INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE MEETING

September 6, 2002

9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

Attendance: Jan Fox, Sarah Denman, Frances Hensley, Donna Spindel, Arnold Miller, Barbara Winters, Karen McComas, David Johnson, Layton Cottrill, Don Combs, Gary Anderson: Dennis Prisk; Tom Hankins, Michael Castellani,

Review of Minutes: Approved as amended.

UPDATES:

Barbara Winters: Distribution of a Report showing digital resources in the library for the past year. Overall cost per use of electronic is about 13 cents per use. Print cost is significantly higher. Unfortunately, not everything that is available in print, is available in electronic format. We have added access to over 1,000 electronic journals in the past year.

We are in the midst of a Serials review process that has been very successful. We are using a process in which we can exchange titles we are discarding for titles we want. We have cancelled 214 titles and have added over 100 titles at same costs. If anything, it has been a good object lesson.

Arnold Miller: Computing Service has been busy with antivirus activities. The current software protects as mail comes into the system. All incoming mail is scanned for viruses. By now everyone has received notification of a quarantined virus. We are now looking to expand so that we can block SPAM mail. SPAM mail comprises 60% of the mail coming in to campus. We are looking at software packages that help us identify SPAM sources. We want to avoid this being seen as a form of censorship. We need to open some discussion on how to handle unwanted SPAM. Currently, as the postmaster receives mail we attempt to determine where it comes from. We send a notification back to the source and if we receive no response, or if we receive a notification that the source is a SPAM source, we are shutting that source off. We are requesting that someone get involved with us to help deal with the process of dealing with SPAM. The handout/report shows the volume of mail already identified: of the 800,000 messages received on campus in one week, 374 were bounced back because of wrong addresses.

There is no good technology to identify certain types of viruses, moving target, We are cutting off any file attachments with .exe (executable files). If you waiting for mail with an expected attachment that may have an .exe, you will need to contact the sender to send the mail by another extension. Per Layton: This should not be considered censorship because it is a protection of the proprietary interest of the university.

Students need to know not to use .exe on executable class projects. The faculty needs to be aware of this issue to alert students. Zipped files can be used to get through the system.

Karen feels that this issue needs to be opened up to the faculty so that will know that Computing Services is blocking these files.

We have a list of sites we are blocking and we will put it up on the web page to let everyone know what we are already blocking.

Gary suggests using the same method used by other universities that when something is rejected as SPAM, the system generates an automatic reply to the sender saying that their message was rejected as SPAM. That way if it is legitimate the sender can get in touch with the recipient to get further instructions on how to get through.

Anderson: The E-course Development Committee has reviewed the historical way of funding E-course development. We are now proposing a change to pay $3,000 per course for development of T-courses and $4,000 per course for development of E-courses, with no up front payment. Payment will now be received after the course is developed. The faculty developing a course will file a reservation with the committee to avoid duplication of development. If a faculty member wants to convert a T-course to an E-course, Carolyn Karr’s committee has the option to offer a stipend for conversion. So far only one course has undergone conversion, and it is still under the approval process.

Currently there are twice as many T-courses as E-courses. Coding has been an issue. E-courses are more expensive to students and are therefore subsidizing development of a T- courses. Per Sarah: We are currently paying 1/2 up front to develop courses, now Carolyn's committee would provide up front funding for development.

Jan Fox: Since this is first viewing of this proposal by this committee, we can't vote on the proposal today. We will vote electronically after the proposal has been sent to the entire committee.

Sarah suggests that we do a Super Saturday like they do at MUGC. The format provides face to face contact for E-courses as well as provides a good orientation and instruction for students on how to access WebCT. If we move to the new version of WebCT, training will become a major issue that will need to be addressed.

AGENDA ITEMS

Jan Fox: Review of Membership and Charge

We need to make a recommendation to the President to alter the make up of the Committee. Regarding faculty representation: we now have existing 3 slots. Dr. Prisk is asking for a 4th slot to provide for two faculty representatives from the South Charleston campus. Voted and Approved. We also want to add a representative from the Community and Technical College. Voted and Approved. There was also a request for a representative from the Medical School be added to committee. Voted and Approved. (After the CTC rep is added there will be 7 faculty members)

Also, due to an organizational change, Dr. Donna Spindel will be heading up the whole faculty development for Distributed Education and so the committee that Gary chairs and Carolyn Karr’s committee will come under Donna and she will be the voice for those committees. The formal request is to add Donna as part of the committee.

The Committee Charge was reviewed and updated.

STATE SECURITY POLICY:

Jan Fox:

We need to be aware of this policy from the State Information Technology coordinating body that deals with all IT issues in the state. Jan is the Higher Education representative. The state agency has requested that every state agency create a policy such as the state’s document by December. We have to have our document in Governor’s Office of Technology by December. Jan is requesting that Jon Cutler, our head of systems, draft a document and get it to us in November for a vote before sending it to the CTO’s office. Voted and Approved. Jon will meet with us next time.

According to an announcement from the CTO’s office this morning, the state NASCAR site is now secure. They were accepting credit cards without actually holding to secure standards and procedure on the site. The site was hacked into and the credit card information accessed. As a result, we are reviewing every possible site on campus that may be accepting credit cards. We believe, at this point, that we are secure.

Arnold Miller: We are reviewing all sources of credit card use on campus. The use of Social Security Numbers for everything on campus is also a security problem. We do not meet the standard as set out be Security Policy. The document is meant to cover security of Information other than computer information. According to Layton the standard in the Security Policy is higher than standard set forth in recently passed statutes.

COPYRIGHT LETTER

Jan Fox: The letter distributed as a handout is an example of a letter sent out by other universities. Dennis Prisk is on the committee for the Cornell Procedures and Law Conference. Cornell is now in a partnership with Educause’s Institute on Computer and Law and is a rich source of information. The committee gives insight when creating policy and is a good source for drafts and statements from other sources. We need to draft a letter similar in thought to the handout letter to notify faculty, staff and students of violations and punishments. So moved by Layton and seconded by the committee. The draft will come from the committee by the end of the month addressed to the university community as a whole. We also need to post something on the website for the outside community we serve as an ISP.

POLICY 13

Donna Spindel: Areas changed since may.

We went through the Policy and made everything consistent with the course catalog. Many inconsistencies have been corrected. Most faculty will want to look at the Intellectual Property Issue and the Ownership Issue. When compared to the previous issue significant change. Based on Policy Bulletin No 9. review of what many institutions ___ page 6

In the Intellectual Property Ownership of Course Content section, we added definitions. The main issue is the matter of what happens if a revenue potential is realized with a course that was developed with university resources. An example is in the Math courses wanted by Fairmont. This issue probably won't apply to 90 percent of the courses we develop. This section makes a clear definition of clear copyrightable works as opposed to E-course and T-courses. It will apply to pieces of a course or courses that can possibly be shared if we go with the new version of WebCT with the statewide contract. A shared pool of resources can be used to put together a course. Another institution could pull pieces of a course into their own course. Appalachian History had people from other area creating a course with multiple institutions creating pieces of a course. Pieces of a course may have national market potential. This Policy gives faculty members a choice of whether they want to retain ownership of a course while we retain more control of the process.

The issue of faculty compensation would change in that we would remove one line of policy to pull out the wording about paying for course development in two parts and change the two step approval process. The amended process would now be that the potential developer would send a letter to the chair of the committee for approval and reserve the right to develop the course. It will also help the faculty to be aware of resources available to assist them in development. If a developer is planning to make money off the course, they need to disclose that information, especially if they are using university resources. The disclosure form will show who contributed to development and what resources were used.

Layton Cottrill: On Page 6, point 2. The percentage of State’s cut is determined through The Patent Policy. We need to be consistent in following Policy 9 and we need to add wording that distribution will be made pursuant to Policy 9. Voted and Approved.

Gary Anderson: On Page 4 Faculty Compensation for Development. Strike the last sentence of second paragraph regarding the approval date. If the committee is not paying anything up front now, the developer is making a reservation for one year. We need to revisit the Policy on preventing another person from creating more than one section of the same course. Frances Hensley raises the issue that every teacher teaches classes differently and therefore faculty members should be able to develop more than one section. The reservation system should provide awareness as to what is being developed online. Donna suggests the following change: “The committee will make decisions on course proposals based the curricular needs of the institution”.

Regarding the Compensation Issue - Remove the wording regarding approval out of two-step process. Also, remove the wording for final approval.

On Page 6 - Change “see below” to “reference of Policy 9” Voted and Approved.

By friendly amendment it is agreed that the Course Content Ownership section from the original document will be reinserted due to omission from the current document.

Sarah questions wording on Page 11 regarding the syllabi requirement - Need to change to remove type of course and change to “online”course. Voted and Approved. Donna will change throughout the document t/e course to online where approved.

Sarah recommends leaving strikethrough and changes for version sent to faculty senate.

Jan Fox: The last point deals with standardization of video equipment. (see handout) We all need to look over the first sentence of the Proposed Policy. We will review this policy in detail next meeting.

Adjourned