MEETING NOTES (REVISED)
UC IT GUIDANCE COMMITTEE
Instructional Technology Work Group
July 14, 2006, 8 – 9:30 am
Conference Call
Members present: Dickens, Gorham, Matkin, McDowell, Michaels, Murphy, Parker, Sabean,
Souza, Wienhausen
Members absent: Edmonds, McDowell, McGrath
A recording will be available at https://www.callinfo.com/archives/playback.jsp?id=8max8fxz
Action Items:
1. The next conference call is scheduled for Friday, July 28, 8-9:30 am. Ruth and Paula
will prepare an agenda and ask the WG members to continue to work on descriptions,
questions, etc. for their focus areas as well as update the matrix of institutions relevant to
those focus areas.
2. To each focus area page, Paula will add a section for:
a. UC examples
b. Discussion on the topic (to reflect dialogue and background discussed among
group; will include relevant notes from the conference call)
3. The subgroup for Focus Area #7: Lifelong Learning will draft, and post to Confluence, a
description and questions, which will be discussed as the first order of business on the
July 28 call.
4. Members who noted they have contacts at external institutions were requested to send
that info as soon as possible to Paula.
Decisions and Recommendations:
1. Focus Area #2:Learning Spaces: The subgroup will take the lead in developing this area
of exploration but will work with Jan and Victor to identify how the UC Media Directors
(and other folks responsible for learning spaces on the campuses) can help us.
Notes/Discussion on Focus Areas:
1. Common Strategy (http://www.ucop.edu:8080/x/eA0)
GM: Questions should elicit some of the problems institutions are facing so that we
understand not only the positive impacts but also the challenges
An element that may be missing is that there are really big barriers that are cross-campus
organizational ones; technology is not necessarily the obstacle.
Add the question to external review interview: How have you organized yourselves to achieve
your objectives?
We don’t have to have common platforms if we have interoperability
RS: Although in some cases it would make sense to have common platforms.
At what level of improvement in instruction are institutions aiming?
Institutions:
 University of Georgia system (Ruth has made initial contact)
 University of Texas System (Darcy Hardy; Gary knows her)
 SUNY (Gary will find the contact)
 University of Wisconsin system (Gary has contact)
 University of Michigan (George knows someone there who could help us identify the
appropriate contact; Ruth-Joseph Hardin/Sakai)
2. Learning Spaces (http://www.ucop.edu:8080/x/eg0)
GW: there’s a crazy formula-driven model for classrooms; we need to understand which
administrative offices are involved
What does the system need to do differently or to support campuses?
We rely on old formulas for defining a classroom or where learning takes places
Part of the funding comes from the state; We need to educate upper level UC
administration in how learning and, therefore learning spaces need to change and the
need to educate the state so that policies that govern use and funding of spaces can be
similarly changed.]
JD: There are some wonderful examples of new thinking about learning spaces within the
UC system
OP should fight the battle about policies in regard to the state
Architects don’t always understand learning spaces; we need a more comprehensive
view
Questions for external review interviews:
 Policies (UC, Legislative, State)
 Funding
 Organizational structures
 New designs to support new learning
 Experimental spaces – how to create them? What are the advantages to this
approach? What policies need to change to encourage building and using?
 How to coordinate with Registrar’s systems?
 Do our online scheduling systems only support a different use of space?
GM: UCI is building new residential dorms that include learning spaces, such as
classrooms and informal spaces with wifi, etc.
In our questions we should separate traditional classrooms from the out-of-classroom
learning spaces, which include Starbucks
Institutions:
GW: It’s important to talk to UC folks who are doing good work in this area to make a
case for “why can’t we all do this?”
GM:
Carlton College (consider one of “most wired” campuses)
RS:
Dartmouth is very wired; Ruth has a contact (Malcolm Brown)
Virgina Tech (Math Emporium, Cave, etc.)
JD: Examples from a recent conference:
 MIT TEAL classrooms
 MIT, Aero Astro Lab
 Stanford School of Medicine - Distributed learning commons
 Swathmore Computer Society - empower students to create their own spaces
 Northwester Univ. Info Commons
 Univ. of Chicago Crear Library Computing Center
 Emory Univ. Cox Lab
 Rhode Island School of Design: Center for integrative technologies
 Harvard Univ., Film and Video Headquarters
 Clemson, Architecture Center
 UC Irvine East Campus
KS: Stanford Medical School has a learning space (Kevin has a contact there)
3. Content Sharing (http://www.ucop.edu:8080/x/fQ0)
KS: It’s important to recognize reward for contribution to repositories
SEP: This area is about capturing, sharing, preserving information as well as faculty
recognition
RS: Questioned why we originally separated Focus Areas 3 & 4…
GM: Open content has a cast that might polarize some people; concept of repositories
everyone might understand, accept. Not everyone who thinks we need repositories thinks
they need to be open; Open Content has a focus on IP
SEP: both focus areas share faculty recognition part
GM: This focus area gets to: How does stuff get in? How is it shared? Used? Refreshed?
Removed? How do you manage IP?
Institutions
GM: Hewlett Foundation has funded CMU & Rice:
 Carnegie Mellon University (has done experimental stuff with regard to how to
use technology effectively; has hooked up learning theory and practice; Gary
has a contact)
 Rice (Connexions; Gary has a contact)
SEP:
RS:
CDL
CNI
ARL
MERLOT (could provide examples of both the good and the bad)
4. Open Content (http://www.ucop.edu:8080/x/gQ0)
GM: I am a PI on a Hewlett Foundation grant on Open Content; doing an inventory of
what Hewlett has put out and thus has access to award recipients and how they’ve done
Institutions:
GM:
Hewlett Foundation (Mike Smith and his staff; Gary has contacts); may not need
to interview them because we have a lot of info at our disposal
SEP: one of the challenges is that things are moving very fast in the Open Content arena
and it’s hard to know where things are going. We need to incorporate this idea into our
thinking.
GM: Hewlett Foundation has developed a schema about the movement (which Gary will
share with us)
SEP: There are a lot of faculty that are driving open content in different directions; it
reflects [?? What does REFLECTS mean in this sentence??] on the publishing model
and is in part a reaction to it.
GM: Notion that there is a proprietary world vs. open world; how do we get the two worlds
to cooperate with each other?
SEP: At UCLA we’ve taken a leadership position to educate faculty about this, e.g., IP,
their rights, etc.
RS: CNI-JISC speaker talked about the need to integrate the cost of online publications
Into the core budgets for research. This same approach could work for instruction if
“publishing a course” were included as part of the process of giving a course.
5. New Tools, New Culture (http://www.ucop.edu:8080/x/bw0)
FG: At Merced, how can new IT offer better, faster, new ways to create applications across
the system, eg, aggregators that can share data across campuses? Integration of
administrative tools/data with commercial products (example of my de.li.cous being able to
mine info from the university)
RS: UC is, perhaps for the first time, in a position of trying to catch up with how IT is being
used by students and others outside of UC.
JD: A challenge is to be accommodating of the learning styles of group study. UCI putting 26
collaborative spaces in their new dorm. Transition more and more space to new spaces that
enable team work. Worry about whether “if you build it, they will come” but projections
indicate they will be filled immediately.
GW: Students, or instructors, shouldn’t have to know which spaces is associated with which
learning activity.
Institutions
RS:
Will get in touch with Paul Hagner and Diana Oblinger at Educause
We should talk to the system institutions:
 Wisconsin
 Texas
 Indiana
 Georgia
To find out:
 Are there policy, funding issues?
 Practices for how to shift the culture?
RS: At UC, there are dozens of “points of light” but from the top-down it looks the same as it
always did; It’s difficult to identify where changes in teaching and learning have occurred
SEP: the tiny little pieces are funded; we need to look at the system-wide funding
GM: we need a mechanism for coalescing the “points of light” into a more broad-based
impact on the campus and system
GW: How do we use what we’ve learned from these “points of light” to inform strategic
planning? What can move us forward? There is no culture of communicating this type of
thinking
RS: As long as we have to report to the Legislature about faculty workload, we will not move
forward. What are the metrics that will support a new culture?
GW: OP needs to take leadership role in changing these metrics
6. Faculty Development & Reward (http://www.ucop.edu:8080/x/dQ0)
GMichaels: Look at impact and support for non-ladder faculty; experimentation, research,
publication
GM: There is a technological imperative that is forcing faculty to use technology; faculty not
willing to use IT are at risk in their teaching, evaluations, etc. Notion that UC should provide
methodology to encourage faculty to use technology
Upper edge & lower edge
RS: Institution needs to support faculty to help them be successful with their teaching and
use of technology
SEP: Even when there’s a faculty lab you have to know what you want to do; it’s essentially
tool support; Needs to be immersed in what faculty are doing
Institutions
GM:
MIT
Carnegie Mellon
Utah State (David Wiley; also Open Content)
RS:
Univ. of Central Florida (this area plus New tools, New culture)
7. Lifelong Learning (http://www.ucop.edu:8080/x/hg0)
Because Gary has been away and no description or questions have yet been drafted, we
postponed discussion of this focus area until our next conference call on July 28. In the
meantime, Gary and the subgroup will flesh out the details.