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Instructional Support Committee |
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Attending: Roger Vetter, Shuchi Kapila, David Romano, Bill Francis, Chris Davis (STAC), Albert Lacson, Karen Shuman, Leslie Gregg-Jolly, Richard Fyffe, John Kalkbrenner, Paul Munyon, Terri Phipps, Ian Athanasakis (STAC - briefly) Ian introduced Chris Davis, who will be taking his place as the STAC representative. Committee members introduced themselves. Ian left the meeting. Minutes of October 8 approved. Fast-track approval:
Task Force update: Bill distributed a draft expanded recommendation regarding the use of ".doc" formats. This recommendation was made by a task force appointed by ISC, including Bill Francis, Ian Athanasakis, Richard Fyffe, and David Romano. The task force was charged with addressing compatibility issues among word processor applications as the campus made the transition to Office 2007/2008, specifically considering the use of open document formats. There are varying degrees of fidelity issues when saving in different formats. The task force recommends the following options when considering software choices, though users must keep in mind that ITS will continue to give full support to Microsoft Office products. PC users: MS Office 03 or 07; Open Office v2.4.1 or higher; MS Works v9 or higher One committee member remarked that he uses Excel in his class, and given compatibility issues, would prefer to work directly in .xls format rather than converting from .xlsx. Is it possible to partition the hard drive so that Excel 2003 and 2007 are both available? Bill will look into it, though doubts it is possible because of registry issues on PCs. ISC commends the task force members for working to meet the computing needs of so many users. Task force members will meet with Academic Support Assistants and faculty at the division level to discuss needs further. ISC Procedures & Priorities: ISC is charged with the support of curricular needs. Departmental budgets should support departmental curricular needs of courses that are regularly offered or offered on a rotating basis (every other year, for example). There are some exceptions. ISC will consider curricular proposals that are interdisciplinary in nature, one-time opportunities, or pilot projects. There is concern with the lead time (at least a year) between when a department submits a budget request and when budgets are distributed. Departments cannot always anticipate what their needs may be in time to request a budget increase or redistribution. In these cases, ISC will consider proposals, and will encourage departments to request support during the next budget cycle. ISC guidelines should be more clear in communicating what types of proposals should be brought to the committee and what should be funded through departmental budgets. Leslie has drafted an Inventory of support. There are currently multiple sources of funding for similar types of projects. This Inventory should help guide faculty to the appropriate source of funding for their projects. Once the draft is complete, Leslie will bring it to the committee for discussion. Library Self-Study: An external review will be scheduled in Spring 2009. Seven teams have written reports and made recommendations of what they believe to be critical areas of focus. Richard will be sending a first draft of the self study report on November 19. He will email an executive summary of the report and recommendations to ISC, including a link to the full (draft) report on November 12. He asks that ISC focus on the recommendations. What do committee members think is most important? What is missing? Faculty should send comments and feedback to Librarians by early December. ISC members should look through the documents and be prepared to discuss them at the November 19 meeting. Meeting time for spring semester: Noon Wednesdays are not an option for 1-2 committee members next semester. Please bring schedules for spring so that an alternate time can be decided on. Update on PHI/PHY proposal: Leslie updated the committee on this proposal. It is complicated in that it involves both ISC and CSFS and has been spread over a longer period of time than usual. The Philosophy Department has committed to offering this course every other year. The Physics Department will offer it in rotation. Faculty members have taken ISC's concerns into consideration and have adjusted their plans accordingly. The course will be offered in Fall 2009. R25/X25 Software for scheduling classrooms: Cheryl Chase has requested a representative from ISC on this committee. Paul Munyon has agreed to serve. SBRA is compiling an inventory of classroom resources that will be useful when this software goes into use. Respectfully submitted, |