Instructional Technology Services (ITS) User Group Meeting

Thursday, March 10, 2005

1:00pm – 2:30pm

 

Meeting Notes

 

 

·        Introduction - Eric Nathan greeted all meeting attendees.  ITS agendas and meeting notes are posted on http://www.uhd.edu/computing/its/index.html. 

 

·        TTLC Personnel Updates – Eric Nathan informed attendees about some staff changes in the TTLC.  Richard Vara has joined the TTLC as a Multimedia Support Specialist.  Michael Mathena, Learning Technology Consultant, is leaving. His last day is March 11, 2005.

 

  • ACL Updates were presented by Lucy Bowen, Coordinator of Computing Lab Services. Academic Computing Lab hours for spring break were handed out.  These spring break hours have been sent to all UHD faculty and staff. Students have been informed of the schedule via Gatormail.  Student’s Windows NT passwords are set to expire every 90 days, which is different from faculty and staff passwords at 120 days. All students will receive instructions for resetting their Windows NT passwords in their Gatormail inbox.  The Commerce Street lab in room C300 will be closed over spring break. Carlos will be in that lab, however, so if you need to talk with him, knock loudly on the doors.

 

  • Library Updates were provided by Steven Ring, Library Technical staff. Steven discussed the library’s plan to acquire development classes aimed at faculty and staff.  They are looking at integrating library resources into WebCT.  In addition, new electronic resources such as the IEEE library, which contains computer science and engineering resources, are being evaluated.  The IEEE library is an affordable resource.  Steven mentioned the library’s newest personnel addition, Shannon Cunningham, the Distance Education Librarian.  He suggested that faculty utilize her special skills in support of their teaching requirements.      

 

    • Dr. Rebhun asked Steven if other universities have a specialized library for each college.  For example, a dedicated library of resources for the College of Business.   Steven suggested that he talk with Pat Ensor to get an answer to his question.

 

  • Discussion Topic- Said Fattouh, Director of User Support Services, discussed the following:
    • Banner
      • Banner 5 will be down the week of spring break
      • Banner 5 will be upgraded to Banner 6 during that time.
      • On March 21, Banner 6 will be available to UHD personnel.  There will be a special link or icon on your desktop that you will need to click on to upgrade your PC.  Instructions for this installation will be coming in the form of an e-mail.
    • Texas Administrative Code (TAC) 202

·        The State of Texas mandates that all state universities are to comply with Information Security Standards.  This means that a legal notice will be installed on the UHD network so that each user of the UHD network (faculty, staff, or students) will see this notice after pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and prior to login.

·        A user cannot login to the PC unless they agree to these new standards.

·        These login procedures only apply to users logging in to the UHD network.              

 

                    

·        Distance Education Updates - Dr. Gail Evans, was out of town and not present at the meeting.  There was nothing new to report on distance education.

 

 

      

·        Spring 2005 IT Grant Awards were discussed by Eric Nathan, Administrator – Technology Teaching and Learning Center.  IT Grants that were awarded for the Spring 2005 semester. They are as follows:

    • Development of an Online Retail Management Course – MKT 3330 submitted by Dr. Lucille Pointer of the Department of MMBA.
    • Teaching Online – ACC 3305 submitted by Dr. Randy Serrett of the Department of FACIS.
    • Development of a Web Page to Present Instructional Tool for Structural Analysis and Design – submitted by Dr. Jorge Tito-Izquierdo – Department of Engineering Technology.

 

 

·         WebCT Updates were presented by Mark Henderson, Instructional Designer/WebCT Administrator.

o        WebCT/Banner Integration Update

·         The integration is now complete.

o        WebCT/ Update

·         There was a WebCT service interruption early on March 10.  The WebCT server will be brought down mid-week the week of spring break (during the night) to run some diagnostics to determine if there are any problems with WebCT.

o        WebCT Grade Exchange

·         This new feature will be in place by the end of the spring semester. With Grade Exchange, you will not have to enter each grade individually into Banner.  If the grades are in the WebCT gradebook, they will go forward to Banner.  This applies to letter grades only.  There will be more updates to come on the potential handling of numeric grades.

o        WebCT Archival of Courses

·         The option now exists to retrieved WebCT courses that have been archived. In the past, a member of the TTLC staff would need to assist with retrieving these classes but that will no longer be necessary.  Dr. Rebhun asked now far back these archived courses could be retrieved from.  Mark said that classes up to a year back could be retrieved.

 

·     Personnel Updates relating to a couple of colleges were discussed by Dr. Rebhun.  Sharon Coffey, who was supporting the College of Business website, was offered a permanent position by UHD.  She had been working for Corestaff as a temp.  The College of Humanities and Social Sciences (Dr. Jarrett) interviewed 6-7 candidates for their website support. An offer will be made to a candidate with a master’s degree who currently teaches technical writing here at UHD.  Dr. Rebhun said that Dr. Randy Serrett was acting as an interim department chair for FACIS.

                                                            

 

·   ITV and Multimedia Updates presented by Lloyd Matzner, Director – Instructional Television and Multimedia Services.

o        Summer schedules for ITV equipment are currently being reviewed. 

o        A variety of equipment is being tested for streaming. 

o        A satellite video from the University of South Carolina is being shown in the TTLC training room from noon to 2 P.M. on March 24th. 

o        Lloyd suggested that faculty and staff get his department involved early when doing event planning. He is aware of additional charges and tasks that must be accomplished in order to present an event. Early involvement of ITV resources will make your event a success.

o        As a reminder, ITV classes are setup automatically to last for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Remote sites are timed according to this schedule as well.  If you need additional time, you will need to talk with the ITV group ahead of time.  Often, remote sites are scheduled for classes with other universities and the classrooms are not available on an extended basis.

o        If students in remote sites have special software needs, the ITV group needs to know this ASAP.  Software is not always available and Said’s group may have to scramble to obtain licenses.  If faculty will do some pre-screening of students or the classrooms to determine what software needs are ahead of time, offsite classrooms can be setup accordingly so that the class will run smoothly and productively for the semester.

 

·        Multimedia Services Update presented by Nik Bhatt, Coordinator of Multimedia Services.

o     There are some issues with some of the TVs in the Commerce Street building being too high for faculty or students to insert a tape.  This is being looked into.

o     There is a limited amount of multimedia equipment available in the Commerce Street building.  Professors need to call 24 hours in advance to request equipment.  Last-minute calls will not always produce the equipment that is needed.

o    Computer lab rooms in the Commerce Street building can be reserved by Lucy Bowen.  There are also media carts available and these can be requested from Carlos.

o    Some presentation classrooms in the Main building (those in the Academic building) are having a problem when turning on the equipment.  A screen is popping up and requesting a user name and password.  Please let Multimedia Services (at x. 8190) know if this happens, and which classroom it happened in.  This is a problem that needs to be isolated and corrected.

·           General Discussion

o       Dr. Walsh brought up HEAF money that is allocated for the new building and talked a bit about these funds.

o       Dr. Garcia asked when the new message display board would go live in the Commerce Street building because the framework for the board was in place.  Lloyd said that the message board itself was on order.

o       Dr. Garcia discussed two dedicated classrooms used for Urban Education (412 and 414) and asked whether they would become presentation classrooms soon.  Lloyd said they would not and suggested that she look at her budget and make a plan for that.