Present:
Eric Brewer, Robert
Buchele, Glenn Ellis, Thomas Laughner, Eric Loehr, Katwiwa Mule, Herb Nickles, Nicholas
Russell
Absent: Nicholas
Howe, Alan Marvelli, Charles Staelin
Guest:
Barbara Pliska
Minutes
of October 20, 2006
The minutes of the October 20th
meeting were approved with minor edits from Tom Laughner with regard to the
NITLE funded visit to the
FCAP
computer configuration recommendations for next year – Barbara Pliska
Barbara Pliska, Manager of Smith Computer
Store, gave the committee handouts with the current bulk buy Apple and Dell
desktops and laptops for consideration next year. Dell has a new 745 which has 2Gb RAM
included; Barbara asked the committee if they might want all FCAP machines to
come equipped with 2GB RAM. If Parallels
is going to become standard on campus, 2GB RAM will be necessary. The other issue is that most faculty members
are asking for 20” monitors rather than the 17” FCAP standard. The FCAP budget
is $176,000 this year and increasing the computer standards means decreasing
the number of computers available for faculty upgrades. Eric Brewer said that he feels all new
computers should have 2GB RAM. The
committee requested that Kate Etzel, Director of User Support Services, supply
them with a new distribution list so that they will have a better idea of the
replacement costs. Mule asked if it
would be possible to look at the costs of including tablets on the standards
list of options.
CET
grant initiative requests
1)
Sam
Intrator & Don Siegel – their request for 4 handheld video cameras for
Project Coach was approved for $4,600.00 with the understanding that the
equipment would be the property of the CMP (Center for Media Production) and
would be loaned to them for the academic year and then returned as Smith
inventory and to be serviced at year end.
2)
Ellen
Kaplan – this request for digital audio recorders for the AIDS Radio Project
was increased in order to purchase 4 recorders with the same understanding that
this will be considered Smith property to be returned to the CMP at the end of
the academic year and held for loan to other programs. The request for funding for audio editing
software was not approved as it was agreed that there is a lot of free software
available. The ETS will work with Ellen
to identify software that will work for her program. The committee approved $1685.94 for audio
recorders and microphones.
3)
Thomas
Ciufo – this request for 6 portable flash recorders, microphones, speakers,
audio interface, and production software was approved for $6,200.00. His request for funding to purchase an Apple
computer and monitor was not approved as it was determined that there are
existing computers that could be beefed up to meet his needs. Tom Laughner will work with Tom to make this
purchase and to use Tom’s expertise to purchase the digital audio recorders
requested in the first two requests.
4)
Robert
Newton – his request for upgrading the software being used in the Campus Pond
Data Monitoring Project was approved for $195.00.
5)
Jon
Caris – this request for a 42” scanner, stand, warranty, and operating software
was approved for $12,720.00. The
committee agreed that departments should be encouraged to view grant funded
equipment as Smith property available for everyone’s use when not being
directly used by the requesting department.
6)
Mary
Harrington – this request for a laptop PC computer to be used for fMRI
experiments in the Psychology department was not funded as the committee did
not feel there was an appropriate need.
Report
from the Director of ETS – Tom Laughner
Tom spoke about the issue of privacy in
Moodle; he said that very little valuable information could be gathered by
monitoring student logins to the course management system as you wouldn’t know
how long they were logged on.
He also told the committee that on November
30th there would be an avant garde play from
There
being no further time for discussion, the meeting adjourned at
Respectfully submitted,
Constance McGinn, recorder