Academic Computing Policy Board

Minutes of the October 26, 2005 Meeting

Present: Roberta Lembke, Gary Miessler, Meg Ojala, and Barbara Reed

Minutes: The minutes from the October 5, 2005 meeting were approved.

Update from Roberta Lembke on EDUCAUSE and IIT activities

  • Roberta described her participation at the recent EDUCAUSE meeting, which was attended by about 7000. She was particularly interested in sessions on learning spaces and trends in lab design. While nothing revolutionary was presented at the meeting, she did note the emphasis on creating computer spaces that have the flexibility to be converted to other uses if necessary. In general, what has been purchased for St. Olaf recently has been the best equipment available.

  • One presentation that Roberta highlighted was by Tracy Mitrano, from the Office of Information Technologies at Cornell, who described the need for colleges to have clear intellectual property statements and statements of endorsement of copyright—issues that we have recently begun to discuss in our meetings. She would be a possible speaker to bring to campus on these and related topics related to information technology.

  • In response to a question, Roberta mentioned that in case of major power outages, generators will supply electricity for computer systems (and for the rest of campus as well).

Report from Roberta Lembke on Capital Budget Submission

  • Roberta distributed copies of the first draft of anticipated capital budget needs of IIT for fiscal years 2006-2011. Committee members asked a variety of questions about specific items on the list. Several of the items, especially for 2007 and beyond, represent preliminary estimates; these will be refined and discussed at a future meeting. Some items, for example computers in public computing labs, are on a regular cycle for replacement (5 years for the public labs), but the timetable in some cases may be shortened slightly, for example when the new Science Center opens.

  • Some fall computer requests have come in. Specific requests will be considered at a future meeting.

Intellectual Property and Privacy of Employee Electronic Files

  • Barbara will send the list of issues raised at the October 5 meeting to Arnie Ostebee, and we will try to schedule a meeting with him soon to discuss these.

Academic Programming and Project Requests

  • The criteria for reviewing requests for support of academic programming and projects were distributed, and committee members were asked to review these in advance of the next meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
Gary Miessler