Academic Computing Policy Advisory Committee

Minutes of November 16, 2011

  • In Attendance: Angel, Ali, Asamoah, Balint, Blood, Branthoover, Brzycki, Cunningham, Hyde, Lowery, P. McDevitt, T. McDevitt, McElroy, Mocek, O'Neil, Onyett, Pagnucci, Powers, Sherwood, VanWieren, Yost.
  • Excused: Fortushniak, Giever, Lenze, McGowan, J.B. Smith, Yuhas, Zimmerman.
  • Absent: Ezekiel, Gruber, Kemp, Nelson, Papakie.
  • Guests: Allen, Anspacher, Ford.

Proceedings of the Meeting

  • Approval of Minutes
    • The October 19, 2011 minutes were approved unanimously after correcting several spelling errors and changing the On-Line Learning Subcommittee sentence "Evaluate technology use and needs survey" (M/S Brzycki, Hyde).
  • Co-Chairs' Report
    • Financial Report - The ACPAC balance is currently $12,804.92
  • Standing Committee Reports
    • CIO office (Balint)
      • Status of D2L/Moodle Conversion Tool - We have sent some Moodle courses to D2L, and they will convert the course material to D2L and return to IUP for evaluation. Per Todd Cunningham, 3 courses have been sent for testing. Communication with faculty will be done through the faculty committees. Stephen Anspacher will send a notice to faculty when information is available.
        Ken Sherwood questioned the statement made at the previous ACPAC meeting that the Office of Distance Learning is a customer of IT Services. IT Services is responsible for the technical portion of the Distance Learning programs. Stephen Anspacher, Executive Director of Online Learning, can be more proactive and supportive of faculty teaching online courses, gathers feedback regarding software implementation decisions after feedback from committees and faculty for both Moodle and D2L. Todd Cunningham explained that IT errs on the side of security, relies on the person up front (Stephen Anspacher) to notify of software issues.
      • Lloyd Onyett stated that some faculty members have brought up the fact that their students are using the email in D2L rather than iMail to contact them. Should the internal D2L email feature be turned off or rerouted to iMail? Stephen Anspacher indicated that it might be possible to turn off course by course, but not necessarily feasible. Micki Hyde would like clarification that if D2L is IUP approved then isn't the email built into the program also IUP approved. Micki Hyde would like the D2L email brought under the iMail as officially accepted. Stephen Anspacher said this has been done at other universities; he will have more information at the next meeting.
      • Update on prioritized Academic Affairs and Council of Deans IT projects (Todd Cunningham) - The first five items on the list are either completed or in progress. Once Test Scoring and DegreeWorks are nearing completion, work will begin on the Curriculum Development System and the Collaboration System.
      • Todd recommended an action team be convened to identify undergraduate and graduate students so that IT Services can start exploring systems for Curriculum Development. The action team will be created at the next ACPAC meeting.
      • An action team was created for the Collaboration System. Members are Ken Sherman, Dolores Brzycki, Azad Ali, Patrick McDevitt, Theresa McDevitt, and Mike Powers. The team will evaluate and recommend a central institutional space online for faculty and staff use.
    • Emerging Technologies Subcommittee (Sherwood)
      • Our primary work will be discussion of the New Horizon report with an eye towards developing a few priorities for E Tech to investigate this coming year.
      • Student Group web pages - Plans are moving ahead to use the blog server student group pages. We need an automated practice for giving access to the blog, or who are the authorized users (including advisors). Mike Powers is coordinating with Student Life.
      • Smart/Promethian/ Sypodium - Dave Smith will work on in-house demonstrations of users of the primary tools. Other members who are interested should communicate with Dave Smith.
      • New Business Collaboration Software Project - It's a ranked project, likely to move ahead this year. Ken Sherwood will serve as the Emerging Technologies representative on the project team.
      • Dolores Brzycki and the OLC are developing a new survey. Emerging Technology participant to help with the survey are Dave Smith and Ken Sherwood.
      • The Emerging Technologies Subcommittee will review the MENC report and develop new initiatives from it.
    • Student Operations Group Subcommittee (Blood)
      • The Summer 2012 schedule is up.
      • Retired faculty can still access URSA and run student reports.
      • The PASSHE system contract with SAP will allow students to apply online to different PASSHE universities.
    • On-Line Learning Subcommittee (Brzycki)
      • The subcommittee is investigating the needs of faculty for technology to support on-line learning, and the current faculty usage of technology for on-line learning. The OLC is looking at having at least one focus group per college, hopefully in the early spring of 2012.
    • Branch Campuses (O'Neil)
      • Therese O'Neil questioned why the Adobe Flash update box is appearing when computers are powered on at the branch campuses, and asked if the updates should just be automatic. Todd Cunningham will look into this.
  • Action Team Reports
    • Optical Test Scoring Action Team (McElroy)
      • Nate McElroy met with Joanne Kuta and Amanda Marshall from IT Services. Joanne Kuta and Amanda Marshall will be meeting with department chairs to explain the new system. Documentation and web pages will be developed and notifications sent out over Christmas break. Dolores Brzycki asked if the report request could be made clearer.
    • Electronic Portfolio Action Team
      • The ePortfolio Action Team needed to be reconstituted since some of the members are no longer on ACPAC. The action team will now have the following members: Lloyd Onyett (chair), Dolores Brzycki, Nancy Yost, Dan Yuhas, Janet Blood.
  • New Business
    • Student Pictures on Moodle - It was asked if student pictures can be part of student profiles in Moodle for faculty use only. Per Lynnan Mocek, the Academic Council has already approved the system. Students have the option to opt out of having their pictures available for this system. They already can opt out of student pictures for classes.
    • Support of Personal Mobile Devices - Ken Sherwood reported that faculty who purchase mobile devices with personal funds but use them for IUP purposes would like support of IT Support to assist in the setup. Todd Cunningham explained that there is documentation online and hard copies available at Delaney Hall. If faculty members go to Delaney Hall and a technology is available to help them, they will walk the faculty member through the process if they need help.
  • Old Business:
    • Dry Erase Paint (Hyde) - Micki Hyde discussed the fact that Raj Murthy would like to use a special white board dry erase paint in Eberly and was told by the Maintenance staff that couldn't be done. This issue was referred to AOG (Raj should bring it up at the next AOG meeting).

There will be no ACPAC meeting in December. The next meeting will be January 25, 2012.

Meeting adjourned 4:50

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