| Present: | Geoff Nathan, Carolyn Snyder, Al Allen, Duke Koch, Denny Leitner, John Hamman, Chris Svec, Susan Logue |
We began with a discussion of those buildings that are not yet wired to the Campus network. Al said he believed that Shryock and Allyn were in line to be wired, but the latest list of buildings indicates that the following are not yet wired (and are not scheduled to be in the near future):
805, 807, 811, 1004-1010 South Elizabeth
Allyn Building
Altgeld
Photographic Services
Old Baptist Foundation
Shryock Auditorium
These will be added to the list (and the inappropriately named buildings will be removed).
There was some discussion of a university course requirement in computer literacy. Overall, people seem to oppose the idea of a course for University credit that simply teaches how to read e-mail, use a browser and perhaps do simple word processing. Some others suggested making computer literacy parallel to the Writing Across the Curriculum requirement, in the sense that each major would be responsible for developing computer literacy in a way to be defined by the department. Meanwhile, the library is designing a set of WEB courses that will promote computer literacy.
There was further discussion of the development of a CD-ROM that would be sold (for production costs) by local outlets and would have on it whatever licensed software SIUC has (e.g. Eudora, Netscape) and help files dealing with campus systems. It could perhaps be set up to autorun and install itself, and to have some kind of on-line manual. David Shinn and Customer Service are discussing this idea, but it has not yet taken formal shape. Al raised the question of who would be responsible for the vastly increased number of PC's that the increased connectibility we are proposing. First there is the issue of how upgrades to non-public-access computers will be managed. A consensus seemed to develop that this would have to be handled decentrally, by individual departments budgeting for the upgrading of computers as they can afford it. However, to the extent that our proposal will be taken seriously, Deans and Chairs and directors will need to be warned that they need to begin planning now to supply the computers that will be demanded.
Another issue that was discussed was whether there should be a suggestion
in our plan to upgrade the connections from the campus to the rest of the Internet.
Some suggested that we need to be attached to Internet II, which will require increased
bandwidth. A suggested item was: Provide high level internet access connections between
the two campuses and between the campus and the rest of the Internet. Using a spreadsheet,
Denny Leitner took the rankings suggested by the members and produced a final ranking,
which Geoff will translate into a new version of the document, which will be put up on
the private website