APPROVED

May 11, 1999

IHETS Board Room
714 N. Senate Avenue
Indianapolis, IN

Present:
Wayne Bohm, University of Southern Indiana
Earl Nay, Purdue University
Fred Nay, Ball State University
Ellen Watson, Chair, Indiana State University 

IHETS Staff Present:
Tim Fisher, Max Gordon, Gregg Green, Betty Hart, Dave King,
Nancy Millichap, Jennifer Ping, Tim Ping, Mark Rottler, Susan Scott,
Kevin Siminski, Ed Stockey, Ed Tully, and Jeff Walker

Approval of April meeting minutes

The meeting, attended mostly via video-conferencing, was started at 10:30 a.m. by the chair Ellen Watson at the IHETS office. The April 13 minutes were approved as submitted. 

Executive Director Search

Dave King updated the committee on the competitive screening process of the candidates for the full-time executive director position. A total of forty-one candidates have submitted resumes for consideration.  Ten candidates will be contacted for a telephone interview within the next two weeks. John Huie plans to complete the interview process by June 5.

IHETS operating budget for 1999-2000

Tim Fisher began by saying that he had e-mailed out earlier in the week a detailed expense budget proposal. Fisher continued with an overview of this document, starting with a brief summary of each expense item. He addressed several questions/concerns, and added that an overall difference this fiscal year is that most equipment will be leased.

Fisher then continued with his explanation on the revenue side, again proceeding by line item. Overall, there is a 4% increase for personnel and 2% for non-personnel, with total appropriations of $8.6 million. Tully explained that there will be no fee for the use of routers, but effective July 1, 1999 a fee will be charged to the state backbone for IP traffic.

Siminski gave an update on the AISB relocation to AT&T points of presence, saying

that equipment is now being ordered with access circuits installed next week, with 18-20 connections in Columbus and Bloomington. Jennifer Ping reported that she has received 56 new orders.

Legislative update

King reminded the group that IHETS had asked for $4.9 million one-time capital but received $2.5 million. Since our priority is the move to the Access Indiana State Backbone, staff proposes to allocate $2 million over the biennium to that purpose, with $1 million in the first year dedicated to equipping satellite receive sites for ATM video.  Tully said only 50 sites will be able to be connected, and those which request service later, may need to wait. Watson stressed that this needs to be emphasized that this needs to be a priority and also taken before the Board Meeting on June 15.

Scott reported that the tally of enrollments had led to a list of good receive site candidates to shift to AISB, and their geographic locations are evenly distributed. Watson commented that she would like the documentation on this item.

Watson asked for an endorsement of this request and asked that a motion be brought before the committee. The motion was made by Wayne Bohm and seconded by Fred Nay. This motion will be carried forward to the next Management Meeting.

Board of Directors meeting in June

Dave King reported on the board of directors meeting in June. Two new board members will be added, one from Public Broadcasting and one from Libraries. Larry Grau, Executive Assistant from the Governors office will replace William Christopher. King said that John Huie and President Moore are on course with the Executive Director search and the final review of candidates.

King updated everyone on the move to 714 North Senate. We should be ready by June 15 and plan to move sometime the week of the 21^st. The raised flooring is scheduled to be completed this week along with doorframes and walls. Fisher is to meet with the movers today, and very little downtime is expected.

Technology Demonstration

Watson asked for comments on the equipment used for the meeting. Walker reported that we have H.323 units at all sites today, conferencing at 384kbps using Escort 25 VCon equipment and the Video Server bridge.

Gerry Oliver of Indiana State began by saying he felt it went well; Bob Jefferson of Indiana State University said that it looked good with the exception of the audio problem. Wayne Bohm from University of Southern Indiana shared that the problems he sited were from the VTel equipment, Dell computer, audio, ghosting, and the loss of the picture at one point. All were in agreement that it is much easier to conduct a meeting by video. The VCon and VTel camera and audio were weak. Fred Nay said that two video signals were mixed together.

Watson said that it is clear that we need to continue with more testing and she thanked everyone on all efforts in getting this meeting together. King said we would continue to work with staff and conduct more testing. This is a big step in the right direction and we need to have more sites involved for this type of meeting.

Next Meeting

June 8 is our next scheduled meeting date in University Library, 1116, which is one week from IHETS Board on June 15.

At 11:25 a.m. the meeting adjourned.