Office of Information Technology

Technology Advisory Board (TAB)
Minutes of Meeting of January 21, 2004

Attendance:

Members: Bill Britten, Steve Dolgner, Jim Gehlhar, James Hughes, Matt Johnson, Sara Keeton, Julie Little, Faye Muly, Marla Peterson, Stan Pinkleton, James Price, Patrick Schuneman, Luther Wilhelm.

Others: Nancy Gnilka, Robin McNeil, and Judy Travis

Mr. Matt Johnson, student co-chair, called the meeting to order. The only agenda item was the FY05 Technology Fee Departmental Lab Funding recommendation. A web site was made available to the committee members for them to review the requests as they were received. Mr. Johnson asked Ms. Nancy Gnilka to comment on the award process and answer any questions of the committee members. Ms. Gnilka distributed a spreadsheet listing all requests and award recommendations. The award process was moved from April to January to allow deans to better prepare their budgets. In response to a question as to why some requests were not awarded, Ms. Gnilka explained that the deans of each college have been asked by TAB to prioritize their requests due to the number of requests received and the limited amount of money available for departmental lab awards and the Board strives to distribute the available funding based on the priorities established by each college or unit.

As the Board discussed in Spring 2003, the concentration of the awards this year was on upgrading the resources that we already have with more emphasis on software and replacing three, four and five year-old machines. Ms. Gnilka also noted that since we have retired our technology fee debt, we were able to fund new programs (DLABS and START) which will provide assistance to faculty in the teaching and learning effort as well as departmental lab support.

The total awarded for departmental lab funding and student software support based on request estimates was $1,098,776. With no further discussion, a motion was made by Dr. Marla Peterson to vote on the award recommendation. The awards as presented were approved unanimously. Faye Muly will send the notification letters out by the first week of February.

Open Discussion

Dr. Julie Little gave a brief update regarding the START (Student Technology Assistants for Research & Teaching) program. Dr. Christina Goode, hired December 1, 2003, as the START Coordinator, has been interviewing students for this new program. Currently there are 14 confirmed students. The goal is 15 for this semester and they are continuing to interview several others. ITC will continue to take applications and have an on-going orientation program to get them into the loop as soon as possible. The students will have to complete a two-week orientation training program which will include interpersonal communication skills, technology training, and SmartBoard usage. At the end of the two week training period, they will be assigned to geographical clusters on campus. For instance, one cluster will be the Engineering area.

ITC is now taking technology requests for project development from faculty. They will start with deliverables by March 1. Any faculty that have requests for projects may submit them now. The START website (available at http://itc.utk.edu/start) has full instructions. Students will also be working closely with the Faculty First Program. ITC is still accepting proposals for this grant project.

Mr. Stan Pinkleton has requested that the students on the Technology Advisory Board help the Office of Information Technology with a final push to make sure that all students are aware of and understand that they can take advantage of the free anti-virus software. This is in the best interest of the students as well as the UT network.

The next meeting of the Technology Advisory Board will be Wednesday, February 18, 2004, at 2:00PM in the 4th Floor Conference Room, Andy Holt Tower. With no further business, the meeting was adjourned.

Minutes Prepared by: Judy Travis