COAS TECHNOLOGY PLAN APPROVED BY THE TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE AND FORWARDED TO THE DEAN AND FACULTY FOR ADOPTION COAS Technology Plan 1. Vision for COAS Technology (5-year plan) 4/6/04 COAS students and faculty must have access to technology appropriate to a research university 2. Minimum Technology Requirements There shall be I. A minimum of one wired network connection in all COAS offices and classrooms. COAS should work towards wireless connectivity in all buildings for instructional purposes. II. A working computer with Internet access for every faculty member including instructors. III. All faculty and staff including adjuncts should have @howard.edu accounts and access to Email and library services. IV. Smart carts or smart rooms for every COAS building as soon as possible, with the goal of a smart cart for each department. Minimum equipment includes a computer, a projector, a video tape machine and a DVD player. V. Projection screens in every COAS classroom. VI. A telephone with an answering machine for each faculty member. 3. Students and Technology I. Computer/Technology Laboratories A. COAS will establish and maintain computer facilities for students in Locke and Douglas Halls. B. COAS will assist with support for established computer facilities for students in the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Psychology. II. Library Resources A. All COAS students and faculty should have access to state of the art library technology. This includes but is not limited to software, hardware and other technical resources in furtherance and support of teaching and research. Examples are online databases, electronic library consortia, scholarly journals, and publications and relevant website and Internet listings. B. Subscriptions to appropriate journals, publications and resources as well as society and association memberships should be initiated and/or maintained in furtherance of these goals. 1
C. Faculty and students should be kept up to date on changes in, and improvements to library technology as well as any other appropriate information in this regard. Basic information should be available on an easily accessible web site D. Immediate and continuing technical assistance to access and use library technology is needed. This may be provided through a help desk and telephone resources, email response and instant relay chat facilities. In addition, ongoing workshops, seminars and specialized training should be provided as needed to faculty and students to ensure the optimal utility of all aspects of library technology. E. Maintenance, enhancement and updating of all networks, system and application software, databases and resources in support of library technology should be ongoing. F. Surveys and studies should be performed on a regular basis by appropriate library personnel to ensure that the library technology provided to Howard University s students and faculty is competitive with that of other universities of comparable rank. III. Software, Visual Media, Recordings A. It will be suggested that CETLA maintain updated and comprehensive lists of available teaching resources 4. Faculty and Staff I. Training and Support A. BANNER training is provided by ISAS. COAS will work with ISAS to arrange for BANNER training for new faculty at the beginning of the Fall term. This training will also be available for other faculty as desired. B. Training for Blackboard is done through CETLA. C. Training for FRS, Physical Facilities Systems, etc. are provided by the University. D. COAS will provide a booklet summarizing available technology and technology training at the University. The booklet will list 1. University software site licenses and license packages and points of contact 2. Administrative software, training sources and technical contacts (FRS system, etc.) 3. Teaching systems, training sources, and technical contacts (Banner, Blackboard, etc.). 4. Appropriate free and shareware programs and where to obtain them. E. As part of new faculty orientation COAS will provide an overview of technology resources. There should be a brief listing of major resources on the COAS web site. II. Equipment A. All faculty must have a computer with internet access. B. All staff should have access to computers with INTERNET access. C. All faculty and staff, including temporary/adjuncts should have a Howard Email account, and access to library and other University on line services. 2
III. Software A. The University through ISAS maintains a number of software licenses. These include 1. Microsoft OS and applications software 2. Applications software for teaching such as Blackboard 3. Application software for research and teaching such as SPSS and Mathematica 4. A listing of these resources can be found at http://www.cetla.howard.edu/softwareresources.htm B. The College and Divisions of the College should continually review these licenses and determine whether additional licenses are needed. Where appropriate recommendations for COAS to purchase additional licenses should be made through the Technology Committee. C. The Technology Committee should annually survey software and hardware available in COAS and to COAS students and faculty. This information should be available to all members of the College D. In no case shall ANY unlicensed software be stored on ANY university computer or any personal computer owned by faculty on University property. 5. Technology and Teaching I. Classroom Technology A. Smart Carts 1. The AV unit should provide a smart cart (with an LCD projector, laptop, and VCR/DVD) for each COAS building. B. Smart Rooms 1. Every Smart Room should have a maintenance contract. 2. Every Smart Room should require password authentication for access (via smart cards ). C. Wired or Wireless Classrooms 1. Classrooms in all COAS classroom buildings should have a minimum of one wired connection (for the instructor). 2. COAS should work toward providing wireless connections for students. D. Teaching Labs 1. COAS should immediately seek a naming gift to erect its own computer classroom (a lab with 40 workstations, a built-in LCD projector, a Smartboard, and Internet connectivity). 2. During the academic year, ISAS should reserve the high-tech rooms in the i-lab for faculty so that they can sign up, as needed, to teach in those rooms. (Each professor may reserve a room for three consecutive lessons.) 3
3. Every COAS building should have one or more Specialty Labs (e.g., a writing center, graphics lab, language lab) to be maintained by means of a course lab fee. II. Distance Learning A. Percentage of Online Courses 1. Every division should offer at least one online course per semester starting in the fall of 2005. 2. Every department should strive to offer at least one online course per semester. 3. The percentage of online courses should not exceed 10% of a department s offerings each semester. B. Enrollment 1. Enrollment in online courses should be by instructor s permission only. 2. Students with physical or learning disabilities should have priority in enrolling in online courses. 3. Fall semester courses for freshmen should not go online. C. Faculty Preparation 1. Faculty who wish to teach online must have prior training. 2. Faculty are entitled to a course reduction for course preparation during the first semester that they teach a distance-education course. D. Class Size 1. The maximum class size for online courses should not exceed their on-campus maximum without the written consent of the instructor. 2. Under no circumstances should the cap for online writing-intensive courses exceed 20. E. Course Marketing 1. COAS should publicize online courses via media that target out-of-town students as well as full-time workers and parents who could not ordinarily attend H.U. F. Intellectual Property 1. The content of online courses is governed by the intellectual property policy of the University. G. Technical Support III. Training 1. Faculty teaching online courses will receive same-day technical support from ISAS or the College s Technology Specialist. A. The Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CETLA) offers workshops on how to teach with technology. 4
B. Founders Library should schedule workshops on how to incorporate web-based research in the curriculum. C. Additional training will be provided by the COAS Faculty and Staff Training Center. 6. Technology and Research I. Technology to Support Publications and Conference Presentations A. COAS staff computers all have copies of Adobe Professional for preparing pdf files. Departments should make this available to faculty who need to create pdf files. B. Faculty should also be aware of shareware products for producing pdf files and the use of MSOffice products to do so. C. Large frame printers are available across campus for producing posters. II. Mathematical Software A. Statistical Tools 1. The University has a site license for SPSS. COAS will work with ISAS to support continuation of this license. 2. The University has a 50 seat license for SASS. COAS will work with ISAS to extend the number of seats. 3. COAS will support continuation and expansion of these licenses B. Symbolic Algebra Tools 1. The University has a site license for Mathematica. 2. COAS will support continuation of this license. III. Computer Security A. It is vital that all computers attached to the University network have up to date anti- Virus protection B. The University has a sufficient number of seats for Norton Anti-Virus on University owned computers. B. This MUST be installed on all COAS computers and virus definitions kept up to date. C. COAS will work with ISAS to support licenses for faculty owned computers and continuation of this license. 7. Technology, the College and the Outside World I. Hosting College and Departmental Web Sites A. The College will host departmental web sites as needed. Departments may provide their own servers, but every department or program must have a web site. B. Department and program web sites must provide 1. Contact information for the department or program, including address, telephone and an Email contact. 5
II. III. IV. 2. Information for visitors on how to reach the department s main office. This can be done by linking to directions for reaching the university http://www.howard.edu/administration/parking/directions.htm and the campus map http://howard.edu/library/campusmaps/ 3. A list of all faculty and staff. At a minimum the web site should provide Email addresses for all personnel. Office telephone numbers should be listed unless there is some pressing reason for them not to be made public. 4. A link to information for the academic program and course description areas of the on line bulletin. http://www.provost.howard.edu/provost/bulletin2/v2courses_home.htm. 5. A description of all undergraduate academic programs. 6. A name and Email address for the person responsible for web site content Doing Business on the Web A. Notification of meetings and other COAS business will be by Email. Information for faculty and staff will be sent by Email. B. It is the responsibility of all faculty and staff EITHER to use their @howard.edu account or provide an alternate Email account to the COAS through their department. C. Departments are responsible for registering new faculty and staff with ISAS @howard.edu accounts. D. Distribution of documents to large numbers of recipients (faculty or staff) will hide the address list using bcc (blind carbon copy) or an Email exploder. This is a security issue, since virus programs exploit address books. Communicating with Our Students A. Departments are responsible for registering all faculty and staff with the ISAS telephone directory and checking at the beginning of the Fall Semester each year that all entries are correct http://www.hr.howard.edu/webphone/ B. COAS must have access to the preferred Email for all students. Lists should be organized by major for departmental use. The College, departments and faculty will have the right to use relevant data (i.e., departments will have access to a list of their majors and faculty members will have access to lists of students registered in their courses subject to applicable privacy policies and laws.). 1. At the time of registration students will be asked for their preferred email address, which will be entered into the BANNER system. 2. Email addresses will be automatically included in Blackboard registration lists. Communicating with Our Alumni and Friends A COAS working with the alumni office and the University will maintain an updated contact database of alumni. B. Departments are strongly encouraged to set up alumni pages on their web sites. 6