Information Resources Council News

        Minutes provided by Sue Harrison, Recording Secretary

        IRC Regular Voting Members: Ray von Dran, Library and Information Sciences (Chair); Cengiz Capan, College of Business; Jim Cappel, Graduate Student Council; Carolyn Cunningham, Student Affairs; Paul Dworak, College of Music; Brian Forsman, UNTHSC Information Resources Council; Chuck Fuller, Fiscal Affairs; Larry Gleeson, School of Visual Arts; Don Grose, Libraries; David Hartman, School of Community Services and School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management; Sam Magill, UNTHSC Director of Information Technology Services; Steve Miller, Administrative Affairs; Tom Newell, Telecommunications (Ex-officio); Don Palermo, Academic Administration; Jean Schaake, College of Arts and Sciences; Paul Schlieve, College of Education; John Todd, Faculty Senate; Virginia Wheeless, Associate Vice President and Director, University Planning and Institutional Research; Steve Williams, Undergraduate Student Association. IRC Ex-officio Nonvoting Members: Bill Buntain, Computing Center; Jim Curry, Microcomputer Maintenance Shop; Paul Gandel, Computing Center; Richard Harris, Computing Center; Coy Hoggard, Computing Center.

        October 11, 1994

        Instructional Technology Program Group

        Paul Gandel reported that the Instructional Technology Program Group is going forward with the focus group study of how faculty use instructional technology. A stratified random sample of faculty has been chosen for the focus groups and the committee hopes to have the results by the Spring semester. Paul also reported that the Program Group is working with the Registrar s office to conduct a room/space survey and hopes to have that completed by January or February. The data collected will be used in the scheduling of rooms for classes.

        Cengiz Capan reiterated his concern that allocations for improving the classroom situations need to be made this year and urged the Program Group to bring their recommendation to the IRC as soon as possible.

        Standards & Cooperation Program Group

        Susan Pierce reported that the Standards & Cooperation Program Group is working on identifying the highest priority strategies to meet the goals of the 1995-99 Strategic Plan. The group would like to add two more strategies:

        1. come up with strategy that would ease UNT s migration to the graphical user interface (GUI); provide a training program to enable all computers to migrate by a certain date; possibly setting a GUI standard; and
        2. as people migrate to GUI, they may need or want to consider alternative basic desktop applications, and to save everyone a lot of pain, we could recommend a couple of suites of products and then provide training for those.

        The Chair urged the Standards & Cooperation Program Group to go forward on a standardization of spreadsheet format. It was suggested that while everyone is moving to GUI this would be a good time to also set some standards in this area.

        Administrative Program Group

        Joneel Harris reported that the Administrative Program Group met on October 6 and invited the Strategic Planning Committee members to attend because of a presentation given by Bill Buntain on distributed databases and the infostructure to leverage our mainframe resources.

        Electronically Enabled Communication Commission

        Ray von Dran reported that the Electronically Enabled Communication Commission met on October 6 and accepted its charge. He distributed a list of the members, as well as a list of tasks that the Commission has agreed to accomplish. He announced that there is an Open Forum scheduled for October 21, 8:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m., in the University Union, Room 411, where Bill Buntain and Cengiz Capan will make a presentation of the issues and where those in attendance can offer their comments and opinions. The Commission is also in the process of developing a survey instrument which will be distributed to all faculty and staff.

        December 13, 1994

        Working Meeting and EECC

        It was acknowledged that the IRC had held a working meeting on December 6, 1994, to discuss the final report and recommendation of the Electronically Enabled Communication Commission (EECC). There were no minutes recorded at that meeting.

        The final report of the Electronically Enabled Communication Commission (EECC) was presented by the Chair for discussion. It was suggested that an implementation task force be formed to assist with the pilot project of setting up GroupWise in several areas of campus. Lengthy discussion followed during which the council generally agreed that an advisory group would be helpful to Bill Buntain in administering this pilot project; however, the group consented to allow Bill to consult with, and organize the appropriate people across the campus to assist in the implementation of the project. It was also agreed that in each department on campus there should be a contact person for Bill Buntain to deal with, who would then keep his/her department informed at all stages and phases of the GroupWise implementation. The final report and recommendation of the EECC was approved.

        Program Groups Goals, Objectives, Strategies & Action Plans

        Susan Pierce opened discussion of the draft document she had distributed electronically prior to the meeting which combined all of the IRC Program Groups Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Action Plans. Susan pointed out that she had marked the strategies in the document which directly support the university priorities set by Chancellor Hurley in a recent memo to the faculty and staff. Susan asked members to review the document to determine if it really presents the biggest critical issues for the coming year. In response to a suggestion from the floor, Susan agreed to split the document into two separate ones - one showing the Goals, Objectives and Strategies, and the second one showing the action items. The Strategic Planning Committee will meet in early January to review all of the comments received by that time. A new draft document will then be distributed to the Council for adoption at its January 17th meeting.

        Software Licensing

        Richard Harris reported that the Internal Auditors had made a report to the President s Staff concerning software licensing compliance, and distributed two documents:

        1. Guidelines for Software Licensing Compliance, and
        2. a memo from Internal Audit Department concerning an audit of University departments.

        Richard explained that Phil Diebel had asked him to chair a committee to study this issue and make a recommendation to the IRC Steering Committee about what the university needs to do to implement a university-wide policy. Mr. Diebel suggested that Larry Hoke from Purchasing and Tim Edwards from Internal Audit be on the committee and that the committee report through the IRC. The Chair then asked Claudia Lynch, and John Todd to serve on this committee in addition to Larry Hoke, Tim Edwards, and Richard Harris, and be ready to make a report to the Council at its January 17 meeting.



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