Tuesday, October 25, 2012

1. Next meeting will include participation of faculty grants people – see November minutes for Grantscape.

2. FTC homework for next meeting – Rita’s proposal from Provost. In recent Faculty Forum Provost Garza called for suggestions about enhancing student/faculty interaction via social media; “how to enhance student/faculty interactions”. Rita is also going to UCT, Board of Chairs, other committees in search of the same. What is going on in other/different institutions – what do we know from our home disciplines? Try out good ideas that appear and work to get them to “bubble up”. An eye on “hottest trends” and topics in this area.

3. ITS training – list of modules is worth looking at. Research Services also offers tutorials (on MatLab and SPSS, etc. - Barry Schaudt). “Power Analysis” for statisticians was requested by faculty. “Factor Analysis” Tutorial. Research Services is moving away from “how to use software” to addressing statistical problems in disciplines; Quantitatve and Qualitative as well.

4. Learning Management System search status report - nothing to report; but one product stands above the rest; no leak from IDeS leader about the front runner; FTC will be given a demonstration.

5. Woe. Kit Baum - Identity Finder issue. Identity Finder gave him 400,000 hits from economic data that also has nine digit numbers. Barry has this problem, too. Possible to set directories so that false positives will not make it impossible to trace real problems. SOM and Math also have this problem. Contact TC to address the issue. Reminder - Data security in A&S is Joe Carroll bailiwick; faculty need to request to have ID finder: visit Bc.edu.IDfinder. IDFinder does not search out grades, but the university also wants no grades on PCs; anything that can be stolen.

6. Joy? Barry Schaudt on Bill Stanwood’s woe from September; Using Keynote on campus from a laptop; simple solution – Go to your PC to deactivate your computer and activate your handheld device. Apple’s protocol works from networks with one access point – this causes the problem. Mobile devices here are on a separate network. User then asks mobile device be put on the computer network.

7. Joy? New CMS – Kuali.org - “Curriculum Management” is the first module released; catalog at the highest level is the first component; at the same time we are upgrading course numbering system. Four and four system – four letters and four numbers. Department chairs will be asked to clean up current courses. Faculty (BOC, EPCs, etc.) are being included in discussions about four letter course naming and four number courses structuring in the new system. Michael C. is on this kuali committee. Tim Duket is on the A&S EPC looking at the same issue. What are the best practices in naming convention for SQL databases?

8. Woe. Michael Connolly on “Forms”: Sabbatical, Promotion, TAM grants and the like. Forms from Provost’s office are faulty. Time out abruptly and lose data. Temporary workarounds figured out. Kuali.org (RICE, work flow engine) folks working with the new CMS are looking for practice – sabbaticals “forms” are being tested/placed here, for example. IDeS forms work differently – these can be electronically signed. Second woe: sabbatical form does not contain any instructions about number of words, etc.

9. Woe. Faculty Annual Report process concerns. Chairs have been told that faculty will be awarded increments based on what is “updated” in the FAR environment. Faculty need to be informed that there are advantages to making frequent updates to individual FARs. N.B.: FAR is accessed through the Portal.

10. Woe or Joy? Charlene Hesse-Biber Question – How much technology to allow students? The question concerned devices and computers in class. Bill Stanwick – lecture should be interesting enough? Law School uses ExamSoft to isolate a classroom – turns off all networking and blocks hard drive – student gets word processing and the exam. Also able to keep exams anonymous; uploaded to a server, printed out, distributed to faculty for grading – 10 years use. E-clicker is software that has a mobile option for polling. So, there are pluses and minuses to incorporation of personal devices in classrooms.

11. Joy. IPad Pilot will be complete in December; will be published; testing iPads in projecting and for other classroom functions.

Meeting ended 5:55 p.m. Minutes respectfully submitted by Tim Duket