ACAC Meeting of October 9, 1996
Present: David Phillips (Chair), Virginia Bergland (ITC), Jim Campbell, Rick Fore, Chip German (ITC), Jim Jokl (ITC) John Lloyd, Worthy Martin, Sally Reel, Bob Ribando, Bob Rood, Ken Schwartz, Tim Sigmon, George Williams, Alice Howard Next meetings: November 13, 1996; December 11, 1996 at 4 p.m. in the ITC-Forestry Conference room ITC's Recent Reorganization =========================== Virginia Bergland distributed "before" and "after 9/9/96" organizational charts for ITC and highlighted the most significant changes that happened in the September reorganization: (a) Virginia's role and title became Chief Operating Officer, ITC; (b) Shirley Payne became Director, Strategic Studies and External Relations, reporting to Polley McClure in OIT; Pat Lozier became Interim Director, Applications and Data Services; (c) the former User Support Division (Martha Sites, Director) was split into two divisions -- a new division for Department Support and Customer Outreach (Terry Lockard, Director), and another division for Consulting Services and Instructional Technology (Martha Sites, Director). Virginia cited the burgeoning! demands on the previous User Support structure as the rationale for this decision. She also noted that the Help Desk will become staffed by a combination of dedicated full-time staff and student assistants -- instead of having other full-time staff rotate through Help Desk shifts. Discussion followed including concerns for faculty support ("expert consulting" will be provided under the new scheme), hopes for improved support under the new system, concerns about managing the demands on the Help Desk and the flow of Q&A between the Help Desk and the "experts", and about comparing the current staffing levels to those of the past. Virginia reiterated ITC's need to keep changing to meet an ever-changing environment. Basic Departmental Technology Support ===================================== Chip German distributed and reviewed copies of the slide presentation that Polley McClure had given to the Deans on 9/23/96, highlighting some of the benefits envisioned for this new effort -- including: *promoting self-reliance and command over own local environment; *assistance in obtaining financing for new equipment; *ITC staff will be assigned to particular departmental support staff as advocates who are also familiar with the local environment. Discussion followed which focused on: *financing options -- David stressed the importance of having both Peter Low and Polley McClure interested in this program; also Terry Lockard has a substantial experience with budget and finance; *current status -- in the "pilot" stage with interest from several schools and departments (especially in Arts & Sciences) in starting assessments; ITC is working on staffing, and the initial scale and expectations; suggestions/ideas are welcome! *differences between administrative and academic units in their needs and charactistics -- with administrative units viewed as more organized and similar, academic units viewed as more diffuse with varied environments -- Chip emphasized that this new program was being designed to focus on academic pilots -- David emphasized that this is an opportunity for "bottom up" work by schools/departments and their computing committees. Dialin Access ============= Jim Jokl responded to questions about the current modem-pool configuration (2/3 with a 1 hour limit, 1/3 unlimited time) and the chronic shortage of dialin connections via the ITC modem-pool. The philosophy of providing equal-opportunity-access to both faculty and students was questioned and discussed: should faculty be provided with some privileged access? or are they in fact more able to pay for alternative access? what are the expectations on today's students with more and more required to do classwork via the Web, via the Library's electronic resources, and via electronic mail? Alternative access options via Sprint (departments can purchase individual accounts), other Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and possible future access via Adelphia cable were also reviewed. Recommendations from this committee for addressing the load issues on the ITC modem pool were solicited. Worthy Martin will summarize the pros and cons of various options for discussion through the committee email list (e.g. make all modems 1 hour? some 30 minutes with the rest two hours? etc). Presentation by Tim Sigmon about Internet II, NSF metacenters, and NSF connections was deferred to a future meeting. David proposed a steering group to do some brainstorming and provide stimulation for full committee discussions. Polley McClure will come to a committee meeting in the near future.[an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive]