ILevel Meeting Notes, September 29 , 2004

Members present: Elaine Bell, Tony Drommi, Tom Jeffrey, George Libbey, Marcel O’Gorman, Mark Ottenbreit.

YEAR 5

Ismart Rooms:
In Year 5, unding is provided for one Ismart and one Ismart Plus room for the College of Business Administration. This has already been invested in the C&F renovation project, and has paid for podiums to be placed in smart classrooms. Additional iSmart funding is directed toward the “Political Science Department.” This will be given to the College of Liberal Arts and Education to be used at the discretion of Dean Marske.

Basic Skills Exam:
The exam has been passed on from the Title III Grant to the University’s administration. Tom Jeffrey and Tony Drommi discussed the possibility of computerizing/automating the exam for next year’s SOAR program.

Tony noted that the exams went extremely well. Tom and Tony have been looking at a product with Thompson Learning. There is a $10 access fee/student for running the test. Tom says that’s not unreasonable given the cost of development and a server if UDM were to develop something independently. This is an efficient, low-maintenance solution.

Funding can be found in endowment or, as Elaine suggests, in the $100 confirmation fee that students pay when they accept admission to UDM.

Student Tech Mentors:
Funding is available for 8 student tech mentors at $3600 each ($28,800). Emilie Gallegos and Ed Tracy need to be consulted about the status of the Tech Mentors. Tom noted that the STM’s seem to have fallen under the direction of Ed Tracy.

Igrants:
$10,000 is available this year for iGrants. Marcel will send out an announcement in mid-October, once the online application system is ready to go.

TWTA:
As more and more projectors are installed across campus, there is an increased need for laptops. The UDM owned laptops are in very high demand. Is there some way of targeting areas with the laptops?

Elaine suggested that we might aim them toward the Education Department. Mark thinks that they should be offered on a wider scale, to all full-time, undergraduate faculty.

What if the focus was based not on the development of instructional technology, but on the development of research projects that can be used in class? Is there some way of offering it to administrators who deal with undergraduate students as well? Areas like Service Learning or UAS? Or what about supporting research projects that increase the I.T. visibility on campus?

Tony noted that it’s important to keep the laptops on campus, campus-related.

George suggested that we should consider funding items other than laptops for TWTA people who already have access to a laptop, but may need other equipment/software related to their teaching activities.

The committee generally agreed that if the funding is available, TWTA should once again offer laptops to faculty, and not just software.

Student Portfolios:
Tom has been conducting research into student portfolios. The University of Wisconsin has a java-based product that can be used on an open-source basis. Tom will arrange a demonstration for the next meeting.

SURVEY
UDM will take part in the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) Survey. The survey evaluates faculty assessment of work environment issues. The survey will be used for North-Central accreditation. Elaine thought that we could add I.T. questions on the survey, to supplement questions that are already there. However, since we already have extensive data from our own I.T. survey, we may want to implement a follow-up version of it. HERI will be implemented in the fall and winter; we can implement ours in the spring (February/March).

Elaine noted that we may want to consider adding questions to the iLevel Survey regarding grant-specific questions.

FUTURE OF ILEVEL
Marcel noted that he met with the ALT/PC in mid-September, where he stressed the importance of replacing iLevel with a representative group that oversees the “IT culture” of UDM. Elaine noted the importance of involving administrative areas in an advisory committee. Maybe there should be an advisory committee for IT “business”, and a separate advisory committee focused on academics.

The committee agreed that it’s time to stop playing “IT catch-up,” and to start promoting and developing programs and projects that demonstrate UDM’s commitment to innovation in IT.