Date: February 27, 2002 10:00AM MUB Room 302
Attendees: Victor Benassi, David Berona, Petr Brym, Bob Cape, Kent Chamberlin, Jeff Diefendorf, Gene Filley, Leigh Ann Melanson, Patrick Messer, John Sparrow, Bill Stine, Terri Winters
Relevant documents: Minutes from December 18th ACAC Meeting, Outline on creating an action plan from a strategy
1. Approval of Minutes from the December 18th Meeting
The minutes of the December 18th meeting were voted on and approved
2. Announcements
Bob Cape spoke on the progress of the USNH network policy that is currently under development. The hope and expectation is that this policy will reflect the priorities set forth by the Network Security Task Force. The new policy, consisting of 10 chapters, is now in "very" rough draft form, and there are no firm guidelines for when it will become available for review. The committee writing the new policy, the Information Technology Coordinating Committee, will be meeting every other Friday until a draft is produced.
3. Preliminary Discussion of ACAC Response to Academic Planning Process With the deadline for submitting our Academic Planning recommendations coming up (March 17th), we need to achieve a consensus from ACAC members on the ideas developed in subcommittees. We also need to put our ideas into the form suggested by the Academic Planning Steering Committee (specified in "Outline on creating an action plan from a strategy" hyperlinked above). The expectation is that at the end of these discussions, we will have achieved a general consensus on the recommendations we intend to make. We will have the opportunity to finalize our recommendation in our ACAC meeting planned on March 14th.
We reviewed and discussed the format for submitting our recommendations to the planning process, and Jim Varn fielded questions regarding specifics of that process.
Action Item: we need to format our recommendations and send them to the ACAC Chair so that they can be put on a web site for review by the entire committee. As recommendations are put on that site, e-mail will be sent to ACAC members so that we can begin our review prior to our next meeting. Subcommittee Chairs are responsible for submitting the recommendations from their groups, although all ACAC members are encouraged to submit individual recommendations if they care to do so.
4. Observations from our January retreat
Jim Varn gave a list of priorities that were expressed by ACAC members during our retreat. An overview of those priorities are listed below according to rank:
Having "ubiquitous and democratic access to technology": all members of the university community should have access to the technology necessary for them to perform their tasks effectively. This includes Internet access for off-campus students.
Providing support for technology: we not only need to have technology on campus, we need to support it as well. That support should include computer equipment repair, maintaining an effective help desk, and providing convenient training in the use of technology.
Standards( and their governance): In order to use technology effectively, standards must be set and enforced. The question that must be answered is which group should set the standards, and which group should be responsible for enforcing them.
Teaching & Learning Tools: As an institution, we need to be proactive in identifying the technology tools that will facilitate the teaching/learning process, identify means for procuring those tools, and then helping faculty and students implement those tools. An example of a successful past effort to put an effective teaching tool in place is the Blackboard Project.
Additional details from the retreat will be forthcoming, and these details will be sent to ACAC members.