Present: Arvizu, Beede, Bumgarner, Chargin, DiDenti,
Dwyer, Ferro, Howell, Moeller, Parker, Lozano, Moeller, Wagman
Tech Committee Meeting Schedules: Schedules for other groups (Senate & Student Services) are competing for Tuesday afternoon meeting time; March 2 is election day, so all able hands are requested to volunteer for Community Action Teams in lieu of holding a Tech meeting; suggestion that we try 1st & 3rd Wednesdays at 2:10 p.m.
All interested parties will be e-Polled.
Faculty Webpage Update: JoAnne reported that some technical difficulties remain, and that the webmaster’s schedule is restricted to the extent that a final template may not be ready for awhile. Interested parties may view the existing template at http://hhh.gavilan.edu/faculty/index.php; and actually input info & submit the page by logging onto http://hhh.gavilan.edu/faculty/edit.php. One of the current problems is that anyone can get into anyone's page and make changes. The image box refers to somewhere else on the web, so the instructor needs to put a url in the box. These problems need to be ironed out before the template is ready to be distributed to the whole campus.
When the problems are fixed, JoAnne and Jan
C. will travel around to help faculty get the pages completed; David
DiDenti (ASB webmaster) also volunteers to assist with this effort. Dennie
(in a separate email) has volunteered to assist faculty on an individual
basis with webpage development.
Student Email: (a lively discussion ensued)
Dennie and others have suggested that Gavilan should get serious about requesting
and recording student email address, and begin to establish email as the expected
communication vehicle, much the same as most universities are currently doing;
it was also suggested that addresses should be made available on class rosters.
Joy & Mimi stated that the MIS system is now enabled with the fields to
record email addresses: “Gav has the technical ability but not the personnel.” Previous
discussions established that Gavilan MIS cannot support provision of student
email. It was suggested that the advent of easily available webmail has obviated
the need for Gavilan MIS to directly provide student accounts.
Thus, the current question is whether college policy should be established
that students should be encouraged to have accounts and some have suggested
that Gavilan might even consider requiring email addresses. Informal polling
indicates some resistance among faculty and staff to the idea that email addresses
should actually be required, yet others have noted that students transferring
to CSU/UC must have email accounts to obtain a wide variety of university communications
and to interact with university offices.
It was noted that Gavilan students could be assisted in establishing webmail
(Yahoo, Hotmail, etc). Marlene B. noted that most of her students already have
such accounts. Jen F. noted that setting up a webmail account requires some
instruction for some students, and volunteered to develop a student “how-to” handout
for use in the Library labs.
It was also noted that the ASB has now established an off-site web presence http://www.gavstudent.net/ and that any student can get a webmail account via that ASB site. It was further noted that the Title V grant proposed establishing student email, and that one of the great accomplishments under the grant has been access to campus computing which enables all students to establish webmail accounts and monitor email communications.
Bob B. & Jen noted that the current email client launch & access on Gav’s student computers complicates the students’ ability to easily use email to send, reply to messages and/or to follow a “contact us” link, and that some clear instruction on that issue needs to be available.
TechComm folks are asked to poll colleagues and students to provide further data on this idea.
David DiDenti said that the future of http://www.gavstudent.net/ is
in some limbo due to the need to have continuity in the face of student turnover...
The ASB is considering establishing a Club to assure that continuity, and it
is
in great need of a faculty advisor(s), so interested folks reading this are
asked to contact David or Simon Cooke, if they might consider volunteering
as advisors.
Smart Classrooms: (another lively discussion ensued)
The initial discussion regarded re-prioritization of “the list” to acquire more laptops for checkout, especially to accommodate adjunct faculty. The problem presented was that many adjuncts bring their own laptops into the classrooms and cannot hook up to the network, so the question was whether the college should acquire and checkout more laptops. Many of the folks present could not even recall what the final priority list was; Fran said she would forward that list to the TechComm. (It is also noted that “the list” was developed on the prospect of Title V-1 funds, and that Title V-2 funding has not been exposed to the prioritization debate.)
Further discussion illuminated the following:
The problem primarily exists in SS214, SS210, Hum 102, TH 127, and Art Lecture;
discussion revealed that these “smart classrooms” were designed for
use with laptops, so there is no permanent multimedia computer attached to
the presentation equipment or network in those rooms.
The short/quick answer to the problem appeared to be to seek Title V $$ and/or
secure existing warehoused pc’s to install fixed pc’s in the 5 rooms,
so that any faculty can burn and run CD’s with class content, and also
be able to use the Internet during presentations.
Some regular faculty (early adopters in the multimedia blitz) who obtained
college owned laptops and had them cleansed and setup by MIS actually have
network access since they have IP addresses installed, and they are able to
use these smart classrooms without difficulty.
Mimi stated that concerns about viruses getting into the network from personal laptops precludes any consideration of allowing access to any non-Gav-owned equipment. She cited a problem that occurred in the TRIO area; she also noted that the techs had tried a daily validation schema without success. She stated that Gavilan’s antivirus software license which is updated hourly (McAfee) costs $20,000 annually and cannot be “shared” to non-college-owned equipment. She also noted that the college mail server has been getting nearly 1000 hits per day by the infamous “Doom” virus and variants (which may explain why some folks such as Ken W have noted slowdowns.)
A further complication in the “more laptops” proposal is that Margery has indicated there may not be any Title V-1 $$$ available to purchase the things; much less build other complete smart classroom(s). It is noted that similar smart classroom funds exist in the Title V-2 (co-op) grant, and that Life Science classrooms were setup under those funds last semester under the guidance of Vic & Ed. (Mary McKenna reports that this is working nicely.)
It was then noted that many faculty may not need multimedia playback ability, nor access to the campus network, but that simply providing access to the Web outside of Gavilan’s firewall with the ability to display on the big projectors would be a really good thing to enhance the use of technology as a teaching tool.
The discussion then segued into the prospect of wireless Internet access alternatives, for students and for faculty. Bob B. suggested that placing wireless/airports/wifi with outside-of-firewall Web access around the campus could resolve many of the network security issues. It was noted that the TRIO grant paid for wireless ports in the Student Center, and that a plan is in place for wireless in the Library.
Mimi said that the Library wireless plan is on hold pending $$$ for wireless hubs.
It was agreed that the idea of campus wide wifi would be investigated and that cost estimates for the Library and other buildings to support “external wifi” would be developed.
Technology Enhanced Cost Savings: Fran stated that Audren had made a presentation to College Council regarding using technology to achieve cost savings in Financial Aid. The group thought it would be nice to have a committee to develop such ideas campus wide. After short discussion about whether to create yet another committee, it was the consensus that TechComm should be the vehicle for such discussions, and that we would encourage folks to come to this group to make presentations or brainstorm ideas.
Bylaws: Larry stated that he had enlisted the political expertise of Marc Turetzky to suggest an organizational structure that would preserve the TechComm’s traditional free-spirited and widely participatory style while meeting the college requirement for equal voting representation by each governance constituency. Marc recommended studying the text “Democracy in Small Groups”. One idea might be to establish voting factions that have no permanently assigned person, and that at such time as a vote might ever be required, each governance faction would caucus its present members and appoint a voting representative to cast that groups vote. Someone questioned was whether the administration would approve of such an idea. Larry said “We have to figure out how to write it, then we’ll test it on them.” Joy noted that voting has never been an issue for the committee, but that there were concerns that certain campus groups such as administrative services lacked representation in the committee.
Adjournment--Next Meeting: March 3, 2004 2:10pm SS 205