TASK FORCE ON ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

Send mail to e-comm@virginia.edu

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA -- SPRING 1997

Meeting notes for March 6, 1997, Thursday, 3:30 - 5:20 p.m., 110 Peabody Hall

Attendance: all present except Lockart, Wright, Jokl

Summary: Louise Dudley opened the meeting noting that a majordomo list with the name "e-comm@virginia.edu" has been established. Chip German will enter the IDs of task force members for the list shortly.

Louise highlighted the charge (which appears above) and described what she thought to be the likely products -- a three-year vision and perhaps a matrix of types of communication and suggested means of delivery. Both need to be sufficiently detailed for ITC to use in build realistic financial estimates for the systems to accomplish the deliveries.

Louise described background material that has in some way helped advance the question on which the task force will focus. They include the GWIS mission statement, the interim large-scale e-mail policy, the Jessica Scenario (one of a set of IT-planning scenarios), the University's restructuring initiative (responding to the state), recommendations of the Administrative Computing Council and the Communications Task Force (reporting to the VP for Mgmt and Budget) -- both of which included expanded use of electronic communications, and examples of recent requests from admininstrative offices and student organizations to broadcast electronic messages to large populations.

Then Louise used a "cardstorming" technique to examine the question "What are the issues we need to address, questions to ask, data or expertise to gather, important criteria or considerations to define that will help us fulfill our charge?" The products of that technique appear below:

Push/Pull Delivery

Ethical/Legal Issues

Policy Issues

Social/Equity Issues

Economic Resources

Big Questions

(Temp) Goals/ Priorities

Unclassified

Questions of Media

-- E-mail

-- Usenet Newsgroups

-- WWW

-- Sensitivity to new media possibilities

Privacy issues (e.g. selling lists)

Policy on mass/official mailing

Reach off-grounds students

Cost factor: snailmail costly, electronic mail cheap

Quality of academic experience relative to technology

Goals:

-- Facilitate timely, current communication

-- Fulfill University's mission

-- Further individual goals

-- Computers as means, not ends

Explore asynchronous (e-mail, WWW, FTP), vs. sychronous ('chat', MOOs)

Heard of Pointcast? -- possible solution

Limits in existing policies

Decision maker -- who sends what to whom?

Access for those without computers

Increase capacity of infrastructure

Electronic classroom -- using e-media there

What would Jefferson want?:

-- Knowledge-based academical village

-- Equality of access

-- Informed citizenry

-- Protect users' freedom

-- Efficient delivery of info.

Refine mailing lists (reduce duplication)

The issue of push, pull and "push to pull" (priorities)

Legal issues

Which e-mail lists should be mandatory

Easy access to WWW by user community

Does "pricing" policy need to change?

Intranet vs. Internet

Get student-related information to all students electronically

Use multiple media for info. delivery

"Information you go looking for is good; information that comes looking for you is bad." -- John Unsworth

Security issues (copyright, protection of data, etc.)

Hierarchy of importance for information distribution

Consider "Haves" & "Have-nots" in choosing media for e-comm

Availability of adequate resources

Who should be part of Univ. on-line network community?

Foster bottom-up content development

Junk mail -- what is it and do we care?

Unintended consequences of e-comm

Limit centralized control

Training

When does e-delivery or e-publication replace other means?

Tension between unwanted information and unknown information of interest

Commercial information distribution

Short-term mass e-mail (97-98): who decides, and what's mass criteria?

Off-grounds access to the University network

Integration of traditional and digital technologies/ culture

Just in time or Just in case?

Separate policies or admin. for student organizations?

How can we create a knowledgebase sufficiently rich that it become an asset to the whole state?

Central messaging alternatives:

Pointcast

MSNBC

Does U.Va. have policies re group voice mail?

Information overload

Avoid desensitizing students to flow of information

The task force agreed to meet again at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 20, at Peabody 110.

 

 

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