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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: Meeting May 31 was virtual) 1. Grant Update. e-Portfolios. Connecticut College did not get its Mellon grant, so we are re-considering our collaboration strategy. The first meeting of the six schools went very well. See the Collaboration website. We got our Mellon grant for WWW Archiving. The grant will pay for our workshop in May, and for a one-year collaboration to pilot various archiving strategies. ITS has received a one-year renewal of the AT&T grant to fund the U*STAR program. Thanks to Jane Zacek for her work on the proposal. Diane K. noted that our May Collaborating with Technology; conference attracted 96 attendees (out of 103 who registered). Sixty-seven were from Union, and the rest were from 17 different schools. 2. Archiving Honors Theses. Fuat S. asked whether it is reasonable to begin providing the Library with pdf files of honors theses, instead of (or in addition to) having the library create microfiche. Doug added the question of whether the company which converts theses to microfiche would prefer (or accept) pdf files instead of paper. Diane K. raised the issue of privacy and confidentiality. Some theses (e.g. psychology and anthropology) may have content that is of a personal nature. Tom M. indicated that during next academic year, the Library will be carefully evaluating not only accepting pdf files, but the entire issue of digital archiving. Tom has also written a release form for students or faculty submitting digital materials. 3. Schedule of summer workshops Tom S. announced that his office would host a one-day web steward's workshop on July 18, 2002. The workshop is for Union web authors from both administrative and academic departments; people who want to learn how to create and maintain effective web sites at Union. Some background is useful. Tom also suggested that the Web Board would discuss creating templates which would help distinguish between official and semi-official web sites. The semi-official templates would be simpler in appearance, and simpler to use. The workshop is fully enrolled, with over 20 people signed up. ITS announced that it would hold a digital imaging, both still and video, probably in early September. ITS also plans to open a digital video lab in Steinmetz, probably near the FCRC. ITS will also host several Blackboard training sessions over the summer.
4. Web site evaluation. Cherrice completed our evaluation of Departmental websites, by review Division 4 departments.
The question arose, what should we do with the survey results. One thing will be to identify each Department's web steward; perhaps stewards could be listed online; U*STAR can monitor web sites, and work with Departments which seem to need help; the Web office summer workshop might help. The web presents interesting problems for providing policy information, since it is updated at different times from print information. Which is official? For example, the current catalog (2001-2002), at page 40, lists one set of criteria for Departmental Honors, passed by the faculty a year ago. The Registrar's Website lists a different one (at least as of June 6, 2002), because those are the ones in force for this year's seniors. If we relying on the web, we need to be careful to track changes, when different policies affect different students. In print, we can say "you are governed by the rules in the Catalog from your first year", but with evolving web pages, those rules might disappear over time unless we take care to preserve them. 5. Cable system. We are negotiating to add International channels to the new cable system. [Over the summer, the decision was to add five international channels: French, German, Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese.] 6. Scheduling System. At some point in the near future, a planning and implementation committee will be established to develop guidelines for the use of Resource-25, our new online scheduling system. That system is expected to be installed and tested between July and next January, and will be first used by the Registrar's office and Central Scheduling. Campus-wide roll-out is pending successful testing, and the development of use policies. 7. Academic Computer Upgrades. Diane K. announced that ITS was just finishing the 2001-02 faculty upgrades, approximately 40 faculty have received new computers over the past year. In addition to faculty, machines will be upgraded in the windows lab, Olin classrooms, the Learning Center, and Physics. Plans are underway to upgrade the Language Lab machines over the next 12-15 months. Next meeting: September 26, 2002, 2:30 PM, Stmz. 237 |
© 2002 Union College, Schenectady, New York |
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