UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS
INFORMATION RESOURCES COUNCIL
May 16, 2006
VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: PHILIP TURNER, PAUL HONS (for JUDITH ADKISON), JANE HIMMEL (for PATRICK PLUSCHT), TIM CHRISTIAN, LOU ANN BRADLEY, JIM CURRY, JONEEL HARRIS, WIL CLARK (for JOHN PRICE), MARGARET AMBUEHL, RAY BANKS, ROBERT NIMOCKS, ELIZABETH HINKLE-TURNER, SARA WILSON MCKAY, DON GROSE, BRUCE HUNTER,
NON-VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: MAURICE LEATHERBURY, JAMES STRAWN, PHILIP BACZEWSKI, JOE ADAMO, JOHN HOOPER, SUE ELLEN RICHEY (Recording Secretary)
MEMBERS ABSENT: CHRISTY CRUTSINGER, UWE ROSSBACH, JON NELSON, TOBYE RAE NELSON, RAMU MUTHIAH, GUILLERMO OYARCE, CHUCK FULLER, ABRAHAM JOHN, DOUG MAINS, BOBBY CARTER
GUESTS: JENNIFER LAFLEUR
The minutes of the April 16, 2006 meeting of the IRC were approved as distributed.
John Hooper reported for the EIS Planning Group that although Oracle had announced that the new applications they had purchased, including PeopleSoft, would be adapted into a new product called Fusion; however, Oracle has since decided not to do that and instead continue supporting the acquired applications in their present versions. Oracle will be developing their new product, called Fusion, which UNT may want to move to in the future, but at least by this latest decision, UNT has been relieved of the urgency of making a decision to either convert to Fusion or change to an entirely new product. In addition, Hooper explained that EIS has had a governance model that was developed at the beginning of the EIS project, one which was tied to a fixed budget and a fixed schedule. Since that model no longer fits, a new governance model has been developed, and he distributed an introduction and program overview document that contains a diagram of the new model (see Attachment #1). Hooper also announced that the Learning Solutions module, which includes Student Administration, H-R, Payroll, and Contributor Relations upgrade is scheduled for November, 2006.
Phil Turner reported that there has not been an IR Steering Committee meeting since the last IRC meeting.
Philip Baczewski reported for the Distributed Computing Support Management Team that DCSMT has met twice since the last IRC meeting. On April 21, future DCSMT meeting location(s) were discussed. Most of the group was not in favor of alternating locations between the north and south campuses. With some possible exceptions, DCSMT meetings will, for the most part, continue to be scheduled in ISB 201. Also at the April 21st meeting, Mike Hatch gave a demo of the remote desktop solution that the College of Business is deploying to enable
instructors to access a COBA desktop image from remote locations.
Featured at the May 5th meeting was a demonstration of Virtual Ink's Mimio Interactive
Whiteboard technology, Mimio Studio software, and Mimio Note software. The Mimio unit allows any whiteboard to be used with a computer and projector to allow computer capture of annotations on the whiteboard and to enable mouse control via interaction with a projection on the whiteboard. More information can be found at www.virtualink.com. Rich Anderson proposed that new installations of McAfee antivirus and antispyware software will only be
available via ePolicy Orchestrator in order to increase use of that facility and to track the number of installations. Rich also noted that he has been asked to write a desktop remote access policy and is soliciting input on the definition of remote access and what standards need to be set.
The next DCSMT meeting is scheduled for May 19 in Chilton 245, since ISB 201 is undergoing a redesign of its video conferencing resources.
Jane Himmel reported for the Enhanced Learning Planning Group that UNT has been officially invited by Apple to participate in their iTunes University initiative and their license agreement has been submitted to legal for review prior to a larger announcement to the University community. In addition, CDL is pursuing the purchase of Horizon Wimba’s Voice Tools to embed vocal interactions (voice boards, voice emails, etc.) into WebCT courses. The purchase does not include the Live Classroom webconferencing tool that was previously discussed at IRC though a future purchase of this software hasn’t been ruled out. The ASP license agreement for Voice Tools has also been submitted to legal for review.
Lou Ann Bradley reported that the Communications Planning Group has not met since the last IRC meeting.
Tim Christian presented a draft of the revised UNT Web Publishing Policy (see Attachment #2) and pointed out the changes that had been made to the policy, at the request of the IR Steering Committee. A couple of additional changes were suggested during the discussion that followed. Wil Clark moved that the rules be set aside so that this revised policy could be presented for a vote, even though this was only a first reading. That motion passed. Following further discussion, the council voted unanimously to accept the revised policy with its changes and minor corrections. Tim Christian thanked Maurice Leatherbury and Kenn Moffitt for meeting with him to make the needed revisions, and offered thanks to the rest of his committee who assisted via email.
Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner reported for the Student Computing Planning Group that she will soon be involved in Freshman Orientation, making presentations to parents and students, and distributing information about student computing at tables set up for that purpose during the orientation period. She mentioned that CITC’s David Wood would also have a table set up at orientation in order to distribute information about computer security at UNT. Elizabeth will also be presenting information during the graduate student orientation in August.
Joneel Harris announced that UNT’s Student ID numbers will no longer be printed on their ID cards due to the amount of concern over identity theft. The ID cards will have the ID numbers embedded in the magnetic strip on the card in the future. Joey Saxon has stated that he will provide a magnetic strip reader to any department that has a need for one, in order for that department to be able to scan students’ id cards.
Phil Turner announced that there is only one course that is still on the Campus Edition of WebCT and that faculty member has until December 31st to convert it to WebCT Vista. He also announced that there would be a hardware upgrade by Fall semester in order to support Vista. There was a software upgrade to Service Pack 6 planned for Maymester, but since 48 hours of downtime is required for the upgrade, it has been postponed until August.
Jane Himmel reported that CDL is testing some WebCT "PowerLinks" this summer, which are third-party tools that have the ability to be integrated with Vista. The specific ones being tested include a Wiki tool (which is like a Web page that multiple students can go in and edit without having to know any kind of code), a blogging tool, which allows students to keep a Web page type journal and publish it to the rest of the class. Other students are able to add comments to what the student has posted. Another tool integrated with Vista would allow students to receive their WebCT Vista course mail to their mobile phones. Lastly, the RSS feed tool would allow instructors to create "news pages" in their course that are updated automatically to the minute. They can set up a search by topic or keyword in a particular journal, newspaper, or other news source on the Web and as new articles are posted that meet that search criteria, they are linked on the page in the course that has this RSS feed. Students just go to the page and review the news items, following the links to those they are interested in reading.
Phil Turner made a final report regarding the QEP. He said that the SACS review was very positive, with only two recommendations and 8 suggestions made for improvement. UNT has until September 1, 2006 to incorporate these into the plan and resubmit it. Dr. Ron Carriveaux, an Assessment and Measurement Specialist, has been hired by the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.