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Academic
Computing Steering Committee
(AcCSC) Minutes of Meetings: Present: Batson*, Bauman, Cossey, Keller, Klein, Lesh, McFadden*, Sener, Smith, Traver*, Tredwell Review of last meeting's minutes. (Note: no meeting was held on May 2) 1. Conference Review & Reminder. Members are urged to talk up (and register for) our upcoming conference on Collaborating with Technology, May 23.
2. NITLE news. The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) has launched a new newsletter. The initial issue covers liberal education post 9/11, wireless networks, GIS software, and the Virtual German Collaborative. In other NITLE news, there are two upcoming seminars:
3. XP upgrades. ITS plans to upgrade all of its PC classrooms and labs to XP and OfficeXP this summer (for PCs) and to OS-X (for Macs). There are still some questions about whether this will make too many existing machines obsolete. 4. Intellectual Property. Tom M., Doug, and Kathryn met with the FEC last Tuesday at 4:30 and presented them with the new and improved Intellectual Property Rights policy. It was well received. The FEC was pleased that the default presumption is that intellectual property associated with courses, whether written or digital, belongs to the faculty member. Only in instances specified in the policy might the College also take an interest, and then only with a written agreement. Discussion centered on the timing of when the agreement would need to be signed. This will be left to the Intellectual Property and Patent Committee to resolve. The policy will now go to the Administration to take to the Board of Trustees. If the Board approves, it will become part of the Faculty Manual. 5. Calendar issue. Last week's minutes have been amended to add additional examples of existing events calendars online at Union. R-25 would ideally help merge all these 6. Availability of Notebook Computers. Several faculty have asked for details on the price and availability of IBM Thinkpads. Details on these computers will be mailed to all incoming students; it will be made clear that these are not required, but merely represent a good deal negotiated by Union. Added May 30: Here are the specs of the machines: for $1995 the student swill get an IBM ThinkPad Model T23 with a 3-year warranty. The completer package is as follows: Hardware:
Software:
Total Cost to Union 2002 Freshmen = $1995.00 plus tax 7. Survey of Departmental websites. (continued from last meeting)
Regarding individual and Club websites hosted by VU, VU should make sure all webmasters are aware of College rules, but need not proactively monitor all web content. Rather, it should promptly react to complaints. It should be like the phone company, providing a communication service but not eavesdropping on content unless alerted by a valid complaint. 8. Online Faculty Directory. What obstacles remain to creating an online faculty directory? Can and should we overcome them? Currently, all full-time faculty, including visitors are included in the printed campus directory. As a first approximation, that is who should be in an online directory. Here are some Q and A s about an online faculty directory. (Qs are from Doug, As are from Tom S.) Q. Privacy. Should people have to opt-in, or opt-out of being in the directory? As things stand now, once a year (early Fall), we receive in print a copy of what was in last year's directory, and have the option of making changes. We have the option of excluding any piece of information (including, I guess, even being in the directory). A. This would be trickier to implement. We might have to limit the number of choices for exclusion. Q. Timing. Since people expect the web to be more current than print, we should probably expect to make at least a few mid-year "adjustments". Also, the print directory does not come out until late Fall; I would expect the web directory (especially if it includes only faculty; and involves updating a database) could be ready somewhat sooner. A. The web database would be updated regularly; probably no less often than weekly. Q. Images. Should we use images; A. Yes, I think so. Q. Can we get the photo-ID images from security? A. Good idea. Probably. Q. Can and should faculty have the option of providing other photos? A. I think faculty should have the option of providing a different photo. Q. Do we have privacy/security issues here? Should the photo directory be visible only on campus. or to users authenticated to the Union network? A. Maybe I'm not thinking of something, but I think photos should be visible to everyone. 9. Junk Mail. Several members expressed concern over the explosion of junk mail coming to our Union addresses. Meeting adjourned ... *Virtual presence. NO MEETING MAY 23. EVERYONE COME TO THE CONFERENCE!! |
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