Minutes of 17 August 2015 SACUA
Circulated 1 October 2015
Re-circulated 4 October 2015
Approved 5 October 2015
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs (SACUA)
6048 Fleming Administration Building
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1340
Phone: (734) 764-0303
Present: Fagerlin, Schultz, Szymanski, Weineck (chair), Wright, Ziff: Potter, Schneider and Snyder
Absent: Lehman, Mondro, Smith
Guests: James Hilton (Dean of Libraries); Tim McKay (Academic Program Director, Honors Program);
Sean Demonner (Executive Director of Teaching and Learning); Nigel Melville (Associate Professor of
Technology and Operations, Stephen M Ross School of Business); Laura Patterson (Associate Vice
President and Chief Information Officer); Jamie Iseler (The Record)
3:20 Call to Order/ Approval of Agenda and Minutes
3:20 Agenda approved
3:21 Minutes approved
3:20 Announcements
Next SACUA meeting on August 24; there will not be a meeting until September 14.
3:25 Status Reports
 Model and unit grievance procedures and ongoing grievances
Nothing new

Office for Institutional Equity procedures
Nothing new on the issue of grievablity of OIE reports

Professional Standards for Faculty SPG
Redrafting of section one is needed and SACUA will aim to produce a new draft for the
next meeting




Unit deviations from University-wide policies and procedures
Total compensation propriety and transparency
Administrative Services and IT Rationalization, implementation and oversight
Regents Faculty Governance Update
Minutes of 17 August 2015 SACUA
Circulated 1 October 2015
Re-circulated 4 October 2015
Approved 5 October 2015
Page 1 of 6
3:30 Guests: Dean of Libraries James Hilton and Chief Information Officer Laura Patterson
arrived to discuss the University’s involvement with Unizin and the transition from CTools to
Canvas. Sean Demonner, who is leading the Canvas transition, joined them; Tim Mackay and
Nigel Melville are on the IT advisory committee.
Unizin
Laura Patterson opened the discussion. Unizin is a consortium of Universities, located in Austin
Texas, describing itself as “a consortium of like-minded institutions facilitating the transition
toward collaborative digital education” (http://unizin.org/).
Unizin’s member institutions are: The University of Michigan; Indiana University; The
University of Florida; The University of Minnesota; Colorado State University; Oregon State
University; The University of Iowa; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Penn State; The
University of Wisconsin-Madison; The Ohio State University.
The focus of the consortium is teaching and learning at scale across many Universities. The
website states that:
Our common infrastructure supports the missions of our members. The ecosystem
makes it easier for faculty to work together across institutions when they choose
to do so. At Unizin, we believe a common digital learning infrastructure does not
differentiate the value of each institutions – it enhances what each of us can do
innovatively with it.
CIO Patterson and Dean Hilton stated that the purpose of Unizin is to protect content and data
while recognizing that not one of these Universities could be successful at meeting these
challenges on its own. The collective is looking to produce “next-generation content and
learning.” The Universities are not developing the code and they have pooled resources; The
University of Florida, for instance, has brought in the whole Florida system.
The three big pieces to the Unizin “ecosystem” are
1. Multiple places to store the contents they use in teaching;
2. A platform for collecting data from all students that are connected with Unizin;
3. Faculty freedom place their content in Unizin and control access to who uses it. If a
faculty member wants to make something available to all Unizin members he/she can
do that (or restrict access within the University or a class)
There are working groups in all the Universities, and each University appoints Board Member
(Hilton and Patterson for UM).
Unizin has recently acquired Courseload, which is described on the Unizin website as:
… an eText reader platform and collaborative learning tool for the delivery of
digital learning materials including Open Educational Resources, faculty-authored
course packs, and publisher content.
Unizin has elected to use Canvas, a “learning management system” as its platform because it met
the test of having open interfaces and is considered the leading learning management system on
the market. On its website it claims that it is “used by more than 1,400 universities, school
districts, and institutions around the world.”
Minutes of 17 August 2015 SACUA
Circulated 1 October 2015
Re-circulated 4 October 2015
Approved 5 October 2015
Page 2 of 6
Unizin and MOOCs
The point of using Unizin is not to replace Coursera; if we are successful with Unizin we are
hopeful that it could be used for a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), but the main focus is
not for MOOCS
Professor Hilton said that MOOCs are platforms, software that allows you to deal at a massive
scale with content delivery; Unizin could be the largest learning laboratory on the planet. The
aim is to make sure that the Academy retains control of its content. Unizin may power teaching
in areas such as less commonly taught languages—we are seeking to avoid having to buy things
back.
Chair Weineck notes that the definition of MOOC is Massive Open Online Courses, and
wondered is whether there could be reduction in the number of faculty if one faculty member
could teach students across all campuses.
The Purpose of Unizin
Patterson said that the way the conversation started was that every university is interested in
leveraging technology changes, and collect data about their students. The question as why each
university was working on its own to collect this data, the hope would be to encourage
collaboration between Universities on new programs, but this has not developed.
Hilton said that the technology of the Internet allows increase in scale, but even in a “MOOC
space” the point is how to elevate residential education. The crucial questions are:
1. How do we make what we do with the gift of physical presence the differentiating thing
in education?
2. How do we keep Michigan different from every other place?
3. How do we put our faculty in the best spot?
You could use a platform like this to drive enrollment up and faculty down, if you were inclined
(not at Michigan but at other places).
Issues connected with Unizin
Chair Weineck asked how individual faculty would retain content? Patterson said they would.
Professor Schultz asked what the anticipated membership evolution would be? Patterson says
new members have to be invited, the board of directors votes. She believes that Unizin will
grow, but currently the size is optimal. In the future it is likely to grow up to 30 institutions.
Growth has progressed at the pace for financially viability.
Professor Schultz noted that not all CIC schools are involved. Patterson said that this is not a
CIC initiative.
Professor Wright asked who had been asked and what the data are?
Hilton said initially UT Austin and Purdue were asked but did not want to join, other schools
said they could not move because existing contracts were not up. No private universities were
invited because privates because they typically have more autonomy—they were nervous about
joining.
Unizin location is because Austin is a tech center. (UT is not in the consortium).
Minutes of 17 August 2015 SACUA
Circulated 1 October 2015
Re-circulated 4 October 2015
Approved 5 October 2015
Page 3 of 6
Professor Mckay said he had been working with learning analytics here looking at how to use
data about students to better understand the factors enabling student success in our courses. He
feels that data gathered through Unizin helps instructors to understand how students in large
courses are in different places, and how to respond to differences. Unizin is a tool in helping us
do a better job in teaching large courses.
Professor McKay said that Unizin helps develop “Student Explorer” to help academic adviser
keep track of how students are doing. Currently students do not always know where they stand
when they see advisers (misleading themselves at time, or their advisers). Students in the
Comprehensive Studies program (CSP) have advisers who can go through assignments to see
where students are in real time. We are eager to keep this work on campus where the standards
of research are high; corporations are trying to sell commercial tools that do this, but the
products are often poor.
Hilton would like to have some more highly-rated public Universities join Unizin.
Professor Szymanski asked if it will go international. Hilton thinks so, but currently the level of
alignment in Unizin is high because of the similarity of the institutions.
In the UK there is a national system makes sense for them, so there would be no point in UK
Universities joining the system.
Canvas
Patterson addressed Canvas, which comes from Instructure (http://www.canvaslms.com/highereducation/).
There was a pilot program this past year to troubleshoot a shift from CTools to Canvas.
Professor Demonner is leading the Canvas transition. Last fall there were 33 instructors, 23 pilot
courses with 3000 students and staff looked at whether there would be significant factors that
would block the adoption of Canvas, issues that were identified that were addressed. Winter
pilots involved 123 courses and 7000 students.
CRLT also looked at the way the pilot courses worked. In Winter 2015:
74% of instructors preferred Canvas to C-Tools; 18% were neutral
80% students preferred, 20% were neutral
79% instructors satisfied with support, 13% were neutral
Students were often living in two systems (CTools and Canvas) simultaneously, which was not
ideal in the winter term.
Faculty want to know about CTool Project sites (half of CTools sites are Project sites)
Project Sites are an important part of the migration to Canvas, but it is not clear how the
transition will work. There is a faculty advisory group DIAG (Digital Initiative Advisory
Group)(http://digitaleducation.umich.edu/about/digital-innovation-advisory-group/). Professor
David Mendez chairs the committee, which produced recommendations concerning the pace of
the migration:
1. The faculty group wants crisp adoption in response to concerns about students in multiple
systems);
2. There is no hard date for CTools decommissioning, probably though that will probably
begin with course sites.
3. There is another set of usage for CTools such as teaching evaluations, textbook tools, etc.
which will need to migrate.
Minutes of 17 August 2015 SACUA
Circulated 1 October 2015
Re-circulated 4 October 2015
Approved 5 October 2015
Page 4 of 6
4. Expected for this year are more detail about the time line and more detail about other types
of solutions for project sites and administrative sites. C
5. Canvas might be used for some of these sorts of collaborations.
6. There is a tool that has been built for migrating course material from CTools to Canvas.
7. Any faculty member can use Canvas this fall.
8. Interested faculty may contact http://its.umich.edu/projects/canvas/?q=instructors.
9. There were 9 channels for IT support; different faculty used different channels with
different levels of satisfaction. CRLT found that faculty were unhappy that software did not
do what they wanted it to do. The service level in the future will accommodate the support
needs of different faculty through unit outreach.
10. One desirable feature of Canvas is that they have sub accounts so that people in units can
offer more support. It will be a challenge as Canvas scales up.
Issues with the transition
Professor Schultz notes that we are now given a choice on Wolverine Access, what happens if
we try Canvas and are not satisfied? This will be possible.
Professor Ziff asked about the transfer of old content from CTools to Canvas? It can all be
copied. There a process for doing this, and there is an e-mail address for transfer to Canvas but
it is not an automatic transfer—everything that a faculty members wants moved, they will not do
thus by default.
Professor Hilton says that the pace of the transition has yet to be determined
Professor Melville says:
1. Canvas is better because it allows new and better things
2. Good functionality support, critical pedagogical improvements.
3. There are risks around data privacy, faculty making new decisions about sharing, Unizin
allows us to participate in the development of digital education
Professor Szymanski asked what things we can now do? Professor Melville discussed the
concept of a course home page: CTools is regular, Canvas allows customization. Discussion
groups on-line will parse student contributions students to evaluate student contributions.
Professor McKay noted that “speed grader” allows all grading within the system. Professor
Szymanski pointed out this does not relieve people of the responsibility to actually grade the
material.
Professor Wright noted that there could be a bias of early selectors, so the numbers could be
misleading. McKay said that the biggest problem was with big classes in the Fall Term, but
these have been fixed.
Professor Demonner said that 12000 individuals working on project sites. He has established a
project team to:
1. Collect information on how project sites are used;
2. Propose best alternatives for various types of uses;
3. Determine what type of migration and support are needed;
4. Pilot migration tools and alternative solutions
All Fall 2016 courses will be taught out of Canvas.
4:30 March Faculty Governance Conference Planning (tabled for next week)
Minutes of 17 August 2015 SACUA
Circulated 1 October 2015
Re-circulated 4 October 2015
Approved 5 October 2015
Page 5 of 6
4:40 Professor Schultz reported on discussions with President Schlissel looking for possible
agenda discussions and questions about tenure decisions in the past year. President Schlissel was
forthcoming about
1. Challenges of interdisciplinary tenure
2. Public values engagement and high level discourse (how does an opinion piece in the
New York Times compare with a peer reviewed document); how about faculty
involvement in the community. President Schlissel sense that some disciplines
discourage public engagement; he would like to kick-start a discussion about
disseminating what we know. Fagerlin says that there is an office in the Institute for
Health Policy and Innovation and having system in place to help people write these types
of piece. Professor Szymanski observe that the issue was not so much that departments
do not object, but rather how we have a faculty discussion of the value of media
presence; there is an institutional tendency to look down on people who are working out
of the ordinary. Jamie Iseler said that Faculty in the news section is selective of the
Record; they look for three a day. Selection is made by Michigan News Services. They
search for promotion and balance. Some faculty and topics are more often quoted in the
media. Bernie DeGroat, the associate director, coordinates this.
3. Inclusiveness in the classroom (recognizing the needs of student athletes)
4. Faculty to play a special role in sexual assault/harassment issue
5. Reversal of negative tenure decisions
5:00 Adjournment
Next SACUA Meeting: August 24, 2015
Minutes of 17 August 2015 SACUA
Circulated 1 October 2015
Re-circulated 4 October 2015
Approved 5 October 2015
Page 6 of 6