Bob Henshaw
Vicki Kolowitz
James Lee
Jim Noblitt (Chair)

Call to Order
Welcome and Introductions
Announcements

Exemplars - Show and tell

John Stewart, Economics

Topic: IT and Teaching Economics: A Curmudgeon's Guide
Website: Econ 10-008

• Focus on core economics courses, large class size. Roughly 25% of other instructors in Economics Department use some IT, but less than 20% of courses have web pages.
• Look to IT to save time for students and instructors, clarify content and key points.
• Has moved to computer-based graphics programs (Lotus Freelance Graphics) to present graphs, numbers, etc.
• Uses web pages primarily to
  • make course materials available to students in advance of class. The slides that he uses in class are more comprehensive than the web notes (students know this). Class experience puts content in context, and instructor asks questions.
  • post practice exams. Includes keys as well.
• Stata software demonstrations in class.
• Class grades. Praise: SIS class roll data, and email notification feacture. Incorporate into frontend for DB that he wrote. Concerns: Scanned grade results from ATN are too flat to easily import into database. Problems with Registrar's format for class roll info. No way to get grade data in and out of Blackboard.
• Would like to include more interactive online components in future interations of the Econ 10 course.
• Work he puts into technology actually saves him time over the long run, but there is a fixed cost that many instructors can not afford to make at a research institution.

Proposed Changes to Academic Plan

• Strategy suggestions: Systematically get concerns and suggestions to individual members of task force. Open forums scheduled for February 19 and 26 (Linda Carl will confirm these dates). Hope to present document to Board of Trustees in March. Committee members need proper language, but also need to be educated as to what the language means.
• See Greg Newby's message to the FITAC list with his comments on the academic plan.
• The University has always followed and adapted to advances in information technology. IT has always been important in the creation, archiving and transmission of knowledge. Why is focus primarily on transmission?
• Report does not really speak to the future. NC economy drivers like banking and biotechnology are dependent on information technology, not to mention technology industry leaders like SAS, Cisco, etc.
• Is teaching an antiquated term? New term should be learning because it. How do we create new teaching environments? Again, technology will be play a big role. Academic plan lacking vision.
• After some discussion, committee agreed that:
  • Committee members should send Jim Noblitt brief paragraphs by the end of the week outlining their concerns about academic plan
  • Jim will then consolidate concerns in a draft general statement for FITAC
  • Jim, Skip Bollenbacher and at least one other faculty member will schedule meetings with principal academic plan authors.

Suggestions for Next Semester's Agenda [circulated separately]

• External Grants: Short-term devices, such as foundation funding, to
  maintain faculty participation in innovation and implementation.
• Assessment: A discipline based description of the range of uses of IT
  on this campus, with particular attention to locating interesting and
  instructive exemplars.
• Guidelines & Resources: The need to document optimal application of
  existing campus resources for particular educational content. (Finding
  mechanisms for addressing academic concerns is likely to involve a
  review of central and distributed IT services.)
  
• Representation: Ways in which faculty can be involved in policy-making
  affecting educational IT. (At issue are mechanisms for informed review
  of tenure and promotion documents in digital format, initiatives
  concerning resource allocation for creating instructional materials, and
  hiring that affects the IT learning environment, such as the offices of
  CIO or University Counsel.)
  _______________

Updates

- FITAC Chair invited to join Search Committee for VC/IT. First meeting
this Friday, with Chancellor Moeser.
- UNC Teaching and Learning with Technology Conference announcement
circulated by Kathy Thomas. (See conference website.)
- DSpace Federation Collaboration announced. (See Chronicle article.)

Agenda: TBA