FACULTY SENATE UNIVERSITY COMPUTER & ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE DRAFT MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF Nov. 13, 1997, Room 165-69 CAMPUS CENTER Approved: Dec. 11, 1997 Present: S. Brewer, M. Crist, E. Cutting, D. Damery, J. Dubach, A. Gaylord, E. Hurn, T. Jackson, J. Kunkel, B. MacDougall (chairperson), B. McCandless, R. Sailer, M. Wingertsman. Bruce MacDougall called the meeting to order at 2:35 1. Approval of Minutes: The minutes of the Oct. 16, 1997 meeting were amended and approved. 2. Announcements: Recent OIT developments (John Dubach): A. An SIS vendor, People Soft, has been chosen from the two deemed suitable and negotiations are proceeding with the expectation of full operation in January 2000. B. OIT is now serving 17,000 users compared to 14,000 users by the end of last Spring term. 3. Presentation by Margo Crist (Director of University Libraries) A. Presentation: Margo Crist reviewed the goals of the University Libraries using a distributed working paper, which was made an exhibit for the committee: 2001: A Strategic Plan for the University Libraries, University of Massachusetts Amherst Several points were made during the presentation: (1) Redesigning the learning space is a major challenge. (2) New guides to the knowledge resources are being established. (3) Working with new partners in technology: (A) Through OIT a substantial investment in the Libraries IT infrastructure has been made (~$250,000) (B) Publishers have established DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) to track use of their products. The future use of these DOIs may be considerable. (C) The Computer Industry has, in providing GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces), produced an amazingly powerful tool for people with normal vision but GUIs are creating challenges to provide an equally effective interface for visually impaired patrons, a subject of interest to this committee. (4) The Library envisions itself as an agile organization, ready to anticipate the needs and diversity of its users. (5) The Library has taken on new roles in information dissemination: (A) 500 groups (comprising 7000 people) were serviced last year. (The John Calapari Room is set up for group presentations.) (B) librarians are taking on new roles to instruct users in new technology. (C) information literacy is a Statewide project with UMass Libraries participation. (D) Web pages will be increasingly used to provide information. (i.e. UMass Libraries Home Page - http://www.library.umass.edu/) (6) In the Libraries' recent crisis in its IT staff, OIT has stepped in to help. (7) The recent ADA controversy has demonstrated some shortcomings of the arrangement of resources in the Tower Library which are under various units controls. B. Question period: answered by the Director. (1) Where do we stand among similar library systems? We rank 76 of 109 libraries ranked by the ARL. This position is affected heavily by our positions, in the 90s of 109, for both serials and staff. In this ranking electronic resources are not counted and it is debatable if we should invest in expensive paper serials when the future will be in electronic resources. The library is comfortable with that ranking with respect to its strategies for improvement of the library in general. (2) Where are we going with electronic serials such as the IdeaLibrary? The publishers are in turmoil about how to provide bundled electronic access with respect to their revenue stream as well as whether hard copy is required and/or will be provided. JSTORE, a recent addition to our electronic journal resources, claims that it will provide tapes of journals it provides when and if it ceases operation. 4. Old business A. Written report of the "Unmet Needs" Subcommittee The report of the Unmet Needs Committee distributed by Ed Cutting was accepted by the committee. B. Pending Motion of Ernie Anderson. (1) Steve Brewer started the discussion of the motion and the fact that Gordon Wise, who is positioned on the Faculty Senate Rules Committee, is also on the University IT Committee. It seems that the TLTR issue surfaced at their recent meeting and they would perhaps be agreeable in supporting a joint motion. (2) Time being short it was decided to proceed with our own motion. The motion of Ernie Anderson was brought, in revised form, by (3) Emily Hurn to the committee and revised by friendly amendments to the following form: Motion: Whereas the Faculty Senate University Computing and Electronic Communications Committee (FSUC&ECC) has encountered major difficulties in addressing current campus computing problems and ascertaining near- and long-term computing and instructional technology needs of the University due to the campus' lack of coordinated planning, which has resulted in redundancy of services and disparate funding practices among the various schools and departments; be it resolved that the FSUC&ECC recommends the Faculty Senate urge the Administration to create a Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable (TLTR) according to the specifications of the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) in order to achieve the future orderly development and functioning of the campus instructional technology environment. (4) Further Discussion: (A) Bruce McCandless noted that the only recent University roundtable on campus, The Pugh Roundtable, was not a success. (B) Note was also made of Ernie Anderson's Email comment that the AAHE means for the TLTR to be a short lived entity (5 yrs) which helps the University establish a proper infrastructure for IT planning, and then the TLTR dissembles itself. (C) We charged our FSUC&ECC Chairman, Bruce MacDougall, to assemble an interim report to the Faculty Senate including a proper prologue to the voted motion. (5) The Motion was Called, Voted and Passed by unanimous vote. 5. New Business. (None) The meeting adjourned at 3:59 Respectfully Submitted Joseph G. Kunkel joe@bio.umass.edu last updated 11/17/97