Technology Task Force Notes

Wednesday November 7, 2007 
ADM 109
Time: 3:00 – 4:30

1) Approval of Notes from October 17, 2007
The notes were approved.

2) Omni Update
Kahn reminded the group that the Omni software is a simple WYSIWYG web management system. Pages have to be “marked-up”. The first training is this week and there is a second training next week. There is a standard De Anza template  for web pages. The template has the flexibility and creativity to allow for design concepts. Existing web pages, once “marked-up”, can be edited with the Omni tools. Omni tools are similar to the tools in MS Word. Ceballos gave a demo of the omni system.

Cheatsheets and user support will be available. An approval path can be setup. There was a question on how/if there should be any oversight for style, clarity, or spelling type issues. There is currently no monitoring system on web sites. Web site holders who request to migrate to Omni would be asked to go to the mandatory Omni training. There are currently 200 faculty web pages. New faculty and faculty with Manila web pages would be approached first. There was a discussion on redirects from Manila sites to Omni sites. Redirects were labor intensive but could be done if appropriate. 

Heffner recommended communicating to the faculty an overview of Catalyst and Omni, highlighting the options and differences/similarities.

3) Quick Updates
Distance Learning enrollments remain steady. This was the first quarter that Catalyst was used for all Distance Learning courses. Heffner reported he found Catalyst user friendly. Technology Resources Group had received significantly fewer tech help requests from students. More data was requested so a comparison could be drawn and retention figures could be evaluated. 

EIS: Hawk reported that demos are complete. Hawk and Chenoweth participated. Hawk visited the CSM installation. They were relatively happy with the product. Next week they would visit the Contra Costa CCD Datatel installation. Our system would still need add-ons. Hawk reported she had selected her preference but the process would still be long. The strength of the  IT department was key. In January/February the EIS group would spend time talking about business processes and how they would change to accommodate the systems. Procedures and commonality between the campuses would be reviewed. Hawk expressed the need to be active in the process so we could represent the De Anza campus. 

Fujitsu: Cheung reported she had a very preliminary discussion with Fujitsu regarding providing distance learning ESL & business classes to students in Japan.

Wireless: Dolen reported that the wireless at the library had been working very well up until last week. Presently, the system is unreliable. Some people can log on and others cannot. It was possible that the system’s capacity had been reached. He was working with ETS on the problem. Technology Resources Group would assist with the investigation and solution.  Hawk had received feedback that faculty did not want wireless in the classroom. She requested that academic senate investigate and advise Technology Taskforce of the main points of the discussion. 

4) Continued Discussion on Goals for 07-08
The team did not discuss this item due to time limitations.