A meeting of the Computer and Information Systems (CIS) Committee was held on Monday, January 26, 2015 at 10:30 AM in the Library Conference 306 Room. Attendees were:
Sonja Walti (SPA), Chris Simpson (SOC), Sarah Snyder (SIS; new member), Alayne Mundt (Library), Amy Taylor (WCL), Nancy Davenport (Library), and Joseph Mortati (KSB; took minutes)
Agenda
Approval of minutes of past meeting
Senate Faculty Items Updates
Office/productivity software options
Social Media Policy
Notes
Co-Chair Sonja Walti opened the meeting by reviewing the agenda and asking for a vote to approve the December Meeting Minutes (which passed unanimously). The following topics were then discussed:
1. CIS currently has meeting scheduled on Monday, May 18, 2015, which is after graduation. There was some discussion as to the utility of a meeting after graduation as not everyone can attend but that having such a meeting during a lull in campus activity could allow greater focus and put the Committee in a good position to pick up business in Fall 2015. The agreement was to leave the meeting on the schedule for now and revisit at a later date.
Senate Faculty Updates – Co-Chair Chris Simpson then gave thorough and detailed updates on items 2-6:
2. Student Pictures on Class Rosters. Terry Fernandez (OIT) is working on this issue and the thing impeding progress is that this issue affects multiple departments (Registrar, OIT, Blackboard); there is not a funding issue, however.
3. Conflict of Time Commitment. The language surrounding this is being updated and there is an effort to improve data collection.
4. Final Exam Conflicts. The Registrar is required to notify professors about students who are scheduled for 3 final exams in the same day so that alternative arrangements can be made. While this should be doable via query, the current data structures do not support this.
5. Video Conference Management. The University is considering a replacement or augmentation of Panotpo to include both presentation and content storage capabilities. One example being considered is Kaltura (http://corp.kaltura.com/), which was recently acquired by Blackboard.
6. Remote Proctoring of Students. The requirement to remotely monitor students came to ATSC from two sources: 1) Online Courses (how do we know the person completing the assignment is actually the student or not?) and 2) Accreditation Purposes.
7. Co-Chair Joseph Mortati briefed the Committee on software options for commonly-used office/productivity tools (Word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentations). This is part of a larger Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) issue (Chris Simpson gave a historical perspective that only a few years ago there was a plethora of mobile devices and no one could have foreseen all the impacts that has had). However, regardless of BYOD and any University-wide software acquisitions/standards it’s clear that faculty would benefit from knowing what options are available (PC, Mac, Open Source) and at what price points. Joseph and Brian are co-owners of this.
8. CIS website Updates. Co-Chair Sonja Walti briefed the website (https://blogs.library.american.edu/cis/) needs to be updated with meeting times and minutes.
9. University Web Steering Committee. Sonja and Chris mentioned this body that oversees web policy in regard to Provost (Registrar activities) and Americans with Disability Act (ADA) website compliance, known as “508 Compliance” (see http://www.section508.gov/ for details).
10. Social Media Committee Policy (Provost). The Committee discussed the fact this Committed (of which CIS Member Brian Yates is a member) provides University policy in this area (see http://www.american.edu/policies/upload/Social-Media-Guidelines.pdf for details). It’s relevant to CIS because it affects language that could be used in syllabi.
11. CIS as an “Information Exchange”. The final item to be discussed was the idea that our Committee, due to its multiple roles for: liaison, assessment, oversight, and recommendations (https://blogs.library.american.edu/cis/about/) may want to consider formalizing this role (i.e., looking at the various, open issues discussed to-date and focus on a few, key ones).
There being no other business to discuss, the meeting adjourned. The next CIS Meeting is Monday, Monday, February 16, 2015 at 10:30 AM in the Library Conference Room.