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Present: Kurt Collins, Steve Cuddigan, Lorraine Frost, Ian Jacobs, Mike Ross, Joe Scarcella, Bill Takehara, Tony Coulson, Dave Turner.

Introductions and Agenda Approval: Joe made introductions and the group approved the agenda.

TAC Handbook review and approval: Recommendations and changes to the TAC handbook are as follows:

• Under membership, take out names but add an addendum to the handbook.
• Bill suggested that we make the charter a living document.
• Joe recommended that each sub committee make their report/objectives and dollars they want by December 1 so we can report out on May 1. Joe indicated that the subcommittees need to have deliverables.
• Lorraine suggested under page 2 to change revision to review and take the task portion out and put under the subcommittee objectives. Also, delete everything after “task”.
• Bill suggested that TAC members will serve as chairs of the working committees.
• Joe indicated that the role of the IRT Vice President will be to serve as a mode of communication between TAC and Administration
• For the technical subcommittee, Ian suggested that we should two technical representatives, one from the academic side and one from the administration side.
• Kurt wanted to make sure that we address issues such as intellectual property. TAC should be able to give recommendations and advice on this.
• Lorraine indicated that although there will be an Academic Technology Committee, that shouldn’t preclude this group from discussing academic technology initiatives. Most likely, the ATAC will focus on pedagogy or research.
• Kurt suggested that we should continue to meet bi-monthly. If we only meet once a month, then we would only have about 6 meetings a year. The subcommittees should meet as needed.

Discussion whether or not Vice President’s should be members of TAC. It was determined that Vice President’s should only serve on the committee in an advisory capacity.
Discussion whether or not we should have additional representatives from Academic Affairs. It was determined that the director of the Teaching Resource Center and the director of the Office of Distributed Learning should be members of TAC. As of now the composition of TAC is the following:

• A representative from each of the 5 colleges
• 2 technical representatives
• 3 Administrators
• 1 Student representative
• Director of ODL
• Director of TRC

Review of Subcommittee Charters: The group reviewed the University Systems and Infrastructure charter from Mike. The chair position will be a member of TAC. Steve suggested that Mike include security in his charge. Also, security should be included in all other charges since it encompasses all campus initiatives. Mike revised the charter according to the suggestions made. Mike will be the committee chair for the University Systems and Infrastructure committee.

For the Teaching and Learning charter, Kurt wanted to identify new technologies that would enable teaching and learning at the university and also a way to help train faculty in using new technologies. Some concerns that we may not know if faculty are using resources we spend funds on – there should be some type of usage statistics. Also how do we measure effectiveness of software or learning tools such as Blackboard. The committee chair for Teaching and Learning will be Kurt Collins.

For the Technical Support and Coordination Subcommittee charter, there was a discussion regarding who should comprise the TSCS subcommittee. Ian indicated that one of the purposes of the tech group is to disseminate new technologies and approaches to technology with different departments. The tech group would also like to provide input on technical training on campus.

David Turner wonder if it would be possible to integrate training components into curriculum however Ian said university courses are more theory whereas the training is more technically orientated. In addition, ACM is currently hosting a training program for the technicians which ends in Spring 2006 and a report will be presented on training outcomes and objectives. Ian also indicated that one of the objectives for the TSC subcommittee will be to put together a baseline configuration for Dell computers so whenever a campus user needs to purchase a computer, the baseline configuration is already set up in their Dell account. Lorraine indicated that she wanted to make sure the tech group would be able to use TAC as a way to get their issues/concerns heard. The committee chair for Technical Support and Coordination will be Ian Jacobs.

The charters for the subcommittee should focus on the following: Teaching and Learning, Student centered, benefit and consequences, availability and resources.

Brief discussion of whether or not the specialty center charge should be under the Technical Support and Coordination Subcommittee. It was decided that it should actually fall under the Teaching and Learning Subcommittee.

Bill suggested that we should have a standardization of servers to ensure that server rooms have the proper logistics.

Teaching and Learning Subcommittee Brainstorming: Dave Turner will work on the report for the specialty center software. Kurt would like to compare blackboard with alternatives available and do a cost analysis. We can look at cost benefit on an FTE basis. If black board costs a million dollars and only 1000 students use it, can that same million dollars benefit the students on another use. Mike indicated that it’s not the cost of blackboard, it’s the cost of training students and faculty to use it that’s expensive. How could we increase the efficiency of training the students and faculty to use it. Kurt wondered if money would be better spent if faculty were offered a better incentive on training. Bill suggested we could make it part of professional development and perhaps implement into new faculty training.

Tony indicated that one of the issues is that faculty schedules are so different, it’s difficult to schedule training that’s convenient for faculty.

Discussion regarding learning management strategic planning. The university may want to consider exploring e-portfolios.

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