July Minutes

Welcome and introduction of guests

 

The regular monthly meeting for the technology council met on Wednesday, July 18, 207 in room L167/169 with Carol Briggs-Erickson as chair. 

 

Carol was briefly called to leave and Kam assumed role as facilitator for the meeting. Kam  welcomed all in attendance. 

 

Agenda Approval

 

He asked for approval of the agenda adding 4 items to the posted agenda: 

Online web pages and classes….Sue

Next year membership…Kam

Who wants to serve on the council and who wants to chair

Cookies

Discussion of passwords

With no other additions, agenda is accepted.

 

Minutes approval

 

The minutes were approved for May 16, 2007 with one correction; Kelly was present.

With this correction noted, Kelly motioned and Tim seconded that minutes be entered as submitted.

 

Old Business

 

Kam is tabling this discussion as he is still doing research on the issue.

Clickers in classroom

From the last meeting a committee was created and they are Tim Trainor, Kathy Pollack, and Richard Alexander.

 

Tim noted that Kathy has acquired the technology and would like to use in the classroom for fall before making a recommendation. They are in the process of sorting the critical criteria and have come up with 4 criterias. 

v      Batteries: These clickers require special batteries and some of them use AA

v      Portability: If you have a class in one room at 10:00 and another starting at 10:15, how easy of a move will it be.

v      Cost to student: How will this be handled? Will it be added to financial aid?

v      Software Analysis: All have at least 5 buttons.

Tim asked the committee if a recommendation or a report is expected from the group?

Kam said yes. At Tim’s request it is so noted in minutes that a recommendation to the council will be made by the clicker research committee.

 

Kam noted that for fall semester Richard will use his clicker technology and Kathy will use hers.

 

Tim said they have polled it down to 2 types of clickers. Another issue is academic freedom. With the new system there is no line for supplies. Information should be included in schedules so that when students sign up for a particular class, they will know this technology will be used. If the college has a recommended technology and someone else wants to use different technology, it is known and it doesn’t take away from academic freedom. This is a way to deal with this issue and student will be able to make an intelligent decision.

Becky wondered if this would add to some confusion. Her question is if there is another clicker other than the general one used, it’s not in the schedule. 

 

Tim also stated that if it is listed it will help with financial aid. For instance, if ABCD01 is using one kind of clicker (the one we agreed upon) and ABCD03 is using another, student would be able to see this up front. Connie noted that this type of situation is used with Math classes with certain calculators.

 

Becky stated that this should be part of the recommendation and should state that a certain type of clicker will be used and if one wants to use something else, they will have to tell them.

 

Tim stated that there is an issue here because they ask students to purchase a USB port for their CIS class already.  They should know there is an additional expense associated with the class they are taking.

 

Kam asked; “How will student know which one is recommended clicker and one is not?

 

Tim said there may be many ways to do this; we could put in schedules, announce it to students, put on website. Once it is established it becomes common knowledge and they expect this.

 

Kam elaborated a bit more on the supplies line. When we went live the supplies field said none. We talked about whether we wanted to list all supplies or just said see Bookstore because bookstore does have a complete list of supplies.   When schedule is completed a complete list of required supplies is not available. 

Tim noted that because of issue with financial aid, as instructors turn in their book list the supplies list should be included.

 

Jeff noted that they are in the near future they will be asking students to purchase portable hard drives to go along in their technology courses because this is the one that works with the systems used.

 

Kam: This is the concern he has; if you have students purchase a hard drive for class A, will they have to purchase another for class B. We don’t want to ask students to purchase 5 different clickers for their classes and they do the same function.

 

At 1:30 p.m. Carol returned and Kam turned meeting back over to Carol to proceed.

 

All students who take online classes need to go to the webpage that tells them what they should do. There are sections with information from instructors which tells them exactly what they should do if taking an online class. Some students may need to attend online classes. Students will go into academic affairs three weeks into class and tell them they want a refund because they have not heard from instructor. Sue met with Bill and Julie just today to see what can be done to help students see this information. We would like to have Scott do something as well and put something on the web. 

 

The second thing is in Webadvisor every single class says room to be announced. The question is can we have text there instead that says; visit this…Sue has talked with Jean and links cannot be used but what about text.

 

Kelly wondered if there is a community management tool that can send out information to the students. Kam said the description comes from the database. Tim noted that theoretically any field could point to something else. Kam said this would be considered customizing a field and that’s when you get into trouble. Some wording comes with the application such as TBA. Kam asked if students have on campus orientation. Sue said yes they do but students are not attending. Sue is going to send out post cards to students. She is trying to find any way to get information to them. 

Other discussion ensued with several different suggestions. Some were to put on web page, send email and put in printed schedule. Connie suggested that we put a note on the screen that students go to print their schedules. Another suggestion is get a post card to George and put it right on the online (BB) page. Get a bright post card and put in the orientation packet. 

 

Tim will be replacing Pam Brown. Kam said it is a voluntary membership. If you want to continue fine but if not find someone from your department to replace you. If you can find someone to replace you make sure they have time. We should have this settled by next meeting.

 

Carol announced that there will not be a meeting in August. 

 

 

Any website one goes to drops a cookie onto your system? Why are we requiring cookies? Kam stated that cookies are not bad. Cookies remembers what pages the computer went to and it only stores what one provides. Tim noted that it can store any info, for instance if one goes to Land Ends-the website is remembered. Kam said we are using this information for Webtrans a tool used to identify the traffic onto our site. Tim noted that if one does not want to leave cookies, you are not let in. One cannot get into BB unless they allow the cookies. 

 

Kam noted that if one does not agree to acquire cookies, every page visited user would have to login. It does not say name logged in but rather this IP address logged into this site. Tim’s concern is if we are saving personal information. Kam reiterated that the main reason is to keep track of the traffic on the website; How many visited, how long did they stay on page, when did they come in.

 

 

Tim wanted to know when passwords expire. Passwords expire every 120 days.     There has been some inquiries from faculty with problems getting in from home.  When they are home, no message comes up to tell them their password has expired so users are locked out. Tim wanted to know if we can generate email to new adjunct letting them know when password will expire? 

 

Note: The password reset page is giving error message to user that they do not exist. 

Since this meeting that page is working and users are able to go the password reset page and change their own password. 

 

Another note from Tim: He is running Vista simultaneously with XP and does not get message.

 

Jeff: Student printing. Who pays for the toner cartridges? He has a lab and has allowed some of his students to print in his lab. At chairs meeting, it said all students would be charged. 

 

Kam explained that the student is charged wherever they login. It is not based on the computer. Carol said she was under the impression that it was only the printers in room 160/162, and library computers and library labs. They have a staff printer in the library reference area and students don’t get charged when sending prints to that. It is based on the printer. *Kam to check with Scott to make sure they are getting charged based on their login or the printer. 

Jeff wants some reimbursement on his toner cartridge if the students are getting charged. 

Kelly said she had her student worker trying to do some work and she logged in under her name and she was being charged for printing. (Room 101)

 

Kam: We take care all of the labs and he just budgets for it. Jeff said he doesn’t mind buying cartridges for his students to use but what about the students that just walk in and want to use. 

 

Rosemary said there are changes to the printing policy per President cabinet. They are deleting the statement that allows faculty to add additional pages. Any repercussion from faculty should be taken up with Vice President Ferrentino.

 

Sue: What about the classes with additional lab fees for printers?

Jeff: How much is the charge for the wide format printer?

 

VI.                Subcommittee and informational reports

 

 

We went live July 1^st. Students start registering on the web July 7, 2007. Tim asked if there was any number increase. Rosemary said we have a higher number of students enrolling. Higher this year than last year. The payment plan is up and running as of July 10^th and it is managed by 3^rd party. Training will start for Degree in August.

 

Tim wants to know where to send suggestions on how to streamline things. These can be sent to Kam or Rosemary. Connie said they are starting to get calls from secretaries calling about load sheets.

 

Tim filled out a re-admit form a week ago and has not heard anything. Kam said the application goes to admission and then to I.T, account is created in Active Directory and webadvisor. Registration will give it priority. 

Kelly noted that there are some curriculum codes in TIP that did not point to the right spot. Tim suggested that we have some new rules for prerequisites. If a student is taking a class that has a prerequisite and student tries to register for both of the classes. 

 

Due to the time and others having an IAC meeting,  Kam did not do his CIO report but suggested we devote next meeting to Strategic plan. At least look at where we are and where are going.

 

No further discussion, meeting concluded.