Philip Baczewski reported for the Distributed Computing Support
Management Team that the
group last met on October 7. Glen Haubold of UNT Facilities gave a
briefing to the group on the power maintenance that was scheduled
for October 9 to affect the GAB and ISB. Generators were provided
to keep critical IT resources operational in both buildings during
the maintenance. In other business, the ad hoc committee
created to evaluate support of Instant Message client and server
systems presented its final report in which GroupWise Instant
Messenger was to be adopted for support
by the CITC. Other IM systems were evaluated, but the committee
found no compelling reasons to adopt an alternate implementation
for Instant Messaging. DCSMT did not meet on its scheduled October
21 date, because a number of people (including the chair) were
attending EDUCAUSE in Orlando, Florida.
There was some discussion about the use of GroupWise Instant
Messenger having been released to UNT users upon request. The
decision by DCSMT to use this product was that in the event of a
disaster, GWIM would provide a small and quickly-installable
system that would allow communications across campus until the
full GroupWise system could be restored. The reason that GWIM was
selected over other instant message (IM) clients was that it
provided a secure option to the other IM services such as Yahoo,
or AIM. It was stated that a user would have to install the
client in order to access GW Instant Messenger remotely.
Learning Enhancement Planning
Group, Distributed
Learning Steering Committee
Patrick Pluscht reported that
grant proposals are due Nov. 1st. The review committee will meet
and have their recommendations made by mid December. The
pre-proposal workshop held to assist faculty was very successful.
Patrick noted that the Learning Enhancement Planning Group will
meet Nov. 14th jointly with the Distributed Learning
Steering Committee. On Monday, Oct. 24th they saw a
demo of Lesson Builder’s product Chalk Talk which aids in the
production of web pages from regular word documents. They
are planning a demo of Course Genie, Live Classroom and Voice
Tools, and the committee will again pick up work on review of
clicker technology.
Standards & Policy Planning Group
Tim Christian reported that the
Standards & Policy Planning Group met on October 11 and elected
him as Chair. Their immediate business was revision of two
policies: 1) the Web
Publishing Policy 3.9, and 2) the Information Resources Security
Policy 3.6. Tim distributed copies of both policies explaining
that there were minor clerical and compliance changes to these
existing policies and asked for responses directly to him at
tim@unt.edu prior to the November meeting of the IRC so that
final drafts can be brought to that meeting for approval. Tim
noted that the only major revision requires that all UNT web sites
be registered with the University.
Student Computing Planning Group
Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner
reported that the Student Computing Planning Group has not met but
she distributed copies of a replica of the new sign that will soon
be in place on campus. The new sign will show the location
of all of the general access labs. In addition to the large
sign in the Willis Library Lab, there will be posters of the sign
in each of the labs. Elizabeth noted that several labs have
expanded their hours to 2:00 a.m., and distributed copies of an
article she wrote for Benchmarks, in which lab hours are noted.
In addition, Elizabeth pointed out that the Police Department has
stepped up their patrol of buildings in which labs will be open
past midnight.
EIS Planning Group
Maurice Leatherbury reported
for the EIS Planning Group that CITC is close to signing a
contract with Cognos for some business intelligence reporting
package for EIS (which will include budgeting reports). CITC
expects to have the software in place by Spring Break, and will
try to push all reports in EIS through that product with licenses
being used mostly by administrative staff. Maurice noted that UT
Austin uses the product very successfully for delivery of data to
faculty and staff. Maurice stated that the product is
web-based and is not sure if it is Internet Explorer specific or
not.
“Turn It In”
Patrick Pluscht reported that
the license for “Turn It In” will be renewed at $.675 per student,
making the cost just under $20,000 for another year, which amounts
to about $4,000 more for the upcoming year. He reported that
all of the deans support the renewal of the product, and the
faculty is very pleased with it.
WebCT
Dr. Turner reported that twice
weekly meetings are still being held with WebCT folks and
announced that the company has been bought by Blackboard.
UNT is currently using WebCT Vista Ver. 3.x and does not plan to
upgrade to Ver. 4.0 until that version has been proven reliable by
other Vista users. He reported that the conversion from the
Campus Edition to Vista is proceeding on schedule with over 50% of
the courses now converted.
Maurice Leatherbury added that
he spoke with the Chief Technology Officer about UNT’s situation
while he was at the recent EDUCAUSE conference. It seems
that the President of WebCT will remain on staff of Blackboard as
a consultant for a year and that some other high level executives
will remain with Blackboard. He expressed his concern
about UNT’s relationship with Blackboard and the continuing
need for a high level of support for UNT’s WebCT Vista
installation. The merger or buy-out is still under review by
the FTC but the executives of WebCT foresee no problem with
getting it approved.
Other Business
Maurice Leatherbury remarked
that UNT has become a Sakai partner and CITC has processed a
purchase order for a Sakai server.
The minutes of the September
20, 2005, IRC meeting were reviewed and one correction made on
page 3 in the third paragraph from the end:
- “Ray Banks reported that the
SGA has started something called Eagle Text through which
students can swap books with other students on campus.
There are volunteer student programmers working on
an online service to accomplish this and enable students to pay
each other through a third party (like PayPal) if they just want
to buy a book from another student.”
Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner moved
for approval of the minutes, with the noted correction. Tim
Christian seconded the motion and the minutes were approved as
amended.
There being no further
business, the meeting was adjourned.
