Staff Forum Meeting

WCU Staff Forum Meeting Minutes

Hinds University Center – Cardinal Room

August 18, 2004, 8:30 – 10:30 a.m.

Present: Dawne Coward, Linda Beja, Terry Riouff, Marvin Bumgarner, Ronnie Deitz, Michele Sutton, Bill Studenc, Lisa Frady, William Frady, Debbie Justice, Keith Ashe, Ronnie Amster, Julie Walters-Steele, Alicia Estes, Irene Welch, Larry Hammer

Non-Members Present: Jeanne Kovin, Gloria Rogers, Kathy Wong

Absent: Cory Causby, Clifton Fisher, Glenna Young, Scott Powell

Guest: Tom Franke

Members and guests were welcomed and the meeting was called to order by Keith Ashe.

Approval of Agenda: The agenda for today’s meeting was approved.

Approval of Minutes: The minutes from July 8, 2004, meeting were approved.

Guest Speaker: Keith introduced Dr. Tom Franke, University CIO, as today’s guest speaker.

Dr. Franke distributed a handout highlighting IT Division initiatives for Fall 2004. He briefly reviewed several of these that in some way directly impact the staff.

 Student messaging and email password expiration plan – The sending emails to students will now be handled by Donna Welch in the Office of Student Affairs (this was previously handled by IT Services personnel). The option now exists to send emails to certain groups when the need arises, i.e. emails can be sent to graduate students only, undergraduate students only, freshmen only, etc.

 New account creation process for faculty and staff – A system has been developed whereby new employees can request an email account over the web using a form that can be downloaded. New employees’ supervisors will approve email access and the account will be created within two days. FRS, SIS, etc. will still need to be channeled through the normal process as these accounts require approval at various departmental levels. The idea is to have this in effect by the beginning of Fall semester.

 Firewall – The firewall is a hardware device that will protect our network by blocking malicious data from entering the system. This will be in effect as soon after the start of Fall semester as possible.

 Pay for Print – Currently, several locations exist where students may print documents at no charge; however, beginning October 18 students will be required to pay for printing their documents.

 Banner – A new fee was authorized by the UNC Board of Governors providing for the implementation of Banner, a software package that will replace our current SCT software. Banner will go on-line in the Advancement Office sometime this Fall and will go on-line for the financial systems next Summer.

 Safe Access for ResNet – Last year we experienced major problems with viruses in the ResNet system, and these viruses caused problems for everyone across campus. During the past year, Dr. Franke has issue a challenge to the IT Networking Department to have a system in place by Fall 2004 that will prevent this problem from happening again. The product chosen to tackle this issue is “Safe Access”.

 IT Advisory Councils – Three new councils have been formed within the Division of IT. The Educational Technologies Advisory Council will oversee the planning, etc. for computer labs. The Administrative Systems Advisory Council will deal with issues related to business systems and the addition of new systems. Finally, the University IT Advisory Council will deal with issues that are campus-wide, i.e. policies, etc.

 MERLOT – A consortium of universities has combined efforts to collect computer-based instructional systems. The MERLOT software, however, actually resides on our campus.

 WIMBA – This is a tool within WebCT that allows folks to communicate by voice. As an