Attending: Chris Simpson (SOC), Joseph Mortati ( Kogod), Brian Yates (CAS/Psych), Terry Fernandez (OIT), Lucas Regner (CTRL)
Minutes: Alayne Mundt (Library)

Agenda

Approval of minutes of past meetings
Progress reports on agreed upon focus areas
2 year budget cycle discussion: amend / approve our recommendations and lending our support as needed
Report from the Senate’s Social Media Committee and joint meeting with Senate’s Budget & Benefits
CIS operations: decide on meeting days/times Spring 2015

Notes

Approval of November’s meeting minutes (Approved)

Progress reports on focus areas:
-Chris reported on the most recent ATSC meeting.:
-Discussion of Collaborate: Is there an alternative to it? There is no funding for a substantial upgrade for it in this budget cycle.
-ATSC may come up with a packet for professors that explains possible choices that can be used in Collaborate (# of people in sessions, which browser to use, etc.) for faculty to make informed choices to use Collaborate more efficiently.
-Terry reported that OIT has been asked to find 2-3% budget savings.
-Social Media Committee update:
-It was reported that many people wanted to attend the meeting, but there was confusion about the meeting time, hence few people actually made it to the meeting. Issues discussed:
-Those who can’t attend meetings can send replacements
-Use of Gmail
-Social media policy outside the classroom
-Student/faculty social media interactions
-Brian will find more information on future meeting times.

2 Year budget cycle discussion:
-Chris reported that discussions are still underway until February. The main teaching units have submitted proposals. The next step is for the president’s cabinet to make decisions. Our committee’s participation has ended. Chris reported that our committee has done better than in previous years to provide input and support for ATSC and the library: we came up with written recommendations in that we made recommendations for classroom upgrades based on ATSC’s inventory of classrooms.
Library/ATSC initatives of cash allocations for support of the weakest classrooms. Our recommendation went back to the Library/ATSC/OIT.
-There was a question of whether we are committed to Blackboard for the next two year cycle? Yes. It was suggested that our committee may suggest alternative LMS’s. They don’t have to fit into the same mold (e.g. grad vs. undergrad have different needs). Lucas reported that CTRL has been working with some faculty using WordPress customizations for some alternative LMS functions for individual courses. CTRL provides support in terms of setup, but it does require more responsibility on the part of the faculty member/user. Our committee can push for regular, easily accessible presence for faculty to learn about these types of services, ways of staying updated, etc.
-The Registrar keeps and updates the inventory of classroom technology. ATSC is the informal focal point for doing the inventory. Different schools/departments have different levels of control of classrooms. Some are at the school level and some are at the university level. Not just about technology, it’s also qualitative; e.g. classroom orientation to make visibility easier, etc. How does our committee move forward? Stay informed in order to play a roll. Our role is to keep track of this issue, and make sure it’s not forgotten.

Joint Meeting with Senate Budgets and Benefits Committee:
-Chris reported that he attended the joint meeting with the Budgets and Benefits Committee. They asked for our recommendation for one budget request for academic technology. Chris suggested (but not speaking officially for the rest of the committee) classroom technology support. They thought it was a good idea, but this does not necessarily turn into money, however.

CIS Operations/Progress on Spring Meetings
-Spring Semester Mondays from 10:30-11:30 works for today’s attendees, on 3rd Monday of the month in order to sidestep holidays, spring break, except for 1/19 meeting. A May meeting was added on 5/18 after classes end as a constitutive meeting for fall.

Priority projects for fall:
-Identifying an alternative email platform for faculty and staff—Google or Office 365. Our committee will have to weigh in—need recommendations from us about privacy etc. Factors in the decision include cost, whether faculty and students need to be on the same platform. Our recommendation is needed, and there are pros and cons to both.
-Classroom census of academic technology
-LMS: Go with Google, Canvas, or stay with Blackboard?
-Soft vs. hard orientation toward options/policy for Mac vs. Microsoft versions of platforms (Joseph will brief us at next meeting)
-Recommendation for best practices for options and policies for different software/platforms.
-Training for students

Attending: Alan Isaac (CAS/Economics), Brian Yates (CAS/Psychology, Amin Mohseni (Cas/Econ), Sonja Walti (SPA), Jason Fabrikant (SPExS), Joseph Mortati

Minutes by Brian Yates

Agenda

• Approval of minutes of past meetings
• Progress reports on focus agreed upon focus areas
• 2 year budget cycle discussion: amend / approve our recommendations and lending our support as needed
• Report from Senate, in particular: Social Media Committee and prepare for meeting between members of the Senate Budget & Benefits committee and CIS on Wednesday the 19th at 3:00
• Report from ATSC
• CIS operations: additional ATSC representation, someone to update and enhance our WordPress site

Discussion

• Approval of minutes from our October meeting was delayed until they are circulated for review.
• CIS decided to meet December 1, not December 15.
• Spring 2015 meetings of CIS will likely be on Mondays, likely 10:30-11:30 AM but a Doodle pool will solicit input from more members.
• Sonja solicited reports from meetings the Senate and ATSC. Sonja reported that students use CTRL for just-in-time training on basic wordprocessing, spreadsheets, and spreadsheets. She noted that Microsoft offers low-level help services, and that ATSC had considered the feasibility of purchasing these.
• Alan suggested that AU instead develop peer-help for Microsoft Office products. Students could be trained and then paid to provide assistance. (Sonja noted that the training could be tiered, with more expert students handling harder inquiries.) CIS endorsed this recommendation and encouraged its inclusion in budget discussions.
• Brian suggested that AU not favor one office suite over others. Brian also noted that Macs of all sorts have a free office suite (iWork’s Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) that works on both Windows and Mac computers, and may be easier to use as well as important to support.
• Joseph noted that the lack of a database app in the Mac suite, like Access, was the issue. Joseph also noted that the Virtual Computing Lab can be used to run all Microsoft Office suite programs.
• Joseph noted that the Business School had implemented a “soft” requirement for all students to have access to the Microsoft Office suite including Access, and will be implementing a hard requirement for this suite in the Spring of 2015. He also noted that other universities, including George Mason, have formed partnerships with Microsoft to give students free or low-cost access to Microsoft’s Access, Excel, Project, and Visio.
• Sonja announced that, according to Mike Pillier, an improved version of Collaborate will be part of the upcoming Blackboard upgrade and may obviate the need to use Adobe Connect.
• Progress report on priorities. Amin said progress was being made on placing student photos on Blackboard for access by faculty. Amin said that faculty websites were being worked on my campus marketing, but that there is as yet no single standard as to what should be on faculty website. OIT will have a new, more customizable template for faculty websites that will not require the need for .html coding for tight control over the website. Alan suggested the faculty templates should pull data from FARS.
• Brian noted that there was there would be outages of Blackboard 12/19 through 12/22, and that the AU network would be down for maintenance Friday 11/21 10 PM through 11/22 8 AM, and that faculty, staff, and students might find these outages inconvenient.

A meeting of the Computer and Information Systems (CIS) Committee was held on Monday, October 20, 2014 at 12:00 PM in the Library Conference Room. Attendees were:

Name School
Nancy Davenport Library
Terry Fernandez OIT
Alan Isaac CAS
Joseph Mortati Kogod
Alayne Mundt Library
Chris Simpson SOC
Amy Taylor WCL
Sonja Walti SPA
Bryan Yates CAS/PSYCH

Chair Chris Simpson reviewed the agenda and asked that after calling for a vote to approve the May Meeting Minutes (which passed unanimously) that we adjust the agenda to focus on the following two items first:

Item 1: Library Budget Review

Nancy Davenport then briefed the committee on the Library’s priorities and prefaced it with that the Library has requested a Standard Inflationary Increase (in the 6-7% range), primarily to towards item #1 below.

1. Reserves and Journals – while some faculty members have very specific requests, negotiation and pricing should be done at the university-level and not on a journal-by-journal basis.
2. Classroom Support – there are four tiers of classroom capabilities based on audio-visual and computer support.

Nancy continued by talking about working on Open End Resource (OER), a joint effort with CTRL on reducing textbook costs. She also mentioned the Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) Lab (Anderson B16) recently opened and that an “Idea Space” that demonstrates the various types and levels of classroom technologies is also available.

Nancy went on to explain that the Provost has been consistent for the past 5 months that budgets will be “tight.” In reply, Chris recommended that CIS come up with a working list of what IT improvements we support. Alan added that while CIS can make recommendations, how will they be received given the constraints? I.e., recommendations are not made in isolation.

Item 2: CIS Wishlist

Chris Simpson briefed the committee on the status of all 19 CIS-related items on what’s referred to as the “Wishlist” (perhaps this should be referred to as an issues or items list); academic units in parentheses are those identified with the entry and committee discussion is prefaced with >>:

Student photos with rosters (OIT, CIS)

>> Chris explained that Student photos with rosters is actively being worked with an expected implementation date of end of Spring 2015 but noted that this feature was previously expected to be implemented in Fall 2014.

Accessibility management upgrade [2016] (CIS)

>> Chris called for a vote on whether CIS supports this item and it passed unanimously.

Alternatives to Blackboard Collaborate sharing platform

>> Considerable discussion followed and the issue was clarified from “Campus-wide Adobe Connect licenses” (a solution) to alternatives to Blackboard’s built-in tool called “Collaborate” (a problem statement), which has proven difficult enough to use so as to cause many faculty members to pursue other options.

While Adobe Connect is a robust platform that is used by other universities, its license fee – over $100,000 – is cost-prohibitive. Nancy explained that the University has a license for GoToMeeting that is a flat fee based on AU’s participation in the consortium. Skype and Google Hangout were also mentioned as potential, low-cost alternatives to Collaborate but faculty have a need not just for screen-sharing but also for interaction (webinar features like “raising your hand” to ask questions, etc.)

The committee finished discussion of this item by agreeing in principle that we should come up with a list of features that need to be supported by any platform (e.g., price, features, number of users, bandwidth required) rather than making recommendations on specific products. Additionally, Nancy recommended that any list of features be compared to the Library’s Statement of Principles on Information Systems to see what does or does not comply.

On a related note, this discussion spilled over to a discussion of Adobe Acrobat licenses (the full version, not the free reader) for select faculty, especially those doing research. A robust discussion of bulk licenses and who should get the money if funded – Library or CTRL? – ensued. Amy Taylor summed it up well by saying, “You cannot be a top-tier researcher without Acrobat.” This led to the question of how many one-off Acrobat licenses are there and if the total costs are close to or greater than a site license, then the University should consider consolidating them into one (because in many cases, license costs come out of research budgets).

Alan asked if the committee supports the purchase of licenses and Chris then called for a vote, which passed unanimously.

Online Learning review and updates

>> Chris Simpson then called for a vote on asking the Senate for a status update about online learning at AU, which passed unanimously.

Additional items discussed were:

Mobile/Social Media Policy: Provost is of the opinion that drafted policy isn’t strong enough (i.e., the line between use of such technologies in furthering academic goals and being seen as speaking for the University). New committee made up of representatives from all the schools. CIS should be a part of that discussion. Brian Yates will represent us in that committee.

Sonja will send around ATSC meeting days and times.

There being no other business to discuss, the meeting adjourned. The next CIS Meeting is Monday, November 17, 2014 at 12:00 PM in the Library Conference Room.

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.

Present: Chris Simpson (SOC), Alan Isaac (CAS), Brian Yates (CAS/Psych), Laura March (CTRL), Michael Jee (GLC), Nancy Davenport (Library), Sonja Walti (SPA), Craig Hyden (SIS), Monica Jackson (CAS), John Smith (WCL), Erran Carmel (KSB), Clement Ho (Library)

November minutes (Sonja)
Approved

CIS WordPress Website
Discuss what to ‘publish’ from previous site on our new WordPress site (Craig)
CIS members have no objections to just move former Listserve content to this new Wodpress site

Reports from ATSC (Craig)
ATSC meeting on e-portfolios (examples: repertoire of music students, creative writing). What should e-portfolios serve? Admin, teaching, or service-based learning? Do we need a uniform tool? Do we need a new position? Current intent is to benchmark to later reach a decision. ATSC considerations: Google’s application? (see “Digication”) Other experiments at AU. Moving forward with pedagogical and legal obligation in mind.

CIS discussion: Avoid too centralized a tool. Should be pushed into an existing position (e.g. Career Center, CTRL). Be mindful that contents of e-portfolio is students’ intellectual property. Be mindful of Google’s declared objective to data-mine the information it manages. Has to mesh with AU’s archival system. CIS to put in a vote for WordPress as an e-portfolio (using it is: Harvard, Standford, Georgetown, George Mason).
CIS Decision: Point ATSC to our discussion, considerations, and recommendation.

Report from Faculty Senate (Chris)
Rewriting of committee-faculty relations in faulty manual could be relevant to CIS.

Topic updates: library update (Nancy)
Regarding non-student facing activity to be moved off the Quad, specifically to the law school, when it moves out. This move is motivated by the following question: How can this building best service the needs of students and faculty?
The following services were identified as candidates for a move:
1)    Technical services (buys, processes, makes books available in collection). Needs: space, loading docks, elevators.
2)    Archives and special collections: few use it and those who do, will be able to
3)    Who else is moving there? Should something from the library be moved if so? (e.g. potential of SETH moving there)  library developed relevant ‘if statements’
CIS questions: Do these moves meet the underlying needs of library and affected faculty? Implications for morale? Does it affect library functioning, sense of community? Will video collection move?
Answers: Clear benefit is that more of the library on the Quad with be available to students and staff. Special collections access will be built into that model. Library is very intentional about the model and had examined models in other places. No, video collection will not be moved.

Resolution proposal
Chris proposes for CIS to adopt a resolution called “CIS Resolution on Adoption of Fair information Use Principles”; draft statement is presented to CIS in writing
Motivation: The proposal aims to be the equivalent to a privacy statement of an agency.
CIS discussion: More discussion is needed to cover it all and competently. Examples: What about emails from faculty to program directors regarding a student’s performance? What about library records of a student? Such a privacy statement could make communication about students more difficult. Students aren’t consumers. We should be more deliberate about trying to identify the harms this statement is to address.
CIS Decision: Keep the paperwork on this resolution and return to it during the Spring.

Past business: 2012-13 ATSC final report on BYOD
Monica reports back on how CIS concerns about BYOD statement were finalized in the 2012-13 ATCS report, transmitted from then chair Mary Hanson to Scott Bass on May 2, 2013 (p. 4)
Findings: CIS concerns regarding BYOD were taken into account; CIS will monitor this agenda item and check on compliance with our recommendations

By Sonja Walti

In attendance: Simpson, Yates, March, Jee, Fernandez, Jackson, Carmel, Walti, Isaac, Ho

WordPress: Laura March shows how to use our WordPress site, esp. minutes,

• Add “/wp-admin” to get to the backend
• Enter the backend by picking a username and a password (adjusts along with AU password)
• Contact the chairs for the password to access the password protected “documents”

Photo use for Blackboard: up in the Senate (this Wed, 2 pm, Butler Board Room, open)

• WLC to refer to
• Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis
• London School of Economics
• Terry: OIT very supportive, remaining question whether to do this piecemeal, along with other photo requests or whether to roll it into a broader effort of managing photos; what source of authority to use; student life has access to ID photos, Dean’s office will benefit too; will probably be implemented this academic year already.

Access to AU website

• Laura reporting, doesn’t know of a particular group
• Some current diagnostic tools one can use: wave.webaim.org (type our web address in and examine assessment); also allows you to download something into a toolbar that will help spot issues “along the way” (e.g. while updating Blackboard pages for example)
• Erran: Re compliance, how “deep” do we need to go? Laura: Would include faculty producing webpages. Terry: Not every flag would indicate we’re out of compliance. Clement: Most of the big vendors are assumed to be compliant.
• Chris at one point contacted Terry Flannery (who leads a committee monitoring, updating)
• We could forward the diagnostic to get some simple fixes made
• We could double-check that “accessibility” is included in the service contract re the new website
• Chris: Write a letter to Terry Flannery on behalf of CIS. Agreed. Chris will start (Brian, Ann, Laura, Student will take a second look) and aim to draft a letter some time before the next meeting.

Clement Ho: reporting on library activity, esp. with regard to open questions with online teaching

• Clement: effort to standardize distance education
• Alan: goal is “standard compliance” of platforms, not “standardization of platforms”, which equates to “lock-in”

ATSC, this Friday 2pm, somewhere in the Library: on E-Portfolios

• Who’ll be there this week: Monica for sure, also Erran, Clement, Chris
• Alan: our BYOD suggestions need checking on; Monica: it went forward but in different wording (trouble with VPN access for widely used scientific platform) – Monica will look for final wording

Other units

• SOC: effort to include Turnitin into Blackboard (existing policy: faculty can but are not obliged to use it)
• OIT: big initiative: end of support for Windows XP (end of spring 2014, possibly extended until August), still 1500 XP machines still in circulation, many of which can be retired (not active on the network); schools are urged to make replacement of XP machines a top priority (will bring up a message); XP will be denied a login
• Phishing: fix on our webpage to avoid phishing and divert users to replica website (direct fund deposits were diverted in such an attack)

Wrap-up

• December 13 ATSC meeting: dedicated to LMS
• Next semester’s ATCS topics (Monica will forward those to Sonja)
• Sonja will compile topics & dates we had decided on at the last meeting

By Erran Carmel

In attendance: Yates, Fernandez, Smith, Carmel, Walti, Davenport, Simpson Hayden, March, Lee

• New student rep joined
• Hayden will set up WordPress for committee
• ATSC report  on VCL, Andresen usage.
• Chris reported he will try to have CIS report to senate rather than budget comm
• Carmel will write draft proposal on photos onto Bb
• Accessibility. Some debate on whether AU is in compliance. To be discussed more. Committee will reach out to others including Cogburn.
• Davenport gave us slide show on library move.
• LMS – will be covered in December meeting