MINUTES
University Technology Committee
March 10, 2008
Members Present:
Lance Taylor, Chairperson
Scott Bennett
Michael Biagini
Katharine Brown
Dale Clifford
Richard Crosby
David Jaffee
Michael Kucsak
Albert Loh
Deb Miller
Tom Van Schoor
Mark Smith
Lucy Trice
Bobby Waldrup
Julia Watkins
Others Present:
Jeff Bowen
Ida Gropper
Garry Houser
Kathy Hughes
Doug Leas
Joe Lynch
Steve Lyon
John Sharp
Fred Sudler
Chairperson Taylor called the University Technology Committee meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. in
Bldg. 15 Room 1105.
Approval of Minutes - February 11, 2008
Chairperson Taylor asked if the UTC members had any changes, additions, or corrections to the
Minutes from February 11, 2008. No changes were noted and the Minutes were approved as
submitted.
Announcements
Deb Miller informed the group that the critical issue with the Clicker program has been resolved. This
problem was first announced on a Chronicle blog where the University of Kansas had a large class of
students who all received 100% on a test. Although they do use the same clicker system as UNF, this
would not happen here due to the fact that all of the Kansas students were on Macintosh computers
along other contributing factors.
Miller announced that UNF now has a new tool named BlackBoard Blog that provides announcements,
status updates, outages, problems and changes. This blog can be accessed from outside of campus.
The website address is: http://unfbb.blogspot.com/.
Michael Kucsak stated that the UNF Library is now part of the campus active directory system.
Students and faculty will now use their N# and password (rather than their social security numbers
and different passwords) to access their UNF Library account. The UNF Library is the first in the State
of Florida System to use this system. He thanked Jason Rupard of Information Technology Services for
all his assistance with this endeavor.
Update: Content Management System
Garry Houser stated that good progress is being made with the system and the new expected "golive" date is scheduled for Tuesday, 3/18/08. The system servers are up and running. The test server
can be accessed at http://www.unf.edu and the actual production server can be accessed at
http://cms-web.unfcsd.unf.edu. Permissions are currently being assigned for specific individuals to
access the web tree based on their user name/password. The test server will be erased on the first
(1st) of every month and the work created in the test server cannot be moved to the production
server. Announcements will be made just prior to launch.
Houser reminded the group that changes are being made from the bottom up and the first change will
be made to the UNF homepage with subtle changes following over time. A new website will be created
as part of the Marketing and Publications website to keep the university community updated on the
migrated information. Monthly training sessions will be held for the departments that are currently
moving and session schedules can be found under the Center for Professional Development and
Training http://www.unf.edu/dept/cpdt/.
Update: Distance Learning Committee
Julia Watkins, Chairperson of the DLC, agreed to come to the UTC monthly meetings on a regular
basis with updates. She addressed the following issues:
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The DLC is addressing the request to identify processes that would be needed for
online programs and the technical support for these programs. They have created a
subcommittee to research the issues and it will report its' findings at the next DLC
meeting.
The committee's bylaws are now up to date and anyone can receive a copy of these by
sending Julia an email request. They have also created policy/procedures which are
almost completed at the university level. Colleges will then be able to adjust and
modify as needed for their specific programs.
The DLC has a subcommittee that has designed a committee website and it is about
95% complete. They are incorporating the old DLC handbook and will integrate it into
the website. The site should be "going-live" in the near future.
Report: Campus Technology Committee
Katharine Brown said that Jeff Durfee met with the committee to discuss password security issues.
The committee has agreed to support his recommendation that a stronger password policy be
implemented. The plan is for stronger passwords to be implemented over the summer term and as
passwords expire. The committee is also putting Alison Cruess' re-working of the friendly alias
information in the Faculty Association information packet. The BlackBoard Governance Group gave a
draft of their statement and it was approved by the CTC. This will be submitted as an action item for
approval at the April UTC meeting.
Report: GOT
Deb Miller presented information on three (3) technology initiatives. These initiatives are:
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Safe Assign - a plagiarism prevention service that is now offered as part of the
Blackboard Learning System. This service allows educators to detect unoriginal
content in student papers. GOT has been working to make this available in a way that
would not violate copyright or FERPA regulations. The copyright issue seems to be
resolved, but FERPA is proving more difficult because using the tool to submit
assignments means that personally identifiable information is disclosed. GOT has been
discussing with the General Counsels' office to determine the best approach and
develop language for its use.
Respondus LockDown Browser - a custom browser that locks down the testing
environment within Blackboard. This browser was in trial use in the UNF Coggin
College of Business in a proctored testing lab, but it didn't turn out to be a good
solution for them and decided to go another route. The Brooks College of Health was
not interested in pursuing another product like this so the pilot has been suspended.
Online Collaborative Tools - The GOT received 4 requests for Elluminate. They pursued
discussions with the Florida Distance Learning Consortium (FDLC) in an attempt to
purchase licenses for 5-6 "class instances" of the tool at a reasonable cost ($500-$700
per instance, 30 seats) to provide to these requestors as a first step in determining
the feasibility of implementing a collaboration tool in UNF's environment. [Campus
wide licensing for 25 seats with a scheduling tool has been quoted in the >$25K
range.] The FDLC was unable to license the product in that way, but their response
was they could only license one class instance per institution per semester. The
College of Education and Human Services has grant funding available for the instance
licensing and will purchase it from the FDLC (2yr) for use in graduate program. The
College will then provide feedback on the usefulness of the tool.
Report: IT Security Action Team
No report.
Report: Campus Information Display Action Team
No report.
Report: Portal Committee
Scott Bennett informed the group that issues on the Faculty view tab are being addressed. The
committee is also starting to investigate using the portal for target messaging, testing and automatic
messaging. The committee meets this week.
New Business
No new business to report.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:35 a.m.