ISMT Task Force Meeting Notes
November 12, 1999

Present: R. Roberds, R. Amenta, S. Frysinger, J. Herrick, R. Kolvoord, R. McKown, R. Rice, J. Sochacki, J. Steele, G. Taylor, C. Welter, T. Wood, P. Henriksen taking notes.

Absent: R. Abel, G. MacDonald, and C. Talley. A package of proposals that were received to this point was passed out to each member, along with last meeting's notes and the new proposal format.

Opening Remarks: The "goal" description was presented. The term "bring together" was added to the goal statement instead of "integrated" in response to faculty input. Committee responded that "in the basic and applied sciences" should also be removed, and it was.

Report on web site: Web site is set up, but not protected from outside the JMU area. Sixteen people have signed on so far, but there is no discussion going on. We need to prime the pump. Should we post proposals on web site? Need to let people know their proposal would be on there. There are now three ways to fill out the form to submit a proposal. Adobe Acrobat is one format. Another option is to print it out or attach it to an e-mail. The third option is to send it electronically to the Web Board coordinator, Jim. We will need the proposals in hard copy, but it is not clear who will take care of that. Could route the forms to several places. We post all the proposals unless the proposers will not allow it. We should acknowledge all the proposals and thank them for their input. Ideas coming in could be molded into proposals by this committee. We, the committee, are to create the ideas; the proposals and ideas are to help us do that.

We should present our process to people so they know what we are doing. (Tom Wood volunteered to draw up the process that a proposal will follow.) We are soliciting both proposals and ideas. We can solicit both via a dialog on the web board. We, the group, should participate in web board.

The faculty need a straw man to react to in generating their ideas. Proposals could come out first before the discussion. Would be best to have people post their own ideas on web. Call for proposals, prompt full-blown ideas. Ideas on web promote discussion. Could post the ideas we have so far without names. Let those prime the pump. Much discussion ensued on the format and strategy for proposals and ideas on the web board. The consensus seems to be that we should try to have people responding with proposals or just ideas to post these items to the web board. We would not have to distill them and the ideas would show up under the names of the people who generated them. We will however accept ideas and proposals in any format. The specific format for the web board will be to put some guidance on the web board so that people know how to post their ideas. The general destination for the ideas is under the first question. We will also have a place where they can just post ideas.

Have had request to put ideas out. We could put the ideas out now or in January. People might add to the discussion. Waiting until January to stimulate ideas is probably not a good idea. Specific ideas or topics could get ideas going, hence the idea of having one conference for emerging ideas and one conference for posting new ideas that come in. People can reply to each idea. Those people who collected the messages should ask the respondents to post their ideas. The person with the idea would generatea word document and can post it many ways. A running word document was suggested as a quick summary of the ideas. However we will take anything in any format. Some might want to use e-mail to submit, but the default way will be to post on web. Nothing posted to committee is private. Put statement on web page for form submission. Put another statement on web board. Jim should have some help with web board. Need flow chart on information flow. Web board shouldn't be the only source to getting feedback. We need to be proactive.

Next time: Task force members should read proposals and begin to think about criteria that we should use to evaluate the proposals. Proposal format is on the web. Jim Herrick will add a box for the proposer to check if the individual does not want to post it. We should try to evaluate a few proposals and see what happens to help us develop a process and try out our criteria. A little jump ahead will be helpful, anyway, since writing report will be difficult. Editing will be difficult as well.

New Item for Next Week: We should solicit ideas from other areas, other stakeholders. Does each college have an advisory board? CISAT's Executive Advisory Council is going to meet and consider these items. Could suggest to all Deans that they bring our task force's needs before their advisory boards.

Next Meeting: Next meeting will be next Wednesday, November 17th, at 5:00 p.m. in the CISAT Dean's Conference room.