IHETS Management Committee

September 20, 2005

IHETS Boardroom – Indianapolis

PRESENT

Patrick Alles, Independent Colleges of Indiana

Wayne Bohm, University of Southern Indiana

Dave Jent, Indiana University

Don Kaufman, Vincennes University

Ed Kinley, Indiana State University

William Kramer, Ivy Tech Community College

Joe Misciewicz, Indiana Public Broadcasting

Fred Nay, Ball State University

O’Neal Smitherman, Ball State University

Dick Tully, Ivy Tech Community College

Phyllis Usher, Department of Education

Dave Hensel, Sommer Barnard

Staff: Tim Fisher, Dave King, Jason Patterson, Kevin Siminski, Lynn Ward, Julie Wheeler

Chairman Kramer called the meeting to order at 10:05 and introductions were made.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes from the August 3, 2005 meeting were unanimously approved as distributed.

The Committee moved into Executive Session, with only members present, to discuss personnel and proprietary vendor information.

The group reconvened in general session. Action from the Executive Session included the renewal of the executive director’s contract. Kinley moved that King’s contract as executive director be renewed through September 30, 2006. Tully seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.

IHETS External/Internal Review: Kramer gave a brief update on the review process. The internal team held its initial meeting earlier this month and are organizing into two subcommittees focused on Services and Governance. They will also look at business and management practices in the organization. The Services Subcommittee will be chaired by Ed Kinley and the Governance Subcommittee will be chaired by Vic Lechtenberg.

Kramer added that he is working with staff to develop a Self Study document to provide background and information during the review. The External Review Team will be in Indianapolis during the last week of October. Somewhat like an accreditation team, they will meet with committees and others while here.

In addition, staff conducted an on-line survey of the users of IHETS’ various services and members of the IHETS committees. With approximately 1700 surveys sent out we had about a 20% response rate. Staff prepared a variety of reports with the results. These results will serve as a baseline for the subcommittee discussions.

Additional information about the review work plans and schedules are available on the IHETS website.

PENDING ISSUES: Portal Grant: King reported that we made a successful grant application for approximately $1.2 million worth of hardware, software and training from CampusEAI consortium and Oracle over five years. The grant requires a match of $39K each year for the five years. We are looking at how to effectively split the annual commitment among our current partners and get a signed letter of commitment from all participating partners before we sign with CampusEAI.

Following discussion, Kinley moved that the group endorse the portal partnership. Tully seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.

I-Light2: King reported that progress with I-Light2 is still on hold pending the Governor’s task force review.

IHETS Interactive: King noted that we have been using Macromedia Breeze to view documents throughout the meeting. Breeze is the platform for IHETS Interactive, replacing the satellite system in June, 2006. Ward gave a brief history of how we got to this point and announced that we are now entering the test phase. We are moving at an aggressive pace with the pilot testing and hope to have limited production in Spring 2006 and full production with service available to all IHETS member institutions in Summer 2006.

Ward added that Breeze offers a suite of tools for real-time communication and collaborative teaching and learning. In addition, it is already in use by several member institutions, thereby enhancing opportunities for future growth and development.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

IPSE – Tully reported that much of the group’s discussions have been around the IHETS review and IHETS Interactive.

ITC – Nay indicated that the group has been following progress with IHETS Interactive. In addition, staff has been looking at network monitoring tools and disaster recovery efforts.

Siminski announced that through a request from ADEC to assist with restoring telecommunication services in the gulf coast area, IHETS is deploying two staff with a mobile wireless unit to Alcorn State and Southern University.

With no additional business to discuss, the meeting adjourned at 12:20pm.

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