Office of Information Technology

Technology Advisory Board (TAB)
Minutes of Meeting of April 18, 2001

Location: 4th Floor Conference Room, Andy Holt Tower Time: 3:30 - 4:30pm

Attendance:

Members: Bill Britten, Brooks Brown, Allen Cain, Will Carver, Chris Cimino, Jim Gehlhar, Nathan Hammer, Matt Johnson, Jennifer McKinnish, Susan Metros, Meghan Morgan, Joshua Morrison, Phil Stimac, Fred Tompkins (for Jerry Stoneking).

Others: Nancy Gnilka, Julie Little, Robin McNeil, Linda Painter, Judy Travis.

New Members Introduction

Will Carver opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and introducing some of the new student members. New voting members are: Meghan Morgan, Vice President of SGA and Phil Stimac, graduate student representative. New ex-officio members are: Jennifer McKinnish, SGA Student Services representative and Nathan Hammer, GSA President, who last year served as the graduate student voting member.

Review of FY01 Technology Fee Supported Activities

Nancy Gnilka handed out a year-to-date (2/28/01) summary report highlighting the FY01 Technology Fee supported activities and projects. All of these efforts strive to support the following goals of the Student Technology Fee:

• Upgrade and expansion of network access,
• equipment upgrades in open and departmental labs,
• enhancement of student support services,
• expanded distribution of licensed software, and
• support for instructional technologies.

Thousands of students are helped by the technology fee, whether it be through the campus-wide networking services, open-access or departmental labs, training classes, or through the services and support of the Educational Technology Division. The yearly report illustrates that many students as well as faculty and staff on campus have been served. The final report will be posted on the Techfee web site as the FY01 Deliverables during the summer months.

FY01 Educational Technology Support Review

Innovative Technology Center: Susan Metros and Julie Little elaborated on the technology fee supported efforts and accomplishments of the ORIT Educational Technology Division. The role of the Innovative Technology Center (ITC) is to enrich the educational experience of students by supporting faculty in the academic community in advancing learning through the instructional technology. This last year ITC has offered 167 sections of their instructional technology training courses. Blackboard was upgraded from 3.0 to 4.0 (Enterprise), and as of April 1, 774 instructors have requested 629 course accounts serving 13,937 unique student accounts. They also offer courses on learning strategies, digital media courses, and a special program for graduate teaching assistants, taught by a graduate teaching assistant. With the upgraded Enterprise Blackboard, faculty will have on-line rosters which will be updated daily. It is hoped this will encourage participation by all faculty. President Gilley has stated he would like 100% web presence of courses at UT.

Lucky Seven Program: So far this year, ITC has offered 17 customized training sessions for individual departments on campus.

Classroom Upgrades: The Educational Technology Division working with IT Engineering Services coordinated an upgrade of the Claxton Lecture Hall with smart classroom technology. They provided all smart classroom training and documentation.

Faculty First Project: The funding for these grants comes from the technology fee. Eight departments are awarded hardware and instructional support to assist them in the delivery of technology-mediated course materials in the classroom.

FY01 Networking Support Review

Building Rewire Projects: Nancy Gnilka briefly reviewed the section on Networking Services. The main focus this last year was on rewiring the networks in three buildings: Hodges Library (95% complete), Nursing (75% complete), and Physics (75% complete). The completion target for all three buildings is the end of this fiscal year. Bill Britten questioned whether Hodges could be considered 95% complete. The wiring has been completed, but they are still waiting for the electronics to be installed. In response to a question concerning networking access to the carrels in the Library, Bill Britten stated they would be supported by wireless access. Wireless access points are being installed concurrently in Hodges along with the stationary network wiring project and could possibly be completed by July as well.

Campus Wireless Project: In response to a question regarding the number of wireless areas now available on campus, Nancy Gnilka indicated a list of the buildings with wireless access can be found at the URL: http://wireless.utk.edu . A map on this website also shows buildings which should be wireless access ready by fall semester 2001.

FY01 Customer Technology Support Review

Statistical Consulting Center: In response to a question, Nancy Gnilka explained the technology fee supports the first ten hours of statistical computing assistance per semester for students. They are also provided a subsidized rate of $20 per hour over the ten-hour limit each semester. The Stat Group has provided in-depth research assistance to 350 researchers this year. Approximately 5,000 research and computing assistance requests were handled via phone and email.

Training: The DII Training Group held 347 hands-on classes so far this year serving approximately 4,800 students. The Group provided information sessions for thousands of incoming students during Student Orientation last summer and distributed over 6,000 Life Preservers to students over the year.

Student Support Services: The Helpdesk so far this year has responded to 24,802 requests for assistance via telephone and 4,336 requests via e-mail. Their walk-in consulting center has assisted 3,301 customers at the Aconda Court site. In addition to responding to requests for assistance on a daily basis, this group will also occasionally present technical demonstration sessions for students, such as the "Unwired Day" to be held on April 25th in the University Center. For the entire day they will demonstrate to students various options with Laptop computers equipped with wireless networking capability. A flyer noting the location and date was handed out.

FY01 Computer Labs Support Review

DII Lab Services Group: Twenty-three open-access computing work areas are maintained throughout the Knoxville campus, including locations in the Library, academic buildings, dorms, and off-campus married student housing. The technology fee funding helps to maintain up-to-date computing equipment and software in the labs, to provide staffing, and to offer additional hours of service when needed. Robin McNeil noted that one lab listed in the report has some equipment still on order as of the 2/28/01 date, but it should be in place by July 1.

Departmental Labs: Several new departmental labs were opened in FY01 as well as many labs received computer replacements. A Computational Lab was opened in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department and a Re-configurable Lab was opened for the new Undergraduate Computer Engineering Program. Also the Human Osteology Teaching Laboratory in East Stadium Hall was opened with equipment from the Technology Fee.

Looking ahead to FY02

Julie Little indicated ITC has just announced recipients for the WISH (Wireless Instructional Strategies for the Humanities). This pilot program will operate only in the Humanities Building and faculty eligible to apply have to be teaching in the Humanities area. ITC is purchasing two carts with 16 Dell laptops each with battery charger for each cart. Each faculty will be awarded a laptop with a wireless card as well. ITC will hold a training institute this summer for the WISH program.

Educational Technology has worked very closely with Mike Stahl and Ramsey Valentine in the College of Business who have been actively involved in wireless instruction on this campus. Julie Little said that from all they can glean, about 50 colleges have pilot wireless projects at this time; so UT is among the pioneers.

Next Meeting

Will Carver thanked the members of TAB for their attendance and hard work throughout the previous year, and announced the next meeting will be held on July 18, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. in the 4th Floor Conference Room, Andy Holt Tower. An amended FY02 Technology Fee Budget will be reviewed in which additional networking projects have been added and several other areas reflect minor changes as well.

Minutes by: Judy Travis