To: Faculty Council From: Academic Computing Committee Subject: Final Report from Academic Computing Committee for 2006-2007 Date: June 5, 2007 Attachments: Minutes of committee meetings The progress we made was somewhat different than originally anticipated at the start of the 2006- 2007 academic year. The initial charge from Faculty Council was to investigate the issue of how the computing labs are purposed and the utilization of the labs for the stated purpose. We made no progress on this other than to recognize that the 2006-2007 academic year was one wherein too much was changing in terms of computing labs for us to make a reasonable analysis. With the startup of the new REDC labs, the startup of the wireless network in the REDC, and the upcoming addition of the Nursing program we felt that any analysis would not be valid until at least the summer of 2007. In addition, some changes were underway in Spring 2007 to move some computing classes from a classroom/lab format to a strictly lab format. Two significant additional charges arose that required our attention. One was the security problems associated with unlocked podiums and the latches that were installed in the REDC. This was resolved in the short term with the help of MISC. A workaround was developed that significantly reduced the number of podiums found in the unlocked condition. The longer term security issues should be addressed by this committee in the near future to develop alternative security protocols for classroom computers. Another significant issue that was addressed was the upcoming implementation of Office 2007. The committee recommended that the campus proceed with the upgrade of the labs to this new (and very different) version of Office. Several communications were written to advise faculty and staff about the upgrade. Other issues tackled by the committee this year were: Developed a metric (average number of pages printed per student-semester) to track the usage of lab printers. This is a relatively easily tracked datum that can be evaluated rather than revisiting the free printing vs. limited printing issue. The current practice for utilization of student employees to perform work on faculty computers was documented. The committee did not discuss the practices in detail nor did we make any recommendations for changes. The committee reviewed the expenditure of the technology fee funds from the previous year and agreed that the distribution was reasonable. The key issues for the committee to address in the 2007-2008 academic year are the recommendation of updated security measures for classroom computers, the usage patterns of the computer labs, and the control of access of student employees to faculty computers. Submitted by Russ Warley 2006-2007 Chair
To: Faculty Council From: Academic Computing Committee Subject: Final Report from Academic Computing Committee for 2006-2007 Date: June 5, 2007 Attachments: Minutes of committee meetings The progress we made was somewhat different than originally anticipated at the start of the 2006- 2007 academic year. The initial charge from Faculty Council was to investigate the issue of how the computing labs are purposed and the utilization of the labs for the stated purpose. We made no progress on this other than to recognize that the 2006-2007 academic year was one wherein too much was changing in terms of computing labs for us to make a reasonable analysis. With the startup of the new REDC labs, the startup of the wireless network in the REDC, and the upcoming addition of the Nursing program we felt that any analysis would not be valid until at least the summer of 2007. In addition, some changes were underway in Spring 2007 to move some computing classes from a classroom/lab format to a strictly lab format. Two significant additional charges arose that required our attention. One was the security problems associated with unlocked podiums and the latches that were installed in the REDC. This was resolved in the short term with the help of MISC. A workaround was developed that significantly reduced the number of podiums found in the unlocked condition. The longer term security issues should be addressed by this committee in the near future to develop alternative security protocols for classroom computers. Another significant issue that was addressed was the upcoming implementation of Office 2007. The committee recommended that the campus proceed with the upgrade of the labs to this new (and very different) version of Office. Several communications were written to advise faculty and staff about the upgrade. Other issues tackled by the committee this year were: Developed a metric (average number of pages printed per student-semester) to track the usage of lab printers. This is a relatively easily tracked datum that can be evaluated rather than revisiting the free printing vs. limited printing issue. The current practice for utilization of student employees to perform work on faculty computers was documented. The committee did not discuss the practices in detail nor did we make any recommendations for changes. The committee reviewed the expenditure of the technology fee funds from the previous year and agreed that the distribution was reasonable. The key issues for the committee to address in the 2007-2008 academic year are the recommendation of updated security measures for classroom computers, the usage patterns of the computer labs, and the control of access of student employees to faculty computers. Submitted by Russ Warley 2006-2007 Chair
Academic%2520Computing%2520Year-End%2520Report%25202006-07.docx