LISC Report for Senate Meeting, 3/8/23
LISC met on March 3rd, 2023. We approved minutes from the December 5th meeting and received
updates from the Dean of Libraries, CATLOE (ITLAL), and LISC Chair.
Report from the Chair (Lindsay Van Berkom)
•
Review of LISC charter to recognize CATLOE (formerly ITLAL). Discussion about approach to amend
language to reflect the name change, as well as clarify CATLOE ex officio membership—whether
director or delegate.
•
Shared CNSE reunification documents that were also shared via Senate, some discussion about
protentional implications to Libraries and ITS.
Report from the Libraries (Carey Hatch)
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Renovations –
o Current Periodicals Reading Room – renovations in progress
o Presidents Room – Investigating ways to enhance this space and highlight past university
presidents
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Reorganization – the plan was delivered to the Provost in late March. Discussion scheduled with her
for the end March.
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Campus-wide access to the Wall Street Journal - https://albany.libanswers.com/faq/382011
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CNSE – We have reviewed the current databases that are provided to CNSE via SUNY Poly. We
currently have all resources but one. That one is also required for accreditation of evolving
engineering programs. We have forwarded the cost for the annual subscription to the Provost for
inclusion in our budget next year.
•
University in the High School (UHS) – We are working with UHS and ITS to allow UHS students access
to electronic library resources. Expectation for pilot this summer.
•
Started a new initiative, called Study Sundays, to encourage students to come to the Library on
Sunday’s to prepare for the coming academic week.
o Developing partnerships with Tutoring and Academic Support groups
o Student Affairs – communications
o Looking for others
o This semester is a learning experience to allow us to have greater impact in the fall
Report from ITS (Brian Heaton)
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Windows 10 goes out of support by Fall 2025
o
Beginning to bring awareness to schools/colleges/departments that many of their
workstations will need to be replaced before that time since those won't run Windows 11.
o
Foresee as a potential financial challenge for some schools/colleges/departments, so early
planning is critical.
•
ITS and the Libraries are exploring the idea of reducing the number of student workstations
stationed in the Libraries since our usage data clearly calls for a reduction in that footprint.
•
ITS hired 3 new Research Technology Analysts; they start Monday, 3/6.
o
One position filled a vacancy; the other two are new positions in support of the AI
initiative.
•
Improvements to the general purpose "batch" high performance computing (HPC) cluster
Adding 12 Nvidia A40 GPUs. These were ordered even before Kesh introduced the AI
initiative in response to evolving researcher needs.
o
Also adding 16 nodes (1024 cores) to the general purpose batch cluster to increase capacity
in support of the initiative to centralize HPC resources.
•
Zoom security review
o
ITS is making a recommendation to Academic Affairs (via CATLOE) that we adjust our
security posture at the request of faculty to make it easier for invited, external guests to
join Zoom meetings setup by faculty.
o
The downside is that we are reintroducing the risk of Zoom bombing in our meetings and
classes.
•
AI
o
Several "design and propose" projects are underway
Planning for AI resources to be available when the new AI faculty hires start in the
fall
Planning for a "production" AI system that will utilize most all of the current data
center capacity
Planning to increase the data center capacity
Planning for a "development" AI system
Planning to determine the software stack for the production AI system
An advisory committee to ITS has been formed by Kesh's office
•
Brightspace
o
Pilot and faculty training underway
o
Faculty and staff access granted
o
3rd party integrations are in progress
o
Much more to do in the next few months, but we're on track
Report from CATLOE (Aviva Bower)
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Our Center is now CATLOE, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Learning and Online
Education. The transition seems to have worked without any problems. Johanna Cole, Coordinator
of Online Teaching and Learning, will officially move into our offices on Monday.
•
The Instructional Designer Team is busy working with the transition to Brightspace. They
communicate regularly with the campus community about the transition and opportunities to learn
this new LMS.
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This is our early semester survey season. Instructors can use this service to learn about the student
experience in their courses and make small but meaningful adjustments to their teaching. This is a
way to begin a genuine conversation with students about their learning and your course.
•
CATLOE is about to bring 3 candidates to campus this month and we hope to have a new
instructional consultant hired by April or May.
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A search is underway for an Instructional Designer for Online Programs position to round out our
ranks at CATLOE.
Upcoming LISC Meeting: Tuesday, April 4, 2023
