wants to make sure that people are very cautious about what links they click on, in light of the many recent phishing attacks.
  • Anne Marie suggested that some of the “Top 9” responses would be of interest to staff.  She will share them with the Data Technologies group.
  • More detailed statistical analysis of the survey results is on the way.

Catalog

  • There are several reasons why faculty feel strongly about having paper copies of the catalog (e.g., ease of advising, being able to bookmark/make notes, concerns about monitor sharing…).  This seems to be a major issue mostly in CAS, where most faculty are advisors (unlike in PCPS and KSOM, which have professional advisors).
  • We posted a PDF of the catalog to the TAG site.  Anne Marie has 10 printed copies of the catalog in the Provost’s Office if anyone wants one, and she will look into printing enough copies of the catalog for all advisors next year.

Feedback from English Department

  • Teresa brought feedback from the English department on three main issues: the need for a print copy of the phone book/directory, recommendations for a WYSIWYG editor for HTML code (for the CMS), and difficulty with TSC customer service.
  • In general, TAG will respond to faculty feedback like this by 1) posting a summary of the question, with a response from TAG, to the TAG site and 2) emailing the faculty member directly with the response.
  • Kristen will coordinate with Teresa to get responses to these concerns posted to the TAG site.

Soliciting faculty feedback

  • There are several issues on which faculty feedback is needed, including the CMS (per Anne Marie), classroom mediation (per Jim), and faculty areas of technology interest/expertise.  What’s the best way for TAG to gather this information? Our communication survey was useful, but didn’t hit all faculty.
  • TAG will work on assigning liaisons from TAG to each department.  Liaisons could visit February department meetings to solicit feedback from entire departments.  They’d also be able to let faculty know that TAG exists and talk about how we can be a resource.
  • To assign TAG members to departments, Cathy will work on dividing PCPS departments between herself and Kevin, and Jeremy and Teresa will work on assigning CAS departments between them, Tim, and Kristen.  Neither SP or Sufian were in attendance, so we will ask them to choose KSOM departments.  Jim and Anne Marie will send Kristen specific questions on which they need faculty feedback.

Email and Calendaring change

  • Campus email will be moving to Microsoft Live@Edu.  To smooth this transition, TAG has offered to help IR communicate with faculty about the transition.
  • Since this is a big issue, we’ll have a meeting sometime after January specifically dedicated to the email issue.  By then, we should have some test accounts so TAG members can identify potential faculty concerns.
  • We discussed describing the change as a benefit rather than an annoyance – while faculty will have to learn a new interface, they’ll get a much larger quota and along with other new features. We also need to communicate to Google fans that, while Gmail was considered, IR did have valid reasons for choosing Microsoft.

TAG Policy

  • A few TAG members drafted a policy for codifying how TAG interacts with IR and facilitates faculty feedback into technology decisions.  We’d like the rest of the TAG members’ feedback on the draft policy, with an eventual goal of passing it up to the Faculty Senate Academic Support committee.   We’ll post the policy on the TAG site next week after all members have gotten to review it.
  • Cathy pointed out that the policy does not address all of TAG’s original goals – so we need to be clear that the document is not a mission statement for TAG but instead a single policy that defines one aspect of TAG’s goals.

Other points of discussion

  • We discussed the idea of visiting Dean’s Conferences in order to spread the word about TAG, but we agreed that checking in with the Faculty Senate would be best before approaching the Deans directly.
  • Cathy and Kristen will meet after Thanksgiving to start working on aggregating classroom technology resources for faculty.

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Categories : Classroom Mediation, CMS and University Website, Email, TAG Administrative