ITS Meeting Minutes - 11-13-2003
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General Announcements
Presented by Eric Nathan

• Next meeting will be held sometime next semester. Meeting date will be announced later.
• Item not listed on the agenda - UHD IT planning initiave - Hossein Shahrokhi

UHD IT Planning Initiative
Presented by Hossein Shahrokhi

IT works hard to accomodate technology needs of UHD. However departments can help IT by providing some directions and feeback. Think about what other universities are doing and what they would like to see happen here at UHD in terms of technology. Also make sure that department's unit plan reflects that initiative. A desired initiative reflected on multiple plans have a better chance of being approved and funded.

IT strives to improve its quality of customer service. It is in the process of putting a Web Development and a User Development group together. Web Development will focus on developing web applications. User Development group will focus on technology training for faculty and staff.

In response to a question regarding staging to production approval process, Hossein mentioned the introduction of UHD Content Management System. This system is built in-house and totally web and email based. It should make the whole approval process quicker and smoother.

In response to Ann Jennings' concern regarding remote access to UHD resources, Hossein said that remote file sharing and shared resources capabilities do exist and User Support should be able to address that with faculty looking for such help.

Dr. Walsh suggested that with the new building, faculty should have access to technical support housed in the new building. It was also suggested by other members that it will be a good idea if each college had at least one technical support person dedicated to it's staff or possibly 4 colleges sharing 2 tech support people.

Hossein mentioned that planning process is not department or division based. Different areas can put in the same request which in turn puts that item on the priority list.

IT Initiatives and Priorities in Institutional Planning
Presented by Erin Mayer

Think about what you think the university should be doing in terms of technology and make sure your unit plan reflects that initiative.

W.I. Dykes Library
Presented by Steve Casburn

Off-campus users can now use the library home to access databases. Ezproxy will automatically recognize off-campus users and ask for ID. Off-campus users can also take advantage of subject guide.

Databases forthcoming are:

• Reference USA
• JSTOR General Sciences (Science, PNAS)
• JSTOR Arts and Sciences III (literature, music, art, architecture)

ITV / Multimedia Services
Presented by Lloyd Matzner

• It appears that we will be offering between 32-34 ITV classes for the Spring semester 04
• There were some problems as Banner indicated that some ITV class sections for the Spring 04 semester were being assigned to standard classrooms. The was informed of the problem and corrections are being made.
• MM Services conducted a survey of current faculty assigned to presentation classrooms for the Fall 03 semester. The survey results indicated that about 40% of those currently assigned to presentation classrooms did not request or planned to use classrooms technology. Some respondents indicated that if they had been given prior knowledge that they will be teaching in a technology enhanced classroom, they would have changed their syllabus to better take advantage of the technology. Faculty requests wishing to be assigned to a presentation classroom for the Fall 03 semester were sent on to the registrar's office.
• Attendees were reminded to urge their faculty colleagues to make their reservations as soon as possible for the use of media carts. During the last three weeks of the semester, media carts are in very high demand. Reservations should be made by contacting the MM office.

Academic Computing Lab & User Support Services
Presented by Said Fattouh and Lucy Bowen

• Extended hours through December 3, 2003
• Print Control System has been temporily removed due to some technical difficulties. It will be restored as soon as the problem has been fixed.
• Online training through Computer Prep2go will be available again as of Spring '04.
• Spam filtering tool is being tested and will be implemented soon throughout UHD.

UHD Video Services Update
Presented by Albert Holden and Steve Cachia

Demo on streaming video

• showed example of streaming video embedded in a browser
• showed example of live streaming of an ITV class

IPTV:

An in-house video channel streamed over IP to UHD users' computers. This channel is defaulted to CNN Healine News. Other videos and channels are shown on IPTV as well. IPTV can not be viewed on laptops or wireless network. It should already be on each user's computer by default. Contact User Support Help Desk for futher information.

Visual Communicator:

This product easily creates video messages, shows or presentations that look like real TV. The product can be useful for creating video for the welcome pages for faculty who are teaching fully online courses. Intersted parties need to contact Albert Holden for further details.

Digitizing ITV classes:

ITV classes or classes taught in ITV Studio can now be digitized. Once digitized, faculty can use the video for their online courses or develop a video tape based class in the future.

Technology Teaching and Learning Center (TTLC)
Presented by Eric Nathan

Every semester TTLC develops online courses through the process called Online Course Development Process (OCDP). As a part of re-engineering process, TTLC is looking for ideas/suggestions. Any feedback can be directed to Eric Nathan.

Eric shared an intersting report titled "Effective Workload Management Strategies for the Online Environment" . Report edited by: Lawrence C. Ragan, Ph.D. and Sara L. Terheggen, Ph.D. Below is the URL for the whole report:

URL: http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/pub/home/fac/index.shtml