LIS All Staff Meeting Notes

December 19, 2012

Mike noted that the R&R did not have awards for this month since nominations were light and reminded everyone to participate in the nomination process. For a link to the nomination form:  http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/technology/lis/about/recrec/nomination

Mike announced that all the open replacement positions have been approved by the SRC.

Carol announced that Joe Antonioli will be assuming a newly created position as the Senior Curricular Innovation Specialist. In addition to serving as the head of LIS’ curricular technology program, Joe will work closely with Shel Sax, Director of Educational Technology, and will co-lead the liaison program with Carrie Macfarlane

Carrie Macfarlane introduced Kristina Simmons who will be working on a part-time basis for Research and Instruction.

Mike then introduced Tim Spears and James Davis who came to discuss the “cost and relevance” of what it means to be a liberal arts college in the 21st century.  Tim and James have been talking to faculty and will extend discussion to staff and students in the spring.

November 28. 2012

Mike presented the Media Services Group with this month’s Crew of the Month Award.  Congratulations to Petar Mitrevski, Scott Witt, Stewart Lane, Charlie Conway and Danielle Madison.

Petar Mitrevski presented the Employee of the Month award to Danielle Madison.

Mike presented the draft staffing plan:  https://docs.google.com/a/middlebury.edu/presentation/d/1BnTJxjtXJdHQdWm8vLUSlfTAM7M1OFYFM40nSpthQ2w/edit#slide=id.p

Aline Germain-Rutherford joined the group and gave a detailed presentation on Middlebury Interactive Languages (MIL), which provides online languages courses to pre-college students.  Click here for more information on MIL:  http://www.middlebury.edu/mil

24 May 2012 – AD Meeting

Present:  Mike Roy, Mary Backus, Carol Peddie, Chris Norris and Doreen Bernier

The meeting began with some general discussion on the following topics.

Attendance expectations for All LIS Staff meetings – the last meeting yielded low numbers in attendance.  ADs will remind staff that their attendance is expected at these meetings.

Website has been updated to include the AD Team charge.

Summer schedule – vacation and holiday schedules were discussed.  Mike will contact Michael Geisler to discuss closing the library at 5 pm on July 4th.

Optional All LIS Staff Meetings – we talked about the timing of these meetings and it was decided to hold optional informational meetings to once a month and to not hold them during the summer.

The first year for the R&R crew comes to a close on June 30th with new membership starting in July.  Membership will be recruited from past Employee of the Month Award Winners.  It was also decided to only give awards out only during the academic year.  You will hear more from the R&R Crew about an upcoming all-staff potluck in August.

Mike distributed the charge for the “Communications” group to the ADs for discussion.  The charge was approved with slight modifications.  The deadline to identify and define milestones will be June 30th.  Mike will distribute to group members.

Proposal for Penalty Point System proposal has been approved by the ADs for students and staff.  A blog post will be prepared and submitted.

Chris led the ADs through a review and discussion about the Network Monitoring & Incident Response Policy, which will be added to the handbook, after receiving approval from President’s Staff.

Area 51 notes, May 10, 2012

Present:  Mike Roy, Mark Backus, Shel Sax, Chris Norris, Carol Peddie Terry Simpkins and Doreen Bernier

The ADs discussed the timing of conducting the Google/MS Live evaluation.  In order to take into consideration staff workloads, Mike asked the ADs to estimate project timelines/completion dates for major current projects to see when it would be feasible to complete this evaluation.

In anticipation of an upcoming discussion with the Web Team, Terry asked the ADs for input on elements of a new charge for Web Team mark III.  The ADs suggested a number of topics, which Terry will bring to the team for discussion.  On a related note, Chris presented a draft of a team charge for the Security Team to the ADs for approval.  Rather than a list of specific tasks, this charge serves as a sort of “statement of purpose,” which the Team can use on a continuing basis to set goals each year.  This approach might also benefit other teams as well.  After some discussion, the ADs approved the charge and are happy to meet with Team members for follow-up, if desired.

Mary Backus presented a proposal for printer consolidation to review and discuss prior to presenting it to President’s Staff.  ADs were interested in learning more about the money saved and time gained from supporting fewer printers, as well as the criteria for deciding which printers to remove (e.g., distance or easy access to printers, no. of pages printed, etc.)  Mary will provide more information on this.

Chris Norris gave a system level monitoring & availability update, sharing the data compiled in the last 3 months on how College systems are performing.  Over this period of time, systems were performing at 99.81% and not the preferred 99.9%, due to downtimes on systems for a variety of reasons (migration, Middfiles affects, scheduled upgrades, and other planned outages). Some systems of concern are iGreentree, Frontrush, Segue and the MIIS Drupal site. Systems working at 100% were Google, Rave, Cybersource and Blackberry.

Thanks for reading,

Terry & Doreen

Area Director’s Meeting April 12, 2012

Present:  Mike Roy, Carol Peddie, Chris Norris, Mary Backus and Doreen Bernier

The Optional All-LIS Meeting on April 19th will be titled “Customer care and feedback: techniques and tips discussed”, given  by Jess Isler.  It will be held in LIB145 at 3:00.

Last week’s team assessment sessions with Fred Schmitt were discussed.  Teams need clarity and agreement on the following issues:

•     Clarify team charges and scope
•     Communication schedule
•     Prioritization of goals
•     Resources, staffing and budget
•     Clarify roles
•     Team membership, or if we even still need a team

 The Security Team needs a new charge.

Future team assessment will be done on a team by team basis, with open discussion by team sponsor.  Sheila Andrus might be asked to facilitate future meetings.

The rest of the meeting time was devoted to discussing  the results of last week’s team assessment of the AD team and how to use those results to improve the team, moving forward.

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AD meeting Notes from April 5, 2012

Present:  Mike Roy, Shel Sax, Mary Backus, Terry Simpkins and Doreen Bernier

Mary presented to the ADs, a recommendation from Education and Training Team to modify language regarding technology skills for every job description in LIS. The recommended language to be included is as follows:

“Demonstrate proficiency in general computing skills, such as e-mail, word processing, and use of web-based applications and resources.

Ability to operate in a networked computer environment, including the appropriate use of file storage, understanding security best practices, and a willingness and ability to develop new competencies”.

The ADs have approved this language change.  This topic will be brought to the managers for discussion.

The AD Retreat has been cancelled for this month.

Upcoming agenda items:

• Digital scholarship-presentation.conversation with Rebekah Irwin
• Update on MIIS infrastructure project
• Web Team discussion on needs analysis and usability testing activities and a communication/awareness plan to share results and presentation materials to LIS

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AD Minutes from March 29, 2012
Present:  Mike Roy, Mary Backus, Carol Peddie, Chris Norris and Doreen Bernier

Management Training – the next steps.  The ADs talked about how to proceed now that the management training sessions are completed.  How do we apply what was learned to LIS?  This topic will be brought to the Workgroup Leaders at the next Manager’s meeting for discussion.

In January Mike prepared and published  the first LIS Quarterly Report which included highlights of projects over a three month period.  This week Mike distributed his second installment report covering January-March to the ADs for their review.  The report contents were discussed and edits were made to this very comprehensive document.

Reminder to Managers to prepare the Annual Report write-up for their workgroups.  The write-up should be one-page in length and submitted to Doreen Bernier by June 30th.  The deadline for statistics is July 10th.

LIS Blog – How do we communicate newsworthy topics to the community?   This topic will also be brought to the managers to discuss.

Present:  Mike Roy, Carol Peddie, Terry Simpkins, Chris Norris and Doreen Bernier

Also visiting:  Space Team members Hans Raum, Joseph Watson, Todd Sturtevant and Peggy Fischel

The Space Team joined the ADs to discuss plans for the possible use of 118 South Main Street for LIS staff offices.  The Space Team will need to take in consideration office space for new hires for both phase 1 and 2 of the LIS staffing plan, and also plan for the return of the upper level offices for the faculty use.  A tour of the facility will be arranged for the Space Team to see if it could fill our space needs. As mentioned in last week’s AD notes, the lower level of the building is currently available and could house 8-9 staff members.  (To be clear, the decision about whether or not we can use the space is a decision that the campus space committee will make.)

Who handles assessments?   Since Carol has taken on the directorship of Enterprise Applications, who will handle assessments?  Terry will take on all surveys, except for Educause, which Carol will continue to handle.

Annual Reports and Goal Setting for next year.
·         Annual Report:  All written materials need to be submitted by June 30th, with statistics being submitted by July 10th.
·         Goals:  all goals should also be in place by June 30th.  The ADs need to work up “smart” goals for their areas for the coming year.
·         Strategic Directions and Vision:  Time needs to be spent on polishing these documents and making sure they are aligned with the College goals.

Future agenda items:
1. How to communicate to all of LIS what we learned at management training