LIS Advisory Groups » Items for Consideration http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors Creating synergies. Tue, 03 Dec 2013 13:59:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.7.1 LIS Arts & Humanities Divisional Group — Notes from Fall 2011 Meeting http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/2012/01/08/lis-arts-humanities-divisional-group-notes-from-fall-2011-meeting/ http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/2012/01/08/lis-arts-humanities-divisional-group-notes-from-fall-2011-meeting/#comments Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:31:28 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/?p=2105 Continue reading ]]> The LIS Arts & Humanities Divisional Group met on Thursday, September 29, 2011, in Special Collections in the Davis Family Library.

Attending:  Faculty: Holly Allen (AMST, Co-Chair), Claudio Medeiros (THEATRE), Elizabeth Morrison (for Ellie Bagley, RELI), Louisa Burnham (HIST), Mary Ellen Bertolini (Writing Program/CTLR), Jeff Buettner (MUSIC), Eddie Vazquez (HARC), Ian Sutherland (for Marc Witkin, CLASSICS), Brett Millier (ENAM), Stefano Mula (COMPLIT), Jenn Ponder (DANCE), Matty Woodruff (PHIL) ; LIS: Andy Wentink (Co-Chair), Carrie Macfarlane, Steve Bertolino, Jess Isler, Joy Pile; Absent: Louise Stein (FMMC); Representative from Studio Art (to be appointed)

Meeting was called to order at 12:15 by LIS Co-Chair Andy Wentink, who welcomed the group, reviewed meeting protocols, and requested members to introduce themselves. He announced that there was a change in the agenda. Video Recording/Storage Issues would be discussed first, since Claudio Medeiros, who proposed the agenda item, needed to leave early.

Agenda Items:

  1. Video Recording/Storage issues
  2. Moodle and Course Hub Implementation
  3. LIS/Faculty communications
  4. Liaison Program
  5. Need for more faculty carrels in library

 

1. Video Recording/Storage issues

Claudio voiced concern about the organization and storage of performed work by Theatre majors, including senior projects, performances, etc.

  • To date, most work has been recorded by faculty or students with equipment within the department, resulting in inconsistent, often poor, quality recordings with limited pedagogical value
  • Even with equipment borrowed from Media Services recordings made by Theatre students/staff/faculty with limited experience resulted in poor quality
  • What he wants from LIS is: the technical equipment and qualified personnel to create high quality recordings of enduring pedagogical value
  • The ability to store, catalog. And provide access (including online delivery) to these resources
  • An organizational workflow for scheduling tapings and arranging for professional equipment and qualified staff to operate it
  • Other faculty at the meeting agreed with the potential pedagogical value of producing recordings of student work across the curriculum

Jenn Ponder: The Dance Program has developed an efficient workflow for recording procedures; they would be happy to discuss with Theatre (interdepartmental communication)

  • Dance has made arrangements with Special Collections for depositing those sections of their archives not currently being used in the curriculum, where they will be cataloged and archived; plans for digitizing these recordings

Andy Wentink: Special Collections already archives Theatre, Dance, FMMC ; SC would be pleased to work out an archiving schedule for analog media recordings; digital files currently are not the purview of SC; at present, MiddMedia is most probably the appropriate place for archiving digital recordings;  will have to check with IT

Other questions raised:

  • Method of online delivery of media resources – iTunes–type streaming coming, but not yet available
  • How to transfer already existing analog recordings to digital
    • student assistants in DANCE and FMMC currently render this service
    • LIS offers training for faculty/staff/students from digital media tutors

Question of intellectual property/copyright was raised

  • Discussion of where fair use ends and copyright infringement begins
  • Creating archival copies was discussed: copyrighted analog recordings no longer in any other currently supported formats are transferred to DVD
    • These recordings are available for research and teaching with the proviso that the archival DVDs are used only in the Library, although exceptions to the rule might be considered under extraordinary circumstances
    • Carrie Macfarlane said she would look into this practice and report back to the Group
    • The question was raised regarding limited access (e.g., campus only) not only to the above resources but to student-generated works as well

Conclusions: 1) The discussion confirmed the value of enhanced inter-divisional communication in these Group meetings; 2) the role of LIS in resolving these issues will be raised; 3) these detailed minutes will be reported to FLAC and posted to the Blog for other Divisional Groups to review

2. Moodle and Course Hub Implementation

There was consensus that other than for the Faculty Test Group in the Spring, faculty was not happy with the Moodle/Course Hub implementation process; Faculty felt that they were not given the appropriate tools to implement new course sites in time for the Fall 2011 Semester

Librarians in attendance agreed that the training timeline, complicated by schedule conflicts for faculty and LIS staff,  and that addressing the challenge of training for faculty at different levels of preparedness, was problematic. Faculty was reminded that ongoing Moodle training was available in workshops offered by Alex Chapin and Bryan Carson and in tutorials offered by Lynda.com.  Carrie Macfarlane acknowledged the scheduling challenges.

Question was asked: when would be a good time for training? One complicating factor was the late finalization of the contract with Remote-Learner the Moodle vendor.

3.  LIS/Faculty communications

The above segued into a discussion of LIS/Faculty communications

Mary Ellen Bertolini questioned the efficacy of LIS faculty communication with faculty. There was consensus among the faculty that

  • the “language” used by LIS in attempting to reach everyone who needs to be reached;
  • faculty are not likely to respond to generic subject lines, e.g., “Updates from LIS”
  • Louisa Burnham suggested and others concurred that faculty prefer subject lines that directly address important issues, e.g., “Are you reaching all students in Moodle?” or. “New Research Sources Available”

Mary Ellen Bertolini suggested creating a Moodle listserv to improve communication between LIS and Moodle users. There was wide approval of this recommendation among the group.

Nevertheless, most members of the group agreed that old habits/routines/lines of communication are hard to break, and many still bypass new procedures instituted by LIS and go directly to LIS staff they have worked with over years for LIS updates

4. Liaison Program

A discussion of the efficacy of the Liaison program ensued.

Continuing from the above discussion, Holly Allen initiated a discussion in which there was consensus that faculty appreciate and have had rewarding experiences with the Liaison program, especially in regard to the pedagogical value of librarians providing library orientation and research methods classes for FYSE, Jr. & Sr. thesis students, collection development, course page and, in some cases, syllabus creation.

There was agreement, however, that many faculty members have difficulty understanding the value of the “Primary Liaison” model, especially regarding technology issues, which they see as an impediment to direct and immediate access to expert LIS staff who have proved helpful in the past.

Librarians responded that contacting Primary Liaisons is not mandatory.  Faculty should be aware of these contacts especially for circumstances in which they don’t know whom to contact.

There was a recommendation for Librarians/Primary Liaisons to put other members of Liaison teams on departmental Subject Guides. Librarians recommended in turn, that faculty include their liaisons on their departmental pages

5. Need for more faculty carrels in library

Matty Woodruff raised the following issue:

“There is an urgent need for more faculty carrels in the library. Faculty members are always under pressure to ‘publish or perish.’  The expectations for publishing to get tenure have increased here. Hence the need for faculty members to have library carrels has also increased.

In my experience, a library carrel for a Humanities professor can be as important as a lab is for a Science professor: the essential space for research that leads to publishing that is required for tenure and promotion. A library carrel is far less expensive than a full lab. Yet there is a shortage of faculty carrels in the library and a waiting list of professors trying to get one.

By adding a door to a suite of already existing desks on the upper level of Davis Library, one could efficiently and inexpensively add another room of much needed faculty carrels. I’d be glad to show you what I have in mind.”

There was broad support among faculty for this suggestion.

6. Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 1:25 p.m.

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Items for Consideration from May 2009 meeting of the Languages Group http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/2009/07/22/items-for-consideration-from-may-2009-meeting-of-the-languages-group/ http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/2009/07/22/items-for-consideration-from-may-2009-meeting-of-the-languages-group/#comments Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:18:54 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/?p=50 Continue reading ]]> These questions were raised in the Languages Advisory Group’s May 2009 meeting.

What is the policy on PC to Mac switch (for faculty)?

If the faculty member’s primary computer is due for upgrade, s/he can choose from either of our standard models, Windows or Mac, for her/his new primary computer.  If the end of the four-year replacement cycle has not yet been reached, and there is a desire to switch platforms, LIS will do what we can within budget limits to meet the request, but we cannot always guarantee that we can supply a brand new model.  LIS is committed to providing all faculty with the equipment they need for their teaching and research, within the limitations of the budgets we have available.

What’s the upgrade schedule for XP to Vista?

There is no upgrade schedule to Vista.  LIS has decided leap-frog over Vista and go directly to Windows 7 when the time is appropriate.  We have ordered all new equipment to date with a downgrade to Windows XP Pro with service pack 3.  Our reasoning:  Vista introduced too many challenges to our support structure and to our end users.

What’s faculty equipment replacement schedule going forward in the new fiscal climate?

There is no change to the LIS replacement schedule.  The replacement cycle is based on a four-year deployment.  The only caveat is that LIS will more closely scrutinize requests for any additional machines (i.e., beyond the standard “one primary computer per faculty/staff member.)

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Items for Consideration from May 2009 meeting of the Sciences Group http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/2009/05/26/items-for-consideration-from-the-sciences-may-2009-meeting/ http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/2009/05/26/items-for-consideration-from-the-sciences-may-2009-meeting/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 15:22:33 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/?p=48 Continue reading ]]> –THIS PAGE WILL NOT BE UPDATED ANY FURTHER–

These are questions and suggestions that were raised in the Sciences Advisory Group’s May meeting.

Web Makeover:

  1. When will LIS will provide each department with its inventory of pages?
    Outcome: We are reviewing and sorting the inventory lists of more than 50,000 url’s from the current web site, and will be asking each department to review our lists and edit them so that we have an accurate inventory by the third week in June.

  2. Will departments get usage data (# of visits, eg) to assist with decisions on what to transfer to new site?
    Progress:
    Carrie is finding out to whom this question can be directed.
  3. Will the archived old system’s data be available so that at a subsequent time it will be accessible in order to transfer content from old site?
    Outcome: We have not yet determined for how long we will archive the old system’s data, but we will archive it for some period to be determined.
  4. There was a question about intellectual property.  Will someone be checking content to be sure it can be shared? For example, PDFs of articles, names of students.
    Outcome: The copyright guidelines in the college handbook are there to assist people to make this determination.  The handbook also has guidelines on sharing student records.  It is not our policy to review posted material unless we are notified that there is a problem.

  5. There was a recommendation that LIS should provide specific advice about whether and how to post PDFs of articles, names of students, etc. Perhaps put this advice in the workbook to be distributed to faculty and academic offices.
    Outcome:
    See answer to #4, above.  Carrie is inquiring about the “workbook,” too.

Segue:

  1. There will be a blog for updates on the Segue transition. The URL will be shared when it’s available.

Student Research and Technology Orientation Discussion

  1. Carrie and Matt will meet to discuss next steps, and share recommendations with group. Next steps might include gathering and sharing impressions with other advisory groups.
    Progress: Carrie and Matt met, Carrie will write a summary to share with the group.
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Items for Consideration from February 2009 meeting of the Sciences Group http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/2009/05/20/sciences-items-for-consideration-22309/ http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/2009/05/20/sciences-items-for-consideration-22309/#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 16:42:04 +0000 http://sites.middlebury.edu/lisadvisors/?p=41 Continue reading ]]> –THIS PAGE WILL NOT BE UPDATED ANY FURTHER–

These are questions and suggestions that were raised in the Sciences Advisory Group’s February meeting.

1. Are there portable classroom solutions, eg, a portable smartboard which provides projection & writing surface?
Outcome: There is little funding now.  Carrie forwarded request to Shel for future consideration.

2.  Investigate Wacom tablets rather than tablet pc’s
Outcome:

  • There is little funding now
  • Shel says, “I have a Wacom tablet that any of you are welcome to try. I tried it out a couple of years ago and came to the conclusion that it was too imprecise and clutzy for my purposes. My opinion is that a tablet pc is a much better solution, albeit a much more expensive one.”
  • Ethan Murphy says, “We have a couple of the newer Wacom cintiq tablets that we use for animation and illustration. If anyone would like to try them out to compare them to the tablet pc we would be happy to help.”

3.  In 3 of 4 classrooms in Warner, switching to a non-computer source produces a black(blank) screen so that you can then raise the screen and write on the board.  In the other room (202 or 203), you get a bright blue screen.
Progress: HelpDesk responded: Can you give me some more details about which rooms have a blue screen? We have tried to switch ( if possible ) to a black screen though I believe some projectors do not have this option. We are in the process of including a ’screen blanking option’ in a newer programming change which will ultimately include all rooms.
Outcome: Frank checked the rooms. Good news! The projection has been either replaced or repaired. None of the rooms seems to do this anymore!  Carrie updated HelpDesk: Problem solved! Thanks!

4. Nwftp looks like an advertisement for netware and one of the links gets you to netstorage
Outcome: One side effect of the DFS project will be a replacement for Netstorage; shouldn’t have this problem after the changeover!

5.  Fix certificate issue.
Progress: Will check to see if anything has been done to remedy the problem.

6. HelpDesk could provide more assistance to users trying to access midd_secure.
Outcome: This will be brought up at next HelpDesk meeting

7. Biology had a request for a few classrooms to be converted to smart rooms.  Might these rooms be converted next year? Or are they out of the queue for good?
Outcome: The request still stands, but it is extremely unlikely to be filled in the next 2-3 years. There will most likely not be money available next year to add any new smart classrooms, and then additions will be slower after that.

8. Do not get rid of the Classes server and course folders. Please retain simple, non-Segue solutions.
Outcome: With the DFS project, LIS won’t get rid of Classes.  LIS will just move its function/files to a new server environment with equal capabilities and function.  We understand the virtues of a basic file server, and it is good to know that it is still useful and relevant for some.

9.  Students storing large data files cannot get the speed for read/writes that they need from Tigercat.
Outcome: This issue may be alleviated by the DFS project as load will be distributed amongst more servers

10.  Would it be possible for LIS to provide automatic file backups, similar to what the backup server in BiHall does?
Outcome: Someone should be able to come up with a creative solution to sync files to Tigercat or the new DFS environment in the future. There are external offerings that will be able to accomplish this type of function too.  Revisit this later.

11.  Track software updates in labs. Two issues:  a) All labs should have the same version of a piece of software so that classes can be scheduled in any lab that has the software, and b) License expirations should anticipated so that compatibility issues can be addressed before an old version disappears.
Progress: Shel will check on this.

12.  Revisit process for network computer registration.
Outcome: LIS is investigating other options.

13. LaTeX intro/support workshop for students would be useful (maybe Dave Guertin)
Outcome: Dave Guertin would be happy to provide LaTeX workshops.  Would need some notice to allow for preparation.  Carrie will share this with Sciences group.

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