Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Important Dates Fall 2010

Thursday, September 9th, Equipment check out starts on 9th but not before. There are changes that Lori will be announcing soon so please look for her email this week. We will tell students about changes but will need your help to implament the new changes.


Monday, September 27th, Art Center School of Design here for a visit in afternoon / evening NRG Campus. Specific time TBA
http://www.artcenter.edu/accd/index.jsp


Wednesday, October 20th, Jack Reznicki will be lecturing at SPS. Afternoon for ACC students only. Evening is open to public and ASMP members. http://www.reznicki.com/ More info TBA.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Fall 2010 Meeting Information

FALL PRECISION STUDENT DISCOUNT DAY
Tuesday, August 31st during regular business hours 9am-6pm.
LABOR DAY
School closed Monday September 6th
A NEW SERVICE FOR FACULTY AND STAFF: GOOGLE APPS FOR EMAIL
We are pleased to announce that we have an email solution that will provide greatly improved functicity for Austin Community College at the best possible value. Starting immediately, Information Technology will begin the planning and conversion process to move all ACC email and calendar services to Google Apps for Education, a service very similar to that offered to ACC students, but focused to meet the institutional and administrative needs of the college.
This decision was not made lightly. For the past year, a team of faculty and staff at Austin Community College have been evaluating the limitations of the college's current email system and examining alternative systems offered by various vendors. The team spent a great deal of time researching and testing many different email products. They examined the process by which each of these solutions would integrate with ACC’s existing systems and evaluated the expense, both monetary and otherwise, in implementation and support. Feedback was gathered from internal faculty and staff groups, as well as other community colleges and universities, about their email systems. Google Apps rose as the clear leader in every category.
Among other features, the new system will offer greatly expanded online storage; larger attachments; less spam; a better web interface; a calendar that integrates with the email system; online document, chat, audio, and video collaboration; enhanced security; and a contractually guaranteed level of service.
The transition to Google Apps will occur during the Fall Semester 2010. Faculty and staff will retain their current email addresses before, during, and after the transition. For example, if your current e-mail address is mailto:mjones@austincc.edu, it will remain the same after the transition to Google Apps. In the coming weeks and months, we will send out additional information about the new features and services our email system will provide, and instructions and training to help users prepare for the move.
For additional information or questions, please contact Stan Gunn, Associate Vice President for Information Technology, at sgunn@austincc.edu or 223-1200; Richard Smith, Associate Vice President for Instructional Resources/Technology, at rlsmith@austincc.edu or 223- 7667; or Mary Hensley, Executive Vice President, College Operations, at mhensley@austincc.edu or 223-7618.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY
General Assembly will be on Friday, August 20, 2010. Please follow this link for details for the event. http://www.austincc.edu/hr/profdev/events/generalassembly/index.php

ACC STAFF WIRELESS ACCESS CHANGE
For the past several years ACC staff and faculty have been using the ACCstaff wireless network on mobile devices such as laptops. Recently, ACCNet has been piloting a new system that is now ready to deploy. This system has many improvements including, ease of setup, usability, better security, and it is OS platform independent. The new system works well with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and iPads.
All that is required to convert to the new system is the Cisco VPN client that is easily downloaded from the ACC Helpdesk website, a wireless capable device, and an active ACCEID account. Directions to setup the new service can be found at: http://www.austincc.edu/helpdesk/docs/wireless_doc.html
Please, contact the ACC Helpdesk if you need assistance in setting up the new service.

EMPLOYEE INFORMATION CARDS
To enhance the level of safety and security on all campuses , ACC distributes Employee Identification Cards to all employees. Each identification card will have a photo of the employee on the front. The back of the ID will have an electronic strip with information containing the staff ID #, library barcode data, and card issue number.
Employee Identification Cards will be distributed to all Staff, Faculty, and Hourly employees. ACC employees may obtain Employee Identification Cards in the Office of Human Resources located at the Highland Business Center. Employee ID’s may also be obtained in the Admissions and Records offices located at all ACC campuses.
To obtain an ACC ID Card, employees must present a government/state distributed picture identification card i.e. a driver’s license. Employees must also provide a Datatel account number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
Hours of Operation:
Employees may obtain ID’s in the Office of Human Resources, Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. New Staff and Faculty are able to obtain Employee ID’s on their first day of employment during New Employee Orientation. ACC’s Admissions and Records offices will distribute ID’s according to each scheduled campus business hours.

LIGHTHOUSE
Good afternoon. In the last legislative session the Texas House of Representatives passed House Bill 2504, referred to as ”Public Access to Course Information” or the “3 clicks rule.” This legislation imposes various reporting requirements on public institutions of higher education in Texas. ACC, along with all other public colleges and universities, is required to comply with HB 2504 mandates beginning in Fall 2010. Among other things, the bill requires that the websites of such institutions provide the following information for every course:

1. Course Syllabus, and
2. Curriculum Vitae (CV) for each instructor, including education, professional experience, and significant publications

This information must be accessible no more than three links from the ACC homepage and available no later than the seventh day after the first day of classes.

In response to this requirement, Austin Community College put together an ad-hoc faculty-staff committee this past spring to work with our IT department on developing the least disruptive solution to this mandate. We recognize that Implementation of this mandate will be a significant imposition on both the institution, and on individual faculty members. However, as noted, this is a legislative mandate. So, our IT group, working with this committee, has developed an application for faculty called Lighthouse that provides what we think will be a simple, easy to use interface that faculty can use for placing their syllabi and CV information online. A website has been developed for this project and information related to this issue, including the Lighthouse application and online tutorials, can be found at this site, http://www.austincc.edu/ITdocs/lighthouse/ . The data entry forms are operational and available for use now. IT is continuing to work on the part of the application that will make the syllabus and CV information available to students. This phase of the project will be complete in a few weeks.

Additionally, two Lighthouse training sessions are currently scheduled and more will be available soon. You can sign up here: https://www3.austincc.edu/it/workshops/www/eventenroll.php?Source=Calendar&EventID=2304

If you would like to learn more about this legislation, the full text of the Bill can be found at http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/HB02504F.htm, and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board codification into rule can be found at http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/index.cfm?objectid=3BBA5600-AB9B-55C7-1A1C6ED6B09A1FD7, under Subsection N.

If you have questions related to this mandate, you can direct them to your Department Chair, Dean, or to me. Technical questions related to the software application should be directed to Stan Gunn.

Thanks. Mike Midgely

CELL PHONE CALLS
If students are in class 3118 and get a cell phone call please ask them to take it outside and not in hallway by office.


Facebook
ACC Social Networking and Marketing Guidelines

other topics discussed by Bill:
New classroom displays
Print show rules