Present: Derrick Parkhurst, ChiuShui Chan, Tony Townsend sitting in for Brian Mennecke, Matt Heying, Pam Shill. Absent: Jim Oliver, Julie Dickerson, Steve Herrnstadt, Brian Mennecke
Matt reported that the HCI Student Group received $450 in funding from GPSS to develop a kiosk to display outside of the VRAC office. Students will be able to wheel the kiosk to different locations, if needed. This will feature multi-touch capabilities and have the ability to show scrolling presentations of VRAC/HCI research and information about the C6 and about the program. Matt also reported that Adrian Sannier will speak to the student group next week using remote technologies.
Derrick reported that some students in his seminar group suggested that the program implement a service requirement that would be demonstrated in the eportfolio. The service requirement could include service to the program or to the community at large. Suggestions for service include participation in demo days, mentoring, and the student kiosk project. Matt was asked to discuss this with the student group and bring their opinions and suggestions back to the next meeting.
Pam reported that 7 students have volunteered to be one-on-one mentors to the 12 new students this summer and fall. The new students were given the names and contact information for all of the mentors in the program. This new program will be evaluated at the end of the Fall semester, with changes made for the spring semester.
Tony Townsend suggested that we look into establishing learning communities for the HCI graduate students that might be as successful as mentoring programs. We could establish virtual learning communities using collaborative software and include off-campus certificate students as well as alumni and faculty. This may lead to funding opportunities and publications. Pam will contact Corley Brooks for more information about learning communities.
Pam is meeting weekly with the web team to re-design the HCI website, within limits to keep the continuity between the VRAC and HCI websites. They plan to include links to more research activities of HCI student on the site. The goal is to implement a new homepage by January.
Discussion continued about the action items suggested at the HCI Retreat: Under the Marketing Priority:
D. Documentary of Faculty Research: Pam will investigate if Kevin is available to lead this project with Chad Harms. Suggestions to have short, 3 minute clips of faculty speaking about their research on the HCI website. ChuiShiu suggested the creation of a “museum” which could be a public gathering space and an area to showcase the program, the research, and the people of the program using interactive technologies.
E. Active Faculty List of Record: This is created and Pam will include this on the new HCI website. Tony suggested that we include links to vita’s and faculty’s areas of interest with this.
F. Students Leadership, Information Networks, ie Blogs: Kevin is working to set up a discussion
tool for the mentor program and the student page will be re-evaluated in the web re-design. Under the Currriculum Priority:
A. Core discussion/reconstruction of programming: Discussion has begun and will be continued at future meetings.
B. 4E – Exit, Emphasis, Expection/Evaluation: Pam is working with the eDoc program to develop a template for students to use for their eportfolio if they are not comfortable creating their own webpage. She will also work with faculty and students to make all more aware of this requirement.
C. No Credit seminar for Faculty Presentations: Faculty members are being asked to give presentations on their research at the VRAC/HCI faculty staff meetings. The proposal to provide learning opportunities for faculty on VR technologies also ties into this idea.
Under the Pilot Projects Priority:
A. Recognition for reward and motivation: HCI Faculty Award: Derrick suggested that we implement a yearly award to recognize excellence in research, service, and teaching. Nominations would come from faculty or students. A student excellence award could also be given annually. These awards would be given at the Forum each year. ChuiShiu volunteered to lead the committee on awards.
Tony mentioned that the new budget model is going to be presented to the Faculty Senate and if we had concerns, Brian or he could bring them to the group. Distribution of funding for interdisciplinary students has been discussed, but it is not clear how it will be handled.
ChuiShiu knows of a PhD student in Taiwan who would like to work on his PhD in HCI concurrently and possibly remotely. ChuiShiu will send more information to Pam and she will investigate the possibilities. Discussion may be held in the future about the program supporting off-campus PhD students.
The HCI Supervisory Committee finished addressing a student issue, which had required that the committee hold a number of closed sessions. Due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, federal law prohibits disclosure of action related to student disciplinary issues without the authorization/consent of the individual involved.
Next meeting is Wednesday, December 6 at 9 am in the VRAC Allbaugh Conference Room.
Submitted by Pam Shill