To:
Faculty Council
From:
Academic Computing Committee
Subject: Final Report from Academic Computing Committee for 2011 - 2012
Date:
April 27, 2012
The academic computing committee met six times during the 2011 – 2012 academic year. We began
the year with the following four charges:
1. Examine the issue of computerized testing and make recommendations.
2. Gather information from faculty in the four schools as to their current usage of computers and
information technology and develop a list of needed improvements and a wish list of new
technology.
3. Assess whether there is an adequate level of support for faculty who need technology for
teaching and/or research that is outside of normal support for an office machine.
4. Assess whether the Behrend website, as it is being revised, is meeting the needs of faculty and
academic programs in usability, accessibility, and flexibility for teaching and research needs, and
monitor the Penn State response to the federal complaint filed by the National Federation of the
Blind and its impact on Behrend.
We also added the following charge after the start of the year:
5. Establish a protocol for updating and upgrading faculty computers.
We spent the majority of our time working on charges 1 and 5. We did not address charges 2 and 3. We
recommend that they be combined into one and addressed by next year’s committee.
Computerized Testing (charge #1)
We started our work on computerized testing by sending a brief survey to all Behrend faculty to assess
their interest in using a computerized testing center. We asked two questions in the survey: 1) Do you
have a need for a computer testing facility, and 2) How would you use the facility (uses, frequency,
required number of seats).
We received 19 total responses to the survey, with 4 expressing no need for a computerized testing
facility, 7 expressing needs that can be addressed by an instructor scheduled and staffed facility, 5
expressing needs requiring an open, proctored facility (like the University Park block testing model
described below), and 3 expressing needs that are not clear from the response.
After reviewing the surveys, we invited Will Kerr (the manager of the computerized testing center at
University Park) to participate in one of our meetings by conference call. Information gathered in that
meeting is summarized in our March 2012 committee meeting minutes. Will explained that the UP
facility offers two models of testing:
Submitted by: Jerod Wilkerson (Spring 2012 Committee Chair)
1. A classroom model where instructors schedule the facility at a specific time for an entire class
and proctor it themselves, and
2. A block testing model where Instructors pick a day or date range during which a test is to be
available and an amount of time students should be given to take the test. Students make a
reservation for a specific time to take the test during the instructor specified testing period
We also conducted a focus group meeting where we invited all faculty and staff members who
responded positively to the testing center survey to come and discuss their needs for a computerized
testing center. Information gathered in the focus group meeting is summarized in our April 2012
committee meeting minutes.
We believe that a computer testing center is needed and that support for the testing center will
continue to grow. However, more information is needed on the needs of faculty members before
specific recommendations can be made. We recommend that the academic computing committee
continue to study this issue in conjunction with the Behrend computer center. The next step should be
a more specific faculty survey that will gather information on which model(s) of testing are needed
(classroom model or block testing model), how many stations are needed, and the expected usage of
the center.
The committee should continue to work with the computer center to assess software and security needs
and to explore the possibility of a phased implementation. A phased implementation of a testing center
may start with software running in the existing labs and monitored by faculty. This could be followed by
a testing center that first supports a classroom model of testing only, followed by a staffed testing center
that supports the block testing model.
Behrend Website (Charge #4)
The committee believes that charge number 4 is actually two separate issues and should be addressed
as two charges. One issue is to assess whether the Behrend website, as it is being revised, is meeting the
needs of faculty and academic programs. We determined that the best way to assess this is to invite Bill
Gonda to periodically attend academic computing committee meetings to provide a status update and to
receive feedback from the committee members. Bill attended the November committee meeting and
should be invited to attend a committee meeting each semester in the future. The committee believes
that the website update is meeting faculty and academic program needs, but some committee members
feel that the progress has been too slow.
The second issue is to monitor the Penn State response to the federal complaint filed by the National
Federation of the Blind and its impact on Behrend. One of the committee members, Mike Rutter,
agreed to participate in meetings of the Behrend web site accessibility task force that is addressing this
issue for Behrend’s website. He provided the following report:
Carolyn Dudas is Behrend's liaison to University Park's accessibility project. A list of the top
visited pages at the Berhend website have been submitted for an audit to determine
accessibility. I am unaware of any concerns that have been raised as a result of that audit, but it
may not be fully complete at this time. It is important to note that the initial phase of the
accessibility project is to look at pages that are used “...to conduct core University business or
academic activities...”. Presently this does not include pages created by faculty or students. It is
recommended that faculty make their pages accessible, and it has been suggested that the
website http://wave.webaim.org/ can be used to test faculty pages.
Sites related to course management (such as ANGEL and its possible successor) will be brought
in to compliance by the appropriate vendors. At some point in the process, all videos used by
Penn State for “core business” such as recruitment will be required to have transcripts and
captions. It is unclear how this will affect faculty generated content such as on-line videos for
classes, as creating transcripts and captions for such material is extremely time consuming.
Currently, faculty created videos are not part of the accessibility audit. Another part of the
project is to make sure all downloadable forms and other downloadable pdf and Word files are
accessible. Again, the accessibility of scientific documents posted to the internet for a class are
not included in the scope of the current audit, but this may be an issue in the future.
We recommend that next year’s committee continue to monitor the progress and impact of this issue by
assigning a committee member to continue to attend meetings of the accessibility task force and report
on progress.
Protocol for Updating and Upgrading Faculty Computers (Charge #5)
We worked with computer center staff to establish a written protocol for the updating and upgrading of
faculty computers and we recommend that this protocol be followed for all future updates and
upgrades. This charge is complete unless a future committee believes it needs to be re-visited. The
protocol is included as the last page of this document.
Summary of Recommendations
The following are recommendations for next year’s academic computing committee:
1. Continue to gather information and make recommendations about a computerized testing
center by creating a more detailed survey to assess the needs of faculty, the number of stations
needed, the testing model(s) that need to be supported, and whether a phased implementation
starting with use of the existing labs is feasible.
2. Work with the computer center to assess security and software needs for a computer testing
center.
3. Combine charges 3 and 4 and assess with a faculty survey.
4. Invite Bill Gonda to attend at least one committee meeting per year to provide progress
updated and receive feedback on the Behrend website revision.
5. Continue to monitor Behrend’s response to the ADA lawsuit by assigning a committee member
to participate in accessibility task force meetings and report on impact to faculty.
Protocol for the Updating and Upgrading of Faculty Computers
The following protocol should be followed for the updating and upgrading of faculty computers at Penn
State Erie, The Behrend College:
1. Whenever possible, the Computer Center will notify all faculty of major upgrades1 at least 30
days in advance. This notification should include a description of what will be upgraded, if an
interruption in system use may result, and a mandatory (where applicable) date for which the
upgrades will be required to be completed. Users and/or departmental computer committees
can submit written requests to the Computer Center to exempt specific computers from
updates and upgrades for technical reasons only.
2. The Computer Center will distribute application updates2 as necessary in accordance with
vendor recommendations and release schedules. The Computer Center will coordinate
updates in a regular monthly schedule where possible. Windows based OS updates are made
available the second Wednesday of each month for individuals to install at their convenience. A
mandatory install is enforced on the second Saturday morning of each month for faculty who
have not already installed the updates.
3. Mac OS updates are handled at the user level. The only updates generally pushed out to users
are updates to Identity Finder. Those updates will be pushed on the second Wednesday of the
month.
4. The Computer Center will notify faculty of any changes to monthly update schedules.
5. Over time, the individual school computer committees should build a list of faculty computers
and departmental labs that are sensitive to updates and upgrades. This list will be used for IT
staff to determine if updates can be applied or if alternate deployment methods are required.
6. The Computer Center should continue its current policy of conducting major upgrades during
the summer whenever practical.
1
Upgrades: Major version change of an application (example: Office 2007 to Office 2010, Ansys 13 to Ansys 14)
Updates: Security patches, hotfixes, performance patches. (example: Office service pack, or monthly security
patch)
2