Instructional Support Committee

Attending: Anatoly Vishevsky, Dan Reynolds, Chris Johnston (SGA), Cecilia Knight, Bill Francis, Jon Chenette, Richard Fyffe, Keri Kornelson, John Kalkbrenner, Terri Phipps

Minutes of 6 September approved as distributed.

ISC commends SGA for appointing a representative so quickly.

Fast-track approval:
Teaching Writing discussion group ($650)

Update on ITS summer projects

• ITS moved from five locations to Forum
• CCL (Creative Computing Lab) to open end of September
• Helpdesk moved to Forum from 1233 Park
• Forum Training room to open end of September
• Wireless on campus upgraded to require authentication (Secure and Guest) and includes communications encryption (Secure network) (in progress)
• Seven new classrooms with computers and AV capability added to the Joe Rosenfield Center
• JRC wireless access
• Email Kiosks added in the JRC (in progress)
• Expanded wireless access in academic buildings (Steiner, Goodnow, Carnegie, BCA)
• All Residence Halls and campus-owned houses now have wireless access on all floors
• GC's first use of videoconferencing for instruction - Arabic language ALSO option
• Enhancements to PioneerWeb screen design and functionality (see What's New tab on PW)
• MathLAN desktop computers replaced
• College's Internet bandwidth increase 25% from last year
• AV and computer added in Spanish Seminar room
• AV equipment and controls upgraded in ARH 302
• Approximately 60 parents visited the CCL space over Family Weekend

Library subscription databases such as JStor and ARTStor use Grinnell's IP address to allow access. How will the change in Guest access affect that? Users will need to log in with the appropriate ID and password in order to allow authentication.

Curricular Development Guidelines: One change has been made to the Course-Related Fieldtrip guidelines. In the past, ISC funded one-time trips and suggested that departments build fieldtrips into their budget if the trips would be recurring. However, it is unlikely that the campus budget committee will approve departmental budget lines for trips except in highly specialized cases (e.g., Bio Dept regular trips to CERA.) Therefore, ISC's guidelines state that funding is available for occasional trips. This change is approved.

Copyright Task Force: Needs a representative from Humanities. Dan Reynolds has agreed to serve on the task force, and Cecilia Knight will step down.

Copyright issues from Faculty Meeting:

• Need Divisional representation
• Academic Support offices (Angela Winburn has agreed to serve)
• Issue of students commenting on or sharing papers within class. Does the College need to obtain permission from the students?
• Faculty using student papers as examples in future classes

Course packs and e-Reserves:

• System needs to work effectively and efficiently. Cost of packets can be prohibitive to students.
• Need to preserve spontaneity in classrooms.
• Faculty authors can help situation by setting terms for use of their own work when published.
• Some faculty members suggested that the College should take a more aggressive stand on the copyright issue.
  • This is an ethical and legal issue. The market should not dictate what can be taught.
  • The College should work with other higher education institutions to try to change the system, though not in the manner of civil disobedience. This issue has been discussed with Oberlin group librarians and has been raised with the ACM.
• The College is looking for ways to have a more liberal stance in interpretation of the policy.

The copyright taskforce meets on October 10.
Jon will keep ISC informed.

EKI Curricular Development proposal: (PHI, PHY)
Parts of the proposal do not fall under ISC's purview. The Committee will consider funding travel expenses, conference support, and student labor.

Archival research: ISC suggests faculty members meet with Librarians first. This raises the question of, how does Grinnell College build access to primary source works? These can both be acquisition of original material, which is difficult, and providing access to digital collections. Having electronic access to an entire work could be useful. When faculty members obtain photocopies from original works not held at Grinnell, access is limited to those pages that are copied, which is usually not the entire work.

Guidelines for travel to professional meetings (conferences only) will include language allowing more substantial funding for meetings related to interdisciplinary curricular development projects endorsed by faculty members' departments and the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies.

ISC agreed to fund conference travel for this proposal at the second conference level. Funding level will be approved at a higher level once supporting documents from the departments and the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies have been received. Jon will follow up with departments and OIS on EKI-Strategic Plan proposals. [post-meeting addendeum: both departments' chairs, in phone conversations with Jon, indicated their support for this project and their intention to regularize the course offering on at least an occasional basis, and the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies also confirmed its support. Thus, ISC will fund this meeting at the full level requested.]

Spinoza proposal (PHI). This will be considered under the Mellon 8 grant.

Next meeting:
November 1

Respectfully submitted,
Terri Phipps