January 31, 2006 Report

31-JAN-2006 Meeting Summary

Attendance:  Art Acton, Yasser Ayad, Bob Balough, Joe Bodziock, Debbie Ciesielka, Marilyn Harhai, Terry Latour, Mike Phillips, Sam Puleio, Steve Selker, Debbie Sobina

Note: This meeting summary includes business conducted at the 31-JAN-2006 meeting and related follow-up items that the committee agreed to complete via e-mail during the period 2/1/06 - 2/20/06).

Approval of Prior Minutes

The 29-NOV-2005 Meeting Summary was approved.

Technology Fee

• 2005-06 Amendments: As noted at the NOV-05 UTAC Meeting, the original 2005-06 proposal review and approval process was completed, but an amendment was needed to identify projects to replace those that were not approved by PASSHE. With the Tech Fee funds available from the 2005-06 unapproved projects and the under-budget 2004-05 projects, the Provost identified a set of projects for the 05-06 amendment based on university priorities. Some concerns were expressed by UTAC members about not using the previous Tech Fee project list and the broader committee review process to identify amendment projects. Those concerns will be shared with the Provost. The amendment projects that were submitted were as follows: Communications Department Digital Video Tools, Hart Chapel Multimedia Upgrade, and Radio Transmitter Maintenance. See Section H of the 05-06 Approved Tech Fee Projects summary on the Tech Fee web site for additional details. PASSHE recently approved these projects. With this approval, a small amount of funding remains for one final amendment which will be identified by the Provost.
• 2006-07 Draft Schedules: The committee reviewed and approved the draft process and timelines for the 2006-07 Tech Fee proposals. The proposal process will follow the same model as last year, including proposal reviews by a UTAC subcommittee, the Council of Deans, and the President's Executive Council (PEC). The proposed schedules from UTAC will now be submitted to the Provost and Council of Deans for final approval. Note: See the Tech Fee Web Site for full details about the dates and proposal process.

The Summer of 2006 will also be the first instance of Tech Fee Renewals for some project components that were originally installed Summer 2003. A review and assessment process is required as part of the PASSHE Tech Fee process prior to the implementation of any renewal projects. The committee reviewed and approved the proposed renewal model from the UTAC Tech Fee Renewal Project Subcommittee. The replacement criteria will be as follows:

The process will be as follows:

o    Computing Services reviews past projects and identifies eligible projects.

o    Computing Services notifies project contact(s) about the renewal process and provides renewal forms to collect project history and proposed renewal details.

o    Project Contacts submit renewal forms.

o    UTAC Tech Fee Renewal Subcommittee reviews requests and implementation details and prepares summary report for UTAC review.

o    UTAC finalizes project renewal list and submits a report to the Provost for review by PEC/Deans.

o    PEC finalizes renewal project list

o    Computing Services and Project Contacts define implementation plans and timelines for approved renewal projects.

For the initial use of this process for the 2003 project renewals, these steps will be completed during the current (spring) semester. For future items the process will be initiated in the fall and completed in the spring.

Subcommittee Membership

The committee previously agreed to review Subcommittee membership annually as part of the the Tech Fee cycle. The committee reviewed the current UTAC Subcommittee Membership and moved to have the co-chairs complete an e-mail based process to poll current UTAC members and identify any desired membership changes. B. Balough raised questions about non-UTAC reprsentatives on the subcommittees. UTAC agreed that subcommittee voting membership should be limited to UTAC representatives, although non-UTAC representatives would continue to be included as needed as non-voting members on the subcommittees to provide expertise in particular areas.

Planning Subcommittee Update

The committee reviewed the December activities of the UTAC Tech Planning Subcommittee and accepted the mission, vision, and value statements for Computing Services that were proposed as follows:

• MISSION: The mission of Computing Services is to provide information technology services to support and enable the advancement of the academic, administrative, service, and research goals of the university.
• VISION: Computing Services will provide effective technology services that are aligned with the priorities and resources of the university and the PASSHE.
• COMPUTING SERVICES VALUES: We value and strive to provide excellence in the
  • Service Orientation that we will bring to all interactions with the university community
  • Technical Quality of our products and services
  • Teamwork and Collaboration with our partners across the university community and within our internal organization

For the proposed analysis of our internal environment, the committee reviewed the proposed focus group model. A draft schedule and focus group outline was provided and various suggestions were made for revisions to the draft. S. Puleio will revise the draft and provide it to the committee for further review via e-mail. Based on the e-mail, UTAC members will move forward to schedule the focus group sessions over the next several weeks. Sessions will be held with the following areas: College of Arts & Sciences, College of Business Administration, College of Education & Human Services, Division of Academic Affairs, Division of Finance and Administration, Division of Student and University Affairs, Students (coordinated through the Student and University Affairs division), Venango & Nursing.

Informational Items

• TurnItIn: To follow-up on UTAC discussions from last semester, S. Puleio reported that the Turnitin anti-plagiarism software package was deployed within Blackboard for the spring semester. See cmswww.clarion.edu/40029 for additional information.
• Horizon Wimba: A. Acton provided an update on the Horizon Wimba service that is currently under discussion with faculty that are teaching distance education courses. Horizon Wimba is a service that provides a variety of tools to support live, real-time instruction. PASSHE recently provided the University with a short timeline opportunity to opt-in to one of a number of contractual options to obtain this service. There are several options for the tools including a stand-alone version and a version that integrates directly into Blackboard. The Blackboard option is cost prohibitive. Based on feedback from the faculty, A. Acton will work with PASSHE to obtain access to the stand-alone 50 seat license for the service with the intent of evaluating the potential uses of the service over the next year; he will also work with PASSHE to examine other synchronous technologies.