Steve Jarrell
James Lee
Norm Lowenthal
Vicki Kolowitz
Aaron Moody
Jocelyn Neal

Call to Order
Welcome and Introductions
Announcements

- Sue Estroff has copy of our letter to Provost Shelton with FITAC input for CIO search.
- Interested members may wish to hear Clifford Lynch today (3:30pm in Wilson Library Pleasants)

Steve Jarrell - Interim CIO and AIS Director

Big issues

• Filling CIO position: Search has not begun. CIO will most likely continue to report to the Chancellor. Organizational structure will stay mostly intact.
• Budget: $1.5 million in cuts this year, on top of four ongoing years of cuts. Will be meeting with the Provost this week about the budget. Will continue to focus on core competencies. Finishing up work on a five-year funding plan for IT. Instructional support is under-funded.
• FITAC role: FITAC should continue to advise the CIO and Administrative on technology-related issues. This feedback is tremendously important.
• IT Development Grants: Prospect for reinstating grants is not great this year. This kind of project is viewed as discretionary. Would like to continue to explore non-financial options for supporting faculty.

Questions

• Organization budget? ATN, AIS, Systems and Procedures, Ibiblio, and the KnowledgeFoundry are all under ITS. AIS and ATN budgets are comparable, roughly $15 million per year. Telcom receipts-based, Ibiblio self-funding, KF funded mostly with seed money from Provost and CIO. ITS, especially ATN, very dependent on state funds.
• What incentives can we offer top-quality CIO? UNC has high-quality support and staff. We may benefit from the fact that the economy is weak. More good people are available. Concerned that when economy picks, quality staff will be raided. We will have to find someone who is enamored of this environment, and we'll have to offer a competitive salary.

Exemplars - Show and tell

Diane Strauss, Academic Affairs Library

Demonstrated tutorials on library resources (e.g., plagarism, copyright, info evaluation, library research, citing information) that can be used across different courses and curricula. Library staff are happy to do in-class presentations and training.

Proposal for Technology Course in Undergraduate Curriculum

Greg Newby and James Lee led a discussion on a proposal [Word doc] prepared by the Student Government Information and Technology Committee to include a technology competency course in the first-year undergraduate curriculum. The proposed course would consist of three major components: Building Blocks (technical concepts and application use), Information Retrieval and Resources, and Ethics. Greg Newby had planned to present at this meeting on Information Ethics, but since ethics is a component of the proposed course, it was folded into the discussion on the proposed course. See Newby's ethics presentation @: http://ils.unc.edu/gbnewby/presentations/ethics_curriculum.ppt.

Discussion comments:

• Students currently get redundant IT instruction in various courses. Move content to a single course requirement.
• Do requirements include all students (e.g., distance ed)?
• Is student body ready to accept yet another course requirement?
• Must give students ability to place out, but how would you evaluate students' information ethics?
• Wireless laptops should make facilities logistics easier; may also offer online version of course.
• Similar to Comp 4 course is CS. Needs to be highly modular, student must be able to choose content that they need to cover so as not to waste their time.
• Is the emphasis on the skills that students need during academic career, or skills they should have when they leave? What about instructors who are counting on students having these skills from day one?
• If UNC is going to be a leader in infrastructure (CCI), then it also needs to be a leader in information literacy.
• Faculty currently have full accountability for the integration of skills into the curriculum. Does this relieve them of this responsibility?
• Pointing students to self-paced modules would be more feasible during a time when resources are so stretched.

NEXT STEPS: Greg Newby agreed to draft FITAC statement outlining the information literacy issues and options for addressing them. Will circulate among FITAC.

Letter to Provost Shelton on funding for grants program [circulated separately]

Still no response from the Provost on this letter.

Statement on Academic Planning Task Force [per Linda Carl]

At the Chancellor's request, the Provost had to move more quickly on the Academic Plan, but there is some language that addresses some of the FITAC concerns [circulated separately].
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Agenda: TBA