MERC

MERC Board of Director’s Meeting

Aug. 18, 2004

Attendees: Don Doucette, Greg Burris, Russell Helm, Rita Gulstad, Chad Sheppard, Greg Wirth, Sandra Crews, Mark Mabe, Mark Warenbrock (Rickerson), Bill Mitchell, Bill Giddings, Chip Byers, Nancy Piringer, Hank Niederhelm and Sherry Loyd.

MERC ’05 Member Service Fee Discount Decision – Doucette

Doucette started the discussion by asking Mitchell if any of the scenarios shared prior to the meeting reflect the decline in the state appropriation that MOREnet experienced. Mitchell replied that no adjustments had been made. In 2005 MOREnet took a $500K reoccurring cut in the core appropriation, and after consultation with the MOREnet Council, it was decided that MOREnet will absorb that cut through reserves and other measures within MOREnet for this year. MOREnet will be working with the MOREnet Council Budget Strategy Subcommittee to look at what the implications of that cut will be for future years. For the FY06 request, MOREnet has requested an increase that is currently before the Department of Higher Education for consideration.

After further discussion it was decided that the member service fee discount should be effective immediately but should be a one-time discount in case funds are needed due to the uncertainty of MOREnet’s budget. Burris moved, Sheppard seconded, and all were in favor of a $200,000 one-time discount in membership fees with the stipulation that the board will, the following year, do an analysis to determine whether or not additional discounts are warranted.

Piringer shared that the FY05 billing cycle is waiting on this decision. The fee structure hasn’t changed from last year, but this decision will be reflected on the invoices. The invoice will contain a line indicating the one-time discount and Piringer will send an email to the individuals who will be receiving the invoices.

MOREnet External Performance Measures Project - Mitchell

Mitchell informed everyone that MOREnet is looking for a new project title and asked that suggestions be sent to him.

Mitchell shared that MOREnet has done a lot of work in the last several years on internal quality measures, performance measures, setting benchmarks, etc. with the possibility of actually applying for the an award through the Excellence in Missouri Foundation. This project looks at a different perspective - what has the impact of MOREnet been? What is the value proposition for the State of Missouri?

This project will be a multi-year effort that will start with higher education and follow with public libraries and K-12. This will be a labor intensive effort and an effort that will have to include all of the higher education institutions via one-on-one meetings, focus group meetings, field survey teams, etc. in order to be successful.

The MOREnet Council is asking the MERC Board to serve as the Oversight Committee for Phase I of this project, which is the Higher Education group. The MOREnet Council has oversight over the entire project, but is asking the MERC Board to own it, due to their closeness to the constituency. The MOREnet Council will decide as the project progresses whether they will provide oversight or recommend that the remaining groups appoint their own Oversight Committee.

The MERC Board will meet for 3 - 2 hour meetings for this project in the next 6 months.

Sheppard moved, Mabe seconded, and all were in favor of accepting responsibility as the oversight committee for this first phase of the project.

Mitchell thanked everyone for accepting this responsibility.

MOREnet Customer Self-Help Module – Niederhelm

Hank Niederhelm explained that MOREnet, at the request of the COPHE CIOs, put the Netflow statistics reporting information behind MyMOREnet, a secure authentication application so that that data would not be available to the public. There were some concerns with regard to security and the type of information that was recorded through that tool. As MOREnet plans to move to a more automated type of approach, they’re looking at adding some additional services through the MyMOREnet infrastructure. Some of the suggestions that MOREnet is looking at would enable customers to order services from MOREnet online, request DNS registration services online, request video scheduling online, change contact information online, and have the potential to provide financial information for the institutions. With the appropriate authority, institutions would then have access to that information without it being available to the public.

MOREnet is trying to improve efficiencies both internally and with the customers. Customers have different preferences on how they communicate with MOREnet (phone, fax, online) so as MOREnet looks at moving in that direction, feedback is requested from the MERC Board. MOREnet wonders if the Board is interested in moving in that direction and also wonders if there are any issues or conflicts with the MERC Governance Procedures that would impact how we would need to deploy these services.

Piringer shared that when the MERC Board moved to being CIO level representation, one of the things that was written into the Governance Procedures was that the IRs, in addition to representing their campus information technology policy to MERC, were also the ones who have the authority to represent and make decisions for policy and budget as it related to MERC. MOREnet interprets this as any request costing dollars would need to come from the IR. With MyMOREnet it changes it slightly in that you may designate someone else on your campus to have that authority.

Gulstad moved, Sheppard seconded, and all were in favor of allowing MOREnet to implement the customer service self help module pieces with the condition that the IR will have the choice of retaining or delegating authority within the tool.

MERC Board of Directors Independent Director-at-large Vacancy – Piringer

When Bruce Vieweg left St. Louis University and went to Kansas, Dave Imler volunteered to step in and fill the vacancy. Now Imler is no longer at Logan and, therefore, the 2-year Independent board position is open again. Gulstad suggested Bob McGlasson from Southwest Baptist, Teresa Fort from Westminister, or Nitsa Hindeleh from Missouri Baptist.

The Board was in agreement for Gulstad to investigate and come back to the Board with a recommendation.

HELIX 2005 Planning – Gulstad/Piringer

Gulstad referred to the June 23, 2004 memorandum from the MOHighEdWeb Professional Affiliation asking to affiliate with MERC to take the HELIX conference to the next level. They proposed enhancing the web tract, allotting five scholarships for web developers, and creating a web contact within the MERC structure to demonstrative a relationship between MERC and higher education web development. They also proposed that MERC fund these measures for 2 years and then evaluate the outcomes to see if the program should continue. The outlined budget was for $8,000/year.

The concern is that they are a segment of the whole higher education population and they’re asking MERC to partner with a segment of the whole. What if other segments come and want to partner as well for a budget? It was agreed that MERC should encourage groups to take responsibility for a track by submitting proposals on the chosen tracks. The Board will then agree on which proposals to select, thereby committing to funding their requested expenses.

Piringer reported that the Helix Conference will take place simultaneously with the Spring Technology Conference at TanTarA on April 6-7, 2004. A conference committee as been created to provide guidance and ideas. Gulstad and Piringer are hoping to not focus on technology so much as what you do with technology. Suggested tracks: Web Development, Distance learning, Networking/User Support. Theme suggestions: IT-Your Strategic Asset, IT: Energizing Teaching and Learning, Information, Access and Technology, Information Waves, Data, Information & Technology: Putting it All Together, IT: Evolution of the Revolution. Keynote: Dr. Neil Gershenfeld, MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms ($15,000 + travel and expenses). The name Gershenfeld came back from all conversations where keynote suggestions were requested. They feel he would be a great draw and he goes with our theme (if the Board agrees with that theme). There may be a possibility of sharing the keynote speaker expenses with the Spring Technology Conference. Piringer suggested not doing the Keynote in the Crystal Ballroom, as was done last year due to the Vendor Fair being in the Salons, but having the Keynote take place the second day in the Salons. This would be much better situation and may possibly promote some overnight attendees as well.

There was discussion on conference fees to try to determine the best way to encourage attendance. Pending the Board’s review of the budget, the Board may provide a $30,000 subsidy for this year’s conference and asked that the conference committee bring a budget reflecting that and a fee structure that is intended to increase attendance back to the Board via electronic voting for a final review.

Gulstad asked the Board to send her any other keynote suggestions and comments or suggestions on the proposed conference themes. They’d like to narrow the 6 theme suggestions down to 1 or 2 before taking them to the committee. She asked that the Board respond by August 31st.

Mitchell asked if there was any concern with folks outside of Missouri attending the conference because Greats Plains Network members have expressed an interested in attending. The Board supports outside attendees and doesn’t think they should be charged a different fee.

Mitchell also suggested investigating other tracks such as research and CIO. Burris reminded everyone that a CIO track had been tried 2 years ago and only 1 submission was received. However, we may receive more participation now that the CIOs are the IRs.

Fall IR Meeting Plans – Piringer

The Fall IR meeting will take place in Columbia or Jefferson City. Piringer is trying to schedule for the afternoon of October 13th and all day on October 14th. The idea is to have a Board Meeting, an External Performance Measure Oversight Committee meeting, a CIO working forum and an IR meeting during the allotted time.

Mitchell and Piringer to work on tentative schedule to share with the Board.

Training Update – Piringer

Historically there has been low training attendance from MERC membership so Piringer was tasked with surveying the MERC constituency to learn why.

She conducted a phone survey and spoke to approximately 30 people from all 3 segments. The majority of whom were IRs. There were common issues throughout all of her conversations:

• Summer is the worst time for training sessions. Late Fall or mid Spring seem to be the best times
• All were aware of the training offerings, except 2 people one of which said he just needs to pay more attention
• Are we offering the right topics? Majority of the comments revealed that the technical courses are too basic. Smaller institutions said they were right on. Security needs lean towards intermediate and advanced courses, however, some still need beginning courses for new hires. They would like more networking courses
• Security symposium seemed to be greatly anticipated
• 50% are interested in distance courses

Piringer suggested leaving the no charge training done over the summer thru the end of this fiscal year. Over the summer there was an increase in training but it was mainly Centra training. The Board agreed.

The Board agreed for Nancy to follow through with her efforts to increase the utilization of the training that is available, sensitive to its impact on MERC’s budget if trainers need to be brought in.

Adjourned 11:48 a.m.
Respectfully Submitted by Sherry Loyd