Instructional Support Committee

Attending: Bill Francis, Cecilia Knight, John Kalkbrenner, Erin Hurley, Monty Roper, Roger Vetter, Richard Fyffe, David Romano, Leslie Gregg-Jolly, Karen Shuman, Shuchi Kapila, Albert Lacson, Terri Phipps

ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING FOR 2008-09

Shuchi was elected chair of ISC for 2008-2009.

REGULAR MEETING

Minutes of last meeting approved.

Fast track approvals:

• ART 260: Museum Studies - field trip to the Science Center of Iowa, State Historical Museum and the Des Moines Art Center
• REL 394: Ghandi field trip to the University of Iowa South Asia Studies seminar “Faqirs in the Colony”

Open Doc Format: Should the College favor software that does or does not incorporate an open format? How many platforms can feasibly and economically be supported by ITS?

Recommend holding to status quo (MS 2007) and continue investigating, configure machines to default Save As to .doc rather than .docx. include Open XML. Also recommend increasing images in public labs and providing a variety of converters.

MS 2007 has a built-in compatibility checker. Some formatting may be lost when saving from 2007 to 2003 format. Office 2003 users cannot open Office 2007 files without a converter.

STAC plans to meet with faculty divisions in early fall. Bill will check cost of providing MS Office to students, which could foster greater compatibility.

A task force will begin meeting over the summer to talk about format and compatibility issues. Bill, Richard, David and Leslie have agreed to participate. Bill will check with STAC to see if one of their committee members will be on campus during the summer. Leslie will contact Angie Story, about selecting a Technical Support Assistant to represent Academic Support Assistants.

Charge to task force as written in the draft Resolution on Document Formats:

… develop a succinct explanation of the primary format and platform choices available to Grinnell students, staff, and faculty, and the consequences of these choices; and meet with student, staff, and faculty groups to explain the issues and solicit feedback regarding the optimal software environment that would meet their needs.

ISC formally supports the following language taken from the draft Resolution on Document Formats:

ITS set “ .doc” (old format) as the default “save” standard, for a transitional period (perhaps up to two years). We believe that this will minimize cases of file incompatibility on campus for the short term, and allow time for consideration of the best longer-term choices;

ITS include, as part of the standard desktop image for Windows and Mac, converters for Open XML, Microsoft Office 2003, and Open Document Format, and make available open source office suite alternatives whenever feasible.

ITS should include instructions on its webpage on downloading Open Office. Neo-office is a similar package for Mac users.

Concerns:

• Balancing access to other packages against efficiency and support.
• Offering alternative software needs to be a move away from having a campus standard. This could create support issues. Education is necessary so that campus users know which packages are and are not supported by ITS staff.

EKI grant information

ISC will discuss and advertise in the fall. The addition of Arabic Studies will impact library and media collections. How much impact is unpredictable.

Curricular Development proposal

PHE (Australia): This project has been partially funded by CSFS. It has not been ISC’s practice to supplement projects funded by CSFS, and ISC agrees that funding for projects in general should not be split. ISC suggests that CSFS consider raising the cap on their funding. Members agreed that although funding should be found outside of ISC (either by increasing the cap of the CSFS award or some other resource that may be available), the proposal was meritorious. Leslie and Shuchi will discuss this proposal with Jon.

Respectfully submitted,
Terri Phipps