Management Committee 2004 meeting minutes

Attending: Patrick Alles, Independent Colleges of Indiana; Wayne Bohm, University of Southern Indiana; Michael Gay, Purdue University; Ed Kinley, Indiana State University; Fred Nay, Ball State University; David Ross, Public Library; Frank Sabatine, Ball State University; O'Neal Smitherman, Ball State University; Dick Tully, Ivy Tech State College; Phyllis Usher, Department of Education; Brian Voss, Indiana University 

Staff - Tim Fisher , Dave King, Richard Miles , Tim Ping , Susan Scott , Kevin Siminski , Lynn Ward , Julie Wheeler

  Sitting in for Chairman Kramer, Smitherman called the meeting to order at 10:05am . Smitherman introduced Ed Kinley and welcomed him as a new committee member, replacing Lou Jensen.

The minutes of the January meeting were approved as distributed. King noted that they are available on the IHETS web site.

PENDING ISSUES

King reported on the IHETS 2004-05 Operating Budget. The budget deadline is the first week of April. We currently have a status report on the budget that will be 95% complete and it will offer the committee an opportunity for any input on the direction and decisions being made. He noted that we are still waiting on a couple pieces from IU on HR/purchasing guidelines. Since this is the second year of the biennial budget, it is not much different then last year's. The main difference, based on the Management Committee's ongoing input, we have establishment of a 3% salary increase, and we will need to reallocate $99,000 in the budget to meet the salary increase. King reviewed the budget documents and discussed the areas that we expect change. IU Board of Trustees will get us the exact guidelines the first week of April and we will schedule a conference call after that for the Committee to review and give final approval. Full spreadsheet details will be distributed for review prior to that meeting.

Mission and Vision/Strategic Initiatives: King reported on the revised and a more condensed version of the Mission/Vision/Strategic Initiatives document

The document details five major initiatives for the next few years. King outlined the five initiatives which are SSI, I-Light2, Ideas!, Brand Management and the Indiana Learning Portal. Developed a preamble. The initiatives have been developed following many discussions and a couple years of work.

Portal Project Status: King reported on the Portal project. The background $150,000 from Lilly and matched by the partners to put together a start-up project that would assess the needs for digital learning space. Took the outcome to issues that could be used in the prototype. Developed 75-page business case. Need to find $8-10M to fund project. Need to look at outside funding sources. We continue to be in contact with several of the source, most recently Lilly. We have been trying to help them understand the value of digital learning space and answer concerns about sustainability. We continue working on sustainability and materials that will explain it to leaders around the state. Proposing to state network that there be a commitment for $750,000 annually from the network revenue annually to anchor the sustainability of the portal and digital learning space. Discussions are continuing but to date, we have had a good response. King showed how portal project might be layers if you were to look at multiple layers of funding.

Another topic that has come up during discussions is governance. The portal partners will meet this afternoon to discuss the draft portal project governance. King reviewed the draft version of governance structure and noted that the funding sources are very interested in governance.

One of the issues that came up during the meetings with funding sources, was what do the decision makers know right now. King stressed th importance of keeping everyone abreast of the progress.

Satellite Streaming Initiative: Ward reported that we are currently in the final stages of concluding the first major phase of the project which was requirements gathering.

The engineering group has been monitoring the industry and looking at a variety of solutions. They were waiting for a rather definitive set of functional requirement from our users, both from origination and receiving end before they proceeded and made a decision in a replacement technology.  

Ward added that the requirements gathering effort took a number of forms. We conducted focus groups both at originating and receive locations.

With regard to originators, we tried to visit locations that are current or former originators. We also talked with institutions that are not current users, but might have interest when the new service is in place. In addition to the heavy users, we also visited University of Indianapolis , Ivy Tech and University of Southern Indiana. Staff spent 2 to 2-1/2 hrs talking with groups of faculty, distance education administrators, and technical staff. Ward stated that we used a fixed set of questions so that each meeting would cover the same topics and to see if they could identify any trends. We had another team that did approximately the same thing at receive sites. Since there are far too many sites to visit all, we chose sites that were representative of various types. We visited a corporate,

CES, Ivy Tech, Public Library, and state hospital sites. That team went through the samne approach and summarized the results.

In addition to the focus groups, we conducted three surveys one directed to the Video Scheduling group to identify capacity and future needs. In addition, a survey went to faculty using email from the ICN database and current and past users. We received 265 responses, or 25-30% response rate. We also surveyed receive sites and had 65 responses. P

We ar pulling together a comprehensive report that will be presented to Directors later this week. The report will focus on the most pressing and prioritized list of functional requirements for the system. In addition, next week we will have two half-day sessions with the software and engineering teams to begin to translate those functional requirements into technical requirements. Ward stated that we are still on target for running a pilot in the fall and continuing it through the next academic year. She added that the most up to date information and a timeline for the project are available on the IHETS web site.

As the engineering and software teams are considering the technical issues, we have a number of budgetary issues to deal with over the next two-six months. First, the satellite cost will continue through summer 2006. We are obligated to our lease of those four channels, and we are operating with the assumption that there will be no new funding for the next biennium. And yet there are some substantial initial capital investments required in order to get the pilot off the ground. We are anticipating the costs for the coming fiscal year to run between $150K-$200K in hardware and software.

Staff have been looking at options for how to cover these expenses. One option that may come to pass is that PBS has approach us about possibly selling one of our four channels back to them. In order to do that, we would need to convene the Video Scheduling Committee and rearrange some of the current programming. Ward stated that in terms of our current usage, it is not an unreasonable proposition, although there are some conflicts that would need to be addressed. If that were to happen, it would free up about $190K, which is about what we would need for the coming year. Another option is that we currently have about $190K in uncommitted reserve. If we are unable to release the channel, we can turn to the reserve as a way to cover the capital expenses of the new service.

Ward continued her report stating that there are many other budget issues that we need to contend with and will require this Committee's input, ie: once the service is up and running, who pays for the service and receive equipment?  Since we will likely need to have some receive sites active in the pilot, we will need to provide equipment. Who pays for equipment at receive sites? Who pays for origination equipment? Who pays for centralized equipment, licenses, agreements, etc? Another issue is that it is difficult to assess the demand for the service at this point. Another question is what will happen to the current budget line used to pay for satellite lease?.

Ward added that over the next several months we expect to put together possible business models as we begin to understand the costs (both start-up and ongoing) and will have some formal proposal available for discussion by this fall.  King added that we are moving through this process in a systematic process and make the transition as seamless as possible.

IPSE Working Group- King reported that Erv Boschmann retired from the IU system and Dick Tully has agreed to fill the position of interim chair of the IPSE Working Group. King expressed his appreciation to Tully for accepting the role.

Ward reported on the Program Development Committee meeting to discuss a number of issues related to the grant program. The RFP will be released on April 12. Issues include granularity, accountability, metadata and programmatic priorities. There was not full consensus among the group; however they did arrive at some conclusions based on what we can manage.

Granularity – Should we continue to support the development of modules and should we begin to supporting the development of learning object?   The consensus was that we should continue with courses and modules and there was an interest in learning module about learning objects and their potential impact in the state and more broadly, but also some question as to whether they live up to their potential in terms of reuse.

The group decided to defer a decision on learning objects until next year, in the meantime, try to provide some compelling evidence that development objects and learning programs are actually reaping the kinds of benefits that people are writing about.

The group also discussed accountability. We do have a reporting requirement of all grant recipients. Reports tend to vary in length in detail, however, success and outcome vary widely. We want to get a handle on the impact of the program since its inception. We will survey all previous grant recipients and an ongoing longitudinal study on the impact of the projects that we've supported. The goal will be to analyze the results and identify trends and best practices so they can help us identify where to go in the future.

We have not had a requirement of previous recipients with regard to entering metadata into the content that they developed. It is very important in terms of being able to find learning content on the web. It was asked whether we should require former or new grant recipients to enter or create metadata for their learning content. The consensus was that we not require former recipients, but we should as we introduce new learning objects in the future. Lastly, we should position ourselves to begin to support the inclusion of metadata and other kinds of publicly accessible content especially that developed with grant resources. Creating metadata involves not just adopting standards but creating standards within, so that a particular search engine can index and make it possible to find those resources.

And finally, we discussed programmatic priorities. Introduced a variety of possibilities for how we might focus the program on certain content areas. We want to try to provide incentives for the development of projects that address needs articulated into important statewide documents (P16 Plan and the Indiana Framework for Policy Planning Development in Higher Education. We will be offering up to 10 extra points for proposals that address specific needs in the documents.

Tully added that metadata tagging – we did ask program development team to develop a work plan to make sure that the potential grant recipients understand the use and importance of metadata tagging.

Ward reminded the group about the All Partners Conference to be held April 6 at Purdue. Program includes a keynote panel discussion that will facilitated by Susan Scott and includes academic officers from three very different institutions. 2004 IPSE awards for innovation and leadership. In addition, four sets of concurrent sessions planned and organized into five different tracks for a total of 19 different concurrent breakout sessions. Combined poster session/vendor exhibits. Ten participating vendors to participate.

Tully reported on the IPSE Awards. He reported the Faculty Services Team reviews the proposal and makes recommendations to the IPSE Group. The Team noted that there was an extremely high caliber of nominations for the three awards.

The awards are for Teaching with Technology in a Distance Program, was awarded to Robert Bill, Associate Professor, Purdue University; Teaching with Technology on campus was awarded to Petronio Bendito, Assistant Professor, Purdue University ; and there was a tie for the award for Support for on-line teaching and learning. Awards went to Elizabeth Kiggins, Assistant Professor and Director, Center for Instructional Technologies at University of Indiana , and a three-person team from University of Southern Indiana (Charles Harrington, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs; Karen Bonnell, Director of Instructional Technology Services, Distance Education; and Saxon Reasons, Programming Manager for Instructional Technology.

Scott reported that at January IPSE meeting she announced plans to use the ICN participation fees that instutions had contributed in three particular ways. One is to prepare a proposal for new audience development. One direction is to reach out to current HS students to help with smoothing with transitions between secondary and post secondary education. There are numerous needs among high schools for help in offering more challenging curriculum to help students prepare for and succeed in college or the workplace. There are also significant teacher professional development needs one of which is need for better, more current information for HS guidance counselors and in many cases are not prepared to counsel students effectively about whether they are good candidates for taking classes at a distance. Second project that will likely be funded by a grant and would focus on working with the institutional research and data coordinators at our inst to do more comprehensive job of collecting and accessing demographic information about distance learners. The third project would be to develop and implement a specific work plan for ICN at work service that would focus on services for employers to increase their ability to steer their employees to appropriate distance learning opportunities. Also so assistance in securing monies from business for a grant program for developing new programs that will be important for workforce and economic development needs in the state.

Integrated Technologies Committee – Nay reported that a subgroup was created to discuss the best use of circuit support funds. The group discussed impact on budgets and what they might expect in the future. The consensus was to maintain the current disbursement, so there will be not change to the way the support dollars are applied to circuit costs.

Smitherman moved that the group endorse the motion from the ITC for disbursement of the $1.145M. The motion was seconded and unanimously approved.

Nay added that he would like to see more ITC institutional involvement on their technical direction. Next topic will be discussion of the disaster recovery plan.

Staff Reports – Siminski reported that the I-Light2 RFP responses have been received and the announcement of the winning bidder will be pushed back a week or so, but should not affect the timeline.

The evaluation team has turned in a formal recommendation based on discussions over the last several weeks. The budget agency, who is the holder of the contract decision, is writing a narrative that they will forward to the Indiana Department of Administration, giving a formal recommendation. Following that, the winning vendor(s) will be announced. Siminski added that the he was pleased with the process and feels that most of the RFP requirements were met. We have already begun the next process, which is to begin writing the RFP for the technology, for the pieces of equipment that will light the fiber and allow communities access to the backbone. He added that it is absolutely vital that we meet the December 2004 operational date.

IDEAS!- Miles reported that the pilot testing has been going extremely well and everyone has been quite pleased with the progress. Comcast has started the process of adding us to their schedule. He added that we have changed the IDEAS! Advisory Board moving to statewide membership, adding Evansville , Vincennes and Fort Wayne public television stations as well as higher education. The next phase is to draw up a business plan and developing a grant process.

Miles urged the group to check out the IDEAS! Website at: www.ideasontv.org and http://ideasmedia.ind.net/broadcastd to view the stream that we are sending to the stations. Miles added that we would welcome university promotional materials or lectures to fill air time.

Announcements- King reminded the group that we will schedule a conference call around the end of April to discuss and approve the budget. He added that the Board of Directors will meet on May 14 at 1:30 .

The meeting adjourned at 11:55am .