Accommodating Technology Committee

Minutes of 12 January 2000 Meeting

Present: G. Allen, M. Belsky, J. Eulenberg, F. Gebrekidan, M. Hestenes, M. Hudson, D. Kleinhardt, J. Pedraza, J. Renuk, C. Wisniewski.

Visitor: Prof. Byron Brown

1. The meeting was called to order by Eulenberg at 1:38 pm.

2. Marshall Hestenes announced his recent retirement. He will continue to attend for at least one more meeting. The matter of who will attend this committee's meetings from the Client Advocacy Office is currently under consideration by Dr. Hunt.

3. Dr. Wittick was unable to attend this meeting because no real-time interpreter is available at 1:30pm this semester. One is available at 2:30pm, and Eulenberg will explore via email the possibility of moving our meetings to that time. For next week, however, we will meet again at 1:30, since the President's Committee on Disabilities meets at 3pm that day.

4. Prof. Brown described some of the activities he has been involved in recently with regard to training MSU faculty, staff, and students to design courseware, netware, etc. "Welcome Days," a series of seminars held on non-home football Saturdays early in the fall semester, was attended by about 100 last fall. A similar series held earlier this month, "Faculty Seminars on Instructional Technology," drew 250-300 faculty, who took an average of between two and three 3-hour classes each. Topics covered included web page design with Dream Weaver, presentation design with PowerPoint, and database design with Access. Prof. Brown also does a "traveling show," in which he demonstrates some of the instructional possibilities of the web. Eulenberg asked whether any attention has been given to accessibility issues in these seminars; Prof. Brown replied that, although it has not yet been a part of the presentations, it probably will very soon. Hestenes reported that Prof. Velicer attended some of these recent seminars and was able to derive much therefrom. Eulenberg asked if there is a person or an office on campus whose charge is to advise courseware creators on accessibility issues. Prof. Brown suggested that LC&T's and Administrative Computing's trainers would be appropriate groups to target for this advisement. Hudson added that he and Blosser have done some advising in EE and that he was also invited to address a local business group. Hestenes noted that the Michigan Virtual Automotive College (MVAC), now a part of the Michigan Virtual University (MVU) contracted with that same business group to do some of the work. Eulenberg asked how MSU's VU relates to MVU. Prof. Brown said that we would like to get more publicity from them, and Hestenes added that President McPherson and Vice-Provost Hunt are in contact with them to make appropriate arrangements. Prof. Brown noted that MVU's purpose is to interface between various Michigan universities' virtual course offerings and potential clients, such as MVAC, tourism agencies, K-12, and possibly a furniture group. There also exist web sites and both national and international conferences dealing with these issues. Hudson added that Microsoft may propose a standard that software must meet before it can display the MS logo. He also suggested that web page creation software should have built-in intelligence to encourage accessible products. Eulenberg cautioned that, although the web currently occupies center stage in the technology of training and education, there are other kinds of products that come within this purview. Prof. Brown noted, in this regard, the virtual blizzard of PowerPoint presentations coming forth from educators.

5. Eulenberg placed library requests and the talking signs project on the agenda for our next meeting.

6. The meeting was adjourned (Wisniewski; Renuk) at 2:32 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

George D. Allen, Recording Secretary