The meeting began with a round of progress reports.

SAK noted he’s preparing for the migration from Assessment Tool 4 (AT4) to AT 6.  He identified a problem with a lack of historical netid files and will pursue this issue further for the ISO.

The group noted the redundancy in some of the principles’ responses and suggested alternatives for handling cross-references among the documents.  Serenity will handle on a case-by-case basis in editing.

Another principle “retreat” is scheduled for 10 May from 9 to 5 in ECCS 3503.  Included will be Student Affairs, Undergraduate and Graduate Education, and some historical view of policy and procedure.  Invited are Donna Rogers, Sue Sherbet, Michael Coleman, Austin Cunningham, Wanda Trotta, Lawrence Redlinger, Murray Leaf, Priscilla Beadle, John Wiorkowski, John Ferraris, and the team.

Dr. Reed discussed a handout on “improving progress assessment processes.”

Random bits included tagging documents in the dox library, smart-tags for the CCR documents, and the search tool for AT6.

Progress Reports

1. Ms. King reported that there are 175 support documents waiting to be tagged. She reported on the status of the narratives for the Compliance Certification Report (CCR).
2. Ms. Metcalf reported that she has received 91% of the syllabi. The last round of emails went out and syllabi are coming in. She also reported on the Credential Tool: All files are in and entered. This week she has primarily been working on subsequent steps which involve clean up and refinement of the file for the next phases. She has also been assisting with dox duties. Ms. Metcalf reported that she met with Simon and Dr. Buhrmester regarding options for document storage.
3. Dr. Coleman reported that he has turned in his material.
4. Mr. Huckaba continues reviewing documents.
5. Ms. Griffith is completing work on her Access database.
6. Ms. Alsobrook reported that she has been checking documents for credentials, cleaning up documents and helping Mr. Gaddis re-tag documents with the correct tag information. She has been checking the credential tool and sending e-mails to those who has not submit their documents. She met with Aaron Simpson and Mary Dziorny regarding the e-learning website to discuss the work that is being done. She is checking the Assessment Tool 6 (AT6) daily and so far not many people have started their plans. She has sent the AT6 link to people who have to write their assessment. Most of her time has been spent working with the distance learning website. She has spent a lot of time doing research in preparation for writing the distance learning report for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) (locating the policy, supporting documents, etc) and doing the actual writing of the report
7. Mr. Gaddis has continued to tag credential material as needed. He also converted to .pdf and tagged supporting documents for u209, u337, u338, u339, u325, u326, u328, and u329.
8. Dr. Reed attended the American Education Research Association (AERA) conference from Wed through Friday in Chicago. She was on the program as an author of a paper on online learning: Exploring Computer-Mediated Discussion With Different Theoretical Lenses: What Can Be Learned From a Complex, Adaptive Systems Perspective? She continues work on program assessment and has developed a method of charting progression. She contacted most of her program heads and conducted a core course assessment workshop for Dr. Elliot. Through the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) she has responded to department heads about faculty client reports.
9. Dr. Bernardin attended the SACS Steering Committee meeting last Wednesday. He spoke with Bob Glosser and Xinchou Lou from the Physics Department to relay Dr. Nelsen’s answer to their question about the budget in their annual reports. He made additions to his section of (U320) of the CCR. He reports using AT6 to view the latest 2007 Program Plan inputs. There is not a lot of activity happening yet. He has modified the Program Plan permissions of Joanne Owens, Cy Cantrell, Sandi Wilson and Mary Chaffin in AT6. He has learned to “APE” users in AT6. This is very useful if you want to see an individual’s current permissions in AT6.
10. Mr. Kane reported the AT6 is flowing along. He will meet with our team of reviewers to discuss the functions.

Summer Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) Conference

The Summer QEP Conference will take place July 22-25, 2007 and will be held in Louisville. There was discussion of who will attend. Dr. Nelsen, Dr. Sibert, Ms. Metcalf, Dr. Coleman and Mr. Kane will attend. Mr. Huckaba may also attend.

QEP Committee

Dr. Sibert discussed the formation of the QEP Committee. The committee will represent all schools across our campus. This will be a dynamic group open to new ideas. Committee members from the UTD Faculty, Staff, Administration and Student Body were proposed for discussion.

Program Assessments and May 30 deadline

The committee discussed the approaching deadline for program assessments. Dr. Reed and Dr. Bernardin continue to meet with several school and programs.

July 16-18 Viability

The committee discussed the upcoming mock review. There was a discussion regarding the amount of documents that have been received and a discussion of what should be ready by the date of the mock review. The committee then discussed having a group review process, a group discussion of where does the document exist, what is missing, and locating the information. Mr. Huckaba suggested having the key players come together to review what is needed and the location of the needed information, a sort of mini retreat .A list of names was created of those to invite to this “mini retreat”.

Program Objectives and Progression

Dr. Nelsen discussed the checklist Dr. Reed has created to show progression of the program objectives. The checklist will be handed out at the Dean’s Caucus meeting scheduled for Thursday, April 19th.

Program Objectives on the Web

There was a discussion of the program objectives on the web. These objectives are what will be assessed in the next assessment cycle. The Graduate Dean and the Undergraduate Dean are owners of the web page.

…Julie Allen

Executive Committee Meeting - 7 March 2007

Liaison Nelsen indicated we needed to focus on the bottlenecks and try to find ways to break through. Serenity talked about the documents for certification reports (CCR’s). Pete discussed program assessment progress. Mont talked about the credentialing tool master file. Abby mentioned trying to finalize faculty credentials with General Studies. Metta talked about her work on credentials for support service teams. JoyLynn mentioned ongoing work with EPPS and AH. Diane mentioned finalizing a list of graduate TA’s who needed documents for credentialing as faculty. Simon continues to work on the new assessment tool. The remainder of the meeting included a review of the calendar and deadlines that need adjustment.

The group gathered again this morning. Topics included:

1. Staff Credentials: What degrees and/or certificates are required for the different staff positions? Group agreed that using the job description(s) and job announcement(s) would provide the best guidelines. For Follow-up: What process (and who gets involved) in keeping staff credentials current? Need to discuss with HRM.
2. Assessment Tool: Clearly the current subscription tool is not meeting our specific needs. We’re able to use it, but we’re having to make decisions based on functionality rather than true assessment need and protocol. SAK will modify new tool alpha for further testing and development. We’ll need to clean up data during transition between tools.
3. AT rollout: Potentially 3rd week of March for full bang-on-it testing. User access 26 March?
4. Core Curriculum Assessment: Discussion re: how to handle sections not assessed in a timely manner.
5. System Course Re-Design: Sibert provided update on meeting.

The agenda was simple enough (deceptively so):

1. Progress Reports
2. Deadlines
3. Priority List
4. Meeting with Steering Committee & President

Okay, we didn’t cover #4, but suffice it to say the Steering Committee is meeting with President Daniel next weekfor a lunch meeting.  It’s a chance for Dr. Daniel to inspire (or scare or encourage or dare or — pick a verb –) the troops.  It’s also a chance for us all to sit around and talk about the priorities facing us sooner rather than later.

 As for the rest of the meeting, the progress reports were fairly normal:  we’ve got this, we’re missing this, and we’re focusing on this.  Serenity is closing on the style guide, and Simon is gearing up to update the dox library tools.  John Sibert has altered his strategy a bit for working with groups on introducing the QEP with the development of a more interactive activity that could/should include a topic submission from a group or groups within the larger group of attendees.  (Way to go!)

On deadlines, hey, we have some.  We will start farming those out and seeking the feedback about what is and is not workable.  Deadlines are flexible, but only to a point.  We have a drop-dead date that has no flex in it at all.

As for the priority lists, Robert Nelsen asked for anyone to offer his/her own view of the project’s priorities, not just the team priority or the individual priority.  The discussion was interesting.  Essentially, we echoed what we voiced recently:  We need to focus on the bigger issues, do what we can with the smaller issues, and accept that occasionally some things just won’t happen the way we want. 

Oh, and by the way, Ramona Metcalf joined us today for her first day.  Her first day has included, thus far, two meetings already.  Not a normal first day, even for SACS.