FACULTY SENATE UNIVERSITY COMPUTER & ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE MINUTES

DRAFT MINUTES OF MEETING OF APRIL 10, 2001.

PRESENT: G. Hough, M. Wingertsman, N. Aitken, J. Kunkel, D. Powicki, S. Brewer, N. Sims, T. Jackson, C. Jacelon, J. Dubach, E. Cutting

Joe Kunkel called the meeting to order at 12:30 PM.

I: Approval of the minutes.

1. Minutes of February 7, 2000 were amended to read that John Dubach stated that Family Housing residents had been given a letter about computer connections over the summer.
2. Minutes of February and March meetings were approved as amended above.

II: Announcements.

1. UMass ON-Line RFP. It was announced that the platform RFP will close on April 12th, and that recommendations will be in about a month.
2. SIS System Update: There will be three public meetings, one of which already occurred, the second on April 12th at 1 PM and the third on May 3rd from 10:00 to 12:00 AM. Admissions has been using the new system for 1.5 years now, the rest of the system will go on line sometime in the future.

III Old Business:

1. Response to Board of Higher Education's Proposed Laptop Requirement.
   1. A resolution on this matter had been crafted by the chair and posted on the committee website. It was amended via Email discussion and the current version was handed out to the committee at this meeting.
      [original resolution]
      [resolution amended by Email]
      1. A motion to move the wording: "that the Faculty Senate urge the Board of Higher Education to focus its efforts on increasing the number of IT-ready classrooms and providing a revenue stream that will provide appropriate computer equipment and training for all faculty and students; and to recognize that the appropriate hardware needed by each faculty member and the students they serve may not be consistent with a common solution for the entire campus.", into the resolution section from the preamble was seconded and passed.
      2. Several small changes in wording were suggested for better readability.
      3. In a discussion of the issues, three concerns were raised: how to provide real financial aid to needy students required to obtain laptops, how to provide them to faculty, and the general issue of IT in the classroom.
      4. Concerns were expressed about the need to identify a revenue stream to fund (non-loan) financial aid for laptops. The issue of a mandatory laptop being eligible for financial aid was discussed, but it was also discussed that the committee has researched this and learned that there simply isn't non-loan aid available for these students, so the potential benefit to the students becomes moot.
      5. Another problem is that computer needs differ by discipline, and thus what needs to be on the student's machine differs by his discipline. Much of this software is available in departmental labs, but it is very expensive and if the student can't take it home, what good is having a machine at home?
      6. Additional concerns were expressed about the need to provide appropriate IT resources to faculty. Mention was made of perhaps having the union negotiate it.
      7. Concerns were also expressed about the use of IT resources in the classroom. An unanswered query was "how many IT classrooms do we have?" This lead to a discussion of what constitutes an "IT Classroom."
      8. VCRs and TV Monitors are still the biggest demands on AIMS, the primary use of technology on campus is videotapes shown to classes.
      9. Mention was also made that many departments will have to have assistance in converting their resources to digital. For example, Art History has between 6,000 and 12,000 photographic slides that are used for educational purposes. To use the new technology, they will have to convert them to digital data, how are they to do this and who is going to pay for it?
      10. It was felt that there is a need to have every discipline benefit from IT initiatives.
      11. But then, what about a discipline such as Film Studies that feels that the film media itself is part of the discipline. It was felt that old technologies will never leave us, and that some support will need to be given for them as well.
      12. It was mentioned that we need to insert a digitalization clause and a grandfather clause for the old technologies.
      13. AIMS is currently at the limit of its ability to do stuff. It has the same number of people that it had 35 years ago and can't do anything more without additional people.
      14. Also mentioned was the fact that Westfield State has decided to lease, rather than buy, computer equipment to show that it is an on-going expense and to ensure that the equipment is upgraded in a timely manner. How UMass should address this was a matter of concern.
   2. Changes to the wording of the resolution to be submitted to the Faculty Senate, and discussed above and individually voted on, will be made finally by the chair and posted at the committee website for member approval by Email within a week.  The resolution will then be forwarded to the Faculty Senate.
   3. A Motion to approve the resolution and authorize the chair to prepare the final resolution document was seconded and approved unanimously.

IV: New Business.

1. The all-[category] campuswide email lists were discussed. The committee has been asked by the Rules Committee to address the concerns of a Senator regarding these lists.
   1. Policy regarding them was articulated as being that each Vice Chancellor has a designated person to make decisions as to what can be sent over them. This was in response to an earlier situation,
   2. where John & Marcie made decisions on an ad-hoc basis, as well as one situation where an unauthorized message was sent to a faculty list by an individual who falsely alleged that it was authorized.
   3. It was decided to send this to University Counsel for comment.

V: A motion to adjourn was made and passed.

Respectfully Submitted,

Ed Cutting