FACULTY SENATE UNIVERSITY COMPUTER & ELECTRONIC
COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF Oct. 16, 1997
Approved as amended: Nov. 13, 1997
Present: E. Anderson, D. Blanchard, S. Brewer, S. Cook.,
E. Cutting, D. Damery, J. Dubach, A. Gaylord, E. Hurn,
T. Jackson, J. Kunkel, R. Lewellen, B. MacDougall (chairperson),
M. Wingertsman.
Bruce MacDougall called the meeting to order at 2:35
1. Approval of Minutes:
The Committee approved the minutes of the Sept. 25, 1997 meeting.
2. Announcements
A. Mission/charge/name change issues (Bruce MacDougall)
Our mission and any potential name change are impinged on by issues
at this meeting and any discussion will be deferred.
B. Recent OIT developments (John Dubach)
Beyond the issues being reported below there were no other issues to
share.
C. 1998 UMass Instructional Technology Conference (Tad Jackson)
URL:http://www.umassp.edu/html/itc/itc_toc.html
1) Faculty and Students are invited to submit abstracts for presentations
at the 1998 conference on April 16th. Details are available at the
web site. A brochure was distributed explaining the conference.
2) Several committee members attested to the positive experience of the
1997 conference. All five campuses of the University were involved
proportional to their faculty size. This made UMass Amherst's
contribution the largest in number of participants. Last years
conference focused on what had been initiated on each campus. This
years objective is to continue sharing of campus initiatives as well
as highlighting instances that have been particularly effective.
3) While administrations of other campuses subsidized the $50 registration
fee, the Amherst Administration did not!
3. Old business
A. Committee Reports from the three standing committees were received,
1) Unmet Needs
Ed Cutting presented an oral report in which he concluded that
the University needed to undertake long term critical planning
in order to identify unmet needs before they became crises.
2) Student Access
Joe Kunkel presented a written report and added oral comments
that argued for identification of IT needs for the students of
each college so that we could adequately plan to fill them.
3) Emergency Measures
Bruce MacDougall presented an oral report which indicated that
the Emergency Measures subcommittee had carried out its duties
successfully in the eyes of our Report to the Faculty Senate.
He commented further that he did not view these Emergency
Measures as the proper role of the FSUC&ECC but that perhaps in
conjunction with the prior two subcommittee reports that some
conclusion about critical planning was warranted.
Ed Cutting moved,
MOTION: The committee requests that Associate Chancellor for Information
Technology, John Dubach, present our concerns about long term
critical planning for IT to the Vice Chancellor for Research.
a) The motion was seconded and opened for discussion.
b) Since the motion deals with issues of planning that will arise again
in several issues before this meeting there was a
MOTION TO TABLE: The committee voted by hand 9:x to table.
B. ADA Plan for OIT.
John Dubach reported the state of the OIT ADA Plan.
1) A complaint has been filed that the University has failed to
fulfill its duties with respect to the disabled and particularly
that our computer facilities do not comply to the needs of
disabled.
2) A University response to the complaint was filed earlier this
Summer but the Federal Government has not as yet responded to the
University.
3) OIT has proceeded in appropriate ways to provide for the unmet
needs that prompted the complaint, including:
a. Mary Elkins, Director of Computer Classrooms, has spent two weeks
in Assistive Technology Training over the Summer. Her
certification will involve further written assignments.
b. A Disability Service Facility has been established on the 7th
floor of Duboise Tower Library. It contains several computers
and ancillary equipment, both PC and Macintosh with associated
scanners, printers and monitors. A Braille printer is attached to
one of the Pentium computers. Specialized software for the impaired
includes Vocalize (a text reader), Jaws and Zoom Text which aid
visually impaired computer operators.
c. Each lab run by OIT now has an adjustable table unit to facilitate
disabled operators.
d. A new software management system will be able to distribute the
available licensed software seats to any of the compatible terminals
in the University.
e. A method to expedite ordering specialized equipment or software
from non contract vendors is being developed to shorten the response
time to unanticipated needs of the disabled.
f. The experience gained by OIT in responding to these needs will be
made available to Departmental facilities which will need to be
brought into compliance.
4) No guidelines are available from outside agencies to aid facilities
to respond to the complaints that have been voiced (e.g. # of ADA units
per total units in a facility).
5) A question was voiced as to the safety of having the ADA DS Unit
housed on the 7th floor of the Tower.
John Dubach answered that this is a problem that is dealt with in
the University Disability protocols.
C. Ernie Anderson introduced the following motion and supportive
documentation:
MOTION: Whereas the FSUC&ECC has experienced several episodes of disruptions
in the orderly development and function of our instructional technology
environment, which seem to stem from a lack of informed long term planning,
the Faculty Senate urges the administration to create a Teaching, Learning,
and Technology Roundtable (TLTR) according to American Association for Higher
Education (AAHE) specifications.
Discussion:
1) Ernie spoke to the motion which is included in the supportive
documentation.
2) Rachel Lewellen, a committee guest from the Library, observed that this
AAHE sponsored program has wide support and success in the community of
universities across the country.
3) Emily Hurn noted that this structure might solve some of the problems of
lack of information and long term planning that our standing committees
alluded to in their recent reports to the committee.
4) John Dubach wondered whether this TLTR would be a duplication of the
existing Council for Teaching Learning and Instructional Technology of
the Faculty Senate. Ernie Anderson explained that the TLTR, was a
highly structured administrative unit which has structural guidelines
provided by AAHE which provide a nationwide network of such units that
go far beyond what the local faculty senate council provides. The AAHE
supports development with a national identity, runs summer institutes,
etc.
5) The chair reminded us of the need to get this motion through the rules
committee of the Faculty Senate and thus we need to give it substantial
discussion as to its wording and supportive documentation. Particularly
we needed an effective 'Whereas ...' statement as a preamble.
6) After several further comments by a supportive committee, the hour being
late, it was MOVED to call the question.
VOTED: The motion to call the question was defeated by a voice vote.
4. New Business.
(None)
The meeting adjourned at 4:10
Respectfully Submitted
Joseph G. Kunkel
joe@bio.umass.edu
last updated 10/16/97