UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS
INFORMATION RESOURCES COUNCIL
September 23, 2003
VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: PHILIP TURNER, Chair, ELIZABETH HINKLE-TURNER, COY HOGGARD (for JONEEL HARRIS), LOU ANN BRADLEY (for DON GROSE), ROBERT NIMOCKS, MELISSA OZUNA (for DONNA ASHER), KENN MOFFITT, WIL CLARK (for JOHN PRICE), RAMU MUTHIAH, JIM CURRY, JENNY JOPLING, JON NELSON, CHRISTY CRUTSINGER, MAX KAZEMZADEH, CHUCK FULLER, ABRAHAM JOHN, BRUCE HUNTER
NON-VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: RICHARD HARRIS, JOE ADAMO, MAURICE LEATHERBURY, PATRICK PLUSCHT, SUE ELLEN RICHEY (Recording Secretary)
MEMBERS ABSENT: CENGIZ CAPAN, VIRGINIA WHEELESS, DOUG MAINS, KATHY SWIGGER, ARMIN MIKLER, BOBBY CARTER, JUDITH ADKISON, SCOTT KREJCI
GUESTS: JENNIFER LAFLEUR
Lou Ann Bradley moved for approval of the minutes of the Tuesday, July 15, 2003 meeting; Jenny Jopling seconded the motion and the minutes were approved as distributed.
The Chair explained for the benefit of new members that items considered and approved by the IRC are presented to the President’s Staff at a monthly meeting, where they are considered for approval. The most recent meeting of the President’s Staff was Friday, September 19, at which Dr. Turner reported on distributed learning enrollment. The Chair passed around graphs depicting the growth of the distributed learning program, noting that at the present time, 4,200 students are totally on-line. There are 1,761 graduate students totally enrolled on-line, and 2,482 taking on-line classes which means that 30% of graduate enrollment is online. 2,409 undergraduate students are totally online and 4,057 undergraduates are taking at least one on-line class. That is about 1000 above where the distributed learning program was at this time last year.
Maurice Leatherbury reported for the Distributed Computing Support Management Team that at recent meetings they have dealt with establishing a standardized training program for new computer support specialists, which a subcommittee is developing. Another subcommittee has been formed to work on patch management to deal with the numerous worms and viruses coming out. In addition, Robert Jones spoke to their group about the implications of the EIS project on desktop machines in end-user departments. Joe Adamo also briefed the group on the wireless network which is now available in five buildings on campus: ISB, Union, ESSC, Gateway Center, and as of this week GAB.
Paul Dworak spoke to the Council concerning electronic records compliance and distributed an outline of what is needed in this regard (Attachment #1). Dworak indicated that an Email retention policy, along with standards for electronic records retention need to be developed, as well as financial record security standards. He asked that the appropriate sub-committee of the IRC be charged with the study and development of policies and standards regarding electronic records compliance. The Standards and Policy Planning Group was so charged.
Jenny Jopling reported for the Instruction Planning Group that they have not met since they presently do not have a charge. In the past they have been involved in equipping classrooms with technology for classroom instruction.
Lou Ann Bradley reported for the Communications Planning Group that the group was presenting to the IRC a revised Network Connections Policy for discussion and approval. Since there are new members who have not previously seen this policy, and since the IRC has not met since July, the policy will be voted on at the October meeting.
Coy Hoggard reported for the EIS Planning Group that the central back-office of the Purchasing module went live in the summer and still is running live. The roll-out to end-users is scheduled for late December or January. The General Ledger and Accounts Payable portions are still live although they are dealing with some problematic issues with that portion of the system, namely the check writing process, and sending USAS transactions to the State Comptroller’s office.
Coy announced that the Admissions system is set to go live September 29th, as well as the Health Science Center’s Contributor Relations module. UNT’s Contributor Relations portion of the system has been moved to a time around Thanksgiving or early December. Other than that, Coy stated that everything else is on schedule. In answer to a question as to when Registration will go live, Coy explained that it is planned for Spring 2004.
Jon Nelson expressed concern about the lack of financial information available to departments during this interim where the OBIS system is no longer available and the EIS financial system is not yet available to departmental users. He stated that a report sent out once a month is not sufficient for departmental accounting.
There was no report from the Research Planning Group.
Kenn Moffitt reported for the Standards and Policy Planning Group that he was presenting the Group E-mail Guidelines for discussion, and distributed copies of the document (Attachment 2). There was some discussion about the Guidelines and suggestions were made for revisions. Members can send additional comments to Kenn before the October meeting when there will be a vote on this.
Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner reported for the Student Computing Planning Group that they have all of the technology in place to put the Student Computing Survey on line. They hope to have the survey on line by mid-semester.
Patrick Pluscht reported for the Distance Learning Team that a new tool for accurately implementing the distributed learning funding model’s 50-mile rule was distributed to the departments who are participating in that model. Students enrolled in electronically-delivered courses who are claimed for distributed learning funding model revenue by a department must meet the following two criteria: 1. The student must NOT be simultaneously enrolled in any courses which meet on the UNT Denton campus for a majority of the course. 2. The student’s primary residence must be located further than 50 miles from the UNT Denton campus as determined by the student’s zip code. This is not driving distance from UNT-Denton, but rather based on a circle with a radius of 50 miles. Patrick extended his thanks to fellow IRC member Bruce Hunter who used Geographic Information System tools to identify a legitimate set of zip codes which were within 50 miles of campus. Bruce also created graphical representations of the resulting area determined to meet the 50-mile rule criteria.
The CDL has been working on a project to develop a course information database for distance education courses that will enable faculty to put course information on the web for later retrieval by students. There will be a portal called UNT Campus where students can browse for courses that are of interest to them. Their goal is to have at least 30% of the courses on the site before it is launched on October 15th with 90% on the site by mid-December. Patrick also reported that WebCT has had software and hardware upgrades completed and the new version of WebCT, called Vista, has been installed though it isn’t yet in production. Training for the new version will be available in Spring of 2004 with the switch-over beginning during the Summer of 2004 and continuing through the Fall of 2004. The goal is to have all courses migrated to Vista by Spring 2005. There is a migration tool that is being evaluated for faculty so that courses won’t have to be built from scratch on the new version.
There being no further business the meeting was adjourned at 3:00 p.m.