The meeting began with a report from nuts@moo2 commenting on the Legistlative draft prepared by a Subcommittee of Educational Technology Committee members working with the deans. An early draft of this is still available here . The final draft is not in a networked format but its essence hasn't changed much from the accessible draft.

This draft formed the basis for a larger system wide initiative spearheaded by the Provost for 15 million more dollars from the legislature.

However, note that due to the intrinsic density of nuts@moo2 coupled with timing and communication issues, it was not realized until shortly after this meeting that, because of the legislative initiative it is not possible to ask for an increase in the student resource fee for next year. Hence we must float next year, on this year's revenue stream despite increasing demand (any volunteers to chair this committee next year?).

jqj@darkwing Reminded us about the April 19 Technology Fair

The bulk of the meeting time was consumed with a robust open discussion about whether an investment in Instructional Technology can lead to lower Unit Cost education per student. The variety of opinions that were expressed significantly exceeded the number of individuals in the room. A sampling of those opinions is given below:

• jqj@darkwing Stated that networked development of more interactive curriculum (i.e. JAVA is less expensive than building labs.

• udovic@oregon Stated that Instructional Technology is not labor savings. Its a labor intensive activity that requires adequate support staff. Hence its not clear if lower unit cost can ever be achieved. He further noted that it should not be the business of this committee to place precedent on this issue but that this committee should concern itself with quality and access issues. nuts@moo2> Agreed in principle with this statement but also reminded all of the real boundary conditions that we must operate in.

• dsmith@xylem Suggested that with efficient network tools and access it would be possible that some administrative costs might be lowered.

• bonamici@oregon Noted that for the Library, the use of Instructional Technology for the present has raised the unit cost due to issues associated with access and quality.

• kevan@oregon Offered the opinion that it might be possible to build essentially re-useable curriculum for department core courses which in some sense might be construed as lower unit cost.

• joe@oregon Reminded the group of the potentially large market of non-traditional students that exists. nuts@moo2> concurred with this but then reminded every one of his favorite theme about curriculum development and the existence of a product to market.

• tindal@darkwing Suggested that unit costs are difficult to define and are not fixed. They vary from unit to unit and year to year.

• mathews@aaa Strongly suggested that a University wide systematic study of unit costs might improve the overall efficiency of the system, through the use of Instructional Technology, thus resulting in some System wide savings.

• art@cs Maintained that there is no way that unit costs can ever go down via an investment in instructional technology and the converse is actually true that it quickly goes up.

• nuts@moo2> Gave an example of how lower unit cost might actually be achieved:
  • Currently 500-600 students per term are enrolled in Elementary Astronomy Courses
  • 3 professors from the Physics department teach these courses each term
  • There are no GTF lead discussion sections (the parking problem will be fixed before this one is)
  • Suppose 150 Columbia were transformed into a very functional multimedia presentation room so that all 500 students could be taught in one section.
  • This frees of 2 professors and hence leads to much lower unit cost. Even with the addition of GTF lead discussions (to improve quality and student contact) the unit cost would be lower

• After a round of boos (maybe they were moos ) gleason@oregon stated that we have to be careful what kind of end game we are engaged in. nuts@moo2> acknowledged this and said he doesn't necessarily want to promote the Columbia 150 idea and certainly doesn't want to be the one teaching it or rather having to grade it.

• jqj@darkwing Argued that a global strategy for reducing unit cost is much more difficult than trying to acheive this reduction on a more local scale.

• gleason@oregon deftly reminded us that quality issues must supercede the lower unit cost issue. nuts@moo2> remarked that everyone is probably in agreement with this issue and that it would be wonderful to achieve an increase in quality and lower unit cost as it would be wonderful to get regular pay increases and a place to park. Still not to make light of this - this is a very important issue and we as a committee ought to stand strong on the quality viewpoint. nuts@moo2> will draft a statement on this issue for committee comment and modification

• gleason@oregon and udovic@oregon both mentioned that we need adequate resource support for faculty development and a more clear statement to Assistant Professors on whether they should get involved with instructional technology. nuts@moo2> lamented that for 2 ##$! years he has tried to solicit a strong statement from the administration on this very point concerning Assistant Professors. As you may recall the committee at the beginning of the academic year drafted a statement about Instructional Technology as a form of teaching scholarship and preparation that ought to count in merit and promotion cases. No such action on that document has yet occurred.

• mathews@aaa Again reminded us that its really the whole system costs which are important and that its easy to be optimistic about New Markets that lead to lower unit cost. However support for product development must also exist. gcooper@oregon echoed the sentiment that new revenue streams may spring forth as a result of our overall investment in instructional technology. Unfortunately this won't be the case for next year.

• tindal@darkwing Concluded the discussion by stating that the implications of lower unit cost education must really be scrutinized.