Present: E. Talbott, D. Crossman, K Holzworth, E. Baylis, E Baranger, C Bender, T. Metzger, T Silvestre

1) The approval of minutes, D Crossman motioned, K Holzworth seconded.

2) Discussion of issues related to the New Year

3) At 12:30 PM we proceeded to the basement of alumni hall to the Center for Instructional Development and Distance Education headed by Dr. Diane Davis. Dr. Davis and her colleague Dr. Laudato presented a very in-depth description of the major focuses and efforts of the CIDDE for the coming year. Some of CIDDE's most popular faculty services relate to the Blackboard Course Management software system that allows you to place information for students registered for a particular course on the web, including slides, handouts, readings, lectures, simulations, etc. Blackboard also provides interactive capabilities including quizzes and gradebooks as well as chat, discussion sessions and other communication tools.

a. It was determined that there was a need for web-based collaborative course software. The Committee on Conferencing began in 1997. Use of Blackboard has progressed from 216 sections and teaching offerings in 1999 to a total of 1627 in 2002 with a projected increase of to about 2,300 in 2003. Presently 60% of the students at the University of Pittsburgh use Blackboard for at least one course or term. CIDDE offers five types of faculty training: novice (which includes faculty instruction and 12 hours of extensive hands-one experience); standard (which is 8 hours of hands-on training); expert (for those who have great computer facility and provides two hours with no hands-on); there is an on-line self instructional as well as supporting tools (including MS Word, MS PowerPoint, Graphics Images, and Video Clips). Blackboard is one of the shining successes of the Center for Instructional Development.

b. A new facility in Alumni Hall is the Faculty Instructional Development Lab which has the following goals:

1) Develop active learning course-ware in collaborative teams involving faculty, instructional designers, instructional technologists, graphic artists, photographers, and video producers. In this way the experts and professionals at the Lab meet with faculty and help them design their courses both to include technology and/or to help organize their learning materials.

2) Help create a centralized multimedia lab facility to provide faculty with training, access and assistance. This consist of numerous multimedia cubicles for videos transfer to develop video clips within their course web development as well as training faculty in designing and developing active learning experiences.

3) Train faculty in designing and developing active learning experiences and in understanding and utilizing the supporting technologies.

4) Expand the University's faculty development program to provide comprehensive support for the transition to an active learning environment. This includes design and development of a variety of instructional activities that will serve to teach principles and practices of active learning.

5) Implement an advanced instructional technology group to evaluate and introduce new and emerging technologies for direct application to instruction such as a student response system, which is a wireless system which permits students to respond to questions during class.

The meeting adjourned at 1:30PM. The committee thanked everyone at CIDDE for the informative presentation.

NEXT MEETING: February 25, 2003, 117 Parran Hall/GSPH. NOTICE CHANGE OF ROOM This is the dean's conference room and as you enter the GSPH double doors, make a right instead of a left, it is the second or third door on the right. See you then!