Meeting Agenda for November 29, 2010

**what will be the consequences of reducing the number of people who have permissions on course websites? write something up for Justin to send to Paul and others.

Should we drop our Internet 2 service and increase Internet 1?
  • Are faculty using any of the I2 capabilities?
  • Do faculty apply for grants that require I2?
  • How easy is it to reinstate?
Update on goals for the external review
  • affirming the classroom experience at amherst
  • does IT have the staff necessary
  • how does amherst remain at the forefront of IT while supporting classroom instruction?
Close video analysis tool for Film and Media studies courses
Alternative to SPSS --> web-based interface to R
Opening access to course e-reserves during add/drop.
  • request access without data input into datatel
  • instructor approval required for students to access course materials during add/drop
What to do with faculty pages when faculty are no longer associated with the College.
Electronic course packs --> laptops in the classroom
ATS projects for coming year
  • Virtual Computing Lab project
  • Replacement for Wimba
  • Presentation tool -- https://wsgdev3.amherst.edu/dru6-mg/
  • iLogger -- http://www.ats.amherst.edu/ilogger/scott/map/
  • Augmented Reality Gaming
  • Cityscapes mapping application (Tokyo and Paris)
  • Big Blue Button --> webconferencing tool in CMS
  • Lecture capture
  • R workshops for faculty
  • SimQuabbin project (pending Dept. of Ed. proposal)
  • Cathedral Builder 2.0
  • NEH proposal --> Semantic search and visual browsing interface
Attachment Size
fall_2010_blackboardcms_survey.xlsx 57.95 KB

Permissions illustration

Following up on a request of the committee, below is an illustration of how control of permissions on course content will work after our January updates, with some explanation and a question after it:

2010-12-6-FCC permissions diagram
(1) IT's preferred solution is to make it possible for faculty to do anything they like to permissions on these pages, EXCEPT block them from deleting the enrolled student groups - this would let them block anyone they like from accessing the content except for their students. We could choose to allow them to do even this at the cost of mistakes being made which would break data integration efforts in various places. If we chose to do the latter we could turn most of the yellow pages above green. The exceptions would be the dropbox, quiz, and gradebook pages, each of which has some exceptions due to data integration.
(2) Dropbox is unique. By default, only students and faculty can access content contained in them. ATS and the help desk can intervene and make adjustments to this on behalf of faculty who request changes. We could choose to allow faculty to control permissions on the dropbox but the user interface is complex and there are problems doing this with multisection courses, where a faculty member teaching one section could change settings for an instructor teaching another section. Issues of that nature have troubled some faculty in the past. IT would prefer to leave this as it is.