Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee Minutes

26 February 2004,

4:20 PM—AS CORRECTED, 3 March 2004

Faculty Present: Dennis Henry—Chair and AOC, Deborah Downs-Miers—Secretary and

Humanities, Jonathan Smith—Natural Science and Mathematics, Scott Moore—Fine

Arts, Tim Peterson—Social Science, David Kopenhaver—Education

Ex Officio Present: Mark Braun—Acting Dean, Bruce Aarsvold—Information Technology, Dan Mollner—Library, Sarah Daniels—Administrative Information Systems, JoEllen Schulz—Telecommunications, Pat Francek--Media Services, Jennifer Ringler—Web Coordinator

Visitor: Joyce Aarsvold

Chair Henry opened the deliberations by reiterating that this special meeting has been deemed necessary in order to have time to review the Technology Directors’ Long-Range Strategic Planning draft document and to help prepare us for making our allocations.

I. Policies, Procedures, and Questions re Allocation/Budget

Henry queried Bruce Aarsvold about the timing and procedures surrounding the distribution of data and materials IIAC has requested, in regard to our determining the academic technology allocations with which the committee is charged. These are needed for the 3 March meeting. Bruce would prefer that IIAC not distribute this to Faculty until after the Board has approved the Budget, which will not be until April. He reminds IIAC that Administrative technology needs must also be considered. IT Director Aarsvold also raised the issue, as both a question and as example of difficulty of having all data ready in early March, of whether to purchase the same kind of monitors we have been using when we will be changing at some point to LCD monitors: we are not sure when that will occur; however, despite their greater initial cost, they save energy so are less expensive long-term. These sorts of considerations complicate the entire process, a complication which ultimately redounds to IIAC’s determinations about filling requests.

Questions continued about where the increased budget (we now have a total budget of $90,000.00) will reside—IIAC, IT, Administrative Technology--? Inventory management seems to be a major issue as well.

Questions regarding how monies are being allocated at the VP level: IIAC is not privy to this and thus cannot advocate, which makes it quite difficult to do the work with which we are charged. Mark Braun explained that the budget increase was in direct response to IIAC’s having made clear that our budget has been static far too long.

Chair Henry asked if any “year-end” monies would come to IIAC. This was not clearly answered. We learned that the Library has recently received some funds (from “year-end” dollars? Not clear, as we are not there yet; was this from LAST year’s round?) to assist in the changeover from PALS.

Questions about whether unfunded requests from 2003 become exigencies to be funded yet this year or rollover into this year’s process.

IIAC suggests a possibility: Any leftover monies could be allocated to academic needs.

By strong consensus IIAC recommends that an explicit request be made by the Dean to the Administrative Council for end-of-year monies to be allocated to IIAC for academic, lab, and IT needs.

Bruce hopes to have for April meeting his draft recommendation for what to fund and what not to.

II. Review of Technology Strategic Plan

Consensus that the priorities shown in the document should be in rank order

Academic tech support should be more explicit (see p. 4)

Some discussion about which comes first, the money or specifics about how an increased budget will be spent.

Deborah Downs-Miers suggested that much of the document reads more like a wish-list than like a program for attaining technology needs. Some discussion and clarification ensued.

The Academic section may need to be made more concrete; the language about the mechanics of assisting faculty via technology needs more specificity.

IIAC faculty representatives emphasize that there must be a distinction between individual faculty support and curricular support. Both of these are crucial.

IIAC suggests as a real strategy the putting of desktop computers on a clearly-known replacement cycle. This would re-contextualize faculty requests, thereby also freeing up some of our budget.

Committee agreed to send further suggestions about the draft document to Mark Braun, who reminded us most particularly to send our RANKINGS for the priorities.

Bruce lobbied for Technology being set at 5% of College Budget.

Meeting had been scheduled to end at 530; thus, meeting adjourned at 5:32.

Deborah Downs-Miers

Secretary