UVU Academic
Technology Steering Committee
September 3, 2010
Meeting Notes
Attendees: Abraham Teng, Talitha Hudgins, Toni Harris, Ray Walker, Robert Ward, Kevin Young, Dave Andrus,
Heather Jenkins for Mike Taylor and Eugene Seeley, David Jordan, Carlos Alarco, Steve Bule, Dan Clark, Bruce
Wilson, Bart Jacobs, Shane Rager, Laura Busby, Ursula Sorensen
Welcome―Laura welcomed everyone and asked about the meeting time for this group. She will try to
keep the meeting shorter, to an hour and a half.
Active Directory―There have been some issues with the transfer of information from Banner to Active
Directory; either it was not happening or happening incorrectly. It happens primarily when we have
limited access to resources through some type of group access. It is working off of the Luminus Data
Interchange which has experienced problems with data going to Blackboard in the past. We may have
triggers that don’t fire or we don’t have triggers in place that we need. There have also been printing
issues. MAC printing is still broken, but we are working with a company on a solution which is close to
being ready for implementation. It was suggested that the active directory needs more testing in better
testing time frame, and to be treated as an enterprise app.
Media Classrooms― Travis will now be a (non-voting) member of the committee. Laura thanked Media
Services for the great job they did with such a big task over the summer. There were some issues
reported such as—faculty expected different software or ability to load software, expected room to be
wired (although it was not on the list.) It is a culture shift for some faculty. More communication will
help. There needs to be a relatively quick process to add software that is needed by faculty. There is a
difference between faculty member preference and a department request. There is a process that
exists, it is just not as fast as some would like it to be. Academics received money to replace computers
in the LA building. (Laura will send out the list.)
PBA Items— Communication and training are the critical issues for PBA. We need to talk about area
technical support as well. Mo has asked Laura for a list of the next set of rooms that can be media
upgraded. Look for opportunities to add Distance enabled classrooms.
Academic Area Tech— Laura hired Gary Hooper (formerly of the HelpDesk) for Academics. It is easy to
put extra tasks on the academic techs because they are the go to person. With university status there is
a need to have the technicians do more, but they also need more help. Long term, we need to have a
model for desktop support and media support based on growth and decline. We can use soft funds for
techs to do what needs to be done, but we need to come up with a good working model. Because Gary
will be covering multiple areas, he is reporting to Laura instead of Robert Ward, but he will also be a part
of JoAnn’s team. JoAnn will be part of his personnel review. He is sitting in Laura’s area and she is
outfitting him with his tools. The techs on JoAnn’s team benefit and Academics will have help from the
HelpDesk team for coverage. The drawback is that we won’t know when tech is out, unless there is
really good communication. Dave Andrus has a say in technology purchases in his area, unlike the
HelpDesk techs. The model for area techs would be for them to at least have sign off on the purchase.
Kevin’s model is that for new faculty coming in, there are three options for them that are within the
area/college specified guidelines. The reason that this works for Kevin’s area is that he has a committee
that has input into the guidelines and because they are communicating with their area people.
Area Tech Workload—There is concern about the workload that the techs have. We need to come up
with a recommended model to take back for discussion in the schools. JoAnn noted that her people
don’t have a technical team like the area techs. We ask people to call the HelpDesk, which creates a
ticket so we can track issues. We can also solve a lot of the problems on the phone which saves the area
tech work. The HelpDesk has partnered with some areas to take two PT allotments of pay to get a FT
tech. If area techs are not putting their tickets in Magic, we can’t track the issues. This needs to be a part
of the model. The numbers help us justify requests for PBA. As far as physical proximity of techs, the
only way to tell what they are doing is by looking at Magic to see what they are working on. The more
time they spend traveling, the less time they can spend helping. Technical skills also need to come into
the equation. The model would play to the tech’s strengths with different software, technology, and
breadth of knowledge, where you can utilize the expertise. We have to be careful because area techs
have different functions. We will come up with a suggested model that is taken back to the schools, that
may have different options, etc. with service level agreements. We could consider group PT together to
make FT to help more people as well.
Assignments—Two weeks from today, report back to Laura, after committee members have
conversation with their schools and areas about what are the pinch points for tech support, desktop
and media, what are the needs, what help do you think you need, and what areas can we measure.
We need to come up with a model for growth. We also need to look at labs, specialty servers, and web
support. Laura will formally plan to have a group that meets to make decisions and discuss these issues.
This will help when communication has to go back out about why certain decisions are made. Laura
needs to have PBA requests ready by the end of September. Laura will create a draft document that will
be sent out for feedback.
Media-enhanced classrooms—please send Laura any requests for software and images for classrooms
next week. She will send back what the specific images are for the rooms you request. It was suggested
that a note be attached for computers that aren’t ready to use yet.
Other—UVLink—a change has been made to the Help tab. It was changed to the Help/Training Tab. Also
there is a web page on the LMS replacement. Committee members should talk to their areas about this
and try to attend one of the demos. There is one demo today and other dates are on the web page.
There is a new service that is allowing students to bet on getting an A. It is legal because it is not a game
of chance. The issue for us is that one of ways to get student verification is to ask for students name and
password. It was the committee’s consensus that Ray take this issue to President’s Council with the
recommendation that we block this service from connecting to our servers. College policy prohibits
students from sharing their password.
NEXT MEETING
Friday, October 1, 2010
10 to 11:30 a.m.
LI323g