Computing & Information Services
Computing Policy Committee Meeting Minutes
November 16, 2007
3:00 - 4:00 PM, ETC 309
Committee members in attendance: Aki Miyoshi, Marty Ringle, Christine Morita-McVey, Alex Botero-Lowry, Vickie Hanawalt, Marat Grinberg, Jon Rivenburg, Ed McFarlane, Gary Norbraten, Jim Fix, Leslie Limper, Paul Hovda, Sonia Sabnis, Karen Perkins-Butzien, Nora McLaughlin as guest for email as official communication discussion.
Welcome and introductions.
Jim Fix called the meeting to order at 3:05 pm.
The minutes of the September 21, 2007 meeting were approved with two corrections: “no students have been referred to the judicial process [to] date.” and “legislation pertaining to funding cuts for non-compliance will may go before the House this year as part of the re-authorization of the Education Act.”
Email as means for official communication to employees, students, others (documents attached)
Jim Fix noted that in the spring of 2004 the CPC considered this topic and mentioned that the registrar’s office already uses email for some communications. Nora McLaughlin stated that most of the email communications from the registrar’s office are generic notifications and that her office is careful of what is sent by email. Nora clarified that the registrar’s office sends email to targeted groups such as all seniors with a thesis deadline. Nora noted that the web and IRIS are more secure communication methods and that her office is more likely to direct students to these sources than to increase their use of email messages. Marty Ringle noted that if email were deemed an official mode of communication at Reed, faculty and staff would be expected to check their email regularly. Nora responded that if this expectation were made clear through the user agreement, the onus would be on the community member to use it or to notify the college that they don’t use it. Paul Hovda asked why this issue is before the CPC? He wondered why each office couldn't make it’s own determination. Marty responded that the matter was referred to CPC several years ago by the Senior Staff in order to elicit a recommendation applicable to all offices. If individual offices established different, possibly inconsistent, policies on electronic communication methods the result could be very confusing for students and others.
Alex Botero-Lowry noted that some official communication is already sent by email and that the CPC could also include a caution about privacy and email security. Karen Perkins-Butzien noted that faculty have been moving to email communication already but pointed out that there may be concerns about confidential materials. Jon Rivenburg agreed, mentioning that Reed’s attorney has discussed paper backups for sensitive materials and that this topic should be incorporated into the policy. Alex also raised the issue of forwarding to outside servers where official communication could be marked as spam and not read. Jim Fix voiced his expectation that if email is forwarded to a different address, that community member is responsible for reading it. Marty Ringle commented that Reed students are increasingly forwarding their email, noting that CIS cannot ensure that email will reach recipients if they are using external providers. Ed McFarlane responded that this issue is similar to being unable to guarantee that recipients of paper mail open and read it. Ed suggested that an email policy should include a statement about having members of the community regularly check their mail.
Jim suggested looking at the policies of other colleges. Marty referred the committee to email policies collected from other colleges document 3 years ago and endorsed Ed McFarlanes suggestion that a policy recommendation should include a statement that staff, faculty and students are expected to monitor their email. Gary Norbraten stated that some staff do not have access to computers and thus do not sign the user agreement. Gary suggested that their supervisors could handle these communications. Marty clarified that in order to use computing resources other than email kiosks, Reed community members must sign a user agreement. Sonia Sabnis noted that if email accounts are automatically created, then email could be sent to individuals who do not receive them. Marty responded that some faculty members have encountered this situation with students, though not in recent years.
Alex Botero-Lowry observed that since there have been no complaints or issues relating to the lack of an official email policy, we are attempting to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. He moved that the discussion of a policy for "email as official communication" be removed from consideration. There was no second of this motion.
Vickie Hanawalt suggested informing community members about the college's user of email as an information point within the user agreement. Vickie also advocated including a comment about confidentiality, as was done in the Hamilton College policy. Jim Fix suggested that a statement be drafted to incorporate the issues raised in the discussion so that the committee could react to specific wording. Gary Norbraten suggested this draft be made available by the December meeting. Paul Hovda and Marty Ringle agreed to work with Jim Fix to draft language on this topic and bring it to the December CPC meeting.
Change in file backup regimen (document attached)
Marty Ringle informed the CPC that CIS is changing the backup and retention policy for academic servers only. The backup regimen will drop from 12 to 6 months. The rapid increase in materials stored on academic servers is going to necessitate a sizable investment in hardware unless the regimen is changed. Marty pointed out that we have never encountered a retrieval request going back more than a few weeks, hence the 6 month regimen should be more than adequate to meet our needs. There were no questions and the committee expressed no concerns about the change.
Jim adjourned at 4:00 p.m.
The remaining agenda items (below) were deferred to the next meeting.
- Instructional technologist recruitment
- Moodle pilot program status
- Reed's participation in the NITLE consortium
- Summary of faculty use of technology and its support
