Thursday, March 6, 2008
Agenda
- Introduction of any people that are substituting for committee members
- Approval of minutes from February 1, 2008 meeting
- Follow up on agenda items and future meetings dates
- Review of the 2008 Horizon Report on Technology and Learning (Jim Twetten)
- Developing a plan for campus email (David Popelka)
- ITS use of student computer fees (Jim Davis)
- CAC Handouts [PDF]
- Good of the Order
- Adjourn
Attendance
- Committee attendees
- Phil Spike (chair), James Alleman, Pam Elliot Cain, Jason Carroll, Floyd Davenport, Ian Guffy, Lee Honeycutt, Kathy Jones, Steven Jungst, Karen Lawson, Chris McCoy, Sree Nilakanta, Anthony Townsend, and Jim Davis
- Absent members
- Roger Baer, Steven Herrnstadt, Ann Thompson, and Eldon Uhlenhopp
- Non-committee members in attendance
- Mike Bowman, Erica Fischer, John Kingland, Dave Popelka, and Jim Twetten
Minutes
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Meeting convened at 3:10 p.m.
Minutes from February 1, 2008 meeting were approved.
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After reviewing the discussion of the last meeting, Phil Spike and Jim Davis felt that the projects and initiatives the committee wants to discuss and hear more about fall into three basic categories:
- The vision of new technologies and what the committee should be alerted to.
- Current IT Services issues and their budget implications.
- Budget issues and the need for more clarification.
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To cover these categories Jim Davis suggested the committee could look at the following topics for future discussion points:
- Teaching and learning technologies
- Current IT trends
- Budget items
- Storage
- Course management systems
- Review of multi-year equipment plan
- Central IT initiatives
- Updates on the Data Warehouse and ERP projects
Jim Davis said he would like to see the group continue on through the spring semester (even though the budget proposal has been submitted), break for the summer, and restart again in the fall. The group agreed that the schedule set forth was good. Phil asked the group to think about fall dates and schedules (day of the week, time, etc.) that would work best for the members.
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Jim Twetten, Assistant Director for Academic Technologies of IT Services, presented The Horizon Report, 2008 Edition. The report is a forecast of the upcoming technology trends in higher education and how they will impact the future of teaching and learning. Each committee member in attendance received a copy of the report. The report is distributed by ELI (EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative) and The New Media Consortium (NMC). Six emerging technologies were showcased in the report (four of which were discussed in this meeting), along with a "time to adoption horizon."
- Grassroots video - these are becoming more prevalent because traditional video equipment was often expensive and not easy to use. Now anyone can record a video using something as simple as a cell phone. YouTube is an example of an eclectic mix of videos, Teacher Tube provides K-12 resource videos, and some institutions like MIT are creating their own video sites (MIT Tech TV). Iowa State is currently an iTunes University campus and a limited amount of lecture materials are currently available, but development is still ongoing with a full deployment hopefully scheduled for fall. Tony Townsend asked what the archival capabilities are. Apple does give a storage limit that may be problematic in the future, but it's much more labor intensive for the university to internally produce something that it is to utilize iTunes University.
- Collaborative Webs - this technology has a two-pronged approach, sharing productivity applications (Google Docs) and social spaces (Facebook, Ning, Pageflakes). Many examples are restricted so difficult to see, but Diva at San Francisco is an example of a digital archive that blends repository services, content development tools, personal file management, etc. Floyd Davenport commented that net-vibe pages have a future. With all collaborative web technologies, you can push information out to the students without the students having to come to your page, similar to RSS feeds.
- Mobile Broadband - Abilene Christian University is one of the first universities in nation to provide an iPhone or iPod touch to all incoming freshmen. Tony Townsend commented that with these new technologies the time instructors must devote to class increases and they have a larger load to carry. With new technologies come new expectations. Jim Davis stated that we need to ask ourselves if we are exploring new technology and monitoring the impact. He also suggested the ideas of possible fellowships and that part of IT Services mission is to partner with faculty. Steven Jungst added that it is also important to evaluate how effective it is as a communication tool, and that just because something is "glitzy" does not mean it is best for the students and teaching and learning. Does it increase the learning potential? Ian Guffy stated that sometimes teachers get wrapped up in the new technologies and forget that teaching is the most important.
- Data Mashup - this technology involves taking two or more data sets and combining them into one. An example illustrated collecting information from a cell phone and building a map and using that map to find specific areas/services. Lee Honeycutt used the example of Google Books to describe a mashup. Textbooks can be found on Google Books with the table of contents, book reviews, other books that have cited the particular book, and maps showing every place mentioned in the book.
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Dave Popelka, Associate CIO of IT Services, presented the IT Services Campus Email & Collaborative Tools project.
- Currently Iowa State has free POP email (about 22,000 unique logins) but it lacks calendaring. Free WebMail is also available, but it also lacks calendaring. Exchange email is a fee-based service for faculty/staff only that provides 1GB of storage and a fully integrated calendar (about 3200 users).
- The original reason for investigating email options goes back to the 2004 campus IT Study when many requested a common email and calendaring service.
- For students, IT Services will never be able to commit to the programming resources necessary to match the rich features offered by Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo.
- Google offering currently includes
- Gmail
- Google Talk - Instant messaging, free text and voice messaging over the web
- Google Calendar - sharable calendar with other Gmail users
- Docs & Spreadsheets - sharable documents through the web
- Start Page - Which is a customizable portal
- We can't afford to offer the levels of free storage being offered. ISU is currently offering 1GB. Last fall Google was offering 2GB and they are now offering 6.5GB.
- In September of 2007, individuals were forwarding emails at the following rates (these numbers do not include students who have parallel accounts, but have not elected to forward their ISU email):
- AOL - 64
- Gmail - 3,835
- Hotmail - 308
- MCHSI - 91
- MSN - 57
- Yahoo - 327
- Currently staff issues include storage management, mobile device integration, up time (we are currently vulnerable to extended outages), and email archiving.
- A vendor solution was brought to campus to evaluate in May 2007. The results were mixed:
- WebMail users were impressed with the system's features and integrated calendaring.
- Exchange users were not as impressed and saw this system as a step down in functionality and calendaring integration.
- Students were mixed with some saying we should look at Google.
- Required $1.4M up front and significant year to year license and support fees.
- The current email project plan can be found at http://www.its.iastate.edu/projects/email/.
- David encouraged the committee to submit comments or suggestions to him on this project. Kathy Jones asked if the speed in which emails were received would be similar and David replied that Google is bigger, better, and more robust that our current system. There was also a discussion about the timing of the transition since student email is populated in so many places. Another question was asked if the Net-ID would maintain its presence. The response was that schools still provision the Net-IDs.
Jim Davis presented on computer fees and supplied a handout to the committee members. Currently there are $6M in student fees, university-wide. The money IT Services receives (approximately $750,000) is spent on supporting instructional technology and other services that benefit students. The labor to implement these services is basically pro-bono. CAC has restrictions on supporting infrastructure or reoccurring costs. Phil Spike pointed out that funds are not to be used for permanent staff. The CAC proposal process is typically limited to innovative or start-up projects.
The committee agreed that the discussions on IT topics should continue for future meetings. If any committee members have suggestions, they are free to submit them to Phil Spike or Jim Davis.
Jim Davis commented that there was another item that had to be added to the submitted budget request. Data Warehouse support was added at $43,120 continuously and Jim added a comment to the budget request that the committee was unable to comment on the expense.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:58 p.m.
