CITIE Steering Committee Meeting
2/20/2002

Attendees:  Ginny Cake, Bertie Belvin for Leigh DeNeef, David Ferriero, Linda Goodwin, Patrick Halpin, Roger Loyd, Lynne O'Brien, Mike Pickett, Abhijit Prabhu, Julie Garrison for Pat Thibodeau, Robert Wolpert, Michael Baptiste, Tracy Futhey, Melissa Mills, Nevin Fouts, Jen Vizas

Mike Pickett asked if there were any changes that needed to be made to the minutes before they are posted to the web.  No changes necessary.

Mike Pickett introduced Lynne O'Brien, the Director of the Center for Instructional Technology, and explained that Lynne was going to discuss faculty support and service initiatives.

Lynne handed out two documents for discussion.
-    Faculty Instructional Technology Support
-    Duke University Instructional Technology Incentive Grants for the 2002-2003 academic year

Lynne asked...
What are we looking at faculty to do?  Over time, how do we measure that things are changing and getting better?  What do we expect of faculty? We can't design services without knowing what the expectations are.

Topic: Measures of faculty use of technology in teaching

Measures of "basic" IT use
Deans can use this as a measure to determine where do my faculty stand? Basic IT use - reasonable expectation of many faculty. The support service available is one on one with out much increase in cost.

Measures of "extensive" IT use
These require more time, energy, and funding to implement Results are not immediate, more profound

Topic: Resources for helping faculty use technology in teaching

1.   Currently offered courses have a website for distributing standard course materials and for communicating with students

There are a number of resources currently in place that makes the creation of course websites easy. Blackboard software is available to all faculty, Blackboard helpdesk assistance for students and faculty, Blackboard supported as enterprise system, short training courses available, One on one consulting for faculty, Blackboard CD for self-paced learning, etc.

New resources that are in the planning stage or could be added within current budgets include, conveying expectations, integrating services better.  Intellectual property and copyright issues come up quite a bit.
Currently there is no central place/person responsible for answering questions, or guiding faculty. Someone or some group needs to take responsibility.

There are places where this function is centralized - they tend to err on the side of caution. Careful consideration must be given to this topic.  Do we start putting formal guidelines in place, and people must obey? What is the right thing to do?

David Ferriero commented that librarians are facing this quite a bit. How accomplish what need to accomplish without breaking rules

Robert Wolpert asked what does Kinko's do?

Lynne O'Brien mentioned that questions are asked about including portions of music or sections of movies in a course website - where to get licensing

Nevin Fouts mentioned there is an Intellectual Property (IP) company that Fuqua works with on royalty issues.  They could be a starting point.

Mike Pickett expressed that it sounds like there is consensus that this needs to stay out of Kate's office and is something that may be served best at the school level or centralized,

Michael Baptiste stated that not all schools will have the resources and Duke may be best served by making it a centralized resource.

Tracy Futhey mentioned that this was a problem at Carnegie Mellon and the answer is digital library.  Having an authority other than legal council is a good way to go.

Abhijit Prabhu suggested that a stop gap measure could be utilizing law student advisors.

Pat Halpin said that there is a large gray area public materials versus information copying and handing out versus posting to a website.  What is considered publishing information?

Mike Pickett mentioned that we should consider building on what Tracy said regarding digital libraries.  Is this something that should come out of Paul Conway's office?  David Ferriero agreed to consider this.

Lynne O'Brien continued going through the document

2.   Faculty are comfortable with basic computer operation and general-purpose software, such as email, word processing, accessing information on the web.

3.   Faculty are able to use a computer, projector, and appropriate software to give presentations in class.  Lynne commented that we are continuing to advance in this area.

Michael Baptiste mentioned that he wanted to discuss a topic in section 1 the Academic Computing Specialists.  This is something that CITIE Steering Committee has talked about in the past.  Is this something that may be funded centrally - CIT or OIT?

Someone mentioned this is something that needs to be discussed with the Deans.

Lynne O'Brien mentioned that there is a proposal to create a structured group that is shared between schools - shared resources.

Mike Pickett mentioned that David Jarmul is meeting with people and trying to find web people out in the departments.  He will be putting together a brown bag lunch series to get the group organized and helping to figure out best practices.  Help departments/schools determine what they should be doing.

Nevin Fouts mentioned if schools didn't have expertise they would have to find the expertise.  Either make the responsibility a part of someone's role or contract out, but the schools/departments would still own the budget issue.

Pat Halpin expressed that it would be beneficial to formalize these roles and promote to the Deans.

Lynne O'Brien mentioned that she has a collection of job descriptions and could put together a model.

Conversation shifted back to the faculty use of projection devices, and appropriate software to give presentations in class.

Robert Wolpert expressed that there is a need for classrooms with projection devices that are setup for computational courses - one person per computer. He explained that statistics and engineering courses cannot be taught without computers and are currently at risk of not being able to teach.

4.   Faculty understand ways technology could be used within their discipline to enhance teaching.

Lynne O'Brien expressed that there is a need for academic technology specialists to be in place beyond the superficial helper.  Someone who knows the subject area thoroughly.

Robert Wolpert asked if this individual would be located in the department or would report to CIT.  Would make sense to locate in the department with a report back to centralized department.

5.   Faculty know how to get help with computer-related questions from different support organizations on campus.

Nevin Fouts mentioned that the challenge is finding the right mix within the department.

Melissa Mills expressed that a note should be made under item 3 - it is critical that someone can respond to problems with technology in a classroom within 5-10 minutes or the class time will be lost. Need backup / redundancy.

Tracy Futhey said that this is a key point.  We can put as much money as necessary to handle this but it only takes 2 failures before someone stops using the technology and starts spreading the word. Need a fortified support infrastructure.

Nevin Fouts stated that there should be a hotline to call and get help within 2 minutes.

Lynne O'Brien mentioned that one way to jumpstart the increased support is the internal grant program - focus on higher-end higher innovative projects.  Looking at grants that were given out 2 years ago we are seeing a pay off.  The same groups are now receiving NSF grants.

Tracy Futhey asked if there is any mechanism in place that would leverage the seed funds. Where money comes back and the program is self-sustaining.

Pat Halpin explained that it would be hard to write indirect funds into a grant proposal.

Pat Halpin asked if anyone was worried that we are at risk because of the concentration of courses in Blackboard. Do we need to intensify security?

Melissa Mills asked how funding gets in place.

Mike Pickett explained that there is money set aside to jump start some of these programs.  How it is used is determined by the Sponsor Committee. The money is intended for seed money.  Departments/schools will need to build money into their budget to keep programs going.

Nevin Fouts mentioned that there has to be communication between Peter and the Dean's.  Who is covering what...

Roger Loyd mentioned that part of the strategic plan was to get plans back from the schools.  This plan is a starting point.

Next steps: Lynne will rewrite the document with the changes that came out of the meeting and bring it back to the committee for discussion and a vote.