Information Committee of the Department of Biology

Minutes of the meeting held 8th July 2003 Present: Lorna Evans, Paul Waites, Julie Lord,Richard Firn (Chair), Ian Jennings. Cake: Swedish bullar.

ICDB 03/13 Apologies for absence.

Owen Atkin

ICDB 03/14 Minutes of the meeting 16.05.03.

These were accepted.

ICDB 03/15 Matters arising.

(i) ICDB 02/14 Room Booking Software: IJ reported that progress was being made and an update would be given at the next meeting.
(ii) ICDB 03/05. Bulletin - Guidelines for the editor.
The Committee agreed that the Biology Bulletin aims to:

• be the primary means of disseminating general information and news that is likely to be of value or interest to a significant number of the members of the Dept of Biology
• help promote social coherence hence will encourage the submission of information that relates to collegiate matters
• be seen not as the official organ of the department but as means of engaging members of the Biology Department in all aspects of departmental life

The editor shall choose from material submitted to them on the basis that:

• it fulfills at least one of the above aims
• the information serves no obvious commercial purpose
• the information is not inflammatory, insulting or offensive

Should the space be limiting, the editor shall be free to edit any submitted content. For general guidance, the editor shall consider the following ranking of priorities:

• "official" information from the department
• "official" information from the university
• "unofficial" information from the department
• information from other sources

(iii) ICDB 03/12 Data Protection Act: RDF reported that he had initiated the activities agreed at the previous meeting.

ICDB 03/16 Student Access to Teaching materials

Many academic staff now provide support material for lectures and practicals on uiniversity servers but there is no consistency to the way this is being done. The makes it harder than necessary for students to find the material and, if the files are on the biology T drive, makes it impossible for students to access the material from outside the department.
It was agreed that a policy was needed. The aims of this should be:

• to make teaching-related material for students easy to access from any PC
• to make it easy for staff to establish, maintain and administer their own material
• to avoid administrative effort by third parties

IJ and PW will consider the alternatives and report back at the next meeting.

ICDB 03/17 Biology Teaching Network

The upgrading of the Teaching Network will take place over the next 2 years with the main expense being in about 12 months. The pros and cons of retaining our own network in the Teaching Labs was discussed. The advantages were mainly the convenience of being in charge of our own provision and the cost effectiveness of the system. The disadvantages were inconvenience to users due to the poor knowledge of staff and students about how to integrate their material held on others servers with the teaching server. It was agreed that three options would be considered by a small subgroup (IJ, PW, RDF and AH):

• aiming to equip the new 50 PC classroom with centrally managed PCs in 2004.
• retaining our own management of the 50 PCs in the new classroom but with improved training of staff and students to help them to move information more easily between the Biology Teaching Network and the Campus Network.
• adopting the second option together with certain technical fixes.

It was agreed that the new first year would be specifically taught how to integrate their activities more effectively.

ICDB 03/18 Password

It was agreed that everyone would be asked to update their passwords every 12 months instead of the 90 days that has been the accepted practice for most users.

ICDB 03/19 Powerpoint usage in 3rd year student orals.

RDF had agreed to raise this issue because it was raised at the 3rd year feedback meeting. Some students feel strongly that having been trained in Powerpoint they want to use that tool to improve their oral exam performance.
PW was asked to consider the feasability of this for the 2004 examinations by Sept 2003. In particular, he will determine what resources would be needed to make this possible and what restrictions would be needed to ensure that the system could work efficiently (such as files to be posted 7 days before the talk and rigorously enforced).

Richard D Firn
10/07/03