Academic Computing Committee
Meeting Minutes
September 11, 2006


Members Present:
University Senate Representative: J. Alvares, M. Heller

Faculty Representatives: S. Sotillo [CHSS Faculty Rep.], R. Xing [SBUS Faculty Rep., C. Du [CSAM Faculty Rep.], S. Poger [CEHS Faculty Rep.], A. Pemberton [SART Faculty Rep.]

Administrative Representatives (Academic Deans): M. Mallery [Library Administrative Rep.], A.J. Kelton [CHSS Administrative Rep.], H. Sanni [CEHS Administrative Rep.], E. Harris [SART Administrative Rep.], L. Jenkins [Proxy for Dean Alan Oppenheim], J. Youn [CSAM Administrative Rep.], J. Donadeu [Graduate School Administrative Rep.]

Non-voting Members Present: E. Chapel (Associate Vice President for Information Technology); R. Wolfson (Local 1904 Observer),T. Devlin (Academic Coordinator of Education Computing Network)

Guests: K. Bain, P. Kahn, J. O'Brien, J. Minier, T. Hoskinson, R. Salomon, M. Kasner

Absent:
S. Shapiro [Library Faculty Rep.], D. Stevens [Undergraduate Student Rep], A. Mohiuddin [Graduate Student Rep.], VACANT [Undergrad. Student Rep.], VACANT, Associate Director of Academic Technology

Presiding: J. Alvares, Outgoing Chair, and M. Kasner, Incoming Chair
Reporting: M. Mallery, Secretary
Distribution: ACC Web at http://frontpage.montclair.edu/acc/
Convened: 3:07 p.m. [Library Special Collections Room]
Adjourned: 4:40 p.m.

1. Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 3:07 p.m.

2. Minutes: Minutes for May 8th were approved with one change in name spelling.

3. Announcements: Kelton announced that MSU EdTeXpo will be held on Thursday, October 19th beginning at 10:00 am in the University Hall Conference Center with keynote speaker Dr. Ken Bain, author of the book "What the best college teachers do" (Harvard U. Press, 2004) and researcher on teacher quality and the evolution of learning.  For more information on EdTeXpo speakers, see the Website at:
http://frontpage.montclair.edu/edtexpo/index.html .  Registration will be open October 1st. 

Wolfson and Kelton announced that they are attending EDUCAUSE 2006, October 9–12 in Dallas, Texas. Ed Chapel will be presenting at EDUCAUSE on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 with Kathleen Ragan on "Montclair State University Unplugged: Replacing Landlines with a Cellular Information Device," and on Thursday, October 12th with Richard Wolfson of MSU and Donald Vogel of Bowling Green State U. on "Putting the Pedagogy First: The Classroom 2008 Project."

4. ACC Officer Elections:
Kelton presided over the election for ACC Chair. Jean Alvares and Marc Kasner were nominated; Kasner was elected by a vote of 7 to 3. The ACC thanked Alvares for his service and dedication during his two-year term of office as Chair.

5. Reports
• Chair's Report: Alvares welcomed and Wolfson introduced Dr. Ken Bain, Vice Provost for Instruction and Director of the MSU Teaching Learning Resource Center.  For more information on Dr. Bain, see: http://www5.montclair.edu/pages/teachingcenter/bain.html .  Dr. Bain answered questions about plans for the TLRC at MSU, Alvares invited him to visit the ACC meetings, and Dr. Bain requested to join the ACC listserv.

• OIT Report: Chapel reported that it is a difficult budget year for MSU. The OIT budget was reduced by $839K for FY07, including eliminating seven position from the OIt base, even though MSU added services, such as RMS (Resident Management System), BlackBoard CMS (Content Management System), and Lecture123.  Six new positions were allocated and foregone, and the Academic Technology Director is no longer a position to fill at this time.

In order to further cut OIT costs, the MSU ISP service will be removed as of September 30th.  This removal was announced in August with a list of possible ISP replacements.  OIT will also restructure financing for the Lifecycle Replacement Program.  Currently, hardware components are in place to replace aging equipment. Chapel is putting together an Advisory Group and Ad Hoc Committee to recommend characteristics and configuration of machinery for the next large-scale replacement schedule. Chapel is currently meeting with Deans and Heads of administrative units for recommendations of members for this ad hoc committee.

Chapel also reported that he can no longer serve as the OIT representative to the ACC, and that in his place Patty Kahn will attend to report on BlackBoard CMS, John O'Brien will report on classroom technology issues, and other OIT staff will attend to report on other initiatives, such as Brian Beckett reporting on the SPAM filtering issues at the May ACC meeting.  Kelton noted that the Academic Technology Director is a voting rep. to the ACC.  Chapel said that he would email the name of the OIT ACC voting rep. to Kasner, the new ACC Chair.

• Ad Hoc Committee Reports:

a) Learning Management Subcommittee (LMS) - Kahn reported that the LMS had not met yet, and the new Chair has not been elected.  Six faculty are piloting Moodle,an open source learning management system, this semester and will report to LMS at the end of the semester.  Other faculty have found Moodle "overwhelming" compared to BlackBoard, which is more structured and easier to use for faculty.  Kahn will convene a meeting of the LMS in October. 

b) EDUCAUSE Membership: Kelton (Chair) had nothing to report at this time.

6. Ongoing Business:
• Technical Specifications Subcommittee (TSS): Alvares explained the rationale for the TSS, which had been discussed at the May ACC meeting with the vote deferred to September.  After discussion, the motion was amended to:

***
Kelton moved that a standing subcommittee of the Academic Computing Committee (ACC) be created called the Technical Specifications Subcommittee (TSS). The TSS will consist of one technical person from each unit represented by the ACC as well as technical personnel, the number of which to be determined and assigned by the Office of Information Technology (OIT), to represent issues of systems, technical security, networking, media, classroom technology, hardware, and software. The TSS will elect its own governing body and the agenda will be driven by issues as suggested or requested by the ACC. The TSS will meet as needed in order to address the issues presented to it, with the objective of providing timely information to the ACC.
***

The motion passed.  Youn moved that each of the following four ACC Ongoing Business items listed on the agenda should be referred to the TSS for discussion and recommendations to the ACC at their next meeting:
A. Discussion of Common Build
B. Discussion of licensing users for software across campus
C. Policy on frequency of lab reimaging
D. Workstation integrity software

Kasner said that he would contact the new members of the TSS and convene the first meeting.

7. New Business:

• ACC Meeting Schedule for 2006-7:

11 September 2006
9 October 2006
13 Novermber 2006
11 December 2006
22 January 2007
12 February 2007
5 March 2007
9 April 2007
7 May 2007

All meetings will be held on a Monday 3 to 5 PM in the Special Collections Room in Sprague Library, except for the March meeting, for which Kahn and Mallery arranging a meeting room in University Hall.

8. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 4:40 PM.