Roanoke-Chowan Community College Technology Plan (2010-2012)

Table of Contents

Purpose of Technology Committee and Plan 3

Technology Definition 3

Mission 3

Vision 4

Goals 4

Strategic Priorities 5

History 7

Funding 8

Future Plans 8

Roanoke-Chowan Community College Technology Plan Philosophy 8

Strategic Areas 9

Appendix A: Technology Committee Membership 13

Appendix B: Administrative Procedure 02-1317 14

Appendix C: Administrative Procedure 02-1320 19

Appendix D: Computer Cascade Plan 23

Appendix E: Annual Planning Request Form (APRF) 29

Appendix F: Annual Planning Request Form (APRF) Description 31

Purpose of the

Roanoke-Chowan Community College

Technology Committee

The purpose of the Roanoke-Chowan Community College (R-CCC) Technology Committee is to review and recommend policies and procedures ensuring that the College maximizes its computing and technological resources through the implementation of the College Technology Plan. This committee addresses issues related to resources used to store, process, and deliver data, voice and videofor academic, administrative, and enterprise needs. The committee meets the third Tuesday of each month.See Appendix A.

Purpose of the

R-CCC Technology Plan

The purpose of the R-CCC Technology Plan is to present information regarding the College’s policies and procedures for ensuring access to adequate and appropriate technology, equipment, and software for academic, administrative, and enterprise needs. The plan also identifies the planning process for budgeting, purchasing, disposal of surplus equipment, and cascading of the College’s technology.

Technology

Roanoke-Chowan Community College (R-CCC) defines technology as all aspects of software, library and information services, equipment, and infrastructure that impact Roanoke-Chowan Community College.

Mission

Roanoke-Chowan Community College is a comprehensive two-year public institution located in Northeastern North Carolina where it serves a diverse student population and seeks to be student centered and committed to an open-door admissions policy. The college strives to serve the needs of individuals; its communities, business and industry; and other organizations by providing opportunities for life-long learning through quality educational programs and training that is relevant; economical; convenient; and life altering.

Many of our constituents are beset with challenges that act as barriers to even modest success; therefore, we see it as part of our mission to act as a catalyst in the creation of educational opportunities and training that can maximize individual and group potential within our service area. The College seeks to do this through contributing substantially to the educational goals of our students and by meeting the training needs of new and expanding industries within our service area.

The College also recognizes that even though our service area is challenged socially and economically, the span of our influence on our students must be global in nature. The College attempts to provide education and training, delivered through a diversity of modalities, which include traditional and non-traditional approaches to teaching and learning.

1. Develop both personal and marketable skills in all students.
2. Develop basic learning skills in all students.
3. Enable students to continue their education at other institutions.
4. Increase the global and cultural awareness of students and community.
5. Provide for the training needs of local business and industry.
6. Enhance the quality of life in the community.

The Board will periodically review its mission statement, usually every three years, to make sure it is current, comprehensive, and accurately guides the institution's operations.

Vision

Roanoke-Chowan Community College is a premier learning institution dedicated to preparing learners in our community and beyond to succeed in a diverse global society.

Technology Committee Goals

• To evaluate the Information Technology Plan each semester and revise as needed
• To plan a schedule for updating and cascading hardware for college facilities.
• To plan and schedule timely and efficient professional development for students, faculty, staff, administration, and the community.

R-CCC Technology Goals

as

Outlined in R-CCC Institutional Effectiveness Plan

Strategic Priorities Technology

for R-CCC

The strategic priorities to be addressed in technology for 2010 – 2012 are as follows:

1. Implement WebAdvisor so that Roanoke-Chowan Community College (R-CCC) faculty, staff, and students have web access to many components of the college information system without compromising information security.
2. Research available room scheduling software and identify training opportunities to make the scheduling of rooms and facilities at R-CCC easier and more efficiently done.
3. Implement a new email solution to interface with the state e-mail system.
4. Continue to work with marketing and the web staff in creating better web pages and a more efficient system for users and developers.
5. Work on implementing surveys via a SurveyMonkey account that people outside the college as well as faculty, staff, and students can answer online.
6. Complete Doc-e-scan training to support document imaging for the college.
7. Install Office 2010 in selected labs to meet the educational needs of the courses offered.
8. Complete the installation of multi-media equipment in the Jernigan Auditorium.
9. Install multi-media equipment in classrooms and labs, as well as provide training opportunities to faculty/staff as new software and equipment are installed and implemented.
10. Implement a studio room for faculty to create multi-media sessions as parts of classes. In addition, train the interested faculty/staff and facilitators to assist faculty with the equipment and editing.
11. Migrate from the use of CampusCruiser to Gmail for student/Faculty mail solution.
12. Migrate from Blackboard to Moodle for online course management.
13. Train and provide support for faculty and student use of Gmail and Moodle once implemented.
14. Continue to update the R-CCC Business Continuity Plan.
15. Replace older computers, monitors, and printers as needs require, and continue to track the computer equipment to determine the upcoming funding requirements for this equipment.
16. Keep track of current Information Systems (IS) audit requirements so that R-CCC remains in compliance with audit requirements.
17. Upgrade college network infrastructure to support increasing demand.

History

Since its inception in early 2002, the Roanoke-Chowan Community College Technology Committee has worked to:

• Serve as a forum for the discussion and dissemination of technology issues and needs throughout the College
• Develop and monitor the implementation of a campus-wide technology plan that
• Addresses a comprehensive systems network and software support to students, faculty, and staff
• Directs the acquisition and distribution of human, fiscal, and physical resources for optimum utilization of existing and future technology from a systems network and user perspective
• Provides guidelines for the integration and utilization of technology in the provision of educational programs and services.
• Supports a comprehensive distance learning program
• Delineate the evaluation of the effectiveness of technology for student, faculty, and staff and for compliance with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Composed of individuals representing student, faculty, staff, and administrative areas, the Technology Committee highlighted, at its first meeting, several urgent needs. Four primary needs included:

• A standard software package to be utilized campus-wide for internal communications
• A procedure for purchasing technology equipment
• A procedure for recycling older technology equipment
• Technology training needs

The Committee currently holds meetings on the third Wednesday of each month between the hours of 2:00 p.m. and 3 p.m. The Committee evaluates the Technology Plan each semester and updates as needed to meet the changing needs of the College. Committee minutes are kept on file in the office of the committee chair and on the College website.

In addition to identifying the primary needs of the College, the Technology Committee identified other areas of concentration for the next three years. These area are:

• Administrative Systems
• Information Services, which includes: Security, Disaster Recovery, Preparedness, and Infrastructure
• Instruction and the Learning Resources Center

The committee continues to develop recommendations for future funding, governance, and planning to ensure that the College’s technology infrastructure will continue to support the needs of the students, faculty, and staff while meeting its mission and goals.

Funding

Because of the strategic technology planning process, the College funds for both specific technologies and for categories of technology. This proactive approach to planning creates an environment that provides us with an ability to take advantage of important opportunities for new technology implementations that will benefit the academic and administrative operations of the institution. Technology at the College has been funded using technology funds, capital outlay funds, operating dollars, and grant funding.

Future Plans

R-CCC’s 2010 -2012 Technology Plan will continue to support the College by reviewing and assessing the goals of the plan, identifying the technology needs and services in support of the mission of the College. In order to effectively serve the College’s technology projects the College will need to do the following:

1. Confirm a consistent resource funding level for technology on an annual basis.
2. Enhance the alignment of the technology planning process with the budgeting process for equipment, which includes the completion and submission of Annual Planning Request Forms (APRFs).

Technology Plan Philosophy

The 2010 -2012 R-CCC Technology is based on the philosophy of providing access to resources and services to all users on campus and at a distance based upon the implementation and execution of proper planning, implementation, and assessment. This philosophy embodies the following ideals:

• Information Systems develops and implements procedures, which ensure simple, clear, user-friendly, and secure pathways to resources and services to all users.
• Online services should be secure and provided whenever possible to meet the needs of the College’s faculty, staff, and students. The online services include but are not limited to web-enhanced, hybrid, and online classes, videoconferencing classes, e-mail, and online resource databases offered by the R-CCC Learning Resources Center. In order to support the College’s mission, it is expected that every service and resource must provide online access to services and resources whenever possible.
• Ongoing planning and evaluation of services, resources, and technologies will be followed to ensure all users have access to the most current and supported technology. In order to provide this assurance, plans for ongoing maintenance and support of all technology will be implemented and funding for maintenance and support will be provide. Additionally, understanding the staffing requirements for each additional service or application is necessary.
• Ongoing training and updating of skills for all faculty and staff is necessary to fulfill responsibilities using the most current technologies.

Strategic Areas

R-CCC’s Technology Plan focuses on the following strategic areas, which encompass the services that are supported by Information Systems.

• Administrative Systems
• Information Services:Disaster Recovery/Preparedness, Infrastructure(encompasses servers, storage, cabling and related equipment. See Appendix B), and Security (entails IS security policies, procedures and guidelines.)
• Instruction and Learning Resources Center(entails all software and technology that supports instruction.)

Administrative Systems

R-CCC recognizes that access to modern and up-to-date technology is essential for providing reliable and efficient services in all areas of the College’s administrative systems. Administrative systems encompasses the software systems and applications used to operate the college. Information regarding the various software systems and applications is provided in Appendix B.

Information Services

Disaster Recovery/Preparedness

R-CCC understands the importance of being proactive in the area of disaster recovery. Natural disasters, pandemics, and devastating events such as 9/11 provide evidence that having a plan in place in the event that the College is besieged with a disaster is imperative. Disaster Recovery and Preparedness entail the planning, preparation, and execution of securing resources and services in the event of an emergency or disaster. The College has established the R-CCC Business Continuity Plan, which outlines how the College will continue operations in the event of a disaster or pandemic.

Backups

Servers

Server backups are scheduled to run at various times nightly with a backup window of 10PM – 5AM.

Daily backup tapes are rotated from the server room to a secure (fire-proof) location on campus on a daily basis. The tapes that backup on the last day of the month are used for the monthly backups and are kept off campus in a bank safe. Additionally, the College has a Business Continuity Plan, which details how the College will secure and continue to provide access to all College services and resources.

Firewall and Switches

Monthly, firewall and switch configurations are copied over to a network server which are backed up to tape as mentioned in the Servers section of the backup.

Website

The R-CCC website is hosted at a remote location. The webmaster retains a copy of the entire site on external disk.

User Files

Each user is allocated space on the network in which to copy files that they deem important. Those files will in turn be backed up as in the Servers section for backups.

Departmental Files

Departments that have requested network space, have the ability to copy files that they deem to be important. Those files will in turn be backed up as in the Servers section for backups.

Learning Management System

The LMS system for R-CCC is currently Moodle. It is hosted at a remote site called MoodleRooms. MoodleRooms uses clustered servers to balance resources and make them redundant. If a client were on a cluster of five servers, four of them could "go down" and the service would still work.

Goggle Apps for Education

R-CCC has implemented Gmail for faculty and student use email from the suite of Google Apps for Education. With Google Apps for Education, Gmail is guaranteed to be available at least 99.9% of the time, ensuring that users have access when they need it.

Microsoft’s Live@EDU/Gmail

R-CCC is currently investigating moving to one of the following email clients for employee email: live@edu or Gmail. Employee email is currently housed on a Novell Groupwise system which is being backed up as mentioned in the backup section for servers.

Instruction and Learning Resources Center

Access to instructional resources and services are essential components to supporting curriculum and instruction. The College strives to ensure that students have access to appropriate and adequate resources and services. Additionally, these resources and services are evaluated to ensure that the needs of faculty and students are met. The College has several computer and technical labs on campus. The computer and technical labs have equipment and various software programs installed, which support the curriculum of that program.

Faculty develop student learning outcomes and program outcomes, which are tied to the General Education Core Competencies and selected at least two to be included as part of the program outcomes. The general education competency, which specifically states, “Students will demonstrate appropriate technology skills,” has been included in several program outcomes. All faculty are required to assess all outcomes. Student portfolios, essays, tests, quizzes, and demonstrations, provide evidence regarding the process used to determine the appropriateness of the adopted and accessible technologies used in the course for meeting specific program needs.

The Learning Resources Center provides access to numerous resources in print and non-print format. All faculty and students have access to these resources on campus and online. The library has approximately 37 computers, which faculty, students, staff, and patrons may use to access the online catalog, online research databases, software programs, and the Internet. The computer-assisted instruction lab houses 26 of the 37 computers. This lab provides access to a scanner, 46 in flat screen TV for presentations, Internet access, and various software programs that are used in specific curriculum programs.

The Learning Resources Center annually evaluates adequacy and accessibility of its services and resources. An Annual Library Survey is made available to all students and faculty each year. Questions regarding services, computer access, resources, staffing, and library access are included on the survey. Additionally, the library completes an Institutional Effectiveness Plan, which establishes objectives, and outcomes, which tie directly to the Colleges long range and short-range goals. The outcomes are assessed each year.

Appendices

Appendix A: Technology Committee Membership

Appendix B: Administrative Procedure 02-1317 Rev. Date: August 19, 2002

1.PURPOSE: