Distance Education/Technology Advisory Group

DETAG >> Minutes >>September 6, 2006

1. Welcome/Housekeeping

• Members Present- Eddie Lovett, Peggy Domingue, Jennifer Bell, Lois Crowe, Jack Fuller, John Williams, Gay Perez, Jimmy Ledbetter, Sandy Jones, Leslie Dare, Richard Tyler
• Members absent - Jason Petters, Lisa MIles, Allison Medlin, Martha Compton
• The two different roles were discussed:
  • Small Staff Representatives - These members are representing the units which report to their respective Small Staff Administrator. These members are required to maintain regular communication regarding DETAG with the Small Staff Administrator and their constituent units.
  • At Large Representatives - These members represent some other aspect(s), such as LANTech, Webmaster, experience with DE, faculty, SPA, EPA, and so on. These members are not required to do so, but are welcome to pass DETAG information on to their peers (in their departments and other peers in the Division and on campus).

2. DETAG & DETS

• Leslie provided an overview of the history of the Distance Education & Technology Services unit, and the history of DETAG.
• DETS serves to provide leadership for the whole Division in those two areas - distance education and technology.
• DETS represents the Division on many university committees and work groups, and on committees for other divisions on campus.
• DETAG serves as a conduit for information between DETS and the units.

3. DETAG Operations

• Eddie provided details about how DETAG will operate this year.
• Agendas will be provided one or two days in advance; anything special to read or otherwise prepare for in advance will be noted
• Minutes:
  • Will be taken by Amanda Thomas (Graduate Assistant in DETS)
  • Will be posted to the web by Leslie; who will notify DETAG members via email
  • Will be distributed to constituent areas and Small Staff Administrators by the Rep members as negotiated/coordinated between the Rep member and the Small Staff Administrator.
  • Will include "homework" for members, Eddie and Leslie as a handy "to do" list for everyone
• Mid-month updates:
  • Will be provided via email to Eddie by each subcommittee.
  • Will be provided to all of DETAG via email by Eddie and will include all subcommittee updates and other pertinent information.
• Future meetings will include time for subcommittee work so as to reduce the amount of meeting time outside of DETAG meetings. Other updates and housecleaning info can be communicated via email and phone as needed, leaving more time for subcommittee work.

4. Focus for 2006-2007

• Eddie discussed the areas of focus for the coming year.
  • Measurable outcomes - being able to determine in advance what tangible projects do we want to tackle, and being able to say at the end of the year that we did (or did not) complete them, and with what degree of success.
  • Visibility - unifying the Division further being making DETAG and it's activities more visible within the Division and to others on campus.

5. Greetings from the Assistant Vice Chancellor

• Dr. Lisa Zapata (Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs), joined the meeting to share her thanks for DETAG's work during the coming year.

6. Subcommittees

• These subcommittees were described by Eddie, and each DETAG member was asked to email Eddie their top two preferences and any additional information. Subcommittee assignments will be sent out with the mid-month update.
  • DETAG Series - This group will be responsible for organizing training for members and Division, possibly working with PGC. The group will put together two training series a semester. This subcommittee will be in charge of generating ideas for content and/or organizing presenters. The group will also be responsible for reserving the space for the training sessions. Feedback has been gathered from large staff to assist in guiding the group’s decision on what training to offer.
  • WebCT Vista – This group will be responsible for organizing two workshops in November and February. The idea is to get people to play with WebCT to further their understanding of the student experience. We also hope that these workshops will get offices thinking of how they can incorporate WebCT in their programming. An ancillary objective is to have fun learning about something that would be of interest to the group (from how to play the guitar to student affairs in the news). Eddie and Leslie will serve as the technical experts for this committee.
  • Podcasting – This group will be responsible for coming up with ideas and writing scripts for several podcasts a semester. Another goal for this group is to create experts who then can share their knowledge about podcasting to others in the Division. Eddie and Leslie will serve as the technical experts for this committee. These will be pitched as the "Students First Podcasting" series. Dr. Stafford is enthusiastic about being one of the "voices" appearing in a podcast.
  • Newsletter – In conjunction with our focus on visibility for DETAG for 2006-2007, this subcommittee will be responsible for creating an electronic newsletter to be circulated once a semester. The newsletter will market the DETAG series and WebCT initiatives as well as any other pertinent “geekie” information, updates about distance education programs and activities, highlighting the Technology Initiative Award, and many other updates on the topics of distance educaiton and technology.

7. Technology Planning

• Leslie provided an overview of this new initiative for the Division. All the materials can be found on the web. The role of the Small Staff Represenative members will be to work with Leslie to meet with each unit to talk about technology and to assist in completing the Departmental Technology Checklist. (At Large members can and will work on this as well. All of that will be negotiated as needed.) Leslie will be present for each meeting and can either guide the meeting or be backup for any questions.
• Jennifer requested that we set up some guinea pig meetings so that we can catch any glitches in our checklist before we role it out to everyone. Leslie indicated that two units (probably one large and one small) will be used to pilot the Checklist and work out the bugs. Eddie and Leslie will train all DETAG members on checklist.
• The overall goal is complete all the Unit Technology Checklists by mid-January. That is a somewhat arbitrary deadline, and we can adjust that as needed.