AITAP Meeting Minutes - Thursday, February 05, 2004

Jed Schwendiman-Residence Life, Michael Quiner-WCTS, Varga Fox-Financial Aid, Brian Miner - Admissions, Kathy Yeager-Business Office, Brian Dohe-Conf. & Events, Ron Urban-Registrar, & Sherrie Kamara-WCTS

Agenda Summary

• Video Conferencing: Michael shared a handout showing the use of the video conf. room located in Hunter over the past few years. Michael explained the plan is to phase out the current system as it is old, obsolete and difficult to maintain, and phase in an IP based system. This system would be evaluated first in the training room with other options possible. Varga said she has used it for a conference, and Ron said he has used the system at WWCC for a teleconference that occurs every 6-8 weeks. It would be nice to be able to do the same at Whitman. Michael asked the group to let him know what other video conf. needs they might anticipate..
• AUP Acceptable Use Policy: Michael shared the current AUP with the group and explained the request to delete Page 2, section II f, and add Page 3, section IVd. The request gives Whitman the flexibility to accept or decline a domain based on the relevance to the goals of the College. Brian moved that we accept the change, it was seconded. Ron expressed concern that he had not read the policy completely before we vote on it. Michael explained that the only change is the one item described above. The motion was voted on and approved. Ron asked where in the policy it stated when faculty leave they can keep their account for 1 year but when staff leave they lose their account immediately. Michael said it was not in this policy and that we would find out where it was and let Ron know.
• Credit Card processing: costs the institution a lot. Parents want to pay tuition cost with a credit card and earn miles. The Alumni would like to see it for Alumni trip transactions, Brian Dohe wants it for Dance Lab tuition, Development uses it for gifts but it is a hand entry process.

  Upcoming:

• AIS/current task list: Michael shared the task list for AIS for the next several months and talked briefly about the following points.
  1. Web Advisor-has a new look that is more of the "Whitman" look
  2. W2 forms went out on time, they required a lot of staff hours probably due to the recent Datatel upgrade.
  3. Tuition Discount report seems ok for the business office but Varga and Marilyn are experiencing problems with it and the Totals report.
  4. Codes were an issue for FA. Varga explained that some student codes were not changed for 2003 graduates which causes FA report problems.
  5. On line discussion groups, could this be done on Blackboard?
  6. Online chat-message board, Jed said it would be good for alumni groups, reunion groups to have a place to chat on line. Brian Miner said t they were doing some of this in Admission with perspective students using an outside source host.
  7. R-25 is almost ready. Brian Dohe said it would be great to link it to the calendar when it is ready.
  8. Online Directory, the current system has 2 problems, 1. batch processing every 24 hours information can be out of date. 2. open to the world, a secure check would control access.
  9. Time entry for payroll using Datatel is set to demo sometime in April, federal regulations do not seem to be a problem with the system
  10. Masters report, Varga said it would be really helpful to have this report.
  11. VOIP-Voice over IP, using the internet for phone traffic, is being studied. Jed asked about the bandwidth issues. Michael explained its all part of the feasibility study.
• Other questions included slow internet speeds recently. Michael explained how Kevin can shape the band width for certain uses. Brian Miner said he would run a couple tests for Varga, and then if it was a bandwidth problem on our end we could talk to Kevin about expanding it. Varga asked if the committee had any input on the rating of the project list. Michael explained how it works and that of course the committee can ask for projects and ask about the priority and we will do our best to work with them. Varga asked about WCTS gaining more staff positions. Michael explained that he understood most new positions take approximately 3 years to work out. The case needs to be made and evidence to support it. Part of our effort is the project list with ratings and deadlines.