Technology Task Force Notes 
Wednesday May 17, 2006
KC 112
Time: 3:00 – 4:30

1) Approval of Notes from May 3, 2006    Handout # 1
The notes were approved.

2) Quick Updates    
iTunes: W. Pritchard and M. Kahn talked with Apple last year regarding iTunes. Apple had approached Stanford and other institutions and were interested in hosting iTunes at a community college. The proposal went through ETAC and senior managers. Apple contacted the district a week ago with their offer to host an iTunes site and W. Pritchard signed the contract today. It is a no cost contract, other than any staffing resources we may need. Access should be available in Fall 2006. A procedure would be written with input from faculty. There was a suggestion that faculty participate in 508 (ADA compliance) and copyright training. The iTunes site could be open or closed to just certain parties on campus. This decision would be a part of the procedural discussion. There was a question on the cost of running the project. There would not be any extra staff hired to manage this project and the hosting is free from Apple. M. Kahn is meeting with Apple to discuss the technical aspects of the site in June 2006. The downloads would be free. Apple would benefit by selling their products. There was some speculation that Apple may charge for the service in the future.  There was a question on whether an iPod may become a district standard tech item. It would be talked about at the standards committee.

Service Level Agreements (Additional Agenda Item):    
ETAC discussed the SLAs at their meeting and were anticipating voting on this item on June 6, 2006 and would take to Chancellors Advisory Council on June 9, 2006. Academic Senate would be asked to review the latest version before this date. Information would be shared between all groups. 

W. Chenoweth advised that the Academic Senate stated they would rather have a more comprehensive approach instead of having separate SLAs for different ETS departments and different areas of campus. An example of problems with support in instructional labs was shared. He displayed a flow chart showing organizational relationships with tech support. He also noted the discussion is integrated in the overall discussion on the DA Tech Plan, future technical resources, and participation with ETS. There was a discussion on this issue which included the following comments: 
o    Horizontal communications across labs and up to ETS
o    Labs are not consistent and therefore support is not consistent
o    Should be a more standardized approach to labs
o    All labs should have an instructional associate
o    Using blade servers in labs and imaging labs
o    Creating images of labs is very labor intensive and requires a long lead-time.
o    Labs have a mixture of old and new equipment
o    Need coordination and global approach

3) CMS (Moodle) Project Plan    
M. Kahn was working on the plan. The beta server is up and running. The San Francisco State version of Moodle had been installed. K. Metcalf demoed the site reporting that the latest version of Moodle (Moodle 1.6) was not stable or tested and therefore the college had opted to go with version 1.5.3. The team would look at upgrading to a newer version once it has been tested and established as stable. Unfortunately version 1.6 will not backward port so current work done in this version would have to be redone in version 1.5.3.

The timeline for the project plan should be available by the next Technology Task Force meeting. The main announcement will be forthcoming once a timeline is finalized which encompasses all levels of faculty CMS participation An email would be sent from Distance Learning to faculty currently in a CMS which would including user name and password information. Three training sessions would be set up during the summer. San Francisco had offered to open up their training sessions to De Anza employees. Beta testing would occur in the summer and it would be ready to go live for faculty wishing to migrate through the summer and use Moodle in fall. Employees were asked to be patient as this project is new and is being brought online quickly using existing staff and limited training resources. The academic portion is being overseen by Distance Learning with the student services and technology portions being overseen by the Technology Resources Group..

4) De Anza’s Technology Plan / Technology Task Force Process    
W. Chenoweth and E. Breault illustrated on the overhead an example of a current decision process. It was a snapshot of the current approach using the example of a classroom technology repair request.  E. Breault noted that there were some missing areas in the plan but it was a starting point to a more in-depth discussion of what the process should look like. Other examples forthcoming and will be incorporated into the tech plan.

W. Chenoweth stated that goal number 8 is to establish a DA tech plan. He asked the team to consider what the Technology Task Force scope and goals should be. He posed the question, “Should it be a governance group, if so, how should it look?” He displayed page 41 from the 2004-2005 SOTC which was a decision making process flow chart. In the brainstorming session that ensued the following was noted:  
o    Campus Budget does not decide the value of projects, it decides on the fiscal and monetary soundness. 
o    Technology Task Force currently serves as a tech advisory group 
o    Technology Task Force should drive the tech plan for the college
o    Technology Task Force should be an advisory group
o    If Technology Task Force become a governance group it would need to formalize and change the structure
o    Does Technology Task Force want to make decisions or just advise
o    What does the Accreditation self-study say 
o    Technology Task Force should act as a liaison with ETS
o    Technology Task Force should coordinate technology use across campus
o    Advisory is more reactive
o    Decision-making is more proactive
o    Moodle is a good example of how Technology Task Force would work to coordinate the technical needs of the campus 
o    ETAC is part of the governance process but the  “A” stands for advisory
o    Legitimacy of being a governance group
o    Legitimacy comes with good decisions/recommendations
o    Is Technology Task Force representative 
o    Need for a Dean/Director of Technology

5) De Anza’s Technology Plan – Identify Sub Groups to Work on Strategies
This item was partly discussed in the above topic.