ITAC minutes
September 6, 2007
Attendees: Pakis Bessias, John Board, Bill Cannon, Shailesh Chandrasekharan, Tammy Closs, Nevin Fouts, Tracy Futhey, Gene Galin, Susan Gerbeth-Jones, Michael Goodman, Jackie Gottieb, Rick Hoyle, Ken Hirsh for Dick Danner, Alan Lebech, Ed Gomes for Deborah Jakubs, Bob Newlin for David Jamieson-Drake, Andy Hech for Roger Loyd, Tim Bounds for Caroline Nisbet, Lynne O’Brien, Terry Oas, Mark Phillips, Mark Phillips, Jim Roberts, Rafael Rodriquez, Molly Tamarkin, Trey Turnet III, Tom Wall, Robert Wolpert.
Guests: Ginny Cake of OIT TAG, Rob Carter of OIT/TAG, Kevin Davis of OIT, Debbie DeYulia of OIT, Sean Dilda of OIT, Mark McCahill of OIT, Kevin Miller of OIT, Bob Nau of Fuqua, Bob Price of OIT, Jin Siedow of VPR
Announcements and Introductions
OIT Org Chart
Tracy Futhey informed the group that OIT personal makes up about 30% of the IT organization within Duke.
The majority of IT personnel work for various departments and schools
Tracy proceeded to go over the OIT org charts at oit.duke.edu/about/org_charts/
Highlights:
Tammy Class provides oversight over communications and network
Billy Herndon is responsible for enterprise Administration applications and the underlying function for these applications
Julian Lombardi is responsible for academic services and technology support. This covers front-end and support services including computer labs and web support as well as video, Lectopia, Dukecast etc.
Ginny Cake provides coordinating support for assorted projects
Angel Wingate provides coordination of administrative and financial functions
“Blue” roles on the organizational chart are roles related to broader Duke activities and working with schools to coordinate these activities. For example, Duke has a strategic plan to use technology to teach. OIT helps to fulfill this strategy.
Blue roles on the utmost right are joint positions that help coordinate activities between OIT and other entities.
Jackie Gottlieb is replacing Dan Murphy at the School of Nursing.
Terry Oas asked is there are similar positions like that at the School of Medicine.
Tracy asked Rafael Rodriquez about these kinds of relationships at the school. Rafael responded that Sith has the position of CIO in the School of Medicine.
Robert Wolpert mentioned that there have been cracks between the School of Medicine and the hospital.
Currently, the Law, Business and Divinity schools do not have similar joint positions with OIT.
Rafael mentioned that there is a similar org chart within DHTS.
Susan Gerbeth-Jones mentioned that it might be nice to have posters of the organization charts of IT people within Duke and the Health system for the upcoming Tech Expo.
Arts and Sciences Org Chart
Molly Tamrkin highlighted the Arts and Sciences org chart at aas.duke.edu/assist/
She added that the Natural Sciences have an extensive IT staff.
ITAC Web Page
Bill Cannon touched on the highlights of the ITAC web page at oit.duke.edu/itac/
The new web section was set up by Gene Galin. The site contains the ITAC charter, meeting schedule and all the ITAC minutes since 1995.
Tracy announced that effective next week John Board has been appointed associate chief information officer. The formal announcement is on the OIT web site at
oit.duke.edu/news/gen-announce/boardj70906.html
Agenda Item 1: E-learning Follow-up Update
Presented by Molly Tamerkin
The e-learning committee set up a roadmap as a process. The group defined E-learning very broadly – using electronic technology, systems and processes to delivery knowledge to the end-user.
The committee looked at technical requirements, functional requirements, and marketplace options.
Technical requirements included using technology that was open to being used by different applications. The group came up with thirteen function requirements that help foster collaboration and they examined the local marketplace outside of Duke to look at available options and needs.
The committee sees a need to continue to examine the higher education marketplace, continue to make ongoing assessments, take a look at accountability and figure out how to meet the need to promote identity over multiple roles within Duke over one’s lifetime.
There is a need for Duke e-Learning to be applied locally as well as globally, since the Duke teaching environment does not stop at the Durham border.
The consumer marketplace is especially problematic and challenging for those within Duke who want to provide stable products and applications within a swift ever-changing technological environment. Duke E-learning should strive to use systems that are standards based.
The committee’s recommendations for 2007-08 include:
· Create ongoing evaluation of Duke’s course management systems. For example, the UNC guest at the last meeting mentioned that they were conducting trials with open source applications.
· Create a system to support online communication and capture.
· Create data storage that supports rich content descriptions and “tagging”.
Mark McCahill said that we are looking as “converged messaging” where you can call into virtual spaces.
The E-Learning group will met and discuss feedback and adjust the roadmap as needed.
A question was asked about whether the last item leans towards e-Research.
Molly responded that they did discuss using content external to Blackboard. The library, Research and A&S are all looking at data storage components.
Question about how data can be shared with students via data devices, applications and tools.
Mark McCahill responded that real actions will be taken in self-organized meetings.
Students are already doing this on their own.
Mark added that simulation and virtualization are possible future components of E-Learning.
Shailesh brought up that E-teaching should also be addressed along with e-learning.
Molly admitted that E-teaching has not been addressed as much as the e-learning component.
Shailesh mentioned that he gets calls from publishers to collaborate on materials. He expressed a sentiment that he would be more willing to collaborate on e-courses that would be “open-source”. Wished that Duke had an option to do this kind of collaboration internally.
He was informed that Kevin Smith of the Scholarly Research office is available as a resource for faculty.
John Board asked Molly what happens now that the report is done.
Molly responded the committee would take final feedback. Then determine how to incorporate the feedback into the plan. Final step would be to start implementing projects that would be in place under the E-learning plan.
Terry Oas asked if alternatives to Blackboard were being evaluated and what the timeframe might be.
Mark McCahill said that he would have prototypes working for bullet 2 – online communication and capture.
Molly plans to work on bullet 1 - evaluation of Duke’s course management systems.
Tracy finished off the topic asking for future clarification about who can teach faculty how to use e-Learning tools.
Agenda Item 2: Software Licensing Update
Presented by Bob Price
Set up a task force to capture a list of all the tasks the software-licensing person was doing.
Duke OIT supports 361 software licenses. Tracy clarified that “support” in this case meant the acquisition and licensing of software packages.
What is the relationship between the computer store and licensing? Ed Gomes mentioned that you should go to the OIT web site first to see if you can download a software package. Tracy added that the progression goes from the lowest cost option to the higher cost options.
The task force determined that the software licensing function is beyond the scope of one individual.
Some of the processes are not automated.
Around certain software titles there is no process in place that let’s one know when upgrades are available.
Departments are buying some titles on their own individually.
Robert Wolpert asked if OIT could tell is some software was being bought individually. Bob responded that this was not often possible.
Bob mentioned that site licenses allow people to get applications without waiting for licenses. For example, metlab site licenses are in place and the fees stay the same.
Outcomes of the task force include showing who is picking up what responsibilities if another person is added. A new job description has been written for a Software Licensing Coordinator.
Robert Wolpert asked about contacts for expired licenses and package upgrades.
Debbie DeYulia mentioned that the help desk is providing 1st and 2nd level support for handling these issues.
Bob Price wondered is the software licensing committee should be a subcommittee of ITAC.
Debbie stresses out the outreach component of the new position. The coordinator would educate users about the various available options.
Ed Gomes wanted to know how we could reach faculty that is not supported by the committee.
John Broad mentioned that the faculty view is the process is broken because “yes” is not always quick in coming.
Robert Wolpert stressed the importance of having faulty on the committee.
Ed mentioned that faculty engagement is usually appreciated.
Tracy clarified that faculty should be included in the evaluation process for less commonly used software.
The committee has some money allocated for new software.
Ed noted that software cost was not always central to a buying decision
Rick Hoyle mentioned that it would be good to know guidelines and processes.
Bob Newlin said that the problem is that individuals buy software on their own. Suggested that we might need an “ebay” for software requests.
Ed Gomes added that reporting from SAP is not always reliable. It might be a good idea to ask people what their future requests might be.
Rick followed up his earlier comment by saying that a wiki or some sort of electronic clearinghouse might be a good idea. Send out a request to all to assemble a list of what software packages are used and/or needed.
Molly Tamarkin liked the idea of building collaborative internal communities around specific software packages.
Meeting adjourned at 5:10 p.m.