Academic IT Committee Minutes
June 4, 2004
Present: Mike C, David B, John O, J.C. T, Mark P, Mark T, Sandy De M, Dick J
ITMC UPDATE. John provided a brief update on the new ITMC governance group, which met for the first time. He indicated that the meeting was a successful one, bringing together many divisions from the Office of the Chancellor and campuses.
MEMBERSHIP. Barry Dahl was unable to come to the meeting due to illness. John acknowledged his significant contribution as chair and reminded the committee that this is Barry's last meeting as chair. Because attendance was low for this meeting, it was agreed to defer selection of a replacement until the next meeting. John explained that Ken Niemi wishes the committee to mirror the leadership council structure, with an Office of the Chancellor co-chair (in this case, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Instructional Technology) and another campus representative as co-chair, selected by the campus members of the committee.
Action Item: members should come to the next meeting prepared to make nominations for campus co-chair.
The committee spent a considerable amount of time discussing the current charter (on the web at: http://www.its.mnscu.edu/governance/academic/charter/). It was agreed that the charter is out of date, and the group discussed many revisions. John will write up a revised charter tomorrow and send it out to all members of the Academic IT Committee for consideration. John asked members, especially those not at this meeting, to review the new draft charter very carefully.
It was also agreed that members who have not been coming to meetings regularly should be asked to reconsider their membership, and that members appointed by other groups (e.g., faculty associations) should be invited to renew their membership roster. With only four meetings a year, members should not miss more than two meetings.
PLAGIARISM DETECTION SOFTWARE. The committee acknowledged that, while campuses recognize the significant challenges associated with academic honesty, there does not currently appear to be a strong campus-driven desire for system-wide approaches to providing this kind of software.
Action Item: It was acknowledged that the most significant concerns related to the issue of plagiarism detection were not technology but pedagogy and best practices related. As a result, the Academic IT committee requests that the Center for Teaching and Learning consider taking up the issue as it pertains to teaching and learning, perhaps providing web-based resources to help address needs in this area at the campus level.
MATHEMATICA. John explained that campuses currently using Mathematica and one campus interested in using it have asked him to look into system-wide licensing options. He presented a summary of this option. The committee agreed that this is a promising possibility worth pursuing further.
Action Item: John will invite competing products (Maple, Matlab, others) to provide similar system-wide pricing to make it clear that there is no favoring of one vendor over another.
CONTRACTS UPDATE. Mark provided an update on the various contracts that he is currently working on. A summary document was distributed via listserv earlier in the week. The Microsoft agreement and the ESRI/GIS agreement are current high priority projects for Mark.
DESIRE2LEARN UPDATE. The committee spent a considerable amount of time discussing updates, challenges, and issues related to the implementation currently underway. John and Dick explained that there was some strains resulting from the significantly higher numbers of campuses moving to D2L over the Summer and for the Fall. While this is very much welcomed, it has added to the challenges, especially with the staffing levels resulting from budget cuts. Nonetheless, the project is moving forward steadily. Over 15 institutions have completed their conversion of courses for the Summer; though he agreed that the ISRS conversion process was not always elegant, Mike noted that 15 campuses are currently receiving nightly data exchanges from ISRS. Two more are currently in cue for ISRS integration. There remain some concerns and difficulties with the Anlon conversion, especially given the close timing at this point for a Summer/Fall conversion. The slowdowns in response time before last week appear to be diminished with the new hardware installed at the D2L server. There was considerable discussion of concerns related to the email tool and email functionality. It is understood that the current email tool is 50% on its way to a new version that should resolve many of the concerns resulting from the current limitations. A primary frustration for some users is that their prior system allowed internal emails within a course. There is currently a workaround allowing this in D2L, but a more comprehensive approach is expected with version 7.4 which may be released, according to Dick, around January.
Action Item: The workaround process for email must be communicated to users.
The committee discussed the current options regarding Respondus. Previously, Dick said, we were asked to look into a system license for Respondus; however, as D2L is very interested in developing this functionality into the D2L platform, he asked for advice from the committee on next steps. He reported that a survey of members of the Academic IT Committee was near unanimously in favor of exploring the D2L option at this time. Although no opposition to this approach was expressed during the meeting, John did mention that he received or was forwarded two emails of concern.
The committee finally discussed some issues raised by J.C. about how the D2L project is handling system vs. campus needs.
NEXT MEETING AGENDA ITEMS:
- Selection of Campus Co-Chair
- Mathematica
- Approval of New Charter
- Early Feb D2L Users Group in Minnesota to Assess Status, etc.
