• Al Alshuler distributed and discussed his handouts: Simple Solutions and Apples site
• TAC sub committee report (email from Dick to the group):

  John, Terry, Gary, Claire and I met Friday, Nov. 22 prior to the regular TAC meeting to discuss issues of faculty knowledge, skills, and use of new web-based tech resources. We had a lively discussion, starting with Al's question about how learning about these things would make a faculty member's lives easier or allow them to do their job better. Ultimately we ended up discussing the fact that faculty are not only unaware of what is there and how they might use it but, more importantly, that they aren't aware of what students are using and what their expectations may be of faculty uses. Do students expect to go into AppalNET and click on their class links and get to a class web page? Do students know how to use the calendar and expect faculty to keep important dates on their class calendar? Etc. Fundamentally, it is important for two things to happen that will encourage faculty to become aware of the tools available. The first, and at this time least likely to happen soon, is that support staff be given access to AppalNET. The second is that a concerted effort needs to be made to help faculty become aware of what students are using and what expectations students have or may develop from the use of AppalNET. This effort must go beyond sending announcements and offering "training" sessions. It may call for individuals to attend faculty meetings to show actual student interactions with AppalNET and may involve brining students in to talk about their use of AppalNET. Even if faculty still decide to ignore AppalNet and related technology services they should not be blind sided by a lack of awareness of what students are expected to use. I hope I have captured the essence of what was discussed. Those of you who were there may want to add to or correct what I have said. I invite everybody to comment on the recommendation we arrived at and to discuss what might be next. Dick

• Disscussion of subcommitte issues
• Presentation and discussion of the new Appstate Homepage
• Email, Quota and SpamAssasin issues were discussed and examples provided.
• RCOE website issues were introduced and it was suggested that that be the focus of the next meeting.

minutes by John Spagnolo

TAC Fall 2002