Academic Technology Committee
MINUTES OF MEETING: 09/09/11
Submitted Exec. Committee:
Submitted Academic Senate:
APPROVED BY COMMITTEE: 10/07/11
Approved by Exec. Committee: __________
Approved by Academic Senate: __________
Members Present: Shan Barkataki, Jussi Eloranta, Helen Heinrich, Gina Masequesmay, Sydni
Powell, Ron Saito, Mary Schaffer, Ashley Skylar (chair), Wayne Smith, Sally Spencer, Michael
Sullivan, Holli Tonyan
Excused: Andy Nguyen, David Levin
Absent: none
Guests: Patricia Miller (on behalf of Gina Masequesmay), Tae Oh, Chris Olsen, Ben Quillian,
Paul Schantz, Deone Zell
Executive Secretary: Hilary Baker
Recording Secretary: Jennifer De Iuliis
1) Introductions – Skylar asked members to provide their names, which college or department
they represent, what interests they have with technology.
2) Welcome – Skylar welcomed the returning and new members to the committee and
introduced Tae Oh, the new Faculty Senate liaison to the committee. Tae shared he is
currently interested in redesigning the definition of “smart classroom”. He also stated he is
interested to see what topics or projects are of particular interest to the committee.
3) Announcements – Skylar mentioned that the WASC re-accreditation process will have on-
campus meetings held during the upcoming week. Powell stated she has been appointed to
the CSAA for Northridge (working with the other CSU campuses), which is a state-wide
committee that she will share information to and from ACAT and ATC and hopes to bring a
lot of good information back to these campus committees through her involvement.
4) Approval of Minutes – One minor edit was made and the May 6, 2011 meeting minutes
were approved.
5) Previous Meeting Action Item Review - None
6) Chair’s Report – Skylar mentioned that the ACAT has not held their initial meeting for the
fall therefore she has no update to share.
a. ATC Annual Report, 2010-2011
Skylar prepared and submitted the report to the faculty senate office prior to the due
date the previous semester and has provided a copy for the committee’s review.
b. Online and Hybrid policy update
A discussion meeting was held with approximately 10 people to discuss next steps.
Short term steps are to have departments use modes of description in the SOLAR
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notes and possibly in syllabi. One of the instruction modes may change as a result of
the meeting since most students are already familiar with the use of “o” as a class
designation. Steven Stepanek will be presenting and provide further details during
this meeting.
c. Online Education update
A culminating paper was posted to the website and since the posting, there has not
been a formal letter received. A director position was posted about a week ago and
the search committee has been charged to hire someone by the 3rd week of October,
which is a short timeframe. Skylar stated once the position is filled it seems likely the
next steps will be coming out.
Smith inquired with the President about what he should do in consideration of this
project. Upon her suggestion, he prepared a presentation to his college’s Dean’s
Administrative Council members. Miller asked Smith to send the presentation to the
committee members for review to better understand the project and its potential
implications. Smith agreed to share and noted that some of the information is from
his personal viewpoint. One of his concerns is regarding the funding aspect which
includes a 510C3 and there is some history the CSU has had from a previous project a
number of years ago. He also suggested that the information should be shared with
more Administrative Councils and he was unsure about how or what the
communication plan was for the project. Skylar suggested re-visiting the topic again
as more details come out and once a director is in place and who will provide further
directives regarding the project.
d. Joint meetings with ERC – Skylar asked members to review the meeting schedule
noted on the agenda and that 2 joint meetings have been confirmed with ERC. ERC
will join ATC’s meeting on Friday, December 2nd and ATC will join ERC’s meeting
on Tuesday, April 10th.
7) VP/CIO’s Report
a. What’s New in IT
Handout titled – What’s New in IT, fall 2011
Baker highlighted a few of the new and upcoming projects in IT: wireless
enhancements with funding provided via the student Campus Quality Fee, SOLAR
Student Administration system will be upgraded from October 5th - 11th. She also
mentioned the lecture capture project; the FTC is currently looking for additional
participants. Baker noted that the handout provides web and email address for further
details on all the topics listed.
b. IT Vision@2015 update
Baker stated the report is currently being wrapped up and will be presented to Cabinet
and she plans to share the report with the committee at their next meeting in October.
c. Academic Technology update
Handout titled – Faculty Technology Center, Teaching & Learning Bytes, fall 2011
Baker encouraged members to attend the sessions and share the handout with
colleagues. She also asked the committee to provide topic ideas for next semester to
herself, David Levin, or Deone Zell.
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Handout titled – Hybrid/Online Pedagogy (HOP), Community of Practice
All campus faculty are invited to participate in this community of practice. The
hybrid/online pedagogy kick-off meeting takes place on September 28th from 9:00 –
11:00 a.m. Baker asked members to assist in spreading the word about this
community of practice meeting. Zell noted that Provost Hellenbrand will be sending
out communications next week regarding this meeting.
Handout titled – E-Texts: Executive Summary, September 7, 2011
Baker provided this summary document to share the details on e-texts pilots currently
underway.
d. Virtual Solutions update (Ben Quillian/Chris Olsen)
Handout titled – Virtual Technologies: Executive Summary, August 15, 2011
Quillian explained this summary document was presented to Provost Hellenbrand and
Baker to provide a status on several of the virtual technology projects that had been
taking place over the last few years, which includes the three areas of focus, and the
proposed next steps.
The document includes an overview on the thin client implementation in Smart
Classrooms, virtual software library implementation, and thin’ish client
implementation in physical labs.
Saito raised some concerns about negotiations with vendors regarding the virtual
software project and that some programs do not have the functionality and therefore
individual licensing is still needed. Quillian stated that the campus will still have
programs for individuals because some specialty products do not work well in the
virtual software library. For these virtual programs, extensive negotiations were done
at the campus and some are at the Chancellor’s Office level. Quillian offered to talk
offline with Saito order to leverage and benefit from any conversations that may
already be in progress.
8) Department/College Issues
Ashley led a quick round table; no key issues were identified.
9) Discussion Topics (Steven Stepanek)
a. Faculty and course web page projects
Stepanek explained the purpose of these projects is to ensure all faculty have a web
presence that is public (not behind password protected areas, such as Moodle). The
University wants to be more up-to-date with providing this information as most
universities have this in place already. He noted that over the course of the next year,
Provost Hellenbrand has indicated he wants to have all course syllabi online.
Working with ATC and other committees, policy changes will be proposed to state
that the syllabi must be online in a public place. Stepanek explained that aside from
this being a benefit to the students, there are also implications for business continuity
and that should there be an emergency situation, the course syllabi would be
accessible from a common server.
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Stepanek provided an overview of the 3 projects in progress as outlined below:
Pilot #1 – Sue Cullen’s area (ATI) has developed a web form the user completes and
uploads to the web and updates are very simplified.
Pilot #2 – Drupal (web content management system) templates, currently in various
testing stages and solicitations will be made for others to participate in testing. This
is an option for a more sophisticated user.
Pilot #3 – OpenScholar (an interface on top of an engine) is being explored by
volunteers in the English department. They are reviewing the functionality of this
environment. .
b. Online and Hybrid course policy update
Stepanek shared that the suggested acronym codes are being reviewed. Since the
original acronyms appeared in the policy, an editorial change to remove all acronyms
from the policy is proposed. All proposed implementation steps should appear in an
appendix to the policy. He met with President Koester to discuss this change and she
has agreed to have this stricken from the policy and create an appendix showing what
the original and the new code will be. The President accepted making this editorial
change to the policy. Since the “O” code has always been the identifier for online
courses, the 3 course codes will be OF (Online Fully), OC (Online Campus), and OH
(Online Hybrid) instead of FO, CO, and HY.
c. Faculty voting process
Over the summer the Senate Executive Committee discussed faculty voting online
(instead of current paper ballot process). Stepanek explained the one aspect of
potential issues in the current process is the administrative staff member that complies
all of the data and in moving to an online format (via Moodle) this issue would
remain. He explained that with the Moodle option there has to be an administrator for
the voting process and this would continue to be the same person as in the current
paper process. He also shared that with the online format some data is stored which
has a positive and negative aspect. Stepanek noted that concerns about anonymity
have been raised because in the event someone is contesting results or that their vote
may not have been tabulated, a report could pull out the data showing the individual’s
cast vote (or lack thereof).
10) Policy – None.
11) New Business – None.
Meeting adjourned at 3:00 PM.
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