Xavier Technology Committee
Thursday, January 16, 2014
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Smith Hall Room 247
Minutes
Attending:
Committee Members: Joe Christman, Mike Flick, Steve Herbert, Tom Kessinger, Annette Marksberry,
Judy Molnar, Alison Morgan
Advisory Members: Susan Abel, Jeff Briggs, Mark Brockman, Tim Bucher, Ravi Chinta, Jim Miller, Debbie
Tesch
Approval of Minutes from the November 7th, 2013 Meeting: A motion to approve the minutes as
submitted was made by Tom Kessinger and seconded by Debbie Tesch.
Updates
Office 365 – Judy Molnar reported the University will be making the move to Office 365 this spring
semester. The first move will occur for a small group in IT in early February. Physical plant and the rest of
IT will be next and Judy is asking for one academic department to offer to make the switch at the same
time as physical plant. IT is thinking of making the department switch right around spring break. Debbie
Tesch indicated MIS might be a logical place to try and Mike Flick offered his department as well. Judy
indicated moving the entire department should be seamless. Email will be the same but the web piece
will be different. Judy will send out an email soliciting testers. IT would like to have the pilot phase done
by mid-March and then everyone moved by the beginning of April. Debbie Tesch asked the advantages
of rolling out in April instead of August and is concerned that rolling out in April may cause faculty
additional stress during the end of the semester. Mike Flick feels sooner than later is better and just
after spring break would be better timing. The committee agreed that moving the timeline up might be
better.
Help Desk Outsourcing – Judy reported that she has heard both good and bad feedback regarding the
outsourcing of the help desk. Steve Herbert knows of a problem with a call regarding Canvas. A call was
placed to the helpdesk for support on a Canvas issue and the user was referred to Canvas. It turned out
the problem was not an actual Canvas problem but an XU problem. Judy is working with Ellucian to
update documentation and iron out some bugs in the system. During Christmas Break there we 78 calls
to Ellucian of which 39 issues were resolved by Ellucian and 38 were escalated to Xavier folks. Judy is
monitoring the progress closely and will continue to get monthly reports from Ellucian. Judy expects to
be reporting helpdesk statistics in the future and encourages anyone to call or email her with feedback.
Faculty Classroom Technology Survey – Annette Marksberry shared that last summer a team was put
together to address needs/desires for the Alter renovation (Alter Renovation Team). The technology
sub-committee sent a survey to all faculty to see what and how classroom technology is currently being
used. Out of all faculty surveyed 165 faculty responded. The results will be posted on the XTC Website.
Survey results were shared with ART committee who then met with architects to walk through
incorporating survey results to assist in determining the classroom size and possible technology for
classrooms in Alter. Suggestions for technology in Alter will be reviewed by the ART team with the hope
of providing the right amount of technology in the new classrooms. The survey indicated 14.5% of
faculty use VHS and 15.2% use iPads. Debbie Tesch asked about the possibility of dual screens (excel on
one and ppt on the other) in the new rooms. Mike Flick asked, based on survey, what might average
room look like? Judy indicated the classroom technology would be similar to what is currently in Smith
Hall – two screens with no podium and perhaps an adjustable table on the side with white boards on all
walls that are available. Some rooms may also have blackboards. The registrar will need to capture
faculty preferences (chalk board or white board).
Pending Proposals
VHS Proposal – Judy Molnar, Danny Bellman, Tina Meagher, Marty Ferrell, Vicki Young, Marsha
Poggione have been serving on a committee to work on the VHS proposal. The committee is
recommending that by May of 2015 faculty move their VHS content to DVD or streaming video. The
Library is already assisting faculty in moving away from using the VHS format and doing an inventory of
what needs to be transferred. There is a cost associated with moving away from VHS. Steve Herbert
asked if there has been any other research regarding fair use. If Xavier owns a VHS copy of something it
is being converted to a DVD especially since technology is changing and we want to protect the content.
Xavier is trying to make the change methodically and Judy Molnar would like the approval from XTC to
move forward with the proposal. After reviewing the proposal the XTC feels like it is a good plan and
should move forward. Mike Flick asked if a department has tapes to be converted who will help with
conversion. Judy explained that there is a plan already in place. The librarians are initiating contact with
departments to begin making the changes. The psychology department presents a little more of a
challenge because their content needs to be secure. Therefore, a different group will be working with
psychology.
Tom Kessinger made a motion to approve the VHS proposal as amended and the motion was seconded
by Mike Flick and approved unanimously by the XTC.
Other Business
XTC Workflow Review – Tim Bucher presented the project intake process and portfolio management to
XTC which was sent to the committee prior to the meeting. Contact Tim with any questions/concerns.
Tim talked through the IT project intake process and walked through the high level diagram that was
sent out to committee members prior to the meeting in hopes of getting buy in from XTC. The current
workflow is a starting point and can and will be tweaked as we go along. The business process
management office will assist in building/writing business cases. Tim also shared the scorecard criteria in
an effort to keep things in strategic alignment. Ravi Chinta asked if a “N/A” category should be added to
go along with “Y/N.” Customers should provide a cost benefit analysis for major initiatives. Tim is hoping
to work with someone from the financial side of the house to see if there is some sort of cost benefit
analysis that can be attached to the project request. The committee asked how cost benefit analysis will
work with TeamDynamix and there is no good answer yet. Projects should have funding before coming
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to XTC. Project information will be sent to the XTC for review prior to the meeting and the user would
attend the XTC meeting to be available to answer any questions prior to the XTC vote. The committee
asked how many requests might come through using this new model and Tim anticipates thirty or forty
might come to XTC. The XTC does not want to become a barrier to getting projects into the system and
should establish thresholds to determine what should come to XTC for approval. The current plan is a
starting point and can change as we go along to improve the process. Ravi Chinta feels the plan has good
detail and is project specific but asked if it makes sense to elevate to see this grow to an enterprise
portfolio level and XTC should categorize projects to add if they are revenue or growth oriented.
Categorizing in a portfolio level should allocate points to see if there are too many projects in one
category and may need to go ahead with that particular project if there is not something being done in a
particular area. (revenue growth, cost reduction, revenue enhancement). Ravi is to send Tim some
(quality enhancement) of the categories. Mike Flick believes that the projects we know we have to do
should not come before group for approval. Mike wants to avoid becoming so process oriented that
nothing gets done and feels that incremental changes should not come before committee. Steve
Herbert asked at what level does the trigger to go through this process occur. Tim indicated change
requests would not come before committee as a business case. Tim pointed out that there is a cost
associated with reallocating resources to get a job done and feels XTC should be looking across the
institution to see all implications for University. Tim would eventually hope to align projects with budget
cycle of the University. Tim asked the committee if it is worth communicating plan and it was decided
since this is a policy change, Annette would take the plan to cabinet to make sure they are aware of
what we are doing. Steve Herbert would like to see a mechanism for fast tracking projects when it
makes sense (co-chairs could sign off without coming before committee). Projects would still be listed in
TeamDynamix. By using Team Dynamix the campus at large will be able to see projects being worked on.
Transparency is important for many reasons. A project status link will be added to XTC website.
Ravi Chinta made a motion to recommend the XTC workflow move forward and the motion was
seconded by Judy Molnar. There was no further discussion and all were in favor of adopting the
workflow review proposal.
Other business – future meeting dates – send suggestions to Claudia
Meeting adjourned.
**The next XTC meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 19th from 3:00 – 4:30 in Smith Hall 247**
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