Minutes of the Instructional Technology Committee, November 4, 2003
The meeting began at 11:00 .
Members present: Betsy Smith (chair), Frances Collins, George Crandell, Don Cunningham, Tim Dykstal, Jeremy Downes, Jamie Marchant, Contance Relihan, Isabelle Thompson, John Campbell, and Sam Singer
Bryan Taylor Information Technology Specialists for the College of Liberal Arts also attended.
Announcements by the Committee Chair
• A text reader has been installed on the black machine in HC 8011.
• Those faculty who requested upgraded versions of Corel WordPerfect and Adobe now have them installed on their machines.
• A worm virus got on the machines in the English Center and caused some problems. Most of the problems have been eliminated.
Guest Presenter—Bryan Taylor
Taylor briefed the committee on several changes made or being made on, or planned for, the third floor of Haley Center :
• The “TEC (technology enhanced classrooms) rooms” have had upgrades made—now all the rooms have new optical cameras and are now configured the same.
• The “Haley Center Classroom Consolidation Plan,” which consists primarily of making large rooms out of smaller ones and increasing the number of TEC rooms, is being implemented. Plans call for several classrooms to have 32 to 38 seats and several to have 41 to 50 seats. All will be tech rooms. The conversions are scheduled to be done in summer 2004.
• The 3100 quadrant of Haley Center is designated as the location for TEC rooms for the Department of English. There should be 6 or 7 such rooms.
• The Department of English will have a third computer classroom—HC 3130.
• Seminar rooms HC 3106 and HC 3110 will remain as seminar rooms and will be equipped as TEC rooms. The College of Education will have priority for scheduling HC 3106 because it is funding the equipment for the room. Either HC 3110 or HC 3198 will become another TEC room-seminar room. The conversions are scheduled to be done in summer 2004.
• HC 3223 is the College of Liberal Arts ’ distant education room.
The Proposed IT Budget for Projects in 2003-2004
Betsy presented the draft of a proposal to the College of Liberal Arts to use funds from the CLA Student Technology Fee to support four major projects: creating HC 3130 as a computer-mediated writing classroom, upgrading HC 3143, purchasing computers for faculty using instructional technology with students, and continuing the contract with Digital Repair. There was some discussion—mostly questions—and Betsy invited further comments from committee members as the proposal develops.
Jennifer Campbell’s Request of Computer Classrooms, Spring 2004
Campbell ’s request to reserve HC 3116 and 3143 for dissertation research in spring 2004 was distributed and discussed. There were concerns about how much this request would affect instruction in several courses, and it was suggested that Campbell (1) provide committee members with copies of her research proposal so we can determine what she is planning to do and the kind of research she will be doing and (2) keep the committee members informed of the status of her Internal Review Board (IRB) proposal to AU’s Office of Human Subjects Research. The committee also indicated, though, that if feasible, it should support dissertation research.
Other Matters
Several other items were discussed, ranging from a complaint about the inability for faculty members to distribute email message to the entire department faculty to the need for volunteers to help with scheduling TEC room assignments for spring 2004 to whether to continue having assessment materials on the department website.
With the announcement that the next scheduled meeting isTuesday, 2 December, the meeting adjourned at 12:20.
Submitted by Don Cunningham, Professor of English
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Last updated November 6, 2003