UVU Academic
Technology Steering Committee
August 6, 2010
Meeting Notes
Attendees: Dan Clark, Toni Harris, Shane Rager, Dave Andrus, Laura Busby, Vickie Walker, Mike Taylor, Marc
Hugentobler, Bart Jacobs, Ray Walker, Robert Ward, Abraham Teng, Cameron Jarman, Carlos Alarco, Ursula
Sorenson
Welcome―Laura welcomed everyone and asked about the meeting time for this group. She will send a
survey out to get everyone’s feedback.
Committee Organization―Abraham reported on the subcommittee findings. They discussed the
current organization of the committee and concluded that size was an issue to adding new members.
While there are probably not enough faculty members on the committee, representing the entire
faculty body would be a challenge. It was recommended by the subcommittee that no organizational
changes be made at this point. It was also recommended that Laura be the facilitator between the
committee and the Faculty Senate when we have issues that need to be communicated or addressed by
that group.
Action: Laura will email the findings of the subcommittee and copies of the article she discussed.
Hardware Model―Dave reported that the main thing the subcommittee was looking at was cost. They
researched what it would cost at the Computer Shop, Dell, and Apple. They found that most purchases
made on campus are the Dell Latitude E6400; another good option is the Dell Studio 17 at $983, but it
has no docking option. The best value is the Dell Latitude E series. MacBooks start at $1000, MacBook
Pro is $1282. A new faculty member would also have to have a printer and phone, so those costs would
have to be borne as well. It was recommended to increase the amount for technology expenses for new
hire faculty. There was also an issue mentioned about taking laptops to classrooms with no computers
as opposed to just being able to take a jump drive.
Action: Dave will create a spreadsheet of costs for Laura to take to PBA.
Communication—Shane’s subcommittee has been talking to people about ideas for better
communication. It was found that email is the preferred way of communication for faculty. Some
recommendations were to use the UVLink page to inform about trainings, etc. and to have the IT
HelpDesk information printed on the syllabus for course information. In an IT newsletter, we could have
student quotes about what they would like to see happening or technology they would like to see.
Students have a hard time because Blackboard is not uniform across campus. Students expect faculty to
be knowledgeable about technology. They recommended using the Student Center more for students to
ask faculty about technology. The student body president will work out details to find out what the
students know about technology information on campus. Laura indicated that there would be a faculty
handbook going out that will be linked to through a variety of sources. We also need to find a way to
communicate with adjunct faculty and work on a link on the faculty tab for email and communication.
Action: Ursula will work up a paragraph for the syllabi.
Training—Toni’s committee met and discussed the issues involved with UVU IT training. They looked at
restraining forces such as actual need vs perceived need. They recommend gathering more information
on this issue. They also discussed budget and personnel issues that would be needed to meet the
perceived need for training. The issues that were determined from perceived need were campus-wide
need for IT training, low turn-out for live training sessions, inconsistent campus requirements, difficulty
locating information on IT training, and types of training needed. The subcommittee offered two main
recommendations: (1) Centralize training information, possibly centralize an office, department or
individual responsible for maintaining a repository of training opportunities as well as maintain a
website and catalog of available training and schedules. (2) Develop on-line/web-based training modules
that are self directed and can be updated as needed. Next steps for this discussion would be to bring in
groups for discussion with committee, and perhaps add a training tab to UVLink based on your role. It
was suggested that training be tied to HR (change in paradigm to include training.) We could also check
the stats on CBT for information on training, identify what other large institutions are doing, survey
employees on the best way to identify training needs, research the HelpDesk call log, and talk to Deans,
Advisors, and students about what they know. We need to identify the core training needs for a person
to function well at UVU, area required training, and optional training. We also need to put in place
consequences for not doing the training, training to the campus culture. This could be a priority for PBA.
We could realize economies of scale and focus.
Action: Laura will take the findings to Moh and will have a discussion with him and Ray to get this
moved higher.
LMS, Media, Lecture Capture—Mike looked at Sonic Foundry and found it is very expensive. After
talking with Ray, they looked at Panopto where you can use your own hardware and the license pricing
is much better. Mike will have more information for the October meeting, along with
recommendations, options, legal issues, etc. They will look at the legal issues for photos, intellectual
property, voices of students, etc. The lecture capture would be an optional tool for faculty. It could
potentially be useful in such cases as a pandemic or other times when 30% of the class is missing.
Project Statuses & Information Items— Tom Rasmussen is working for Ray managing IT projects. Laura
gave out a draft of the project spreadsheet she provided Tom for inclusion in his master spreadsheet.
Wasatch Campus is getting an updated lab. Daryl is working on that.
Faculty Handbook will include IT information.
TutorTrac will have some fields added for exporting. The advisors have purchased AdvisorTrac and will
be using the same extracts as TutorTrac. When we have databases not under our control, we need to
look at what we put into them, and make sure we follow the guidelines.
DART Board Development—will start seeing some reports this Fall. There will be training on how to use
it. It will create reports like Crystal Reports would provide and allows us to build templates and access
through UVLink based on your role. We have also been looking at a dashboard that would be a quick
look at how your system is doing for the executives. Data validation going on. Laura has been writing
some reports to simplify Mark Leany’s enrollment report data.
Kathie Debenham and Eva Bernfeld went to Leadership Council yesterday. Laura has a copy of the charts
they used to show FTE to Headcount. There are more students that are having to register for fewer
classes because they can’t get what they need. The President wanted to know what we are doing about
this issue. The gatekeeper courses are full and only one section has been added since registration
opened. Those classes with low enrollment will be sent an email asking them to cancel to free up the
space. There are about 3000 newly admitted students that we cannot serve right now.
Ongoing projects highlights—Laura pointed out highlights on the project spreadsheet and discussed
what is happening with Digital Measures, etc. For the LMS replacement discussion (notify by email) Ian
will appoint a faculty member to the consortium. Other projects reviewed included Faculty Workload
and SRI’s. The SRI system is linked in with Banner. When there is an upgrade, testing is very arduous.
The administration of the system is becoming more than Laura can handle. Ray, Laura, Moh, John
Balden, Richard Portwood and Anton Tolman will be meeting today to discuss what is going to be done.
There is also a business process issue about when the SRI’s are available.
Students should be made aware that there are other services available to store information other than
the U:Drive, such as Dropbox, also MobileMe (paid account). We need to give information to students
but let them know it is not UVU supported. Jump drives are also being sold at various locations.
Media Enhanced Classrooms—There have been complaints about screens being slow to go up and come
down if the faculty member is using the whiteboard behind it. There are options available such as a
document camera, etc. Laura will track issues with specific rooms and will try to find a way to resolve
them. It may also be a training issue. There is a cable TV issue for the School of Business that may be
resolved with a VCR. We are looking into options. Carlos asked about the UEN world channel and will
send Ray an email.
Grants—if you hear of grants that involve technology, please ask to look at it or send to Laura to look at.
We have had several instances in the past few years where IT issues are ignored until it comes time to
implement. We don’t want to hold up the project because we didn’t build in IT costs.
Skype—Faculty want to use it for valid reasons, but we cannot legally use it on campus. Look at the
OIT/Video website for alternatives. Oovoo does almost the same as Skype and Carlos has used it
successfully for a year. Look at MOVI for long term connections like working with faculty in a different
country. It has a small cost or can lend for a few weeks. There is a $450 one-time cost and $100 per year
maintenance. It also does multi-person video conferencing. Google Talk is the easiest to set up.
Active Directory Implementation— Dave has some machines on it. First time login takes about a
minute and a half. Mike has it in one room and everything seems to be working okay. We need some
more instruction on how to implement printing for the labs. The hard wired printing is working, wireless
still needs some work.
NEXT MEETING
Friday, September 3, 2010
10 a.m. to Noon
LI323g