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Council Minutes - April 4th, 2005

Technology Council Minutes

Monday, April 4, 2005

10:00-11:00 CL 504

Present: Sharon Dimmer, Steve Dutch , Fritz Erickson, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Scott Hildebrand , Ferugus Hughes, Sue Keihn, David Kieper, Art Lacey, Kathy Pletcher, Dean Rodeheaver, Adam Ruechel, Joyce Salisbury , Tim Sewall, Jan Thornton . Guests: Diane Blohowiak, Paula Ganyard.

The meeting was called to order at 10:00 am. Minutes of the March meeting were approved by consensus.

The Council discussed how email distribution lists were being used. Sue Keihn and Scott Hildebrand advocated for reducing the number of campus-wide emails by encouraging people to use the LOG for distributing information. The LOG is now published twice a week. University Communications is considering some modifications to the LOG that would make it more user friendly for announcements such as retirements and special events. For example the LOG could have a regular section on “comings and going” that would list new staff/faculty and announce resignations, transfers and retirements. The Council agreed that we should encourage the campus to reduce the amount of “spam” by using other avenues such as the LOG for publishing information about people and events. The Council agreed that the current guidelines are sufficient, but those who have authorization to post must abide by the guidelines. This will be communicated to all administrators with authority to post over the summer.

The Lab Usage data report was reviewed by the Council. The data showed that some labs had high usage and other labs had very low usage. Allowing for “peak use” it was generally agreed that a utilization rate of 40%-50% was optimal for open labs and utilization rates higher than 60% may indicate the need for more computers. For teaching labs a utilization rate of 20%-30% was felt to be optimal. There was discussion about the need to set a minimum bar. It was suggested that labs with less than 10% utilization should be reviewed for reduction or elimination. There were a number of specialized computer labs that had utilization rates of less than 2%. This was generally recognized as an inefficient use of Lab/Mod funds given the other pressing needs. The data also showed that some computers in labs were never logged into. (Log data was tracked every 15 minutes.) The Council is concerned that some labs are overbuilt and there is not enough demand to warrant ongoing support. The LAS Dean agreed to look into usage and ask the faculty users to rank the important of the labs relative to other funding needs and the report back to the Board by early October. The Council will take this information into consideration when reviewing the Computer Lab Plans for 2006/07 and beyond.

The Web Site for Advising report was deferred to the May 9 meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
-- Kathy Pletcher, Chair