Information Technology Advisory Council
July 26, 2005
Attendees: Sandra Wells, Scott Crowley, Ed Kelty, David Weaver, Sam Harris (Debbie Thompson), John Seims, Connie Sherman, Bill Dehaan, Darrel Huish, KC Hundere, Joyce Elsner, Mary Kay Kickels, Homero Lopez, Paul Dale, Arlen Solochek (Lionel Diaz).
Earl Monsour, Rod Marten, Doug Harper
Chris Millanez
Excused: Sharon Blanton, Maria Harper-Marinick, Patty Swindle, Ron Bleed
Joyce Elsner opened the discussion about our technology vision. David Weaver explained his ideas that ITAC should embrace projects such as seemless wireless, and hand-in-hand with that is the goal of increased collaboration between the Colleges and District Office.
Ed Kelty passed out the information on the web site he created for the repository of information and comments from the council. He is hoping that the council can use this as a tool for information sharing.
Homero Lopez commented that the colleges don’t have enough idea/knowledge of what each of the other colleges are doing. He also said that we should be mindful that other leadership groups within the district are making decisions.
Question was asked how do we find out what everyone is doing?
Ed Kelty suggested that we should take an inventory of what is working now. Technology Leadership Council (TLC) can be engaged to help in this effort.
Mary Kay Kickels suggested that we should find out through status reports what the benchmarks, projects, and who is doing it, and is it working or not from each college.
(Technology Audit)
Joyce Elsnerasked, “Is there a baseline to where each of the colleges should be?”
(If not, how do we get one?) There was discussion about how we can declare standards that reflect that some colleges have things that others do not, and how does a college know when they have arrived at an acceptable level of “catching up.” And maybe in some baseline technologies all colleges should be standard, but in other areas a few colleges may specialize so as to better serve their students.
John Seims suggested a “clearinghouse” approach. Once a college or colleges have established a technical competency, why not have a mechanism to share with others?
Sandra Wells commented on the inadequacies and mindsets on campuses. Where are we at on common levels of technology skills? Arlen Solochek commented that in addition to a technology audit, perhaps we should consider what the core competencies are that will make an effective member of ITAC. This could involve ongoing training in important topics.
Darrel Huish suggested 2 possible ways to make progress:
Engage TLC to do the audit or have a retreat with TLC and ITAC to facilitate ideas. He asked if the group would want to meet with TLC? He agreed that we definitely need to find out what is working and what is not. The consensus was to begin by asking TLC to gather information together and share it with ITAC.
David Weaver suggested that we also utilize the ideas of the Academic body such as Ocotillo or any of the other Teaching and Learning groups. He agreed to do this on behalf of ITAC.
Darrel Huish reviewed the proposals that are going to the Governing Board this evening.
He introduced Rod Marten who gave a justification for the approval of the Enterprise Management System (Open View). This was unanimously approved by ITAC.
Doug Harper did a presentation on the Network Monitoring/Security system upgrade. This was also unanimously approved by ITAC.
Information items that will be discussed further at the August meeting are:
Doug Harper opened the discussion on the core network upgrades.
Bill Dehaan would like to see a 10-year plan for the network. Perhaps roll the core and LAN upgrades into one 10-year plan. He would like ITS to put something together for the August meeting. Huish agreed.
Ed Kelty commented on the Helpdesk/Call center software upgrade that will be further discussed at the August meeting.
ITAC discussed whether we could better describe our process for considering technology proposals. It was agreed that we need to talk more about vision, and experiment with some of the forms that were submitted for consideration, and that this would be an ongoing process. ITAC also agreed to try to have some more time to work together by extending meeting time to 2pm – 330pm at future meetings.
Next ITAC meeting is August 23 at 2pm in the Executive Conference room on the 6th floor.