Academic Computing Policy Advisory Committee

Minutes of January 25, 2012

  • In Attendance: Angel, Ali, Balint, Blood, Brzycki, Cunningham, Ezekiel, Ford, Giever, Hyde, Kemp, Lenze, Lowery, P. McDevitt, T. McDevitt, McElroy, Mocek, O'Neil, Onyett, Pagnucci, Powers, Sherwood, VanWieren, Yuhas, Zimmerman.
  • Excused: Asamoah, Branthoover, McGowan, J.B. Smith, Yost.
  • Absent: Fortushniak, Gruber, Nelson, Papakie.
  • Guests: Anspacher.

Proceedings of the Meeting

  • Approval of Minutes
    • The November 17, 2011 minutes were approved unanimously (M/S Giever/Pagnucci).
  • Co-Chairs' Report
    • Financial Report - The ACPAC balance is currently $12,804.92
  • Announcements
    • ACPAC Minutes (McElroy) - all up-to-date minutes and agenda are now on the ACPAC website. Action teams and subcommittees should let McElroy know and he will post their minutes also.
    • College Technology Day (Onyett) - Onyett thanked those who attended the College Technology Day in Stouffer Hall on January 18. The College of Education and Communications is already starting to plan for another College Technology Day to be held just before the fall 2012 semester. He also thanked those members of ACPAC who presented. 145 people attended, and 36 sessions were held.
  • Standing Committee Reports
    • CIO office (Balint)
      • Luminous - IUP has purchased the Luminous portal, implementation is planned for July 2012. Students matriculating for fall of 2013 will be the first targeted group. Luminous is a personalized web experience, with each account customized for their individual login. ITS will try to schedule a demonstration of the system possibly the first week in April. They hope to have two days of demonstrations so that faculty can attend. IUP will have a portal administrator; IT will then support that office. There will be a single login for Banner, Network, and Email.
      • Sungard Higher Education merger with Datatel - Banner and Datatel have merged. A private equity firm bought Banner and Datatel. Also, PeopleSoft has been bought by Oracle.
      • Guest Wireless - Bill took the proposal for guest wireless access to President's Cabinet and is now waiting for approval for funding.
      • PASSHE Multi University Electronic Admissions Application Initiative - Effective spring 2013, students will no longer be able to apply to individual universities within the PASSHE system. After entering key information online, the system will then direct them to the state universities that offer that major. If a specific university is "full" the system will direct them to another PASSHE school offering the same program. IUP would get the information about students enrolling directly from the enrollment site. Several ACPAC members expressed concern how recommendations for other schools would be handled. For example, what if a specific student was being scouted for IUP but the system directed them to another school. Bill wasn't completely sure how the system will be processing requests, but he will pass these concerns along to the vendor which has been selected.
    • Emerging Technologies Subcommittee (Sherwood)
      • The subcommittee met in December and will have a meeting in late January. The subcommittee has looked at two things specifically: electronic books in the teaching environment, and mobile devices (smartphone, Ipads, tablets) in classrooms. The subcommittee is looking at how mobile devices can integrate with the existing learning management systems IUP already has. The subcommittee is considering possibly adding to a future survey some questions to students about their existing usage of mobile devices in the classroom. In light of this, a question arose about Turning Technology clickers and how the receivers that have already been purchased could possibly be utilized to incorporate mobile devices. At the present time students must purchase clickers (3,372 are registered at IUP). Another question is what percentage of students have mobile devices? Also, will ResponseWare (Turning Point mobile device app) integrate with our existing clicker system? A motion was passed (M/S Pagnucci/Mocek) that the Emerging Technologies Subcommittee continue to explore the issues related to using mobile devices with our existing clicker system.
    • Student Operations Group Subcommittee (Blood)
      • Winter 2011 enrollment was up by 159 from Winter 2010. Spring 2012 enrollment is up for undergrads and down for grads. Total enrollment for Spring 2012 is 13,548 with a retention rate of 89% from fall semester.
    • Student Computing Subcommittee (P. McDevitt)
      • A sample of a survey of 3 questions was distributed regarding the best way of communicating with students. A gift card from the COOP may be given as an incentive to complete the survey. One of the items brought up from last year's survey is lab location and hours. They have looked product called Labstats. IT will be conducting a pilot of a product called Labstats that can provide more information about lab usage.
    • On-Line Learning Subcommittee (Brzycki)
      • Accessibility Work Group - A lawsuit against Penn State was settled in September of 2011. A review of the Penn State documents shows that IUP has not done very many of the things mentioned in the Penn State settlement. Who at IUP should be responsible for this? Dr. Luckey has expressed interest in being an advocate for the administrative side. Anspacher is on the PASSHE committee for this issue and reported that on the state level this issue has been left to the individual state schools. Sherwood suggested that settlements from other universities should be investigated, and he questioned who would be responsible for the budget for the program. Kemp pointed out that if IUP was proactive on these issues it could be a good recruitment tool. Zimmerman suggested that documentation should show items that IUP already has in place regarding accessibility.
    • Distance learning & Continuing Ed (Anspacher)
      • PASSHE Virtual Conference - The 2nd annual PASSHE Virtual Conference will be held Feb 13-24 on a distance learning website. Anspacher will send out another reminder email to faculty.
      • Synchronous Collaboration Tool evaluation - Kim Elkenbach, PASSHE purchasing, will put an RFP out for this system. The task force members are: Lon Ferguson, Nancy Yost, Dave Porter, Chris Janicak.
  • Action Team Reports
    • Optical Test Scoring Action Team (McElroy)
      • The new scanning system is up and running. McElroy has sent out an email to faculty with documentation for using the new system and new options provided by the new system. Joanne Kuta will be scheduling training for faculty. Faculty can still get data reports if they request them. We will continue to use the existing envelopes until they are all used up.
    • Electronic Portfolio Action Team (Onyett)
      • The action team is in the process of looking at three different eportfolio products: D2L, LiveText and TaskStream.
    • Student Pictures Action Team (J.B. Smith)
      • Can student pictures be used for LMS? Anspacher was asked if student pictures can be used in D2L. He will explore how students can upload pictures of themselves into D2L. He felt that it may be a privacy issue if IUP did the upload of student pictures, since their picture would be available to everyone in the class, but students should be able to opt to upload their own pictures. Hyde questioned if there was a usage policy for faculty use of student photographs. Anspacher said that student photos provided to faculty should be treated like any other confidential information. Photos of students are considered directory information. Cunningham stated that privacy information regarding use of student pictures is on the URSA app where faculty can now download student photos.
    • Training/Professional Development Action Team
      • This action team is now disbanded.
  • New Business
    • Processing job applications electronically (Pagnucci)
    • Cunningham stated that HR is implementing a system called People Admin that will allow job applicants to go to a website and apply online. He will provide more information at the February 2012 ACPAC meeting.
    • Library Technology Standing Report (Zimmerman)
      • Zimmerman questioned if there should be a standing report from Library technology and how it applies to the university? He will send information to Onyett and McElroy to be added to future agendas.
  • Old Business:
    • None

The next meeting will be February 15, 2012.

Meeting adjourned at 4:30

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