Library and IT Committee
Annual Report May 2017 Submitted by Jochen Albrecht (Chair)
Chair: Jochen Albrecht (Hunter)
Executive Committee Liaison: Phil Pecorino (QCC)
Ari Nagel (Kingsborough) / Catherine Lavender (CSI)Francis Donnelly (Baruch) / Janice Dunham (John Jay)
Judith Wild (Brooklyn) / Leslie Ward (QCC)
Mark Eaton (Kingsborough) / Morris Hounion (Citytech)
Pamela Steinberg (CCNY) / Robert Nolan (Graduate Center)
Roberta Brody (Queens) / Stephen Majewicz (Kingsborough)
Tracy Chu (Brooklyn) / Yasmin Sokkar Harker (Law School)
The committee was tasked with the following charges:
1.(Ongoing) Develop a working rapportwith:
•ChairsoftheITSteeringCommitteeworkinggroupson:
•IT Applications andSystems
•IT Policies andProcedures
•Chair of the Blackboard Management Council(BbMC)
•Chair of the Committee on Academic Technology(CAT)
The UFS Library and IT Committee has no seat at the table of the IT Steering Committee, which makes the first item difficult (although the UFS Chair is part of that committee) . The Chair of the BbMC is a member of the CAT committee, as are Profs. Albrecht and Brody, which guarantees a good working rapport with those two entities.
2.ReviewtheMasterPlanforitemsrelevanttoLITandprovidea1-pagebriefforthePlenary.
The 2016 Master Plan has so far found little translation into guidelines and policies for the Library and IT sectors. See Appendix A for the one-page report.
3.Provide (or request from University Director of Academic Technology) a 1-page update on the ebook projects funded by CUNY in 2011 (Spring). See: initiatives/academic-technology/academic
The project is dead (web page removed). One could consider the open educational resources (OER) initiative a replacement of the e-book project. Making course materials available digitally, including multimedia content and resources that can be updated in real time, is an important part of CUNY’s efforts to improve educational access through technology. Three of CUNY’s community colleges are currently involved with the OER Degree initiative. CUNY will use external funding to adapt existing associate degree programs so that course curricula is based entirely on materials that are freely available online, meaning that students in these programs will not need to purchase or borrow text books. Rather, they will have digital access to everything they need for course assignments, including multimedia content and resources that can be updated in real time.
4.Provide a 1-page update on John Jay’s MOOC experience with Literature & Law of American Slavery.DetermineifadditionalMOOCsarebeingplannedelsewhereinCUNY.
We have not found much enthusiasm for MOOCs at CUNY anymore. The ratio of effort to set up such courses to the number of students successfully completing them with credits is to be very low – not only here at CUNY but nation-wide.
5.Provide a 1-page report on the number of asynchronous and hybrid course offerings by discipline available throughoutCUNY.
As with the previous charge, this one does not warrant a one-page report. Self-reporting by CUNY campuses is inconsistent and there is no central initiative. Our request to the CUNY Registrar for a listing of all such courses was eventually met but clearly was the first attempt at such a compilation. It can be stated that most courses at CUNY offer some form of online component and as such qualify as being hybrid but that fully online course offerings are sparse. A summary table is attached in AppendixC.
6.Report to the plenary about CUNY Central’s RFP to find a vendor to help colleges establish onlinecourses/programs.
This RFP was much delayed (proposal due date 04/27/17) and the responses to the RFP have not been analyzed yet.
7.Recommendations on what should be added to the CUNY VirtualDesktopsuite.
For the past two years, the CUNY Virtual Desktop has been a (not much used) way for students to access statistical software packages like SAS and SPSS, for which CUNY has system-wide site licenses. At a minimum, this should be expanded to all other system-wide licensed packages such as ESRI’s suite of GIS software. In addition, we recommend that CUNY develops a range of virtual desktops based on open source software packages that often are a pain for students to run on local computers because their respective setups are using conflicting program libraries. An easy start would be to prepackage virtual desktops such as OSgeo-live or Digital Humanities in a Box.
8.Recommendations on (a) site licensing of teaching software and (b) academic advisory role to the administration of sitelicenses.
This has been a sore point for many years because of the disconnect between the end users (faculty and students) and the hierarchy of license administrators. Using the campus of this reporter as an example, there is a license administrator (a technician not involved in using the software) at the department level, another one at the college level, and the finally one at the CUNY Central level (Computing and Information Services, CIS). One of the tenets of site licensing is that the license grantee provides a significant financial discount and in turn has to deal with only one point of contact on the university’s side. There is no coordination of what software is actually needed by the end users and no overview of the ever changing offerings by the vendors.
The Committee on Academic Technologies had a site license sub-committee but it has not been operational for a number of years. We recommend a faculty advisory board to the site license coordinators (humanities, social, sciences, natural sciences, law, medicine, engineering) that meets on a quarterly basis with the site license coordinators at CIS and whose members may be the points of contact for all content- (rather than financial or legal) related questions to vendors.
9.Report on the CUNY Libraries StrategicPlan
There is no strategic plan as of the writing of this report, although we are aware of work on such a plan. The CUNY Office of Library Services (OLS) will send a permanent liaison to our committee from fall 2017 onward, which should guarantee that we will be kept up to date on the developments.
A final note from the chair, which is a repeat of the same remarks from the previous year. We, as a committee, struggled to have a quorum at our committee meetings and struggled to work in between sessions as sub-committees. We are especially lacking active participants with experience in IT matters, which I see to be a reflection of the body of UFS senators as a whole. At this point, our committee is a barely functioning Library committee; and this is in spite of some significant restructuring of the membership of the committee during this last academic year. As I will be stepping down as senator to take an extended academic leave, the UFS executive committee should consider a severe reorganization with multiple liaisons to CIS, similar to the newly blossoming one with OLS. I would be happy to serve as an adviser to the Executive during the remainder of the calendar year to help facilitate such a reorganization.
Respectfully submitted,
Appendices
Appendix A: The role of library and IT in the CUNY master plan Appendix B: CUNY Online Task Force Report
Appendix C: Asynchronous and hybrid course offerings by discipline available throughout CUNY Appendix D: OLS organizational chart
Appendix E: CIS organizational chart
Appendix A: The role of library and IT in the CUNY master plan
Technology extends into nearly every corner of the university. It has created new possibilities for teaching and learning—it allows for personalization and adaptive learning, for online learning and new forms of access, and it produces ever-increasing amounts of data that can contribute to learner and instructor success. Yet, in spite of the central role given to Dr. Otte as university director of academic technology, there is no strategic coordination nor budget to streamline the myriads of initiatives dealing with library and information services at our university.
One example is the CUNY Online Task Force, which issued its report in Fall 2016 (see Appendix B). This report was written more than two years after the arrival of Chancellor Milliken, who was expected to spearhead such an effort similar to what he implemented in Nebraska. The report is meta strategic and has so far not resulted in the allocation of resources commensurate with the importance of the issue. Contrary to many other universities, by offering more instruction online, CUNY aims less to grow enrollment but to improve graduation rates by accelerating credit accumulation. This is in the context of CUNY’s student body, characterized work, family, and other constraints. To make further progress, the master plan promises that CUNY will hire instruction designers and implement a university-wide program that engages faculty across disciplines, creates a baseline of readiness and support, and encourages collaboration and sharing of ideas. We have yet to see the resources to be allocated for this effort
Several CUNY colleges have now begun to offer fully online degree programs. Through its 2016 Strategic Investment Initiative CUNY invested $7.5 million to support projects at 12 CUNY colleges focused on expanding online instruction. These programs and online initiatives at other CUNY colleges that received funding from the Strategic Investment Initiative are currently in various stages of implementation – but again, there is no coordination.
The CUNY School for Professional Studies (SPS) has been charged to make general education courses available online to undergraduate students across CUNY. Online Common Core courses at SPS are already in place and approved for CUNY-wide transfer—the project is intended to scale those offerings dramatically and make their availability known to prospective students throughout the university. They will also develop a cadre of faculty who will teach multiple sections of these courses. Access to the Online Common Core is intended to be through a new searchable portal that links students directly with registration. Once registered, students will be supported by orientation and advisement designed specifically for them.
Many of today’s students have never known life without a computer, yet they don’t necessarily have the digital skills that are a fundamental literacy for successful careers in the knowledge economy. OLS has formed a (Library) Information Literacy Advisory Council, LILAC that has so far been to most coordinated effort within CUNY to enhance digital literacy of both students and faculty. As in the case of online education, there is virtually no financial support for such initiatives as a result of the identification of this need in the master plan.
CUNY spends a lot of money (we are not saying too much) on the expansion of technological capabilities that support administrative and academic goals. CIS is doing a fine job coordinating centralized initiatives (network backbones, data center, disaster recovery) but in spite of the monthly meetings of the IT Steering Committee, this does not translate well into coordination down the hierarchy. Some
tools like the new Global Search in CUNY’s Online Course Catalog are a good start, others like CUNYfirst are quintessential examples for centralization having gone overboard and causing enormous headaches on campuses.
The Virtual Desktop Initiative (VDI) has been hailed as CUNY’s first step into Cloud computing. The discrepancy between the actual level of service provided and the connotations that the master plan conjures in its pages is almost comical. To quote from the plan, “eventually, the CUNY Cloud will be used to host virtual lab capabilities, allowing the student to perform experiments and create models in a simulation environment from any computer”. For this to be a reality for the quarter million students at CUNY would take resources that would cause Ivy League schools to throw up their hands.
CUNY’s library system is a federation of 31 libraries and the CUNY Central Office of Library Services (OLS). CUNY’s libraries have made significant investments and improvements in user experience, collections, teaching and learning, research and scholarship, and infrastructure. One example is OneSearch, CUNY’s first unified, cloud-based library discovery platform. As access to library resources continues to shift from on-site to remote, the use of the physical spaces of the libraries also shifts. With the increase in experiential learning experiences and collaborative work, the CUNY libraries are re- configuring spaces and will continue to do so by moving physical collections, improving technology, and, in some cases, having librarians work in collaborative spaces along with students.
Because the cost of print textbooks continues to be an impediment to student learning and a drain on library resources, the master plan promises to expand support of faculty to create digital open access textbooks that are free to students. CUNY Academic Works is already in place to provide a platform for open access textbooks.
In response to CUNY UFS Statement and Resolution on Open Access, OLS implemented Academic Works, the CUNY-wide open access institutional repository, which showcases the intellectual life and history of the university and delivers universal, free access to CUNY scholarship and research. In tandem with the implementation of Academic Works, the libraries have taken an active role in educating the CUNY community about open access scholarship, open educational resources, and the benefits of submitting work to CUNY’s new repository – but CUNY faculty are slow to adopt the idea. Our committee is working closely with OLS to advocate for the system. OLS also provides education and guidance about issues such as copyright, authors’ rights, creative commons licensing, evaluating potential publishers and compliance with open access requirements for research output mandated by federal and private funding agencies. OLS plans to establish an Office of Scholarly Communications supporting faculty, staff and students in the following areas: repository and digital scholarship services; journal publishing, open educational resource development, data management planning in collaboration with campus grant’s officers;aswellasanalyticsandassessment.Thisisanendeavorthatwewholeheartedlysupport.
Recently, OLS completed a full, three-version upgrade of Aleph, CUNY’s integrated resource management system that manages circulation, acquisition, inventory and reporting capabilities for all CUNY Libraries. Although the Aleph upgrade is a significant improvement it remains a legacy platform and OLS to replace it with a state-of-the-art, cloud-based resource management platform that will better meet the needs of users and staff across the university. The newer generation of library systems are browser based, and are more fully integrated, allowing for a better end-user experience as well as more efficient back-office processes.
Appendix B: Asynchronous and hybrid course offerings by discipline available throughout CUNY
This table is a summary of the data provided by the University Registrar running a search on CUNYfirst.
College / Web- enhanced / Partially Online / Hybrid / Online / Fully online / Grand totalBaruch / 1 / 10 / 146 / 2 / 100 / 259
BMCC / 37 / 152 / 11 / 181 / 381
Bronx CC / 150 / 2 / 78 / 14 / 33 / 277
Brooklyn / 191 / 6 / 168 / 18 / 114 / 497
City / 70 / 6 / 64 / 6 / 2 / 138
CSI / 89 / 19 / 63 / 18 / 11 / 200
Law / 2 / 2
Public Health / 1 / 10 / 11
Guttman / 8 / 8
Hostos / 59 / 1 / 42 / 102
Hunter / 2,440 / 63 / 304 / 27 / 82 / 2,916
John Jay / 21 / 70 / 376 / 467
Kingsborough / 111 / 33 / 144
LaGuardia / 223 / 37 / 260
Lehman / 889 / 14 / 336 / 129 / 256 / 1,624
Megar Evers / 30 / 4 / 47 / 81
CityTech / 127 / 53 / 180
Queens / 266 / 9 / 128 / 15 / 89 / 507
Queensborough / 557 / 113 / 3 / 14 / 687
SPS / 3 / 315 / 318
York / 60 / 73 / 133
Grand Total / 4,701 / 272 / 2,110 / 341 / 1,786 / 9,192
The Registrar’s memo from March 2014, describes the valid codes as follows:
•Web-enhanced: some course content as well as required or optional activitiesareonline
•Partiallyonline:Upto20%ofscheduledclassmeetingsarereplacedwithonlineactivities
•Hybrid(blended):Between33%and80%ofscheduledclassmeetingsareonline
•Online: More than 33% but less than 100% of scheduled class meetingsareonline
•Fullyonline:Allofclasswork,includingexams,isonline
CUNY Office of Library Services
January 2017
Vita Rabinowitz
Executive Vice Chancellor and University Provost
Greg Gosselin
InterimUniversityDeanofLibrariesandInformationSystems
Nancy Egan Electronic Resources Librarian Higher Education Associate
Shamiana Pond
Executive Secretary
Assistant to Higher Education Officer
Mark Monakey Assessment Librarian Non-Teaching Adjunct
Marsha Clark
Adjunct
Megan Wacha
Scholarly CommunicationsLibrarian
Higher Education Associate
Ann Fiddler
OpenEducationLibrarian
Non-Teaching Adjunct
vacant Director, LibrarySystems Higher EducationOfficer
Michael Bereza Adjunct Cataloger Non-TeachingAdjunct
Michael Borries
Cataloger
Higher EducationAssociate
Allie Verbovetskaya UniversitySystemsLibrarian Higher EducationAssociate
Roland Samieske University Systems Librarian Higher Education Associate
(vacant)
College Assistant
SharonGitterman CollegeAssistant
Kevin Collins UniversitySystems Librarian Higher EducationAssociate
(vacant) UniversitySystems Librarian Higher EducationAssociate
Larry McCue
Library CommunicationsAssistant HigherEducationAssistant
Saad Abulhab
University Systems Librarian
Non-Teaching Adjunct
Nancy Macomber
University Systems Training Librarian
Non-Teaching Adjunct
ComputingandInformationServices
Chief Information Officer
DeputyCIO,StrategicInitiatives
Deputy CIO, Information Technology Services
Administrative Services
ChiefInformation SecurityOfficer
CUNYfirst Implementation
Management Analysis & Communications
Project Management
Budgets and Contracts
Data Center Project
IT Training and Professional Development
Networks
Strategic Planning andAcademic Computing
University Director of ServiceDelivery
Application Development
AMS
Management
CUNYfirst Implementation
Systems
Systems Integration & DataCenter
Application Services
Communications andCollaborationTechnologies
CUNYfirst Production Support
LAN
CUNYfirst Development
Legacy Development
Reporting/ Business Intelligence
Database Adimistrator
Network Operations Center
Service Desk