The Citadel
Computer Services Committee
2001/02
on Thursday, 18 April, 2002, 11:00 a.m. - 12:40
p.m.
Present: Nancy Bell,
Alix Darden, Donna Gibson, Peter Greim, Hughes Hoyle, Susan Simmons, Debbie
Fisher.
0)
Committee charter
The
committee has previously recommended changes to the committee charter.
The chair
of ConC has incorporated these changes into a new version. Based on e-mail
responses from committee members, the chair has informed ConC of the
committee's acceptance of the new version, provided that one paragraph, overlooked
by the ConC, be put back in. The new charter is enclosed as appendix.
1) Citadel
web sites.
The
committee received a preliminary report from the subcommittee on the state of
Citadel websites, and the draft of a letter to the Provost. After
looking at
several departmental web pages and websites of other colleges and considering
suggestions for a revision of the letter, the committee charged the
subcommittee with finalizing the letter and e-mailing it to the full committee
for approval, so that a meeting with Gen. Carter can be arranged
as soon as
possible.
2)
Requiring personal student computers.
Debbie
Fisher presented a report for ITS about cadets without personal computers. The
report gave percentages of students without PCs in several
student
groups. The groups were formed using the characteristics race, need-based
financial aid (yes/no), and athletic scholarships (yes/no). Only
127 of all
1819 cadets do not have their own personal computer in their room; 60 *)
of those receive need-based or athletic scholarships and would
probably be able to have the cost of a PC, if required by
the school, included in the covered expenses. For the other 67 students there
would be a
additional
ca. $1,500 over the course of 4 years.
The
Academic Board would have to recommend a requirement for incoming students to
bring a PC satisfying certain requirements. Therefore the
committee
intends to poll faculty at the general faculty meeting at the beginning of the
Fall term (with an e-mail follow-up where necessary) in
which ways
faculty have students use computers for their classes. Alix Darden will
formulate the survey in time for the full committee to approve
it before
the Fall faculty meeting. Donna Gibson will seek and provide to the committee
information from Career Services about the role of computer
literacy
in the job market.
(Unanimous.)
3) MS Office version recommendation for incoming students.
Debbie
Fisher provided pricing information for the Small Business and Professional
versions of Microsoft Office XP, installed or not. Across
vendors,
the prices were about $330 for professional installed, $130 for Small Business
installed (Word, Excel, Outlook, Publisher), and $200 for
Professional
uninstalled (Small Business plus Access and PowerPoint).
As a large
majority of students will use PowerPoint for presentations, or Access, the
committee recommends that the college recommend to incoming
students to
bring a PC (satisfying ITS-defined minimum requirements) with MS Office
Professional installed (vendor-side or self).
(Unanimous.)
4) Central
control of monitors in PC labs.
The
committee discussed a request, expressed in an ITS-hosted faculty meeting about
computer use in teaching, to enable central control in each PC
lab of all
monitors (minimum: turn off or blank all student monitors). Without advocating
such a device, the director of ITS had confirmed its
feasibility.
The committee asks ITS to enable in each PC lab the central control of all
monitors.
(Unanimous.)
5)
Procedure for the annual report.
The
committee agreed to vote by e-mail on a report to be produced by the chair.
6) Miscellaneous: Publication of committee minutes.
The
committee reconsidered the issue of campus-wide vs. global computer access to
the committee minutes and voted to allow global access to all
(approved)
minutes and the annual reports.
(Unanimous.)
Meeting adjourned.
*) After the meeting it turned out
that there is an overlap between the two groups of students with need-based and
athletic scholarships; therefore there are likely to be less than 60 students who
could count on need-based or athletic scholarship funds to pay for a required PC.
(P.G.)
Draft of committee charter:
Mission statement and charter for the Computer Services Committee
Mission
The committee elicits opinions from the academic community and makes recommendations to the administration regarding the choice and availability of hardware resources and software applications, and the types of services that should be provided by Information Technology Services for students and faculty.
Charter
I. Membership
A. Representation
The Committee on Committees selects nine members from different academic departments to serve on the committee. Academic faculty membership is restricted to tenured/tenure track faculty who have been employed at The Citadel for at least one semester at the time they begin committee service. One ROTC faculty shall also serve on the committee. The Dean of Undergraduate Studies shall appoint one student member. The Provost shall appoint one graduate student member. Director of Information Technology Services shall appoint an administrative liaison to represent his activity. This liaison will not vote on matters before the committee.
B. Tenure
Faculty members are selected for three year terms, and may request a second consecutive term. No faculty member may serve on the committee for more than six years consecutively. Student members are selected for one year terms. If a faculty member cannot complete a term, the Committee on Committees will select another member to fill the unexpired term. Time spent filling the term of another faculty member will not count toward the "six-year rule" outlined above.
II. Structure
A. Chair
The committee shall have a chair selected by committee vote at an organizational meeting held before the end of the spring semester. The term of the chair lasts until the next election. A member may not serve as committee chair for more than three years consecutively. The chair is responsible for scheduling and presiding over committee meetings, representing the committee before outside bodies, and producing an annual report of committee activities.
B. Subcommittees
The committee may form subcommittees to perform specific tasks.
C. Meetings.
The committee must meet at least twice during the academic year [once in the Fall and once in the Spring]. The chair must hold a meeting if requested in writing by at least one-third of the voting members. A quorum consists of one-half of the voting membership.
III. Activities
III.1 General Activities of Standing Committees
A. Information
The Computer Services Committee gathers, analyzes, and disseminates information relevant to the use of computers at The Citadel. It is authorized to gather information by means of
1) direct request to a college administrative department or activity; an academic department; another standing committee; or any group or association of Citadel faculty, staff or students
2) the development and use of questionnaires and surveys
3) the use of previously published information.
The committee analyzes information through statistical summaries, compilation of written material, or other established methods. The analysis may provide the college with information pertinent to a particular issue, or it may substantiate a recommendation for administrative action.
The committee disseminates information by means of
1) a response (report) to a department or committee based upon a request for information
2) reports generated from within the committee
3) periodic status reports to the college as specified in its charter
B. Annual report
The Computer Services Committee will prepare an annual report summarizing its activities over the previous academic year. The report must include all decisions of the committee. Copies of this report, both in hard copy and in electronic form, will be made accessible to all Citadel faculty, staff and students.
C. Other reports
The committee is responsible for the timely dissemination of all reports to the Citadel community. Committee reports shall be made available through the library and through college-wide computer system access. Reports may contain recommendations or proposals. For the purposes of gathering information (see above), all reports are to be considered published information.
D. Tasks
The work of the Computer Services Committee consists of a series of tasks -- units of work involving the gathering, analysis, and dissemination of information. The committee assumes tasks through one of the following means:
1) Completion of tasks as articulated in the "Specific Activities" section of this charter.
2) Completion of a report which includes information requested by an administrative department or activity, an academic department, another committee, the Faculty Council, or the Academic Board. Requests of individual faculty members must be made through the Faculty Council. Students or other individuals may not assign a task to the Computer Services Committee except through one of the above-mentioned bodies.
3) Tasks can be generated from within the committee. Any committee member may request that the committee study a topic or issue within its sphere of interest. The committee may also develop its own long-range projects or studies as part of its ongoing mission.
III.2 Specific Activities of the Computer Services Committee
The committee solicits input from faculty and students to determine academic computing needs. It makes recommendations to the Provost.
The committee
-- recommends policies and improvements in matters of academic computing
-- assists in resolving differences between ITS and academic departments, when necessary
-- receives the annual report of ITS and reviews it to the extent that it relates to academic computing.
IV. Autonomy
To ensure the efficiency and quality of committee work, the committee is granted a degree of autonomy over its own operations. Upon receiving a request from another college body, the committee will vote to accept or reject the request. A request for information can be rejected for the following reasons:
1) The request is unclear; the committee chair will ask the requesting body to clarify any ambiguities and resubmit the request.
2) The committee's workload is currently too great to perform the task in the requested time frame; the chair will return the request and suggest a date for re-submittal.
3) The task falls outside the scope or sphere of interest of the committee; the chair will ask the requesting body to either submit the request to another committee or (if the task falls within the scope of more than one committee) divide the task between the committees.
4) The committee does not have the resources or the authority to complete the task; the chair will explain which parts of the task cannot be completed, and the requesting body may resubmit a modified request.
V. Amending the Charter
The Computer Services Committee may modify its charter in consultation with the Committee on Committees. Proposals for changes in the committee charter come to the Committee on Committees, which negotiates the changes with the standing committee and with any affected administrative departments. Consensus requests are forwarded to the Faculty Council for approval. In case of a lack of consensus, competing proposals may be sent to the Faculty Council for consideration.