UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS
INFORMATION RESOURCES COUNCIL
November 16, 2004
VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: PHILIP TURNER, ELIZABETH HINKLE-TURNER, LOU ANN BRADLEY, COY HOGGARD (for JONEEL HARRIS), JIM CURRY, STACIA GIBSON (for PATRICK PLUSCHT), ROBERT NIMOCKS, BRUCE HUNTER, JUDITH ADKISON, WIL CLARK (for JOHN PRICE)
NON-VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: MAURICE LEATHERBURY, RICHARD HARRIS, SUE ELLEN RICHEY (Recording Secretary)
MEMBERS ABSENT: JON NELSON, SANDRA TERRELL, RAMU MUTHIAH, JONEEL HARRIS, JOE ADAMO, MARGARET AMBUEHL, KATHY SWIGGER, MAX KAZEMZADEH, DON GROSE, ABRAHAM JOHN, CENGIZ CAPAN, KENN MOFFITT, CHRISTY CRUTSINGER, DOUG MAINS, BOBBY CARTER, CHUCK FULLER
GUESTS: JENNIFER LAFLEUR, BETTY TOMBOULIAN, RHONDA HOLMES
Minutes from the October meeting could not be approved due to lack of a quorum. They will be considered for approval at the December meeting.
Dr. Turner reported that there has been no IR Steering Committee meeting since the last IRC meeting; therefore, there is no report.
Maurice Leatherbury reported for the Distributed Computing Support Management Team that the group has been dealing with the issue of expiring passwords. Campus wide notification of password expiration will be completed in the next two weeks. In addition, he announced that Microsoft is coming to campus to conduct a training and briefing of DCSMT on security and patch management.
Stacia Gibson reported for the Learning Enhancement Planning Group that they have received 17 proposals totaling $370,000 in application for the available $150,000 in grant funds. A committee of six members chosen from the steering committee has been formed which will prepare evaluation packets and send them out, with the evaluations due back by December 1. Final recommendations on the proposals will be made by December 15.
Lou Ann Bradley reported that the Communications Planning Group has not met, so there was no report.
Coy Hoggard reported for the EIS Planning Group that CITC is approaching a significant milestone in the discontinuation of the use of the IBM mainframes IBM (and IBM-compatible) mainframes have been in use at UNT since 1970 when the IBM model 360 was installed. The discontinuation of use is scheduled for November 30th . Mainframe-related software and hardware leases and maintenance agreements have been cancelled effective November 30.
In addition, Coy announced that the financial area is working on implementation of the budget management module. They have been heavily involved in preparing the annual financial report (AFR) and closing out of FY04 books. Reporting continues to be an issue and they are working on improving reporting technology, as well as working on updating the data warehousing area, out of which some reporting can be done. They are implementing Cypress software, which is an on-line report distribution software product which is planned to replace centralized report printing previously provided by CITC. Due to some unforeseen problems and staffing issues, implementation is running later than planned, but those problems are being dealt with.
Further, Coy reported that 19,800 students have early registered for Spring, 2005 semester and the number is expected to exceed 20,000 before early registration ends.
There was no report from the Standards & Policy Planning Group.
Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner reported for the Student Computing Planning Group that they are working, but have not officially met as a group. It has been decided that locations of labs in the various buildings on campus need to be made more visible in the signage for each building. It has been recommended to Facilities that when new signs are made for buildings, that a metal slat be added noting that a general access lab is available in that building. She added that eCampus posters have been hung in the various labs. Students are now being encouraged to store their data on UNT student storage and labs are providing an icon on all of the lab machines for ease in accessing that resource, rather than storing their data on floppy disks.
Dr. Turner pointed out that due to a licensing issue, Java is not installed on the Library lab machines which prevents Vista from being accessed by users in that lab. Lou Ann Bradley stated that they would look into resolving that issue.
Dr. Turner suggested that a lab with around 50 computers, that is primarily for testing, be set up for use by students enrolled in courses that provide tests on-line. Elizabeth stated that she has brought that up at a GALMAC meeting and stated that funding of such a lab would be the issue.
In response to a question from Bruce Hunter regarding the high volume of printing done by students, Elizabeth explained that the general access lab committee evaluates this issue about every 18 months and so far they have always concluded that the cost of setting up some kind of system that would limit printouts would be more than the cost of paper to allow students to print anything and as much as they need to. She noted that students already pay a fee for use of the labs and therefore, the paper cost is covered. In addition Elizabeth noted that all of the general access lab printers are set up to automatically print everything duplex, which is a paper savings in itself.
Dr. Turner reported that "Turn It In.com is now an officially licensed software product in use at UNT. This product checks work turned in by students to help them to be honest in their scholarship. If anyone has questions about this product, or ideas on how to get the word out, they should contact Patrick Pluscht, Stacia Gibson or Dr. Turner for more information.
Dr. Turner also reported that the Distributed Learning Team is moving forward with investigating the feasibility of a Center for Teaching and Learning and Assessment. They have developed an on-line survey for faculty to use in rating various services.
Dr. Turner reported that on August 31, 2005 the campus edition license of WebCT will no longer be available at UNT. The choice was made to go with their new product, Vista, and courses are being converted to Vista now and will continue to be if the decision is made to continue using Vista. However, if problems continue with Vista, and are not solved by summer, the choice is to go back to using the campus edition version, or find another vendor entirely, which would be the least advantageous choice. They have been conducting conference calls with WebCT’s primary support group to try and solve the problems and WebCT promises release of a large revision to the product in the near future, which is believed will resolve the issues UNT has been dealing with. Maurice Leatherbury added that the move to Vista was made because it was believed that Vista was the future product of WebCT and because technically CITC can’t support the campus edition because of the huge number of files it requires and the product is not designed for scalability.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 2:45 p.m.