MELA Meeting Minutes 2003 - 2017

i. Christian asked that all schools provide him with the dates that we are planning to conduct proctored exams. He will need to notify Phil with these dates so that they can ensure that they have backup personnel on site to correct potential problems. Proctored exams cause an increase of usage on the Oracle system. They would like to ensure that there are back ups in place during these heavier times. ii. The second option is to try to stagger proctored exams so that one school offers them Monday-Wednesday and others Thursday-Friday. We just need to cut down on the amount of users on the system at one time. iii. He recommended that the mid-term and final exams do not always have to be set as the proctored exams. These seem to be the two peak times for testing. The best solution would be for schools to provide him a listing of when their mid-terms and final exams will be conducted. Jennifer Leimer added that this information can match the dates that mid-term/final grades are due for your traditional courses. iv. Audra Leverton stated that finals are typically the last two weeks of the semester. For this term, you can count the week before Thanksgiving up through the last week of online courses. Christian will have follow-up meeting with Bb to create a five year vision for how we see things moving forward. Currently there are three modifications that they are looking to add (1) SSN Tool, (2) Webdav, and (3) Email prioritization. Christian had those prioritized in the order above; however, he would the association to vote on this prioritization. The SSN tool has been available, but has not been added to production yet. Blackboard had this tool available and wanted to implement it to production during the first week of online courses. Christian did not think it was a wise decision to add another customization during this time, so it is currently available on the testing server. This tool will allow system administrators to correct any SSNs that are in conflict. He originally had Webdav as the second priority due to the roll out of the content system. Webdav is used to pull files from your desktop directly into Blackboards content system. Lastly, he had the Email prioritization. Currently the system sets email prioritization based on alphabetical order of the schools. The problem occurs when a student or instructor switches schools or teaches for multiple campuses. What campus should then become the priority? With email prioritization the association has two options for updating email information in Blackboard. The first is to allow the system administrator to update the information after coordinating with the DLCs from the schools affected. The second is to allow each school to log in and make the changes themselves. The problem is that the school may make the change without consulting the other school. ii. Additional options for communicating with students were discussed. Those included using Wimba Pronto and the messaging option within Blackboard. The only problem with these two options is that students and faculty are so used to using email for communication. iii. Audra Leverton made the motion to make email the second priority over Webdav. Holly Melvin seconded the motion. The motion carried.

c. PRIORITY OF IMPLEMENTATION i.

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