ISIT Report — December 2007

Issues impacting students and teaching

1. Recommendation to post the textbook ISBNs---on the MBS bookstore's website (the site our campus bookstore uses) has been withdrawn after discussion with Jennifer Caughron at the meeting. The bookstore doesn't think we should make it so easy for students to get their books elsewhere plus the information that will be posted on the site (title, author, edition) will sufficiently detailed enough for students to easily look the books up on other sites. There is also the fact that many of the books are packaged with course packs or special media and the book+extras packages have unique ISBNs different from just the book and instructors and the bookstore often will not know those ISBNs until the books are shipped from the publisher. Our student voice on ISIT also said it was not necessary to post the ISBNs---the other information that will be posted is sufficient to do comparisons. The more important issues of ever-increasing textbook prices and figuring how to get students to take advantage of the small or non-existent lines the two weeks before the semester starts (not procrastinating until the first week of the semester to buy books) are the ones to focus our attention upon.
2. Student email will be outsourced—to a third party sometime in the future to improve service and reliability. The student email address will still have the "bakersfieldcollege.edu" brand and students won't have the advertisements as long as they are registered students. There is the question of how the 3rd party will be notified of the registration status of the students that needs to be worked out.
3. Captioning of distance learning courses, videos, + other digital media—can be done only after a request for accomodation has been received from DSP&S. Funding is available from the state for captioning but Media Services can apply for the funding only after a request is received from DSP&S and DSP&S will only send a request if a student says they need the accomodation. Please contact Kristin Rabe (X4615) if you have questions on this matter!
4. Student-produced educational videos can be posted to "iTunes U"—for free with faculty approval. If you have students creating media products for your class, then check out the Apple iTunes U service. It is a great way for students to get exposure (and for the college and your course to get positive publicity if the media products are high quality!).

Other items of note

1. Wireless access for students on campus—will be coming this academic year. This will be wireless access straight to the internet NOT to the campus network and campus fileservers (so no network drives or network directories). By the beginning of spring semester we will have access points in the Library and conference rooms around campus. Once campus I.S. has experience with that, other access points around campus to the internet (NOT to the campus network and fileservers) will be installed. Eventually, we may have wireless access to our campus network. The wireless acceptable use policy will be incorporated into the computer use policy. Employees + students will use their campus network username/password to get access to the wireless service (but not the campus network drives + directories or have I already mentioned that?).

2. Software purchasing that is not grant-funded will be done through I.S.—to take advantage of volume pricing and any possible educational discounts. Software purchased from grant or categorical funds will still be purchased by the individual departments. The notification and purchasing process is still being worked on with the main issue being the approval process from the manager/director of the unit of the person making the software request.

last update: December 5, 2007

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