STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGY MEETING

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1998

Present: Barry Beckett, Monica Brooks, Dr. John Buskey, Dr. William Deel, Jan I. Fox, Dr. Tom Hankins, Dr. Tony Keys, Dr. Akhtar Lodgher, Dr. Patricia O'Reilly, Jim Stephens, Allen Taylor, Linda Wilkinson.

Corrections to the minutes: Under Taylor change to read Microsoft campus-wide licensing options.

Minutes approved.

Fox: Handouts include a schedule change in the presentations. Allen Taylor and Monica Brooks will present at our next meeting which is December 9^th. I have added Bill Shondel to the Electronic Commerce. He has agreed to do this even though he is not a part of this committee. Also handout on " The Campus Computing Project" which we will discussed at the end of our meeting.

Update: Dr. Gilley has planned a news conference with Bell Atlantic recognizing the company's partnership with MU to advance higher education in West Virginia and the surrounding region on Thursday November 12^th A reception in the John Deaver Drinko Library, Third Floor Atrium, is planned for November 21^st at 11:00 AM. Additionally they have provided us with $50,000 for One Room School 2000.

The long awaited CBT's Web interface is now here. Contract negotiations provides all that is available on the web and is all new computer based training with interfaces. They are all on line and all searchable.

The WV NET issue is coming to closure. Attended a meeting last Friday regarding the governance of WVNET. Part of the structure includes new charge to higher education. Power in the Policy Board will be true governance. In the past has been more of advisory via making recommendations to the Chancellor's. The director of WVNET would report directly to that Policy Board. The new structure will be called West Virginia State Unified Network (WVSUN).

Lodgner: Introduced a new employee Jonathan Thompson. He will spend half time as Instructional Technologist Specialist and half time GSITE Instructional Technologist. He formerly worked for Compaq/Digital and is a graduate of MIT.

Taylor: The Dell contract has been very successful. Will continue to work with them on new products and price changes. Special purchase had to be reviewed and approved for the English Lab. Below minimum standards but they do mostly work processing, and are replacing the Macintosh.

Problems on the financial side. The payment process has been slow. Comp. USA had a credit hold due to processing through receiving. Comp USA has a long-term contract and is in its final year. Contract out end of year. Hope to be bidding that out and have in place by January 1^st.

Computing Service is expanding disk space. Exchange server moved to a new Dell server. There was a 400% increase with on-line courses, doing e-mail, etc. Processing over a million e-mail messages a week. Each exchange user has 100 mega bites of disk space.

The following people have been assigned to our Document Management group along with Monica Brooks, Mike McGuffey, Jim Stephens and myself who are heading up this group.

Pat Gebhart - Enrollment Management

Cheri Musgrave - Financial Aid

Terry Tomblin - Data Base Computing Services

Lennie Deutsch - Dean Graduate College

Barbara Hicks - Academic Affairs

Bob Wiley - Research Corp

Bob Walker - Bursar's Office

We are actively looking at vendors and proposals. If anyone needs to be added to this list let us know.

P.C. Service Center renovations should be completed with grand opening in January.

Beckett: The latest notification for Banner Finance and Human Resource Module Implementation has been moved up to July 1^st. The committee meets again next week.

Deel: Big difficulty with our generator but problem has been solved.

• Keith Cornett offered job and gave 1 weeks notice. Has been gone for 2 weeks. We were able to go back to our original list and have hired Marlene Alley who has been an AT & T employee on campus for 9 years.
• Big projects keeping track of equipment on campus. Phasing out old and installing new accounting system. Becky Pack and Marlene will be going to NY for training. Should be up and running by January.
• Hugh inventory of equipment came from Library and the Medical Building. Trying to work our way through getting off our inventory.
• Eric Smith, Manager of our I.D. office also quit. Have replaced him with Michael Peel one of our graduates who has an Electrical Engineering Degree. He has everything working in Drinko except for l card swipe which had mechanical fault and was sent back. Training will be conducted December 1^st and 2^nd on the card swipe security system. All people involved getting technical training. If you want to attend let Dr. Deel know.
• Marriott renovating Student Center over holidays will have whole new look with new menus.
• AT & T will be back to move our server from Prichard Hall to here on December 16^th. All card system will be shut down no more than one day if things go well.
• Machine room is really crowded. If something goes wrong will be hard to get to.

Hankins: Attended two meeting last week. The two way from here to S. Charleston the camera was not very good. Room 166 not good for meetings. Could see back of heads or few people. Jan explained that in Charleston it is designed for classroom and here for video conferencing room and has different configuration. Tom said another concern is network access from down here. You can see Marshall domain but can't get it.

Brooks: With 2 years preparation the move started October 3^rd and only took 5 days. Great planning with doors open and we were operational the following Monday. Everyone is getting use to where things are. Getting settled in with great views, great furniture and very happy with the facility. There were complaints about the hours in Morrow Library and we have extended those hours and a week later complaints about the stacks being closed and they are now open. Now have1 librarian from the Graduate College who is helping us out until we can hire for these positions. Rumor that 2^nd floor Morrow Library take whatever you want and leave. This came from a certain disgruntle faculty member of the History Department. Might want to check availability, as it might not be there. Jim Casto from the Herald Dispatch had an article which quoted number of volumes wrong in Morrow and in Drinko. We have a little over 1000,000 books in Morrow and 180,000 books in Drinko..   All 6 libraries including South Charleston, Music Library, Health Science and our collections totals over six hundred thousand books.

Wilkinson: Nothing to report at this time.

O'Reilly: University had two big events - November 1^st, 2nd, and 3rd. On November 1^st we submitted revisions of the Strategic Plan. On November 2^nd and 3^rd the North Central Accreditation team came for a follow up to their 1995 visit. We needed to show them that we had enough support. The other half had to do with the merger which was mandated 1 year after the merger to see how it effected life at the institution and meeting all the requirements. In both instances we got nice reports. Finished until year 2005-2006. Sent 30 copies to Board. Will review in the next couple months. No timetable.

Buskey: We visited Kent State campus. Their network is connected to all 7 branches as far as 100 miles away. They showed power point presentation with picture for viewing and where you could ask students questions and they interact. Disadvantage - students cannot download the site. They take notes and can come back to go over slides. Liked very much there microphone camera and they had good stereo headsets. Another thing we looked at was their traditional distance learning classroom. Very similar to what we have here. Acquired and installed new digital satellite dish on top of Smith Hall. Mid- Ohio Valley Center bids are out and due in on the 17^th. We had 9 general contractors to pre-bid. Construction to begin first of January and completion November/December 1999. One story building, 16,000 sq. feet with room for expansion. The other One Room School 2000 site is the Gilbert Center. We will get our first look in early December. Completion in Drinko should take another 2 or 3 weeks.

Jonathan Thompson: I have had a variety of roles - software development manager, resource manager, program manger, etc. Got interested in application development most recently. Most recently completed the Microsoft Certification Program. I whole hardly recommend it. Last 3-4 weeks have been looking at Process Engineering and Quality Control.

Jan has encouraged Jonathan to join any of the teams.

Lodgner: Japanese Delegation to be on campus for 1 day next Monday. Will be at the center and looking at the new Drinko Library and how ATM is used.

Stephens:  During the time he has been at Marshall University, he has been doing general HR work.   All along he was encouraged to help facilitate the implementation of the Banner HR System.  That direction has been made a little more explicit, and he will spend a 4-month assignment working exclusively in support of Banner HR.

Keys: Corbly Hall 242 nearly finished. It is heavily scheduled. Have full schedule for spring. The College of Business is struggling with having access to data for forecasting, etc. Much difficulty when having to make last minute adjustments. Too many records on paper. Need a package that integrates with the Banner system. Need a way of getting data out of the system and putting it into accessible form.

Jan: Resource 25 was one of the scheduling pieces we looked at. Pressure on campus to decide. Resource scheduling was one of the top 5 IT Strategic Planning topics for last year.

Taylor: There are 3 products on the market - Resource 25, Model 25 and Schedule 25.

Discussion followed.

Fox: Handout

• Part of what this committee does every year is make recommendations.. Again we need to prioritize our campuswide IT purchase.
• Need to provide a more integrated document that we can point to.
• Again this year we will be looking at financial planning. How we use our IT dollars.
• IT Fees. We are way below the average at $35.00/student. Some charge as much as $120.00. We are way under other institutions. The Board of Trustees does not want to put additional fees on the students. They want to hold the cost of higher education down.

Meeting adjourned. Next meeting will be Wednesday, December 9^th, Conference Room 426.