City College of San Francisco - California Competes

STANDARD III.C
III. Strengths & Areas for Improvement
1. The College provides technological support
to meet the needs of teaching, learning,
College-wide communications, research, and
operations systems. The College has made a
concerted effort to determine future
technology needs and to efficiently and
effectively use bond funds to meet those
projected needs. Major upgrades to the
network infrastructure have allowed for
the implementation of services to meet wideranging
needs. The College is committed to
improving the functionality and usage of
its Banner information systems. Work on
intercampus connectivity continues with
the goal of providing voice, data, and video
transmission. The College has improved
network services and provided up-to-date
standardized computers to all full-time
employees and computer access to all parttime
employees. The College has strengthened
its network security and reliability. The ITS
Department has significantly increased the
services it provides without increasing staffing.
However, the College still has unmet needs
in the area of technical support staff,
training for technical staff, and access
to computer labs for students. In addition,
insufficient electrical power in the
computer room in Batmale Hall
hampers the College’s use of technology
and upgrading the power should be a
high priority.
2. The College has a comprehensive technology
planning process within its Shared
Governance structure that informs decisions
on technology services, facilities, hardware,
and software consistent with the College
Strategic Plan and the annual planning
and budgeting cycles. The institution
systematically assesses the effective use
of technology resources and uses the results
of evaluations as the basis for improvement.
The College has developed construction
standards to ensure that new construction
will be integrated into the new network
infrastructure. These planning and evaluation
activities have produced significant
improvements. The current Technology
Plan, adopted in November 2002, should
be reviewed and updated. Students are not
currently being surveyed regarding how they
use technology and their technology needs.
The College should develop and administer
a College-wide student survey for all
computer labs.
3. The College provides ongoing technology
training to faculty and staff through the
Technology Learning Center. However, cuts
in the TTIP funds will severely limit the
ability of faculty and staff to obtain
technology training outside the College.
The College should provide regular, ongoing
Banner training and find resources to
replace the TTIP funds for technology staff
development. In addition, there is insufficient
training provided to students on use of general
applications such as MS Office and Internet
tools. More training should be given to
students on the use of general applications
and Internet tools.
4. The College has made significant progress in
developing online courses and improving the
quality of technology-mediated instructional
programs, as evidenced by the success of the
online curriculum offerings and the awards
various TMI courses have won. The College
will continue to expand and enhance the
use of technology for online instruction
and other forms of technology-mediated
instruction both in the classroom and for
distance education.
204 CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO