ITS Meeting Minutes - 10-3-02
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ACL & User Support presented by Said Fattouh

The ACL is building a "Grad Lab" with 25 computers and presentation station. The lab will be used for small classes and for graduate students when the main ACL lab is running at capacity.

Current student UNIX accounts will be available until December 20th.

Linux accounts are up and running with 30mb of storage space for student use as opposed to the 5mb with the UNIX system. A web interface for the Linux email system is currently in the works. This will allow all students to access their university email from any web accessible computer.

New NT accounts are required for ACL and TTLC computer access and will gradually be required for all PC labs on campus. The ACL can assist students in setting up their NT accounts.

Print control is now in effect in both the ACL and TTLC. Students are given an allowance of 500 copies controlled with a print account username and password. Students are not currently charged for printing but will be charged .05 cents per copy starting in the Spring semester for each copy above the 500 limit.

ACL training schedule is to be released soon.

Web based online training will soon be available to faculty and staff through an outside vendor. The topic of the online training sessions focus on information technology subjects and include over 300 various independent sessions. Faculty and staff will have full access to all titles while students will have limited access to basic sessions only.

Wireless network project is complete in the Academic Building and in progress in the north tower currently with work on the south tower being scheduled to begin in FY04. A web site is currently being developed to address technical issues for users of the wireless network when it's complete.

The Desktop Computing Project replaces staff and faculty computers every 3 years in a rotating cycle. Last year over 200 computers were replaced as part of the project. Some faculty expressed interest in getting upgrades such as LCD monitors to the standard package offered by the project. Said Fattouh reported that some upgrades can be made if the departments agree to offset the cost of the upgrades. CDRW options may also be available soon as a standard replacement for internal zip drives. IT has expressed a serious willingness to work with the departments on meeting their specific needs. Contact Said Fattouh for more information.

Operations and Telecom updates presented by Hossein Shahrokhi

UHD's phone systems are being upgraded with a new CBX switch to handle greater capacity and provide additional functionality. This will involve new office phones on campus.

Lloyd Matzner discussed the new ITV/Electronic classroom dubbed "Classroom E" that's currently available in the TTLC. The classroom has a more corporate look with dual plasma screens, document camera and standard VCR for use in classroom presentation. The classroom is also wired with microphones and cameras for use as an ITV classroom. Students don't currently have computer stations but the room may soon be outfitted with wireless laptops for that purpose.

Distance Education presented by Dr. Gail Evans

UHDOnline, UHD's online course portal, will soon see an online bookstore made available directly from UHDOnline through Barnes and Nobles online bookstores. The online bookstore will feature a listing of all online courses and instructors and list the books required for each course allowing students to order their course materials. The materials would be paid for online and be delivered directly to the students. The online store will also feature a buy-back option that will allow the student to sell back the textbook that was purchased through the online store.

Dr. Evans also offers a strong caution against online course textbooks with heavy customization. She also presents that some problems have surfaced with books for online courses due to faculty changing/choosing books too soon before a course begins. Another online course topic to avoid, according to Dr. Evans, is customized book and supplemental materials packages. Problems have surfaced with the publisher providing these custom materials packages in time for the course.

Sugarland campus is not currently offering proctoring of online exams for online courses.

Plagarism Detection Software presented by Dr. Robert Jarrett

Dr. Jarret has been researching online plagiarism detection systems such as Turnitin.com . These online services allow an instructor to submit an electronic essay and have the essay checked against a database of essays and a thorough web search in an effort to detect any plagiarized material within the document. Dr. Jarrett also emphasized that students are using the internet more for research and copying text directly from web sites and other online resources has become more of a problem recently. A common consensus of adding an excerpt to a course syllabus stating that any submissions to the class are subject to search by such online plagiarism detection tools may deter some students. There was some discussion as to looking into a university wide solution to plagiarism since it effects the University as a whole.

Dr. Jarrett also cited an article entitled "Brilliant or Plagiarized? Colleges Use Sites to Expose Cheaters" from the NY Times as part of the discussion.

Library Updates presented by Steve Casubrn

The library now has 67 public computers with internet access available in its public computing area, with an additional 10 computers throughout the library for general online catalog use, 8 laptops in a special reserved room used for classrooms and meetings and 1 computer outfitted for special needs individuals located next to the Reference Desk.

The library has also added several new electronic resources to its list of searchable databases as follows: ACM Digital Library, Bio One, Country Watch, Emerald Full Text, FIS Online, Heritage Quest and Reuters Business Insight. Electronic resource vendors have changed the names of two databases: Academic Universe is now LexisNexis Academic, and Business Wire News is now Regional Business News.

IT Grants presented by Eric Nathan

The Fall 2002 IT Grants are Dr. Susan Baker working on a History of Modern Art online course and Dr. Linda Bressler working on an Accounting Information Systems course.

Fall 2002 OCDP presented by Mark Henderson

The Online Course Development Project is currently developing two online courses. CJ3316 Victimology is being developed with Dr. Joyce Jakovich and BA4302 Business Strategy is being developed with Dr.'s Antoine Monteils & Steven Maranville. The BA4302 course represents the last course to be developed for UHD's online business degree.

WebCT Upgrade presented by Rhonda Steedman

WebCT was recently upgraded to version 3.7 and is tentatively planned to be patched to correct a few minor bugs with the WebCT course email and Netscape Navigator this weekend. The 3.7 upgrade added an equation editor feature and additional functionality to the assignment drop-box feature.

The new user ID scheme for the semester has progressed without difficulty and no complications are anticipated.

A minor glitch with revealing the presence of some online exams within a course were set to "hidden" was recently discovered. WebCT support is investigating the matter and it should be noted that the glitch does not allow students to access an exam that's date and password protected but may show that an exam is present in the course and what the exam name is. No internal data or questions for the exam is compromised with this issue.

ITV Update presented by Lloyd Matzner

ITV classes are going well for the semester. Some expanded class hours may be implemented for the Spring depending on demand.

Multimedia will be presenting a series of satellite downlink programs titled "Critical Challenges in Distance Education" beginning Oct. 17, 2002. Contact Lloyd for details.

All media carts available for check-out have been upgraded with new Dell computer systems.

IT Planning presented by Hossein Shahrokhi

A new student account management system has been put into place to assist students in managing and maintaining their electronic account information across the university. Further details to be published soon.

The IT unit plan will be turned in by November. Any suggestions that may be included in the plan should be presented for inclusion in time to make the November time-frame or before. Departmental units that are sponsoring plans that could benefit the entire university or multiple units are encouraged to place these initiatives in their own unit plans as well.

General Discussion

General discussion focused mainly on the need for more presentation equipment in current classrooms and discussing the need for classrooms in the new building to come pre-equipped with presentation hardware to avoid problems that are currently being dealt with now in securing presentation equipment for classrooms currently in use. The general consensus is that basic presentation equipment to facilitate at least Powerpoint presentations is essential in most classroom environments now.