Provost’s Academic Computing Advisory Committee
Minutes for February 6, 2009
February 6, 2009 PACAC Agenda
1. Webcasting software update – Angie Golden
2. Budget impacts
a. Information Technology Services – John Campbell
b. e-Learning Center – Don Carter
c. Cline Library – Jill Koelling
3. Open source and outsourcing strategies – Angie Golden
4. PACAC guidelines for sustainable budgets – Angie Golden
5. e-Learning Center Advisory Committee – Don Carter
Meeting Minutes
Attending: Robert Alban, Kris Andersen, John Campbell, Don Carter, Joe Collentine, Rodrigo
De Toledo, Eck Doerry, John Eastwood, Fred Estrella, Angie Golden, Jill Koelling, Marc Lord,
Casey Machula, Georgia Michalicek, Pattie Odgers, Lori Poloni-Staudinger, Jeff Rhode, Chih
Tu.
Webcasting software update
Angie Golden publicly thanked the subcommittee members who worked on the webcasting
report for PACAC. She said, however, the final decision did not follow the report
recommendation. Due to the anticipated eleven million dollar budget cut for the university, it
became clear that they could not walk into the Provost’s office with a request for $75,000.
She said the report highlighted the importance of a webcasting tool that would be as feature-rich
as the Elluminate product, but it was noted that the campus Office Communication Server (OCS)
license includes a license for the Microsoft Live Meeting webcasting software. Therefore, they
recommended to the Provost that the campus use Live Meeting with the caveat that Elluminate
will still need to be used by those faculty who make use of its higher-end tools. The Provost’s
Office agreed with this recommendation.
John Campbell stated the Live Meeting 2.0 software is evolving much faster than he thought it
would and would now become part of the OCS pilot being conducted by Information
Technology Services (ITS) which is investigating the use of such features as voicemail and a
secure instant messaging tool for the campus. He said ITS is getting a grant to fund part of the
pilot. Fred Estrella said the OCS package was used to implement the Microsoft Outlook email
system, and Live Meeting fits into his plan to provide unified communications to the campus. In
addition, Fred has authority from the President to move some funding for software into the
Student Information Technology (IT) Fee fund, and he will move the cost for Elluminate from
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Minutes for February 6, 2009
the e-Learning Center’s budget to that fund. Live Meeting will be up by summer and ready for
faculty to pilot in the fall.
John informed PACAC that Live Meeting does not have breakout rooms. However, the
webcasting system could be viewed as a hybrid, using both products, with a little bit of
management for scheduling the 100-seat license for Elluminate. Marc Lord said Distance
Learning Services (DLS) is currently using video conferencing but is hoping to move to web
conferencing, and is currently looking at all the different software they are using due to budget
cuts. He said they would prefer a webcasting product with the capability to embed asynchronous
video, if possible. Don Carter said the university spent close to six million dollars on travel in
FY07 and web conferencing could replace some of that.
Eck Doerry asked whether DLS sites will be closed with some of those courses being taught on
the web. Fred Estrella said the sites that are being discussed for closure are ones that don’t really
have a lot of students, and the cost savings to the university would be in buildings and staff at
those sites.
Angie said she found value in the subcommittee’s report because it looked at various products
and not just one. She shared that Karen Pugliesi said the campus had to have a web conferencing
tool. It makes a difference to students who then do not have to drive for an hour to get to campus.
She said the report was well-received by the Provost’s Office.
Budget impacts
Information Technology Services
John Campbell reported that software licenses go up in cost every year. He said some of the
things ITS has done so far to reduce operating costs include:
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Given up four positions permanently and frozen five vacancies
Taken email off Jan and currently moving the remaining Jan services from a large Sun
system to a virtualized Linux environment
Moving Z: drive files to the H: drive to stop duplication of services
Moving Dana services to virtualized Linux environment after email is moved off Dana to
reduce number of machines supported and save a large Dana maintenance bill in FY10
Working on getting thin clients in computer labs
Moving some student-related licensing costs into IT Fee
Improved cooling efficiency in machine room to save cost to university
Exploring open source strategy for all existing services
o Already rely on Linux, Samba, Apache, Tomcat, Sakai, Catci, CUPs, and
Subversion
o Looking at Alfresco, Moodle, Pentaho, and Xen
Outsourcing – so far limited to Google Email for students and iTunes U for media
streaming of course content
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Fred Estrella said ITS plans to close twelve residence hall computer labs that are in older
buildings. He reported that ninety percent of students who live in the residence halls bring their
own computers to campus. Residence Life, his state budget, and the IT Fee have been supporting
these labs. He plans to leave a few stations with thin clients, and Residence Life will need to
absorb the cost for the thin clients while ITS helps support them. He shared that the thin clients
are good for seven to eight years before they need to be replaced. A printing device will also be
made available in residence halls, and printing will be charged back to the student. John
Campbell said the printing service is one that has been made available to colleges also.
In addition, Fred reported ITS will be cutting nine modem pools in the larger metropolitan areas.
He said the rest of the modem pools are supported by DLS. Marc Lord said DLS will probably
cut their modem pools, too. Fred offered to share usage statistics for the modems and said
turning them off will save ITS $130,000. He said modems are an outdated technology that needs
to go. This will happen in conjunction with the FY10 budget cuts.
e-Learning Center
Don Carter reported that his budget, which is tied to month-to-month state sales tax revenue, had
already been cut twenty-five percent this fiscal year. He plans to replace the TurnItIn software
product with a built-in Blackboard tool and an in-house program being developed for grading.
The cost savings will be $45,000. However, the Respondus quiz-making tool will be maintained
at a cost of four to five thousand dollars per year.
Faculty mini-grants will zero out next year, and the faculty fellows mentor program will be gone.
He said there are faculty lines that are still paid out of the e-Learning Center’s budget and they
will also be eliminated next year. He currently pays for ENG 105 graduate assistants and that
will be taken on by the English Department.
He will also need to scale back the e-Learning Institute he hosts in May this year. The institute
will focus on being effective and efficient. Workshops will include information on how to teach
larger classes, or put more music materials online, for instance.
However, even with all these cuts, he is still looking at a shortfall. He said the e-Learning Center
will close the week of spring break and his staff will take time off without pay. He shared that
seventy percent of his budget is salary, and half of his staff have volunteered to take three to four
weeks without pay by the end of FY09 to help avoid layoffs. He has also found it necessary to
cut most of their student workers, but plans to maintain the Faculty Help Line they manned
which takes anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 calls per year.
His hope is to maintain all staff next year. He said that he expects they will need to maintain a
normal workload with fewer hours. They have already received requests for the development of
forty-five online courses from DLS for fall semester. He will also increase the number of online
tutorials that are available, and is working on a plan to consolidate support staff with other areas
that fall under the Provost. In fact, the workload is up since Gateway will use e-Learning staff for
Previews support.
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Don’s area is also now responsible for online course evaluations, and he continues to work on
strategies for increasing participation. Eck Doerry said he attached a participation grade in his
syllabus to convince students to do course evaluations. The students get a receipt they can turn
into their professor when they go to the online course evaluation. It does not guarantee they have
taken the evaluation, but acknowledges they had the opportunity to take it. However, the number
of students who completed evaluations went up under this strategy.
John Campbell recommended that faculty speak with their Dean first before giving partial credit.
Fred Estrella said ITS could even put something in PeopleSoft to hold grades for four weeks, for
instance, for students who do not take their course evaluations if the Provost approved it. Don
asked if this discussion was something which PACAC wishes to get involved in, and Angie
Golden said to include it on the next PACAC agenda.
Cline Library
Jill Koelling reported the library has lost five positions and has four frozen vacancies. One was
the library’s Technology Services Coordinator position, so the Library Technology Services area
now reports to her.
She said the library is no longer buying books or media. However, if requests come in
specifically from faculty for a course, they will buy them.
They did a complete computer refresh in FY08 in the library and upgraded staff and student
computers. They will probably not be able to maintain a four-year refresh cycle, though. Fred
Estrella said with a four-year time-frame, ITS should have the infrastructure available for thin
clients at the library, but they would need to look at the back-end server load.
Jill said the library would like to do more around technology in group study rooms and having
thin clients would help. She shared that the library used monies from the Innovation Fund
Foundation to create a podcasting study room that will be open next week. It is the first attempt
to provide digital production capabilities for students.
She also reported that the library has forty laptops that were purchased with the IT Fee that they
loan to students in the library, and she was not sure how they’ll do the funding for replacements
in the future. Fred explained that the IT Fee, which was originally used for projects such as those
funded in the library, was turned over to moving the campus to wireless, but that project will be
complete this year. He and the President are now looking at moving other IT services to the IT
Fee account. He said there is still an effort to increase the fee to students; if this occurs, it would
not be out of the question for the library to come back and request funding for laptops again. He
said the Virtual Lab is funded that way.
The IT Fee is a viable funding revenue source that is not touched by the legislature, and with
enrollment going up, the fund increases. Fred said we can do more things for students if we
increase the fee, and it can help us get through this difficult budget time. Other campuses charge
much higher fees; the IT Fee at NAU is only $3/credit hour and is capped at $36/semester or
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$72/year. Jill said the library uses the IT Fee to pay for the RefWorks software and they would
not be able to pay for it otherwise.
Jill continued by informing the committee that electronic resources in the library will also be cut
in FY10. Librarians will be working with all the colleges. Where there are low numbers of use,
they will look at why, but they will not go away automatically. Contracts and licenses shared
with other universities will be off the table for cuts since it would be too difficult to pull out of
these agreements. The library is also committed to providing a media streaming service. They
currently support thirty classes and it continues to grow. They do their best to find the resource
requested if it is already streamed online before they do the work to stream it themselves.
In response to a question about the future of stacks in the library, Jill noted the library already
hardly buys any physical media of any kind. She stated if the library had access in the future to
online resources that they currently have in stacks, they would turn the stacks into user space.
She said more student/people space is what’s needed and the library is absolutely thinking in that
direction.
Open source and outsourcing strategies
Angie Golden said this topic had already been touched on in other conversations today by John
Campbell and Fred Estrella. John said he would like to begin a conversation about looking at
options in addition to Blackboard for a campus Learning Management System. He will post to
the PACAC listserv to get feedback on that.
PACAC guidelines for sustainable budgets
Angie Golden said even though budgets are being cut, we still need to provide for sustainable
technology resources and software. She would like to form a subcommittee to determine what
that sustainability looks like to the campus and write a PACAC recommendation. This work
would be similar to the work done by PACAC on the Learning Spaces Report. Angie said
volunteers will be needed to serve on the subcommittee. Jill Koelling and Robert Alban
volunteered.
e-Learning Center Advisory Committee
Don Carter explained that the e-Learning Center has had a standing committee without much
activity. However, it’s now time for him to develop a new e-Learning business plan for
authorization in 2011, and he would like to have a PACAC member volunteer to serve on it. He
said some of the work would include rethinking how students access courses, and how and when
students see things. He said he already has a representative from each college, John Campbell is
on the committee, and someone from the Faculty Development Office and the Chairs Council are
on the committee. Angie Golden said she would volunteer if there were no other volunteers from
PACAC.
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Other business
Robert Alban shared some ways he had found to keep costs down in his department as follows:
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Student workers pay to do course internships and receive grades for their work
All staff and faculty computers are certified refurbished from Dell
o Come with 3-year warranty
o Can’t find large numbers, but get the latest models
o Saved around $50,000 in the past year
Robert also asked about key serving software applications. John Campbell said ITS does key
serve applications for the academic image, and he is willing to talk about a strategy for doing it
enterprise-wide. John added that sometimes funding software applications is difficult. He said
the only way ITS can pay for the SPSS software application is to charge back to colleges that use
it, and that sometimes prevents participation.
Robert said he would like to buy twenty licenses for CS4 and would like ITS to key serve it.
John said he would be glad to talk to him about it, but cautioned that key serving has some
overhead costs.
Robert said students will be creating online advertising for the college that will target future
students by pounding the internet with thousands of YouTube videos. John asked if he was
familiar with the online campus magazine called PLAID WEEKLY, and suggested he contact
the advisor/editor, Derek Hansen, Marketing Specialist in Enrollment Management and Student
Affairs at 3-6161.
Fred Estrella advised PACAC that ITS will need to increase internet bandwidth once again. He
said the campus is bursting up to 400 mbps so often that ITS has been getting charged extra. He
reminded members that moving more things to the internet creates additional costs to his
organization. He also mentioned that many areas are cutting IT positions and warned that
departments should not assume that ITS can take on extra work. He recommended they talk to
him first.
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