Date: May 14, 2002 1:00 MUB Room 203
Attendees: David Beronä, Petr Brym, Susan Campbell, Kent Chamberlin, Jeff Diefendorf, Gene Filley, David Foote, Leigh Ann Melanson, Patrick Messer, Bill Stine, Terri Winters
Relevant documents: Minutes from April 9th ACAC Meeting, Draft Web Policy Document, Response to Public Feedback on Draft Web Policy, Priority Matrix for ACAC Academic Planning Recommendations
1. Approval of Minutes from the April 9th Meeting
The minutes of the April 9th meeting were approved by those in attendance.
2. ACAC endorsement/comment on the response to public feedback pertaining to the draft web policy (Mike Jones, Director of Publications) Policy governing web content was drafted last year and submitted to the Provost and President. It was then made available to the University community for comment and review. The results of that review process were then submitted to University publications and CIS, who have responded to the questions raised. ACAC has been asked by the President and Provost to endorse and/or comment on this response to public feedback. As one of the authors of that response, Mike Jones will be with us to respond to questions or concerns that we might have . Both relevant documents, the policy draft and the response to public feedback, are hyperlinked to this page.
Mike gave a brief overview of the web policy document and its evolution to date. We then went over their responses to public feedback on a point-by-point basis, and ACAC members raised a number of concerns . After all of the responses had been addressed , the consensus among ACAC members attendanc was that the responses were appropriate, and hence there was agreement to endorse the response to public feedback . The specific changes recommended by ACAC members are detailed in Mike Jones memo to the President and Provost given below :
"At your request, I've met with the Academic Computing Advisory Committee to review our changes to the Web Policy Draft developed by the Web Task Force.
The committee endorses the draft and has made a few recommendations which I will share below.
One committee member asked why ACAC was not involved in the process sooner and the entire committee supported a recommendation that ACAC, as well as those other bodies involved in the review process, be involved as policy changes and updates are made. In particular, the policy areas of e-commerce, portals, and registration (deleted in our final review), were viewed by the committee as "to be determined." As these policy areas are adressed by the Web Advisory Committee, a campuswide review was endorsed.
The committee suggests more specificity as to membership on the Web Advisory Committee and noted that it would be desirable to have faculty representation in the body and also that the WAC should regularly report on its activities to the Deans' Council.
The draft states that the Web Advisory Committee will advise Bob Cape and Michael Jones. The committee recommends language stating that the provost and president have final authority.
In the Design Standards section, committee members endorsed strengthening the policy by making items 2 C and E stand-alone items as 3 and 4 respectively.
As you may know, Steve Bolander has endorsed our response to the feedback you solicited. Thus, I think this concludes our work."
3. Last chance to prioritize our recommendations to the Academic Planning Process I have had a chance to look at some of the priorities made by ACAC members on our academic planning recommendations, and it is clear that achieving consensus will be difficult. Consequently, I have asked for and received an extension on our deadline for submitting our priority assignments until after our meeting with the hope that we can reach some agreement on priorities.
We discussed the variation in the priorities of different ACAC constituencies , and decided that it would be best to present our priorities by different constituency groups rather than as an aggregate . Members who had not yet submitted their priorities were encouraged to provide their input within the next day if they wished to have their priorities considered in the academic planning process. As of the writing of these minutes (May 15) , only the representatives from the Library , the College of Liberal Arts , and the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences have submitted their inputs to this process. Click here to see the final list of priorities submitted.
4. ACAC final report for this year and recommendations for next year In preparation for writing our year-end report, I would like to get member input on the issues that should be addressed and emphasized. Further , it would be appropriate for us to comment on any topics we see that could make ACAC more effective in carrying out its mission . So, please do come with your ideas on this.
The majority of this year's ACAC effort was devoted to the academic planning process, and one of the biggest problems experienced was attendance and participation by both faculty and students. It was noted that there were ACAC activities that did enjoy good faculty participation, and those were times that involved the distribution of money. One possible conclusion that can be drawn from this information is that some faculty will only find the time to participate when there are opportunities for near-term financial loss or gain.
One solution discussed for improving faculty participation is to spend the early part of the fall semester identifying technology needs in the academic units on campus, and then prioritize them in the latter part of that semester. From those priorities, an action plan can be developed, and the latter part of the academic year can be devoted to finding funding sources and working out implementation plans to meet technology needs. Having ACAC focus in the near term, and having a greater impact on how funds are spent should provide a far greater incentive for faculty participation than this year’s efforts have proven to be.
With the exception of one representative from the graduate student organization and one representative from the nontraditional student organization, no other students participated in this year’s ACAC, despite numerous attempts to encourage participation in the form of phone calls and e-mail messages. In discussing this problem with ACAC members, one solution was put forth that might be helpful in the future. Specifically, students actively involved in standing committees such as ACAC would be eligible to receive academic credit for their participation. Their work would entail deliverables, such as reports and surveys, and would involve a formal evaluation by the committee chair. While this would increase the workload for the chair, it would serve to provide a far more dedicated participation on the part of the students. It would also provide a fair manner for rewarding students for their time and effort, which can be considerable.
The chair expects to have the ACAC year-end report drafted within the next few weeks , after which it will be put on the web for member review and comment . ACAC members will be notified when that report becomes available , and they are encouraged to provide their input .