Collin County Community College District

The committee met once by e-mail (in Sept.) to review the new policy changes on family leave. They were summarized and no further action was deemed necessary.

Co-chairs met with VPAA to start gathering information about previous iterations of the Technology Committee/Roundtables. They have also spoken to faculty about those previous iterations. A summary of their findings will be shared once the fact-finding is complete.

The committee members discussed what they know and what they still need to know before moving forward to make a sound, researched proposal about retention at Collin. A list of questions generated by the committee will be addressed quickly. The committee chair plans to meet with Dr. Chesney to work toward some of the answers, as well as toward addressing some of the concerns raised by faculty.

Co-chairs are gathering information about previous iterations of the Technology Committee/Roundtables by speaking both with the VPAA as well as faculty who were involved in those previous iterations. Once enough information is gathered, the committee will move forward accordingly.

Committee discussed its purpose, scope and projects. Reviewed suggestions for committee projects; these were divided into three geographic contexts:

Committee researched various Faculty Senate/Association/Council models from other institutions. Currently, members are drafting a proposal on which faculty will be asked to provide input till December 1. A vote will be taken on a finalized Faculty Council structure at the December 8 Faculty Council meeting.

Student focus groups reviewed the draft document November 9 and 10. The Honor Code committee will then review and make final edits before presenting to Faculty Council and then to the Leadership team. The target implementation date is still Fall 07.

Four Board policies, already in effect, were up for comment - 3 of them are mainly wordsmithing changes to correct a title, etc. The Research Involving Human Subjects (EJ) policy now requires approval not only by the IRB but also by the leadership team. The Board has added to the Term Contract Dismissal Policy (DMAA) a new provision allowing the President to suspend an employee without pay, prior to or pending their hearing, based on evidence of , or a finding of gross misconduct on the employees part. The policy also provided that if the finding of gross misconduct is overturned by the Board of Trustees, then the unpaid leave will be reversed and paid retroactively.

Proposed model #1 received the most votes in the December vote. The committee will be meeting in the upcoming weeks to draft the Procedures Manual.

Subcommittee will be planning an approach for drafting a working (broad) definition for academic freedom for the institution.

Subcommittee will be meeting this month to discuss results from the chair’s meeting with the VPAA regarding Collin’s status and goals for student retention.

Committee discussed various college technology tools that would assist faculty and students in the logon process of each tool. Once research is complete, the committee will compile the information into a common document that will help faculty assist students gain access to the technology tools used in our college environment and thus improving student retention.

The committee will be discussing possibilities for the faculty event honoring graduates at graduation in May as well as assisting faculty in getting the Brown Bag Lunches started.

The draft Honor Code policy was sent out to all faculty on December 12 for review and comment as well as placed on WebCT shared folder under Honor Code as an attached document. The Faculty Council will vote in February on the proposed changes to this draft document. This document will then be sent to the college Honor Code Committee chairs. Comments, questions and concerns are still needed. Deadline for input is Friday, Feb 2nd at 5pm.

With input from faculty, the committee finalized the 2007 Faculty Council Procedures Manual. Once formatted, it will be posted on the Faculty Council website.

The Committee on Teaching and Learning sponsored a round-table event at PRC on Friday, March 2, to disseminate findings and recommendations of the Textbook Task Force. Faculty and administrators discussed the high cost of textbooks, while making suggestions to address the issue. Brenda Kihl provided a summary of the Task Force efforts. Amina presented information on House Bills 956 and 960 (currently sitting in committee in Austin), addressing the cost of textbook issues. The Committee also is sponsoring a round-table discussion of academic freedom at PRC on Friday, March 30, at 1:30 PM. The purpose is to collect information from faculty in order to draft a brief definition of academic freedom to be posted on the Faculty Council Web site.

The committee met twice this past month. One of the meetings was with David Hoyt to discuss faculty concerns about WebCT, remote intranet access, and other technology issues. A full report will be presented in the upcoming Faculty Council meeting.

Committee on the Collin Community: The committee chair is working to set up a discussion board on WebCT so the committee can "meet" online and have an ongoing document of their decisions, discussions, etc.

The unanimous Faculty Council support of the Collin Honor Code was relayed to the College Honor Code committee via email. No meeting has yet been scheduled to finalize the honor code document.

· Review College policies during the 60-day comment period and offer feedback to the administration

Carrie Bottoms organized a brown bag lunch activity, GABB (Get Acquainted Brown Bag), for PRC in April. This provides opportunity for faculty to get acquainted and exchange ideas.

WebCT is now backed up on a separate server and now installed on new hardware. The TLC department has revised the helpdesk system for WebCT and faculty support issues.

Backups are now scheduled for all servers, following industry Best Practices guidelines. RAID drives are implemented.

Archived files stored on our H: drives can be restored, but those archives stored on a crashed local drive cannot.

VPN remote access requires a laptop computer that can be configured by AT&NS. Faculty may request VPN access from them. Personal insurance for off-campus laptops is available for less than $60 per year through some insurance companies.

Upgrade to Office 2007 will be scheduled as software licenses are acquired. Faculty need to request upgrades through their deans. There are several issues, including backwards compatibility with previous versions. Patches will be available so that student submissions in Office 2007 can be read in Office 2003.

The school will not implement Vista college-wide until at least SP1, perhaps SP2

Hardware and software in these computers is being updated. Long USB extension cables for easier access to the USB ports are being added.

Banner is a single-person Oracle database, regardless of role (student, faculty, staff, etc.) There will be progressive additions of functionality. Luminous will be the portal to these functions, moving towards a single sign-on for all college services.

Students will be able to keep their access to Cougarmail – forever if they use it at least once every 6 months. The IT dept. is working on spam filters for it.

Centra is back. The application has been moved to another server and re-configured.

VoIP is being implemented on all campuses. The speakers on the Cisco phones should allow 2-way talk and listen. Meeting Place Express allows us to conduct conference calls. Call the Help Desk for information.

A table with student login information for various technology services has been created.

Continue an awareness of college technology issues. Continue a dialog with David Hoyt and Shane Ammons regarding student retention issues relative to college technology.

September 2007

Committee on Academic Freedom

Chair Kyle Wilkinson

Report:

The committee has had an ongoing discussion regarding its mission for the year and we have agreed to the following.

First, the Committee will serve as a clearinghouse for individual faculty concerns which may deserve the attention of the Faculty Council. In the event of such cases we will give the colleague a thoughtful hearing and, if need be, make a carefully considered report to the faculty through the Faculty Council.

Second, the Committee seeks to provide opportunities for this faculty to increase its awareness of the tradition and value of academic freedom. To that end, the Committee plans, as a first step, the collection and dissemination among our colleagues of recent scholarly work on the theme of academic freedom and its responsibilities. Further, the Committee will seek opportunities--such as provided by Faculty Conferences--to make presentations to the faculty. In addition, the Committee will keep the faculty abreast of important developments nationally and internationally in the area of academic freedom. The Committee proposes to follow these and other concrete steps in raising faculty awareness of this important issue.

Committee on Technology

Chair George Jackson

Report:

Identification of Issues

WebCT

Access using PIN (communicate need to officially reset PIN through Webline after being assigned temporary PIN because PIN passwords roll back to default every time WebCT automatically updates)

Manual input/additions – reducing number/need

HELP menu for students needing assistance

Combining sections for upload into one shell

Backups versus separate mirror sites

Cougarmail

Accounts for Continuing Education students (software loaded into Cougarmail for permitted home download)

Ability to forward Cougarmail to outside accounts

Committee on College Policy

Co-chairs Mary Milford and Barbara Lusk

Report:

No report at this time

Committee on Faculty Council Procedures and Nominations

Co-chairs Loren Miller and David Garrison

Report:

The Faculty Council Procedures and Nominations Committee will be meeting on September 27th at 2:30 in H211.

Committee on Teaching and Learning

Chair- Sonja Andrus

Report:

Meeting in A314 CPC on September 21^st following the FC/Dr. Chesney

Members in Attendance:

Sonja Andrus, chair

Valerie Smith

Martha Chalhoub

Kemal Moula

Mike McConachie

Scott Robinson

Agenda:

Summary Report:

2006-07 committee results

The Teaching and Learning Committee discussed the nature of a scholarly community and determined that Collin faculty are successfully creating and sharing their scholarship and inviting students to participate. However, we are not so good at advertising our scholarly community. To remedy this, then, the committee will create a guidebook for planning and hosting scholarly events at Collin, which will be posted online for folks to download. We will work to complete this guide by the end of the 2007-08 academic year.

New Business:

What is/How do we foster a scholarly community?
Fall Faculty Development Conference

Meeting Minutes:

Summary Report

Last year’s committee was interested in retention, textbook costs, and academic freedom.

The academic freedom sub-committee revised the Faculty Council Statement on Academic Freedom, which was voted upon by the FC and approved. A new standing committee was formed during the August FC meeting.

The textbook cost issue was passed off to a district-wide task force, led by members of the Board of Trustees and a few administrators. There are a couple of faculty members on that committee. A recommendation will be forth-coming.

Retention has been passed off to a district-wide steering committee, which includes three faculty members (including Sonja Andrus). The steering committee is divided into three sub-committees: the role of faculty in academic advising, student success initiatives, and data-driven decision making. Recommendations have been made and are being taken to the Leadership Team. Some pilots are being run, from which further recommendations may be made.

New Business

Scholarly Community

Most committee members present agreed that we currently exhibit what we believe to be a scholarly community, but we are not very good at getting the word out or in getting the community involved.

We agreed to begin to investigate the PR issues associated with faculty-led programs, projects, and events at the college. For our next meeting, we hope to have a PR representative present to discuss this.

We agreed that the committee should work to create a document that guides faculty and faculty-led groups on campus through the process of planning and advertising events; with FAQs, contact information for reservations, etc.; and with deadlines for PR, facility reservations, etc.

The T&L committee may need to serve as a clearinghouse for getting people together to support or help in scholarly writing endeavors, etc. We are working out ways to help make that happen.

The College Events Calendar is available for viewing off the college homepage. Any faculty member may submit events for this calendar. We need more information about how it works and how it may work in the future with Banner, but right now we can create a document that recommends the use of the calendar for publicizing our events, with instructions on how/when to submit events. Valerie Smith has agreed to work on this front.

The initiative to create comprehensive campuses includes the activities and displays of comprehensive curriculum. Scott Robinson is working on display/exhibit areas at CPC.

The notion of Brown Bags for faculty to share scholarly writing and presentations, as well as to bring back information from conferences, has been discussed again. We will look into a rotation of campuses, dates, volunteers to speak, etc. No decision was made about this during the meeting.

The foreign language travel abroad program was discussed. Kemal Moula will inquire about the reasons for abandoning this program and report back to the committee.

Fall Faculty Conference

Members agreed that the conference idea was a great one. We will encourage Sherry Schumann to continue this endeavor. However, we agreed that the timing and scheduling was problematic. One or two days of events is really better, with a conference running concurrent sessions for longer periods of time, with longer workshop schedules. Faculty can choose which events/sessions to attend, like a traditional conference. This way faculty can attend the conference and still manage to get their work done before classes begin.

Other

We discussed the best day of the week to meet. Most members can do Friday afternoons best. The next meeting has not been scheduled. If Friday afternoons (around 1:30) will not work for you, please let Sonja know before October 10.

Committee on the Collin Community

Co-chairs John Glass and Donna White

Report from PRC: Facilitator- John Glass

John glass provided a brief history on the committee, why it was formed, purpose, etc. Members didn't discuss how to define committee and community in much detail; most members were open to both of these being fluid and peccessual.

Members thought that the committee would function as a resource for ideas and to promote different ideas/projects to have greater community involvement (on campus, within local communities, even state). The structure of the committee would be determined by each project, i.e., a project would be decided upon and then a sub-committee of the CoCC would be formed to assist in its facilitation.

Members didn't mind the silo effect as in many ways it makes sense, especially if we are interested in becoming better known in the local community. Members still wanted to meet as an entire committee from time to time, but expressed willingness to work based on campus as well.

Many project ideas were generated; these included:

an email to all faculty asking for notification of any activities that they engage in that provide a service to the greater community (EX: providing consultation for a local NPO)
mixer with Board members
promoting Collin faculty as a resource for the community RE: information, expertise, etc.
Brown bag lunches
Speaker series (Faculty members giving lectures of interest to the general public)
intramural sports
Angelika film with faculty discussion panel
Fairy Tale Ball
Faculty staffing or assisting with one charitable organization
Identification of service gaps in the community that we might be able to fill
music in the park series
one-act play in the park series
child care project
reestablishing Volunteer Day at the college
educating faculty about being politically active
inviting local officials running for office to a panel presentation/discussion (meet the candidates)
inviting Beaman Floyd from TCCTA and/or Ray Garcia from TACC to speak to faculty
speakers bureau for the community
speaking at local NPO meetings (EX: women's history group looking for speakers)
our dental and health services that are available to the community

Members decided to multi-vote on the above ideas after those from the SCC CoCC meeting were added. After selecting three or four that are do-able, members would create sub-committees to facilitate them.

Members Present: Loren Miller, David Garrison, Dan Lipscomb, and Peggy Breedlove

The following additions/corrections to the FC Council Procedures Manual were made:

Chair George Jackson called the meeting to order at the scheduled time of 1:00 p.m. Friday, October 26, 2007, in Preston Ridge Campus room H-241.

Members Present: George Jackson (chair),Ann Cervantez, Cope Crisson, Elizabeth Pannell, Linda Thompson, Mary Weis, Patricia Pierson, Pete Brierley, Sharon Hirschy, Sue Furnas, Susan Mahon, Tebring Wrigley, Tom Jones

Guests Present: Sherry Schumann, Dean of Distance Learning; Francis Choy, PRC Teaching Learning Center (TLC)

Minutes were approved as revised and redistributed electronically to members prior to the meeting. Motion passed.

Sherry Schumann, Dean of Distance Learning, was guest speaker. She provided a folder of informational handouts for each attendee and then spoke initially about improving communications about Collin technology and processes. She explained that she meets regularly with Dave Hoyt, Chief Information Systems Officer for Information Technology; with TLC staff; and with Web Services personnel. She commented that Collin will use C-6 and My Blackboard in the future. She mentioned also serving the Rockwall Higher Education Center concerning faculty software needs and other issues. In addition to serving as Dean of Distance Learning, she oversees Collin’s Weekend College. She made additional references to WIMBA and Centra Live, which is used by OAB (Online Advisory Board). She addressed current online student support services and her desire to add personnel for a Distance Learning Support Center, commenting about the expanded duties for Collin’s fall faculty development events. She anticipates there may be some role changes among current personnel and mentioned possible additional personnel for assisting Bill Fueller with covering many responsibilities.

Sherry then allowed discussion and took questions and comments from committee members.

The first discussion topic involved outsourcing online student support to Presidium Learning, which provides 24/7 service, although there are some hours that Presidium cannot access Collin’s internal files. Student feedback is monitored. The outsourcing is on a year-to-year contract, renewed for 2007-2008. Concerns should be sent to Bill Fueller.

The next topic involved PIN change issues. To assist in better communications among all involved, links to tutorials have been improved. Bill Fueller is seeking ways to better keep new Presidium staff updated. Solutions would be helpful to share with Advising, also. Luminis should help with solutions, as it will provide one centralized source for information.

Discussion then turned to needing a way to upload multiple sections taught as one course into a single WebCT shell. Currently, the standard section is uploaded automatically, but additional sections must be added manually, generally involving a request by the faculty member. For daily flex-entry students, each new enrollee must be manually added, which can be significantly time-consuming, especially during the busy first weeks of a term. Sherry asked that Bill Fueller be alerted concerning any processes taking too long. She explained that how sections are built in SIS is a factor. We can only continue adding manually at this time, and there is no provision for faculty to add students themselves.

Sherry commented concerning several sections containing the same content but taught by different instructors. That situation is viewed as each section being a separate course. However, a course can be set up as one site with a list of faculty approved to use that one site. The site is considered one course for OAB review and approval purposes. In connection with that idea, it was mentioned that faculty teams are working on core templates, so content will be standardized. OAB approved the course design template.

New faculty are required to learn online instruction prior to using a pre-approved online course site, and there is a process in place to guide them (see folder handout). Information is on the I: drive and the TLC (Teaching Learning Center) Web site (see training modules there). An online training version is under construction. Currently, the online teaching skills evaluation is for using WebCT. There are three Blackboard training modules online and some for C-6. Waivers or options are possible for new faculty already skilled in teaching online. Additional considerations include pedagogy, soft skills, and using a course design rubric. Sherry and Bill are the contacts for setting up access for new faculty.

George Jackson asked about demographics for online students, such as for those in the military or the infirm. The importance of access was mentioned. Many students elect online study simply because they need flexibility. Reality was mentioned as 2000+ students study only through distance learning. This may be their only access. It seems that accreditation standards increase for distance learning. On site testing can be set up in remote locations by arranging for proctors.

George also mentioned the need for mirrored servers in order to avoid downtime, including shutting down for routine maintenance. Sherry’s response was that most institutions have regularly scheduled maintenance. She commented that C-6 will have a separate backup. Increased volume and needs have been surprising. Peter Brierley suggested that decision-makers be made aware of the Committee’s recommendation for mirrored sites.

George commented concerning online office hours policy, explaining that the currently required 6 hours weekly are to be on site. Sherry responded that this issue is the dean’s decision. Currently, declared online office hours are not addressed.

Summer term discrepancies then became the topic of discussion, with faculty pointing out that online teaching is not considered equal to on-site teaching when determining compensation. Faculty load policies are factors. Sherry suggested discussing this issue with deans and the Vice President for Academic Affairs.

It was suggested that David Hoyt be invited to speak at the Committee’s next meeting, which was set for 1:00 p.m. Friday, November 30, 2007, at Central Park Campus in a room to be announced.

Chair George Jackson called the meeting to order at the scheduled time of 1:00 p.m. Friday, November 30, 2007, in Central Park Campus room A-314.

David Hoyt, Chief Information Systems Officer, was guest speaker. George Jackson introduced Dave to the group, and then the group introduced themselves to Dave, who then commented on the current status of his area of oversight. Comments included that many staff are involved in Banner training at this time, with plans for Human Resources to go live with Banner about April 1 and for Student Affairs and Financial Aid to go live by May 1. Collin is focusing on getting the portal working and will then add features and functions. Students will be linked directly into WebCT or Course Studio, which is a more basic platform similar to WebCT. He reminded the group that Luminus will log students in automatically and will eliminate PIN/password issues. Publishers’ required access codes will continue to be input after WebCT login. Dave also commented that Collin is moving all campuses to VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) with CYC (Courtyard Campus) and CPC (Central Park Campus) remaining to be converted and CPC scheduled for last because it houses the original master phone system. VOIP completions are projected for May or August. Speaker phones will be installed in all classrooms and offices to provide emergency warnings. This installation will enhance the current Cougar Alert system, and all faculty are encouraged to sign up soon for Cougar Alert, if they have not already done so.

Concerning the Committee’s suggestion that more H: drive space is needed, Dave responded by explaining that plans include adding additional servers this spring for media and WebCT files/backups storage in order to free some space on the H: drive. Thoughts include perhaps 20G with ability to manage the server from home.

Dave then commented that Public Relations is redesigning the Collin website to allow more marketing, with much or all going through Cougar Web.

The Luminus “work flow” product will allow miscellaneous events to “trigger” such functions as approvals, pathing, etc. An Extender Solutions product will allow document scanning/imaging, including within Banner. Processes will be routed electronically. Faculty training should being in March or April with a plan for students to go live in June for early Fall registration.

Mary Jane Tobaben asked about backups for Banner and was reassured by Dave that multiple backups will be in place, with the main administrative system backup at CPC and a secondary backup at PRC in Heritage Hall, with about a 15-minute delay factor. PRC will also provide the backup for related software. This means that the data center will remain at CPC rather than move to the planned administrative center. H: and I: drives already back up daily from CPC and CYC to PRC.

Susan Mahon asked about Office 2007 availability for faculty and staff, and Dave explained that the software is already available and that no big issues are expected. Both Office 2003 and Office 2007 can be kept on the same laptop. Sue Furnas mentioned having both versions on her laptop and commented that her system is noticeably slower because of the need for greater processing speed when running Office 2007. Sue then asked about hardware updates for accommodating Office 2007; David explained that Collin already has 3-to-4-year replacement plans in place. The new standard is 2G RAM.

Elizabeth Pannell suggested a smoother process for validating the software needed for classes. Currently the request is by class and results in many paper printouts to manage, which are originated by Monica Sanchez and then process through deans, chairs, and faculty. Linda Thompson commented about having to do without software in the past because it was temporarily lost in the centralized licensing filing system. All agreed that centralized licensing was a good plan, but Elizabeth requested an evaluation of the process involved with the recommendation that the request might be made per lab facility rather than per class.

Committee members mentioned the need for licenses for Adobe Acrobat Writer for all faculty and staff, similar to what we now have for Microsoft Office, but Dave explained that Adobe does not make home licenses available the way Microsoft does.

George mentioned H: drive space, and Dave responded that H: drive space was intended for personal faculty space. Additional storage is being sought for accommodating instructional files. The need for larger than the current 2G limit was discussed concerning WebCT backups and network access to those. David explained tiered storage at varying costs and the desire to eliminate the need to use C: drives for additional storage space. Dave commented that the TLC (Teaching Learning Center) is doing podcast development with interested faculty.

Dave then questioned Committee members about classroom technology and whether we wanted to mention anything we find missing. He continued that Collin is considering replacing projectors (bulbs are expensive) with plasma screens because the screens last longer (5 to 7 years). Wireless network issues from room to room were discussed concerning running PowerPoint. George requested better classroom sound systems. He expressed his opinion that we will soon need full surround sound. David acknowledged that Collin is aware of the poor sound-proofing between rooms. Ceiling speakers bleed up and out. Walls don’t go beyond the dropped ceilings. Dave suggested that email requests be made for speakers.

Dave sought Committee members’ input concerning new podium design and shared plans for a tilted view, trying to eliminate the need for keys, and providing clear labels, such as for volume. George suggested that it would be helpful to assign rooms to departments so a room that has been set up to teach certain classes can remain available to faculty teaching those classes. He explained that lecture classes routinely move to lab facilities for hands-on projects. Dave reminded the group that the provosts handle room scheduling.