Academic Computing Policy Advisory Committee

Minutes of February 16, 2011

  • In Attendance: Blood, Branthoover, Fortushniak, Giever, Kornfeld, T. McDevitt, McElroy, McGowan, Mocek, O'Neil, Onyett, Pagnucci, Pankaj, Powers, Scandrett, D. Smith, Yuhas.
  • Excused: Balint, Brzycki, Lenze, P. McDevitt, , J.B. Smith, Yost.
  • Absent: Asamoah, Dadson, Gruber, Janosko, Kemp, Nelson, Papakie, SherwoodVanWieren.
  • Guests: Cunningham, Defelice.

Proceedings of the Meeting

  • Approval of Minutes
    • December 15, 2010 Meeting - The December 15, 2010 minutes were approved with a change indicating that T. McDevitt was excused, rather than absent (M/S Giever/Pagnucci).
    • January 19, 2011 Meeting - The January 19, 2011 minutes were unofficial, since there wasn't a quorum.
  • Financial Report
    • The ACPAC balance is currently 12,804.92
  • Announcements
    • Ivan Fortushniak is a new ACPAC representative for the College of Fine Arts.
  • Standing Reports:
    • CIO office (Balint and Cunningham)
      • D2L Training - 17 faculty and some IT Support staff will be attending the initial D2L training February 22-25. The training will be provided by D2L trainers. Beginning March 14th, D2L workshops will be offered by the 亚色影库 IT staff.
      • Moodle to D2L Migration Utility - D2L still has not indicated when they will begin work on a migration utility to help with the transfer of content from Moodle to D2L.
      • Windows7 and Office2010 upgrades - Some colleges have started upgrading faculty and staff computers as well as classroom and lab computers to Windows7 and Office2010. All computers should be converted before the beginning of the fall 2011 semester.
      • Recommendations regarding Moodle and D2L - Bill sent a response to ACPAC members last week, and there is no update since then from the administration.
    • Student Operations Group (Pankaj)
      • There will be a major Banner update starting at 6 pm Friday, March 11 that is anticipated to be completed by 6 pm Sunday, March 13.
    • Online Learning Subcommittee (Brzycki)
      • Brzycki could not attend the ACPAC meeting, so several members of OLC discussed issues from OLC that have come up in recent weeks.
      • Moodle - There continues to be a need for the administration to provide a concrete commitment regarding Moodle, at least through 2011-12 so faculty can plan ahead. Cunningham indicated, as long as there isn't a migration tool from D2L, there isn't any pressure to change over to D2L immediately. For new faculty to distance learning, the training will be for D2L. IT Support will still support and provide help (not workshops) for Moodle. One-on-one help will continue. The Moodle status can be found at .
      • Content Storage on Other Server - OLC has recommended that a server be provided for storage of content separate from any learning management system. Yuhas discussed the potential use of a version of Equella that could be hosted locally.
      • GOPI (Graduate Online Program Initiative) timeline - The development of the timeline is in progress (12 month timeline). The timeline is focused on the three programs that were selected for the initial development cycle. This summer, IT Support will be assisting with the development of the courses in D2L.
      • Winter Session Enrollment - OLC is still waiting for final enrollment numbers and also waiting for the results of the survey that was conducted. There is interest in finding out about attrition rates for winter session.
      • Online Orientation to Distance Education Courses - OLC is looking at ways to assist students with orientation regarding online courses.
    • Distance Learning Committees
      • A memo was written by Steven Anspacher regarding concerns he has about the number of committees that deal with issues related to distance learning. In the discussion, there were concerns addressed regarding undermining the role of ACPAC and ACPAC action teams and subcommittees. Yuhas said that there was discussion with Anspacher about possibly reforming DEPWG and having it report to Anspacher.
  • Reports from the Action Teams:
    • Optical Test Scoring (McElroy)
      • The old scanner broke down and a new scanner was implemented with the old software and is running fine. There is a meeting of the Optical Test Scoring team this Friday, February 18 regarding a new submission process that will be more user-friendly. The 20 top users in Spring 2010 will be asked to participate in a limited test run on the new system so that any problems can be worked out before going live for the entire university with the new system. A procedure for submission of exams from the branch campuses is also being developed.
  • New Business:
    • CHHS Tech committee questions to ACPAC - McElroy received an email from Brzycki regarding projects:
    • Faculty PC - Is the replacement schedule still every three years? Currently the schedule has not changed, but is being discussed by several groups.
    • Student Pictures on Class Rosters - It is a prioritized project in IT Services. They are currently in process working on it. They are able to get copies of the pictures from the CoOp. They are now trying to come up with an appropriate solution to provide the pictures for each class.
    • Wait List Project Status - specifically that is the Registrar responsibility and needs to be referred to him. There is a feature that has been activated in Banner but is not in use yet. Pankaj will take the issue to the Registrar.
    • Degreeworks - Academic Affairs is arranging for a consultant for the Degreeworks product. The implementation process will begin in April, but Cunningham is not sure how long the process will take.
    • Web-Based Signup for Advising Appointments - Yuhas will check into what is needed. Moodle does have non-instructional capabilities, so that capability might provide a solution. Yost had brought this issue in the past.
    • Replacement for Webcal - IMail has calendaring capability linked with CommunigatePro, and Thunderbird has a calendar plug-in also. However, it does not have the same functionality as our current Oracle system has. The Oracle system can also link calendars with smart phones using NotifyLink. IT Support is currently evaluating options and trying to identify a product that will meet all of the needs.
  • Old Business:
    • Incident at Pittsburgh East (Monroeville) - Branthoover discussed the fact that on the first day of spring semester, none of faculty computers were working. She indicated that there was a good meeting last Thursday with IT Support, and she feels that now there is a better understanding of the needs of Penn Center and IT Support has developed some new processes for Penn Center to help in the future.
    • ACPAC Innovation Funds Competition - With limited funds and spending guidelines, we have modified the previous ACPAC guidelines. The deadline for submission of proposals will be 3/31/2011. There will not be a set amount per college, but instead there will be a maximum of 6 projects with a limit of $1,500 in category #1 for conference travel, scholarly activities, etc. (ACPAC funds), and a maximum of 6 projects with a limit of $3,500 in category #2 that must be for hardware, software, and certain types of services (Tech Fee funded). Colleges will still rank the proposals and forward them to ACPAC for evaluation and selection for funding by ACPAC. McElroy sent out an email with information and guidelines regarding the ACPAC Innovation Funds availability. Recommendations from the proposal review committee will be made at the April 20 ACPAC meeting so that ACPAC can make a decision at that meeting on the proposals to be awarded.
  • Other Business:
    • Dave Smith will be going to conference where he will be investigating more about interactive boards, and he will hold a debriefing when he returns.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:10 PM.

Future Meeting Dates:

  • March 16, 2011
  • April 20, 2011
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