Management Committee 2003 meeting minutes

 
Author:  Julie Wheeler.

****UNAPPROVED DRAFT****

IHETS Management Committee

November 18, 2003

PRESENT: Patrick Alles, Independent Colleges of Indiana; Wayne Bohm, University of Southern Indiana; Vernon Houchins, Vincennes University; Bill Kramer, Ivy Tech State College; Steve Mayo, Purdue University; Fred Nay, Ball State University; David Ross, Public Library; Phyllis Usher, Department of Education; Brian Voss, Indiana University

IHETS STAFF: Tim Fisher, George Jensen, Dave King, Richard Miles, Tim Ping, Kevin Siminski, Lynn Ward, Julie Wheeler

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The meeting was called to order at 10:05 and introductions were made.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Voss moved that the minutes of the September 16, 2003 meeting be approved. Houchins seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.

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PENDING ISSUES

Ideas/Lifelong Learning Service Update: Miles stated that we have had several rounds of technical tests with stations and are currently putting into place the operations procedures for the master control system, and it will go live on January 5, 2004 . Currently, WFYI, WTIU and WNIN have made firm commitments to carry the service.

The content for the first semester will primarily be college courses. The classes run from midnight to 6:00am and will be repeated several times during the week to give students more than one chance to catch a class, although we fully expect most students to record for later viewing.

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The rest of the schedule will include 2 series on daycare/parenting skills (one in English and one in Spanish); several adult personal enrichment courses on subjects like photography and how to run a small business; and, a “feed for teachers” - programs that K-12 teachers might be able to use in their classes.

As this is a brand new service, we will use this first semester to work out all of the potential kinks. We are not encouraging students to register for classes if their sole method of access to this material. Therefore, the classes we have chosen this first time around are also available via other means.

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Higher Education Blueprint Additions: King noted that the document was sent out prior to the meeting. The IPSE Group looked at an earlier draft of the Commission for Higher Education's Blueprint, there was an opportunity to add information about what is happening with distance learning and technology mediated learning.

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King reported that we also sent them a chart which shows Indiana Postsecondary E-Learning Enrollment, as well as multiple word insertions throughout the document. We offered the opportunity to reference the Indiana Learning Portal project as a way to expand the capabilities in higher education as well as provide access as students move from K-12 to higher education

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I-Light 2 RFP: Siminski reported that the RFP went to the Department of Administration last Friday. He will meet with the Head of Procurement tomorrow to address any questions after which time it will be posted on the IDOA web site. From that point on, IDOA will handle all of the procurement process and manage the vendors. Siminski announced a Bidders Conference to be held on December 9 at the IGC South Conference Center . He anticipates a large group and encouraged members of the I-Light Steering Committee to attend.

Some important dates in the process include: March 12 – submit our written recommendation for a vendor; March 19 – we will announce the winner vendor of the I-Light 2

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RFP; May 1 - we will have a contract negotiated with the winning vendor and begin the operational work to begin piecing together the dark fiber network ; and, the goal is to have an operational network on December 1, 2004. At the beginning of the year, we will start looking at the electronics of how to light the network and will rely on the expertise of others that have done this before.


Screening Committee: King reported that as of mid-November, we received some 60 applications for the Director of Operations position. The Screening Committee will meet on November 24 to review the applications and narrow the search to the top 3-5 candidates. We plan to schedule interviews during the first week of January and have a recommendation for the Management Committee at the January 20th meeting.

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Portal Project Update: King reported that we have just completed the CEO presentations, which was a goal at the time the prototype was completed. We have created sub-groups; one is working on grant proposals, one is working on governance, and another group is looking at the on-going evolution of technology.

Just prior to the Internet2 meeting in Indianapolis last month, we sponsored a day-long workshop on middleware for the technical representatives from the partner organizations. It was a well attended and excellent presentation.

King reported that during the CEO presentations, we invited Scott Massey-Humanities Council, Barbara

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Maxwell-State Library and Bill Plater-IUPUI together to go through the prototype and have some discussion as to where to go next. At that meeting, Plater offered to host a reception and demonstration of the Indiana Learning Portal, the SmartDesktop being developed by the Humanities Council, and perhaps demo other portal projects such as the IU system-wide portal. It is scheduled for December 9 on the IUPUI campus. This will be a good opportunity to demonstrate were we are with the prototypes but also to show the interactive capability and how the complimentary aspect of what we are planning creates synergy and new opportunities. Approximately 150 invitations were sent from Plater's office.

The efforts to develop proposals are currently focusing on what the Lilly Endowment expects and whether the Lumina Foundation is interested. In addition, King met with the president of Sloan Consortium from the Sloan Foundation to access their interest. King added that all of documents and the prototype are available on the IHETS web site.

King noted that we need to be looking for potential partners from other states. Many states are talking about this kind of thing and for some of the national sources of funds, it would be good to put together a coalition of states to show that they don't have to reinvent it, we can make them interconnective and there are advantages to these types of collaborative efforts.


Satellite Streaming Initiative Status Update: Ping reported that several staff is involved in six functional teams. Those teams have begun meeting, have developed team charges and are in the process of developing specific project plans with detailed tasks, milestones, and deliverables associated with them. The team plans will be rolled into one master project plan. Ping then reviewed the technology implementation timeline. We anticipate having a streaming solution identified by May 1, 2004 , begin pilot testing in August, 2004 and have a production service available by May, 2005.

Ward reviewed the current activities in each area. The Engineering area is conducting on-going research into hardware and software solutions both for the video

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streaming component and the interactive voice component of the new system. Currently they are working on defining the parameters for an extensive functional requirements gathering effort that will be undertaken by the Communications group.

The Communications area has been developing a new section of the IHETS web site to be released later this week. This will be the place to gather the most up-to-date information about the migration from satellite to streaming interactive video. The new site will include an overview that explains the rationale behind this initiative, the timeline, regular status reports, FAQs, information on how stakeholders can participate in the development process, a web form for asking questions in a one-on-one

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format, a form to subscribe to a mailing list and online discussion forums.

Ward reported that a general announcement will go out next week to update all of the stakeholders on the status of the project. The announcement will include information about the new section on the web site and alert them about the various opportunities that will be made available to them to participate in the project.

Ward added that we are gearing up for a major functional requirements gathering activity which will begin in December and conclude in March, 2004. Representatives will be identified at origination and receive sites for face-to-face focus groups to assist us in gathering information. For those that are unable to participate in the focus groups, we will be offering a variety of online surveys that will give an opportunity to voice their specific needs and concerns.

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Budget Update: Fisher reported that at the end of Quarter One, we were at 19% of expending our budget, rather than the anticipated 25%. On the revenue side we were at 31.9% received.

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COMMITTEE REPORTS

ITC: Nay reported that the group has been working on updating the IP Video project report from two years ago and continue to meet with vendors on new technologies and evaluate products.

IPSE: Ward reported that discussion at recent meetings included the ICHE Blueprint, satellite migration, and the Indiana Learning Portal. In addition, the IPSE reconvened an ad hoc task force to revisit the home institution model to allow greater flexibility to accommodate the private institutions. The result was the addition of several privates to the ICN catalog. Due to some tuition differentials, they are not participating fully in the home institution model.

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The next phase of the task force work is to look at how to more seamlessly incorporate the private institutions into the ICN. It was decided that this issue will be passed on to the ICN Learner Services Team.

The IPSE is looking at the reconfiguration of the ideas! Advisory Board. All public broadcasting stations will participate and have representation on the Board through four members that will represent the nine stations. Previously only members of the central Indiana public broadcasting group were represented on the Board. We also had a chance to revisit the Advisory Board membership for higher education and will be adding John Beeson – IU Continuing Studies.

Ward added that in July the Director of the ICN Student Services Center at ICPAC resigned. Prior to that, we had been considering relocating the SSC to IHETS. We felt that this was an appropriate time to start that process and are currently making that transition, to be complete by May, 2004. Carol Brunty, former IHETS Communications Manager, was hired as SSC Manager.


STAFF REPORTS

King asked the group for feedback about logistics of having conference call meetings. The consensus was that it works well and is a timesaver.

The next meeting will be January 20 and agenda items will include an update on the ideas!/Lifelong Learning Service and a report from the Screening Committee.

The meeting adjourned at 10:55 am .

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