Minutes of the Electronic Technician Articulation Meeting

Minutes of the Electronic Technician Articulation Meeting April 24, 2006 DRAFT

Date: Friday April 21, 2006 Where: Thompson Rivers University TT219

Present at meeting: Terry Knudson [email protected] Greg Lambrecht [email protected] Alan Duncan [email protected] Ian Cameron [email protected] Allan Nordal [email protected] Karl Brown [email protected] Andrew Marr [email protected] Darryl Hutcheon [email protected] Ben Giudici [email protected] Ron Opp [email protected] Randy Kelly [email protected] Don Graham [email protected] Regrets: Don Noakes

Opening: Call to order at 9:00 a.m. Welcome by Darryl Hutcheon TRU. Approval of Agenda: Request for additions to the current agenda was lead by Ben Giudici. Requested that three additional items be included for discussion. 7. ELTT Programs 8. System Liaison Person for the committee. 9. LINK to Technology program. Approval of the Minutes, 2005: Discussed process for circulating minutes. Minutes need to be circulated to all members following the meeting and updated with school information. Institution Reports: Camosun: Alan Duncan UCFV: Randy Kelly BCIT: Greg Lambrecht VCC: Karl Brown CNC: Alan Nordal NIC: Andrew Marr TRU: Darryl Hutcheon Discussion: 1. A LINK program is an upgrading path for Technicians to become Technologists. The length of a LINK program should be two semesters. A review of the previous minutes on the LINK program was lead by Ben Giudici. Ben talked about the proposed third year Mechatronics at TRU being the LINK program with a specialty. Alan Duncan indicated that Camosun had a LINK in place for one year but could not get adequate funding to continue the effort. The group agreed that the student base was present to support the LINK. Action: A Letter of support for a LINK program should be drafted and distributed to the presidents of the colleges and universities in the province. Moved by Andrew Marr and seconded by Alan Duncan. * Darryl will draft a letter and circulate it to the members. 2. Listserver for members of the articulation committee. Action: Darryl will check out BCCAT or TRU and implement. 3. SUMO robot demonstration - a SUMO robot and an arena were displayed. Both Camosun and TRU run SUMO robot competitions to promote interest in Electronics - it is a useful attention getter at exhibits and schools. 4. There is a lot of student and industry interest in CISCO and CCNA training, A+ and NET+ certification - CNET appears to be the catch phrase to encompass these offerings. 5. TCOM - Wireless courses-Voice over IP courses-demand by industry for these students is very high. 6. Generally the electronics programs are not apprentice based and there appears to be a movement to remove them from the ITA division and put them under the Ministry of Advanced Education. 7. It was felt that any reduction of entry into the CORE programs this year will not be recoverable due to the funding climate. 8. The international conference at Camosun - ICETA - was discussed by Alan Duncan. The conference is May 9-12, 2006 - there was some concern about low enrollment and the members were encouraged to reference people to register and attend. 9. The Round Table Discussion: *Action Each institution to provide an email summary of their discussion to Darryl Hutcheon and he will attach it to the final Draft of the minutes. 10. A BCIT discussion on the BCIT Aeronautics program only accepting BCIT CORE students - the reason was basically the amount of documentation which had to be kept on each student to meet the record keeping of the Aeronautics industry. 11. CTAB certified Industrial Electronics program at North Island College is looking for students for the second year. BCIT indicates that it has a wait list for second year industrial electronics - it was felt that getting the students into their specialty as soon as possible would encourage enrollments in CORE. (Terry to promote transferability) 12. Promotion: It was felt that the difference between Electrical and Electronics was not made clear to prospective students. Electronics covers: telecommunications, computers, programming, manufacturing, digital hardware and software, interfaces, protocols, optical devices, networks, analog hardware, and sensors. *Action: Linkages for CORE students should be listed on a WEB site Alan Duncan will find and distribute the location of the WEB site which shows the linkages. Kelowna approached industry to make 30 second info commercials. A description of the industry was shown for 20 seconds and then a 10 second section on the level training of their employees and where they can get the training. Evidently it was effective. Industry picked up the cost of the commercials. Ron Opp recommended that the name of the two year diploma be changed to an Associate Degree. Some programs at TRU have implemented this change. No action taken. Military is looking for technicians...with a signing bonus. TELUS and SHAW are actively recruiting into an apprenticeship modeled after the program in Alberta. ACTION: a letter will be drafted by Darryl to industry to indicate actions they might take to support the electronics schools. Camosun hosts monthly open houses which appear to be effective. (Evening sessions from 7-8 PM) 13. The role of the System Liaison Person was discussed. ACTION: A request for Terry Knudson (Associate Dean at BCIT) to assume the role of SLP was moved by Alan Nordal and seconded by Allan Duncan. The vote by show of hands was unanimous. A request to make Terry the SLP will be forwarded to BCCAT. 14. A developer for an HMI, SCADA, and advanced PLC course is being sought by the Kamloops water purification plant - final course in a certification program - 20 courses in all - contact Darryl for details. 15. Simply Magic software was discussed for on-line presentations-cost~380(USD). 16. Many of the programs had enhanced CORE to cover the A+ basics. 17. The next articulation meeting will be at BCIT in April 2007.

Meeting was adjourned at 2:30 PM. Darryl Hutcheon