Academic Information Technology Committee
September 15, 2003
Meeting Minutes
Attending: Judy Barlow (SOM), Donald Dement (CTLE), Bill Gabrenya
(Psychology), Steve Lazarus (COE), Dee Dee Pannell (ACS/SCT), Kurt
Winkelmann (CSLA), Mary Bonhomme (SEGS), and Rick Tankersley (CSLA),
Chair
Absent: Celine Lang (Library), Bob Schuster (SOA), and Jay Wilson (ADITC)
Minutes – The minutes from the April 21 meeting and May 1 retreat were
approved as distributed.
ITEC – Rick reported the top items of discussion were the new telephone switch
and the virus/worm attack at the beginning of the semester. Most telephone
related problems have been resolved. There was a general discussion about
ways to protect against the virus invasion. Now that the McAfee antivirus has
been licensed for home use, faculty should install it on their home computers. It
was suggested that the updates be “pushed” to campus computers
automatically. It was also suggested that we could be proactive and that a
special computer security awareness day be designated each semester. This
would raise awareness of the importance of computer security. The new printed
phone directory is due for distribution in November. The committee requested
the list of unit contacts for updating telephone information be distributed. Dee
Dee will check to see if the list can be generated.
ADITC – Rick will check with Brian Dailey about the ADITC representative to
ACITC
ACS – Report attached. A listing of electronic classrooms was distributed to the
committee. There was a discussion but no recommendation on whether the
faculty would like to have their profiles included in the database of the I4 Corridor
Economic Council. The SACS web site will be a major web project this year.
The site is scheduled to be live August 2004.
Vice President for IT – Dick led a discussion of “how do we integrate the IT
support into the Academic Strategic Plan?”. The Deans have submitted their
individual plans to Provost McCay.
Old Business – A subcommittee was selected to organize the minigrant
process. Kurt and Rick will meet before the October meeting. A subcommittee
was also selected for developing a schedule for the Faculty and Staff web page.
The members are Mary, Donald and Dee Dee.
New Business – Mary discussed her proposal to take a recommendation to
purchase the Enterprise edition of Blackboard through the Technology
Committees. The committee asked Mary to provide them with information on the
features available in this edition, the cost and the advantage to campus faculty.
Next Meeting: The next meeting is scheduled for October 6 at 2:00 PM, at a to
be determined location. The regular committee meetings will be the first Monday
of each month.
Submitted by: Dee Dee Pannell, Recorder
ACITC Report from IT
August 21, 2003
Web Services and the Web Advisory Board– The university Faculty Profiles
web site is now live at http://www.fit.edu/faculty/profiles/.
The site is accessible through Quick Links, the Directory, and the Faculty and
Staff page. The site provides information on faculty research interests,
professional experience, and publications and is keyword searchable. All six
colleges and schools participated in providing the profile information. The
database enables quick access to faculty expertise and the year-long project was
a cooperative effort between University Publications and Web Services. Sixty
Faculty Profiles have been added or updated since going live July 1. Additional
activity is expected once the site is publicized and all faculty return for Fall
semester.
Other new sites are Institutional Planning and Effectiveness
http://www.fit.edu/ipe/, Career Services
http://www.fit.edu/CampusLife/services/career-serv/, the Electrical and Computer
Engineering pages, Purchasing http://www.fit.edu/AdmBus/purchasing/,
Undergrad Admission project, and the Facilities Request Form
http://www.fit.edu/facrequest/, that provides 61 options for reservation, including
Clemente, the Hartley Room, Olin, Gleason, All Faiths Center, the Baseball Field
and more, and a search engine for the Newsroom archives. The photo library on
the home page has been updated with new photos.
Web Services continues to support the database development and web interface
for the Institutional Planning and Effectiveness project. The information available
through the links on this page will provide information about the strategic plan,
goals and assessment policy, accreditation status and mission statement of the
university. The database serves as a searchable repository for unit goals and
assessments since 2001.
Web Services will be working very closely with the Dr. Bob Fronk and the Florida
Tech SACS Committee to provide on-line services to the SACS reviewers in
preparation for the SACS review in 2005. The university decision has been
made to provide the committee information on-line.
The Web Advisory Committee is drafting an online data collection privacy
statement for review by ITEC and has begun data gathering in preparation for
reviewing Content Management Systems for better administration of the web
site.
The Applied Computing Center – A total of fifteen Dell PCs have been
installed to accommodate students in the ACC. These new machines represent
a significant upgrade to computing resources and were sorely needed to support
the ever-increasing processor requirements for multimedia projects. Multi media
support continues to be the most requested activity. Each station can digitize
movies and still pictures. Student Lab Assistants are trained in using the new
hardware and software.
Staff created and compressed three movies for the Undergraduate Admission
Lobby kiosk. An unexpected activity in the Center was hosting Grants
Accounting during their temporary relocation.
The Applied Computing Center (ACC) supported Freshman Orientation by
providing workstations and student assistants for Freshman Placement testing.
Testing for College Algebra, Calculus and Communications was completely
online this year. Although new students were expected to test before arriving at
Florida Tech more than half had not completed their testing. The Center is also
currently hosting the Biology Ecology labs using SPSS.
Other ACC activities include collaboration with Dr. Shenker, Biology, on a grant
proposal to the National Undersea Research Program (NURP) at the University
of North Carolina and scanning and digitally restoring a 60 year old map on the
large format scanner. This project was for the Link Foundation. In addition, forty
students have signed up for the Digital Domain Club. The Digital Domain student
club is supported through the Center.
The Center provided support to the Camp Dream Builders sponsored by the
Florida Tech’s Construction Industry Advisory Board (CIAB). Staff processed
tapes filmed by the participants and created video clips for their presentations.
They also produced an archive CD for future reuse. Large format (24”x36”)
scanning is now available in the ACC. This service provides a way to extend the
life of fragile large paper documents.
System Services - System Services has been busy preparing for the new
Academic Year. Email accounts have been created and information sheets
printed for 844 new students for Fall semester. SEGS students will be included
for the first time in the mass add process for Fall semester. The process will be
run in mid-July. This is part of the email@fit.edu as the official university address
project. Also, a list of 683 email addresses was generated for Academic Support
Services in preparation for on-line freshman placement testing.
The SEGS student mass add created 1427 new email accounts for Fall
semester. This new initiative is in support of the name@fit.edu official email
address for faculty, staff and students.
Other beginning of the semester activities included distribution of TRACKS
accounts at undergraduate and graduate orientations, participating in the Micro
Teaching Seminar hosted by Dr. Paula Krist, creating the TRACKS facts sheet,
and addressing each University Experience class regarding the use of their
TRACKS account and the resources available in the ACC.
A recent purchase of MatLab software by ACITC was leveraged to provide four
departments volume pricing for their department purchases. A total of 67 copies
were purchased.
System services ran an SPSS comparison for Summer enrollments. In 2002
there were 2047 students and in 2203 there were 2105 students as of May 23.
Service Summaries for July: Web Consults - 56, Other Consults – 77, August:
Web Consults - 53, Other Consults - 92