Meeting Date: 2014-09-22

Recorders: Alan Isaac

Attending: Jason Fabrikant (SPEXS), Joseph Mortati (Kogod), Amy Taylor (WCL) Terry Fernandez (OIT), Brian Yates (CAS/Psych), Alan Isaac (CAS/Econ), Alayne Mundt (Library), Lucas Regner (CTRL), Chris Simpson (SOC), Amin Mohseni (CAS/Econ)

We’ll review last meeting’s minutes next time.

Introductions.

Chris gave background on “wish list” draft.

Chris opened discussion of co-chair.  He’ll attend Senate meetings.  Sonya handles agenda and meeting prep.  Third person needed to manage priorities.  Joseph volunteered.  Chris, Sonya, and Joseph were unanimously voted as co-chairs.

Jason expressed concern about email (alternatives to Lotus), and would like to see better use of Sharepoint.

Amin raised issue of keeping faculty websites updated.  Terry said there is a project request to pull publications from FARS to faculty default pages.

Amin asked about student pictures.  Chris said WCL already has this but it remains in process on campus.

Lucas raised the issue of open source textbooks.

Joseph and Chris will be “keepers” of the issues list, which Chris will post for the committee to our WordPress site.

Alan will focus on classroom allocation issues.

Amin will focus on information dissemination issues.

Brian will focus on LMS issues.

Joseph will attend the ATSC meetings.

Chris reported on the last Senate meeting.

Brian asked about the SET, suggesting it’s a measure of process rather than outcomes.

Present: Chris Simpson (SOC), Sonja Walti (SPA), Craig Hyden (SIS), Alan Isaac (CAS), Erran Carmel (KSB), Brian Yates (CAS/Psych), Michael Jee (GLC), Nancy Davenport (Library), Terry Fernandez (OIT), Alayne Mundt (Library)

Note taker: Alan

Chris reviewed today’s agenda. We skipped approval of the February minutes until next meeting.

Brian attended the LMS presentation. Asked how the LMSs handle extra credit.  Got no answers.  Rather liked Canvas.  Canvas offers pilot sites.

UMD migrated from Blackboard to Canvas last year.  Nancy said it went quite well.

Chris says the Collaborate appears to drop to the lowest speed connected device, although this seems unlikely.  In any case, meeting with audio and video on Collaborate is almost impossible.

Brian emphasized the importance of be able to choose and switch among plug-ins. In particular, being locked into Collaborate has been a problem, and people are just leaving the Blackboard environment to use e.g. Skype.

General discussion of needed LMS features emphasized:

• operating system agnostic
• browser agnostic
• device agnostic
• possibility of e-reserve integration
• support (by plugin) for high quality video conferencing

Sonja discussed ATSC being tasked with a Social Media Guide for the extended classroom.  ATSC drafted guidelines (but not a policy), Teaching and Learning with Social Media: Guidelines for Use in the Classroom.  Chris suggested that CIS should have been involved in reviewing this draft.  Alan suggested this task really belonged to CIS, even though it was an administrative initiative.

Chris discussed whether time conflict of interest raises issues relevant to CIS. Overall sense of the committee was that although the topic was important, it was not in CIS’s purview.

Chris asked about progress on accessibility in the Library.

Nancy addressed accessibility. Physical accessibility: two doors have not been accessible; those are being changes this summer.  Technological accessibility: along with Office of Campus Life, Library acquired an accessible scanner. Accessibility software: Library is working to acquire Dragon (unresolved: number of licenses).

Chris asked about accessibility issues with Library-hosted data bases (e.g., International Financial Statistics).  Nancy will look into this.

Chris raised again the issue of color-contrast choices on AU websites.  They still don’t pass basic tests.

Craig reviewed beginning of year goals: software licensing, LMS issues, and accessibility.  Student pictures on rosters proposal was a big win: OIT plans to implement this this year.  CIS also provided guidelines for what we would like to see in e-portfolios.  Craig will put an initial draft of year’s outcomes on WordPress.  Committee is urged to edit and add to this list.

Brian asked for a clarification of the MOOC ban at a future meeting.

Our next meeting is May 5.  Possible (?) meeting June 2.