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Academic
Computing Steering Committee
(AcCSC) Minutes of Meetings: Present: Boyer, Cossey, Keller, Klein, Sener, Smith, Traver
Review of last meeting's minutes 1. Web Server Policy. Dave C. announced that effective immediately all students (and soon faculty and staff) running web servers will be required to register with ITS. This will better enable ITS to protect the integrity of the campus network. Server capability will be disabled on Friday afternoon for all except registered servers. 2. Internet Connection. We discussed the recent problems that Verizon has had in keeping our internet connection up. We agreed that a reliable connection is an essential part of our business these days. Faculty and students rely on it for teaching and research; all the more so now that we have increasing use of Blackboard, including the GMI distance learning program. Equally important, potential students and faculty learn about the College through its web site. An unreliable connection could cost us good candidates for both pools. ITS has clearly expressed our concerns to Verizon, and we need to further explore how we can get better service. 3. CS Lab. Dave C. reported that between CS, the Dean of Engineering, ITS, and Dwight W. money has been assembled to equip the new CS lab in Olin 110 with 18 new NetVista computers. NWSE 205 will also be upgraded with new computers. Cherrice T. offered to relieve ITS with eight or nine of the Pentium II-300 machines coming out of 205 for one of her labs. 4. Web report. Tom S. discussed recent upgrades to the College website, including a new and improved online tour. The new tour includes new facilities, a better map, and aerial views of campus. The web office staff is also helping to convert web content to the current standard College template. We noted with some regret that Netscape and IE seem to be getting further and further apart in behaving similarly. While we will not yet advertise the fact, the College web site does seem to work better (load faster) in IE. Doug K. is continuing to survey Departments to discover who has been assigned responsibility. To date about two-thirds of departments and programs have reported. Several have asked for help. Diane K suggested that U*STAR students could be a source of assistance. 5. Curricular initiatives. Doug K wanted the Steering Committee to be aware of several curricular initiatives being discussed, all somewhat related to extending the IVDS (international virtual design studio) concept into new areas. Performing Arts is exploring (with Engineering) the possibility of using teleconferencing in arts teaching and production; Modern Languages is eager to use technology to help better prepare students planning to go on terms abroad, and to help returning students preserve their language and cultural awareness developed during the term. An example is the Union-India research project conducted last year. 6. Notebook Policy. Click here for our draft notebook policy from last February. Click here to see Sept. 2001 revisions. Regarding insurance, we seem to have reached the position that College-owned notebook computers fall under the general College policy, with $1,000 deductibles. If a College notebook is lost, damaged, or stolen, the person to whom it was assigned is liable for the deductible. It is up to that person's Department to decide what share of the deductible might be covered by the Department. Several
policy issues remain: Regarding (1), it seems fair that if the notebook user leaves the College within 3 years, and has spent personal money, the College will reimburse on some pro-rated basis (e.g. using straight-line 36 month depreciation). Regarding (2), we did not resolve the circumstances (if any) that a notebook user should be able to purchase it. One suggestion was simply to say no. Another suggestion was to allow purchase after 3 years for a percentage (25% or 30%) of the original College contribution. We will revisit these two questions next week. The meeting adjourned at 2:20 Next meeting: September 13, 2001, 1:30, Steinmetz 237 |
© 2001 Union College, Schenectady, New York |
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