Wright State University University Technology Committee

UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY COMMITTTEE
MEETING MINUTES
April 13, 2000

I. College Technology Plans Update

College of Liberal Arts - Chuck Taylor informed the committee that each department in CoLA was instructed to develop its own technology plan, and upon completion, will be combined with the college technology plan. The results were for general improvements in the college as well as plans to upgrade staff computers on a regular basis.

College of Nursing - Jan Belcher announced the college's updated report will be available on-line next month. As a result of a recent survey, a major request from faculty was the need for additional training with regard to creating and maintaining web pages. Therefore, more classes, workshops, etc. are being offered in the near future.

College of Business and Administration - Barbara Denison reported that the college has accomplished all the items listed in the original technology plan to be completed in 1999.

College of Education and Human Services - Bonnie Mathies distributed the International Society for Technology in Education's draft of their National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS). An updated copy of this draft can be found on ISTE's web site: www.ISTE.org/Standards/. Bonnie reported the formation of a technology sub-committee to review her college's current technology plan and what changes may be needed to comply with these standards. Once this revised plan is up-to-date, members of the UTC will receive copies.

College of Engineering and Computer Science - Sharmila Mukhopadhyay reported the college's technology plans are "on track".

II. Center for Teaching and Learning Update
Dan DeStephen - CTL has completed the implementation of electronic classrooms in Rike, Millett and Allyn Halls, as well as other classrooms on campus which had been designated "electronic" in the past but were not set up with current state-of-the-art equipment. A list of all electronic classrooms will be posted on CTL's web page. The university also has four distance education classrooms at the present time: Russ Engineering-2; Allyn Hall-1; Rike Hall-1. There is an additional classroom set up in CTL.

CTL has been working with the AAUP and the University administration on an agreement for faculty with regard to distance education courses. Once the deans have reviewed and approved the document, it will be submitted to the University Technology Committee for review. Chuck Taylor also noted the need for more faculty release time to be included in alumni grant proposals to allow faculty to develop their on-line courses.

Dan also discussed the different types of support CTL is organizing for the education of faculty with regard to distance education and on-line courses. A "Timeline for Online Course Development" and an "Online Course Development Checklist" documents were distributed (attachments).

Terri Klaus discussed the following topics:

  1. The many faculty training projects for designing and planning on-line courses.
  2. Distributed a chart regarding the number of on-line classes from January, 1999 - September, 2000 (attachment). CTL is also addressing many student services issues with the different departments and colleges, as well as many advertising issues.
  3. Ohio Learning Network (OLN) continues to add on-line courses.
  4. Distributed an article published in "Educause" magazine discussing on-line education.

III. CaTS Update
Paul Hernandez announced CaTS has a project underway to allow clients to re-set their own passwords through the web. At the present time, the CaTS staff is working on the security issues involved.

Terry Anderson gave an update with regard to on-line student services (attachment): Raider Online eXpress (ROX) went live first day of Spring Quarter. This enabled students to access their schedules on-line. This went very well. As a result, the Registrar's office decided not to mail ID validation cards for Summer Quarter, which includes student schedules. This will save approximately $20,000 per year. The next service to be made available on-line will be Spring Quarter grades. Some of the other future phases for ROX:

  1. Availability of courses
  2. On-line registration
  3. On-line payments
  4. Posting of grades by faculty via the web
Terry also gave an update on the order entry application which was deployed in early March. This allows forms to be ordered on-line from Printing Services.

Pat Vendt announced that approximately 100 locations have been identified in the Russ Engineering Center, Fawcett Hall, and the Biological Building II for Internet 2 connectivity. Additional wiring to insure the consistent bandwidth will be completed by the end of next week The Internet2 network will support 100 Mb to the desktop, gigabit speeds between the switches and 36 Mb to Internet2. The 45 Mb DS3 connectivity to campus is expected to be installed the first week of May.

Connecting the Virtual Reality Environment at WPAFB: Meetings with representatives of WPAFB, AFIT and Wright State have resulted in two proposed solutions: In the interim solution WPAFB will install a second fiber network to AFIT, the CAVE building, and other research laboratories on base requiring Internet2 or CAVE connectivity. The second network will support 100 Mb ethernet to the desktops and OC3 ATM or greater to the Defense Research Network (DREN). The Wright State NSF Internet 2 grant will assist in cost sharing for the CAVE connections. This is an exciting collaborative effort requiring compromises and approvals from multiple areas of security, systems, and telecommunications. The ultimate goal is to provide direct fiber connectivity between AFIT (the second fiber network on base) and Wright State University bypassing the DREN.

The Internet2 Committee has approved the creation of Secondary Internet2 membership. Secondary members will be sponsored by an existing Internet2 member. The requirement for sponsorship is that there be Internet2-like research between the proposed secondary and other Internet2 members BEYOND the regional gigapop members. For WSU that would mean research between the secondary and Internet2 members not located in Ohio. Wright State is considering the University of Dayton, AFIT, and the Wright Patterson AFB research laboratories as potential secondaries. For the first year, financial arrangements between the primary and secondary members are at the discretion of the two parties. The cost of secondary membership may change in the following years.

IV. Other Business
The next meeting will be on Thursday, May 11 in 109 University Hall (College of Nursing).