Minutes of the meeting held 21st February 2005 Present: Paul Waites,
Julie Lord, Richard Firn (Chair), Ian Jennings. Lorna Evans.
Cake: Lemon and aniseed biscuits.
ICDB 05/09 Apologies for absence.
James Chong,
ICDB 05/10 Minutes of the previous meeting.
They would have been acceptable if RDF had incorporated the changes already
suggested. This would be done.
ICDB 05/11 Matters arising
ICDB 05/6 Web - the future
Web-updating. James had told the Chair that the process had started. James should
meet with Lorna and Paul to resolve any issues identified.
ICDB 05/12 VLE implementation
The Chair reported that he had met with the Chair of the BoS and Deputy HoD
and discussed the way forward. They had agreed that a sub-group of the BoS should
be formed with ICDB members Paul Waites and Julie Lord on it. Paul would act
as the link back to ICDB with any technical and IT managerial issues.
2006 was the suggested implementation date so that the new course utilised the
VLE from the start.
ICDB 05/13 Agresso and e-procurement
The committee learned that it had been acknowledged that the deficiencies of
the Agresso ordering would never be fully resolved. Consequently the University
was forming a project team to consider the implementation of an e-procurment
system (such as Science Warehouse or Sciquest). Some resource would be coming
from the Biology Dept and J Murison was expected to play a part. The ICDB felt
that such a team needed to have proper channels of communication with the Biology
IT staff to ensure that the technical IT needs were identified at the start
of the project and any technical issues that arose were fully explored during
the evaluation process. There was uncertainty as to how the whole process was
to be managed with regards to IT and where the process fit with the Biology
IT Strategy.
ICDB 05/14 IMSG document re preparation, storage and disposal of Committee
documentation
The document agreed by the ICDB was noted. It would be sent to Resources Board.
Once accepted the technical issues would be addressed. It was agreed that Paul
Waites would advise the ICDB with regards to the best method currently available
to prepare and distribute departmental documentation. The committee agreed that
the processes must be simple, efficient and economical in staff time and IT
resources. pdf files that could be searched efficiently looked a likely candidate.
Lorna had already prepared a web-based Biology Committee page that would allow
users to find information about every committee and give easy access to the
committee documentation (in a way that required no knowledge of where the documents
were stored).
ICDB 05/15 Teaching Labs
Paul Waites reported that the new PCs and Computer labs were working well and
were liked by the students. There had been very few problems. The steps taken
to allow information transfer between the Biology network and the campus network
had been successful judging by student feedback.
It was noted that Sue Firth had raised the issue at BULC of the failure of some
of the old Windows 3.1 software to work on the new PCs. It was agreed that there
should be no expectation that very old software would work on new PCs and those
who purchase or acquire such software must always accept a limited useful life
or must budget for updating. The Biology IT funds could not cover such work.
It was questioned whether it would be cost effective to update the software
given that the course was changing soon. The issue should be passed back to
BULC.
ICDB 05/16 Laptops/Data Projectors
Paul Waites noted that the Bio-informatics Seminar Room (B102) and J005 were
the only rooms without such equipment and they would be fitted with it within
the next 2 years. The Williamson room would be equipped very soon, joining M023,
M052 and KO18 as properly equipped. The delay in equipping B103 was noted to
be due to the fact that we were awaiting the university to provide the equipment.
The Committee felt it might be helpful and popular among Biology Staff if the
Biology Dept maybe provided some funding to make that a priority.
ICDB 05/17 Next meeting
May 18th 14.00-15.00
Richard Firn
21/02/2005