University Technology Committee

University Technology Committee MINUTES September 12, 2011

Members Present: Len Roberson (Vice Chair), Scott Bennett, Dale Clifford, Marsha Lupi, Gerald Merckel, Jim Owen, Deb Miller, Marianne Roberts, Bruce Kavan, Diana Tanner, Lauren Newton, Tom VanSchoor

Others Present: Jeff Durfee, Kathy Hughes, Steve Lyon, Dmitriy Bond, James George, Nicholas Eastham

1. August Minutes  No corrections or additions to the August minutes, and they will stand as submitted.

2. Announcements  Marsha Lupi introduced Nicholas Eastham as the new coordinator of the Educational Technology Center. Nicholas is from the University of Northern Colorado.

3. Report: Distance Learning Committee – Len Roberson  The DLC will meet the third Friday of every month at 11:30 starting on September 16.

4. Report: Campus Technology Committee – Lauren Newton  The CTC will meet on Wednesday, September 14 in the Library at 1:00.

5. Report: Blackboard - Deb Miller  There was a software upgrade in August that was very successful with very few bugs. They went to Service Pack 6 and came up a few days earlier than planned.  Two major projects for this year are: o Hardware upgrade (should happen in December) which is re- architecting the whole Blackboard array of servers o Learning Objects 4, the third party software for blogs, wiki, and podcasts. It will move to an all-hosted, and a number of new features will be added. They plan to pilot it this spring, put it on a test server this fall, and have tentative plans to upgrade it during the May maintenance window.  User Services has built out its online Bb resources for students. See the Bb Service page: http://www.unf.edu/anf/its/services/Blackboard.aspx 6. Report: IT Security Action Team – Jeff Durfee  IT Security Action Team met once over the summer using Illuminate which was successful. They will start meeting again in a week.  Dale Clifford commented that she believes that the local administrative rights system is still not working and needs to be improved. She just wanted to bring this up since this is her last meeting with the UTC. Marsha Lupi wanted to know about seeing the comments if people were not approved. Her question is: Are the comments between professor and committee or are comments shared with this committee? Jeff answered that direct communication would be between review committee and applicant. In this case, the existing version does not allow that communication. They do enter a lot of detail if it has been denied, but it is not set up to go back to the applicant. The next meeting will show a new version of the software that will hopefully address some of the shortcomings they have seen. Marsha asked if it was possible for the faculty representative to get the comments as well. Jeff answered that everyone on the review board would see the comments. Dale stated that everyone on the UTC committee should know who the administrative representative and the faculty representatives are. Len brought up that associate deans should be copied and included in the exchange. Len will touch base with Lance on this issue.

7. Report: Internet Presence Committee – Scott Bennett  COAS, from the CMS prospective, is complete along with Coggin. Brooks should be started soon. Student Affairs is pretty much done other than Housing and Recreation which have been postponed.

8. Report: IT Reorganization Task Force – Scott Bennett  Since the departure of Fred Sudler, they are looking at IT in the next 3 – 5 years. There will be a major shift in leadership with several people retiring within that time. There were some IT initiatives both with Len in his capacity and DL. So, this was a good time to look at how IT is organized within the community and campus. A committee was formed consisting of Scott, Lance, Len, Newton Jackson, Rick Powell, Janet Owen, and two external people: Mike Dieckmann, the CIO of UWF and Liz Pierce, a representative with a corporate background. The committee met once last month and has made some assignments to other staff members who are doing some research. The next meeting is on September 22, 2011 and will continue the discussion. The goal is making recommendations to deliver to Shari and the Provost. Scott suggested that if anyone in the colleges would like to meet with Scott, Len or Newton, feel free to contact any of them. Hopefully, by the end of the semester there will be a deliverable to give back to the groups. It was suggested to have someone from the College of Business join the committee. 9. New Business  None

Meeting adjourned at 10:20 a.m. The next meeting will be held on October 10, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. in the Student Union 58W/Room 3804.