Academic Technology Committee Meeting Minutes
4 November 2010
The Academic Technology Committee is a sub-committee of
Library 162
the College Technology Committee and the Academic Senate
12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
that focuses on the academic technology needs of the college.
Jim Noyes 
Dick Barton 
Steve Cocca
Virginia Rapp 
Tom Jackson
John Wagstaff 
Alice Grigsby
Donald Treat 
Dwayne Hayden
Donna Post 
Pete Marcoux
Noreth Men 
Dave Murphy
Lynn Clemans 
(A  indicates that the committee member was present.)
Stephanie Rodriguez
John Ruggirello
Margret Steinberg
Howard Story
Ralph Taylor 
Francine Vasilomanolakis 
Michael Wynne 
In the past, the Academic Technology Committee (ATC) was a forum in which faculty
prioritized academic technology and directed the use of funds towards these priorities.
Now, the ATC plays a purely advisory role, and tries to get attention for issues like:
 A regular budget item to purchase and maintain academic software.
(Academic software is the software needed to teach courses: no software, no courses).
Recently, software has been added as a line item to the 2010-2011 budget.
The ATC’s members applaud this development, and hope software will not disappear
from the budget as it has in the past. (The needs for software to teach our courses
do not go away. In the past, funds allocated for other uses like hardware were diverted
to fulfill academic software needs. It would have made more sense to include software in
the budget and openly acknowledge that hardware would not receive as much funding.)
 El Camino College (ECC) does not have enough staff to maintain the technology
that we have.
 Better procedures are needed purchasing new technology. In the past, members of the
committee advocated the following policy:
Until we can afford to maintain and regularly replace the technology that we already have on
campus, we should be cautious about bringing new technology to ECC. We must either
increase staffing to maintain the technology we have or purchase maintenance contracts with
outside vendors. So that the TRUE cost of technology will begin to be brought into the
budgeting and planning process, the ATC recommends that a maintenance contract of 4 or
more years be required for the purchase of ALL instructional technology (e.g., projectors,
consoles, DVD players, and so on).
 Faculty laptops need to be on a regular replacement cycle (and an accelerated replacement
cycle is needed for faculty who teach computer courses). Funds should be put aside each
year as part of the budget to save for next time faculty laptops need to be replaced. In
addition, funds need to be put aside each year for replacement parts and the staff to maintain
faculty computers.
Faculty are required to do more and more work on their computers (e.g., active enrollment,
grades, committee communication), so easy access to workplace computers is now an
essential part of their jobs.
In the fall of 2010, faculty received new laptop computers;
now is the time to develop the habit of planning and saving for the next replacement.
The minutes of the 8 April 2010 meeting of the ATC were reviewed. No amendments were
suggested.
Membership of the Committee:
Virginia Rapp, co-chair of the ATC, noted that some areas of campus like Health Sciences are no
longer regularly represented on the ATC, and that she would solicit requests for representatives
to be sent to ATC meetings.
Software:
Information and Technology Services (ITS) now has funds allocated specifically for software by
the budget. All requests for academic software (the software necessary to teach courses) should
be sent to ITS. In particular, John Wagstaff, the director of ITS, acknowledged that faculty could
request software that they wanted to “try out” for potential uses in their courses. The staff of ITS
noted that requests from Industry & Technology often arrive late; they do not have time to obtain
and install the new software before the next semester, and have difficulty contacting faculty
when they encounter obstacles (e.g., hardware and software incompatibility).
ITS tries to consolidate all software requests so that it can search for the best price for each piece
of software (e.g., purchase vs. annual renewal), and estimate how much money needs to be
budgeted for software each year. Divisions often buy software using their own money, and also
obtain software from other funding sources (e.g., the Foundation, iGrants, STEM). There are
times when ITS could have obtained a better deal (e.g., through the foundation or by combining
their purchase with software purchased for another division). In addition, often grants can be
used to purchase software, but cannot be used to maintain an annual license. So, divisions may
buy software, but later need money from ITS to maintain it. By buying the software, they
effectively increase the amount ITS needs to request for and spend on software, but typically ITS
is not informed until after the software has been purchased.
It would greatly help ITS if all renewals of annual licenses could be done at one time each year.
Because there are so many different due dates, the staff of ITS worry that they will miss a due
date, making it impossible for instructors to teach a course and/or resulting in higher costs for the
college. John Wagstaff, the director of ITS, showed the committee how ITS is using the Portal
to organize and keep track of software requests, including alerts to insure that software licenses
are renewed on time. The ITS representatives would like to use a single email address and phone
number for all software-related communication. They suggested labeling them with a fictional
contact person (e.g., “Sophie T. Ware”), because many vendors insist on having a specific person
to contact, but it is onerous to update all vendors each time software duties are transferred from
one staff member to another.
Technology Overview:
John Wagstaff, director of ITS, gave the committee an overview of the technology budget. He
noted that access to the Portal will be upgraded in time for the next registration period, and that
the photo ID system would also be updated.
Utelogy:
John Wagstaff demonstrated “Utelogy” software, a control system for many different devices.
He described it as a way to manage “smart classrooms” whose numbers are growing thanks to
new construction. He does not have enough staff to maintain them without a technological
solution like Utelogy. For example, utelogy will track how many hours each LCD bulb has been
used so that ITS staff can deliver preventative maintenance where it is needed most and plan for
replacing the bulbs, so that a burnt-out bulb will not interrupt instruction. He noted that Utelogy
has a help desk feature, and that help desk staff can remotely assist an instructor having problems
in a classroom. (Instead asking an instructor to describe what they are seeing or doing, help desk
staff can “see for themselves” what the problem is and fix it remotely, speeding up the process,
reducing frustration among instructors and students, and helping instructors focus on their
students, not technology.) John described how each instructor could have a “personalized setup”
for a classroom stored on an in-class computer and/or faculty laptop; thus, an instructor could
push one button to activate all the technology they need rather than needing to activate each
machine and piece of software individually upon entering a classroom. ECC has purchased
Utelogy for use in an unlimited number of classrooms. The new Humanities building and
renovated Natural Sciences buildings will be retrofitted so that they can use Utelogy, and new
buildings will be designed to include it. Ralph Taylor asked if Utelogy could be used to
distribute software to a particular classroom, so that one software license could be purchased
instead of multiple licenses for multiple classrooms. John Wagstaff said that Utelogy could be
used to send software to a classroom, but some software companies would not allow their
software to be distributed in this new manner.
Purchasing Procedures:
In general, lots of technology is bought by ECC, but we do not maintain it, which is inefficient
and wasteful. Part of the problem is that funding for innovative teaching technology is available
and ECC takes advantage of this funding, but ECC does not add maintenance and replacement
costs to the technology budget when the new technology is purchased.
It was noted that when the Colleague system is used for purchasing decisions, the first approver's
“OK” sends the item to Purchasing. As a result, some items have been purchased which were
not approved by all required individuals. The system needs to be modified so that items are only
sent to purchasing after all approvers have given their “OK.”
At the next committee meeting, purchasing procedures will be discussed further.
Submitted by Jim Noyes