Minutes of September 11, 1997 FACCUS Meeting
Opening Remarks
Paul Snyder opened the first FACCUS meeting by making a couple of
apologies. First, the timing of the
meeting, the first week
of classes was not good. Paul promised this won't happen
again.
Second, we (Bob Hicks and Paul Snyder) didn't mean to give the impression
in
our notices that FACCUS
was to be IST's
medium to lead the way to better user support. Paul emphasized IST's role
is to provide
support and resources for FACCUS. FACCUS is intended to be
a
resource to those providing user support.
Grace Logan felt the group provided the opportunity to meet others doing
the same job in other faculties.
Background
The drive to start FACCUS was from the UCC 95 Directions Statement,
Recommendation R17 (..provide support, coordination, backup, professional
development and training for staff providing local support).
There is a parallel Admin Support Group, providing planing, training and
information exchange for the Academic Support Units.
Resource to Support Staff
FACCUS activities include planning, collaboration, sharing and training.
The group will focus on user support models, training methods, consulting
tools, documentation and technology. Membership is intended to staff
providing user support in the faculties.
There were questions about membership. Should faculties designate someone
to attend meetings/seminars? It was felt faculites would send as many
staff as possible. The concensus was to keep the group "open".
Proposed Format
The proposed format was to have a planning meeting at the beginning of
each term. IST would facilitate this meeting. There would be monthly
seminars. Volunteers were asked to help schedule these seminars.
There would be a majordomo mailing list and a Web page.
It was felt that the majordomo mailing list could initially be used for
both technical exchange and organizational information. This may change.
Newsgroups were also mentioned, but the general feeling was that a
mailing list was a better alternative.
Seminars
Bob Hicks talked about the types of seminars that could be arranged. Vic
Neglia felt that it would be a good idea to have each faculty talk about
their support model. Bob asked for volunteers to help organize these
monthly seminars. Grace Logan (Arts) and Georgina Russell (Math) and Bob
Hicks will form the first FACCUS Seminar Coordinators Group.
Others are welcome to join the seminar coordinator group.
Other Items
Marj Kohli outlined new items related to site licensed software, including
a CD being sold in the "CHIP" containing poplular software people ask for
at the beginning of a term (Netscape, McAfee, Eudora etc). Lois
Goldsworthy talked about the Microsoft Select Program for students that is
available from the UW Computer Store. Steve Carr gave an update on
Polaris, including the Polaris docuentation available on the Web, at URL
Polaris.
Slides
from September 11th Meeting.