VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT:   MAURICE LEATHERBURY (for PHILIP TURNER),  JUDITH ADKISON, PATRICK PLUSCHT, TIM CHRISTIAN, LOU ANN BRADLEY, JIM CURRY, JONEEL HARRIS, MARGARET AMBUEHL, ELIZABETH HINKLE-TURNER, CHRISTY CRUTSINGER, UWE ROSSBACH, RAMU MUTHIAH, SCOTT JOYCE (for CHUCK FULLER), BEN BIGBY (for JON NELSON) NON-VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT:  JAMES STRAWN, KEN SEDGLEY (for JOE ADAMO), JOHN HOOPER, SUE ELLEN RICHEY (Recording Secretary)MEMBERS ABSENT:  SARA WILSON MCKAY, DON GROSE, BRUCE HUNTER, RAY BANKS, ROBERT NIMOCKS, JOHN PRICE, TOBYE RAE NELSON, GUILLERMO OYARCE, ABRAHAM JOHN, DOUG MAINS, BOBBY CARTER, PHILIP BACZEWSKI

Distributed Computing Support Management Team**  

Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner reported for the Distributed Computing Support Management Team that they met on June 2 when Bill Niederstat from Dell made a presentation about the newly available line of Dell printers and Dell’s upcoming release of their open manager program to monitor printers and their usage.  Judy Hunter at the Willis Library General Access Lab is getting a Dell 5310 to test.  On June 19 Jeff Stuart and Craig Robichaux from Microsoft demonstrated Microsoft Vista and Office 2007. 

Student Computing Planning Group

Reporting for the Student Computing Planning Group, Elizabeth stated that she has been busy giving new student orientation presentations and distributing a lot of materials to the over 6,000 freshmen that are coming in.  There have been three full orientations; the first transfer student orientation is June 23^rd , and there will be a fourth one the next week.  She has been showing the security films that CITC’s David Wood made and those have been very popular.

IR Steering Committee 

Maurice announced that there is no IR Steering Committee anymore, so there will be no agenda item for a report from them on future IRC agendas.  The Web Publishing Policy has been submitted for approval through the regular channels for UNT policies.

Learning Enhancement Planning Group 

Patrick Pluscht reported for the Learning Enhancement Planning Group that a couple of initiatives (iTunes and Voice Tools) have been delayed due to agreements undergoing legal review by the University attorney.   CDL and DLS will be working on a plan to evaluate other learning management systems besides WebCT Vista, not necessarily with an eye towards changing products any time soon, but just to find out what UNT’s options are for the future.  Also, in response to a question by Cengiz Capan at a recent IRC meeting regarding the status of a decision to adopt a clicker technology, they have decided, after meeting with a number of faculty and finding a variety of needs, that a needs analysis should be conducted before any decision could be made to choose one particular clicker technology.  Uwe Rossbach asked if there were plans to offer help to faculty to take full advantage of iTunes once it is in place.  Patrick responded that there definitely will be, and that they are even now working with faculty to help them to plan ahead for the use of iTunes in the specific ways that would be advantageous for them.

Communications Planning Group 

Lou Ann Bradley reported for the Communications Planning Group that at their June meeting they received information about the firewall, and about what wiring projects are going on.  They discussed the new Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, and were updated on the MLR and Internet2.  They also took a tour of the CITC facilities at the Research Park.

EIS Planning Group 

John Hooper reported for the EIS Planning Group that they are working on a plan for the upgrade of the EIS Learning Solutions and Campus Solutions, which includes HR/Payroll, Student Administration, and Contributor Relations, and at this time they are aiming at November of 2007 for this upgrade.  They have selected Don Butler as the project manager for the upgrade, to coordinate and oversee the whole project.  Another project they are working on is the Kronos timekeeping system that a few departments are now using in a pilot.  This time-clock system feeds in data to the EIS Time & Labor system.  The departments who are using it in the pilot have provided positive feedback.  Joneel Harris added that there is an RFP in process to obtain professional help for the implementation of Constituent Relationship Management (CRM)  software modules that the UNT System already owns. 

Standards & Policy Planning Group 

Tim Christian reported for the Standards & Policy Planning Group that he had made the requested revisions in the Web Publishing Policy and forwarded on the final document for approval and inclusion in the UNT Policy Manual.

WebCT Vista 

Patrick Pluscht reported that as of June 1, all students are out of the campus edition and in Vista, and all courses going forward will be in WebCT Vista.  Faculty who are not teaching a course in Summer or Fall have until the end of Fall semester to migrate their courses for offering in the spring.  The Vista product has been stable and reliable over this past migration.  They visited with the WebCT representative regarding how things are going as well as the merger of WebCT and Blackboard and what it may mean for UNT.  WebCT intends to continue to innovate the independent products of WebCT and Blackboard and schedule revisions that will be available to users.  They believe they are at least 4 or 5 years away from a fused product.  It is expected that at the July WebCT conference more details will be available.

Maurice Leatherbury added that CITC has received five additional servers to support Vista which they plan to have installed by the Fall term.  

Desktop Computing Issues  

Tim Christian mentioned that the Provost called a meeting with Jim Curry, Maurice Leatherbury, Bruce Pollock, Cengiz Capan, Philip Baczewski, Donna Asher, Joneel Harris, Scott Jackson, Abraham John and himself to discuss desktop computing on campus.  He asked them to develop a plan or vision of where the UNT campus is going with that.  The group submitted their report last Wednesday and basically recommended that the administration embrace desktop computing as critical to the function of the university and should consider delegating the responsibility of planning to either the IRC or some other entity.  They recommended looking at a standardized means of evaluating the cost of desktop computing on campus, and look at how desktop machines are being purchased and budgeted for in departments.  Maurice Leatherbury mentioned that he believes that desktop machines can be purchased more economically from outside sources, so a group of people evaluated both Dell and H-P machines and decided that Administrative Affairs, Finance & Business Affairs, and CITC will purchase Dell machines.  There is no directive to anyone else to do the same.

NLR and Internet2 

Maurice Leatherbury added that negotiations between the NLR and Internet2 for the merger of those two groups have broken off.  The statewide LEARN organization is currently looking at its options and the consensus is that they don’t want to get off Internet2.  Internet2 is, however, very expensive; it has a huge infrastructure, a huge staff which many feel is not justified, plus LEARN has a commitment to NLR at least for next few years.  LEARN does not see the value of maintaining two national high-speed networks.