Committee Meetings and Minutes

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eStaffing Committee

Meeting Minutes

Current Status of Minutes: Final
Date	February 18, 2014
Time	8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Location	HBC 219

Members Present
Sue Bloodsworth, Andrew Christie, Mary Kohls, Joe Lostracco, Donald Morris, Dianne Olla, Tobin Quereau, Charles Quinn, Gaye Lynn Scott, Hazel Ward, Gillian Waterston
Guests Present
No guest attendance has been recorded.

Item # 1:	Review of December 3, 2013 minutes
Presenter	Andrew
Discussion	Approved. {tq; dm; sb}

Item # 2:	Review of Summer 2014 eStaffing
Presenter	Committee Discussion
Discussion	A couple of minor problems. The start/end date range needed to be reset on the first day of Phase 1 preferences. The textbook database was empty on the first day of Phase 1 acceptance due to SQL Server rejecting 2 textbooks with unacceptable special characters in the book title. (Those who perform data entry on Colleague are reminded/advised not to copy and paste data into Colleague input forms for this very reason.) Aside from those two minor delays, the bulk of calls to the Help Desk and to IT were related to Department Chairs not having approved Eligibility, or Deans not having approved Appointments.

Item # 3:	Review of 2014-2015 MSTA Process
Presenter	Committee Discussion
Discussion	With a week still to go in the MSTA application process, the only known complaint was related to a department that wanted to accept applications, but had not notified IT initially that they would be accepting MSTA applications. Everyone on the eStaffing Committee is looking forward to an enhancement, currently in Development, that will allow departments to use a checkbox within eStaffing to signify their intention as to accepting or not accepting MSTA applications for the upcoming academic year.

Item # 4:	Policy Modification Request related to Phase 1 sections that are neither accepted nor rejected
Presenter	Andrew
Discussion	The following request came from one of the departments, and was discussed by the eStaffing Committee: When adjuncts do NOT accept or reject an assignment by the deadline in Phase I, that particular section then remains in LIMBO and does NOT become part of the remaining pool of sections for instructors to choose from in Phase II. Is it possible for the e-staffing system to automatically put that section back with the remaining sections so it is again available for adjuncts in PHase II? The FOLA dept. sometimes has more instructors than sections so it is important that the instructors in Phase II have as many options to choose from as possible. Currently, we try to contact the instructor to see if they just forgot about the deadline, or perhaps decided not to teach a particular semester, but did not let us know. Unfortunately, the instructors in Phase II do not know that there is an additional section to consider among their preferences. I asked Sue Bloodsworth for her input, and she suggested that we release the sections by removing the assignment from the instructor who did not respond either way by the set deadline. *** The eStaffing Committee was in unanimous agreement with Sue's recommendation. Sue's recommendation, which is based on the current policy, allows for flexibility, does not create problems when there are good reasons why a Phase 1 adjunct missed the acceptance/rejection window, and provides a workable solution when Department Chairs do want to free the Phase 1 assignment for Phase 2 availability.

Item # 5:	Brief Review of Departmental Exceptions
Presenter	Andrew
Discussion	The eStaffing website will be updated to reflect that there are no changes to the list of instructional departments that have been granted an exemption from using eStaffing for purposes of staffing adjunct faculty to credit course sections due to the impossibility of creating computative algorithms that would reflect the unique complexity of these departments. (The preceding sentence should probably qualify for an award nomination in some sort of long sentence competition.)

Item # 6:	Invitation to Test New Executive Module Version of eStaffing ( http://eapps-test.austincc.edu/estaffing/login.php )
Presenter	Andrew
Discussion	The Committee's request is to make this test site available right away to reflect Department Chairs making section assignments for Summer 2014. Once Summer 2014 eStaffing is complete, then the Committee would like the test site to be prepared for Fall 2014 eStaffing As far as Reports are concerned, the most important one desired is one that will provide a list of adjuncts who have (a) accepted assignments; (b) rejected assignments; (c) have assignments pending; (d) all of the above.

Item # 7:	Preview of Fall 2014 eStaffing
Presenter	Committee Discussion
Discussion	The big question is whether Fall 2014 will include the new executive module, or whether the new module will be released after Fall 2014 eStaffing ends. The sentiment within the Committee was to err on the side of caution. The new module is not urgently needed, and thus should be released after receiving a sufficient level of user approval.

Item # 8:	Returned Mailers
Presenter	Andrew
Discussion	IT receives returned mailers. The Committee discussed the situation and whether the college should rely solely upon email notifications. The consensus was (a) that we need to analyze the returned mailers to see if the cause can be determined, and (b) the frequency and volume of eStaffing mailers is small enough that it does not represent an exorbitant and unworthy cost. Post-meeting analysis revealed that the majority (roughly 70%) of the returned emails were for adjuncts that had already been flagged with end dates in the Colleague HR module. What this means is that some departments are either a little slow in keeping their appointment rosters updated, or the mailer file is being generated earlier than the departments are expecting. Whichever the specific cause, the cure is keeping accurate, uptodate appointment rosters within eStaffing.

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