West Virginia Rural Health Education Partnerships
LRC Committee Meeting

August 30, 1999

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Attendees: Parr Thacker, Mike McCarthy, Mark Allen, Anna Reno, and Darrell Hale

Call to order:

Mark Allen discusses community computers supplied by the ARC Grant. 8 community members had been chosen and three have already received their computers and training. The 5 others are being scheduled for delivery. 8 members to receive computers include:
Annie Macintosh
Shirley Neal
Dennis McCutcheon
Gaye Mitchell
Robin Debnam
Sarah Lee Neel
Jim Welshonce

Mark commented that working with the community members has been fun and educational on different factors in teaching the use of computer technology to new users. Mark mentioned the possibility of needing trackball or other paraphernalia to use for community members that may have difficulty using the mouse. Mike offered to set up email accounts and RHEP mailings to the community members.

Parr reported on RHEP participation in the WV Techno Expo in June. Parr mentioned scheduling conflicts with other techno themed meetings might have contributed to light turn out of participants. Parr commented that we might need to reevaluate the value level or involvement and resources allocated to the event next year. Mike McCarthy reported on his and Hilda's presentation showcase the use of communication technology such as TRACKER and video in the RHEP program.

Field Faculty Day: registration for Field Faculty Day had been light, but Mark was confident that the site coordinators would check on the faculty registration compliance and increase turnout. Mike asked about the distribution of "skill" level self reports by faculty survey. Mark stated that even though most had reported themselves as beginners he suspected that most would be in the intermediate skill level.

Parr stated that vendor participation was going to be limited at the "petting zoo" portion of the conference and planned to supplement with display of variety of software from various consortia to showcase and allow faculty to evaluate. Mark requested feedback on setting up a checkout system for Palm Pilots so there can be multiple units used for our project if necessary.

Parr stated that he would discuss it with site coordinators. Mike requested feedback on Cardiac Project web site as well. Parr suggested committee look at Helen Parkers email reference to Palm Pilot applications software catalog.

New Business

Virus Issues - Mark Allen - Mark reported the four users in the site coordinator group had infected computers and they had been notified. Mark suggested sue of McCaffee's web site to download protection file as a quick fix. Mark is also in contact with McCaffee to investigate licensing agreement for 70 RHEP computers (4 for each site and 1 each for community computer). Currently he is looking at $24.00 a year per license for a two year term but possibly can renegotiate that lower. He is also investigating an automatic update through McCaffee use of "push" technology. Mike commented the need to set McCaffee software to check for macro virus email attachments. The decision of where monies to pay for licensing will be allocated from but ideally it will come from special purchase funds. Mike commented the possibility of RHEP site being included as extension of any university negation for licensing purchase.

Parr opened up the floor for discussion of the future of the LRC Committee, its vision, goals and functionality. Mike commented revisiting the focus of the committee toward the telecommunication technology aspects of RHEP and not particular to just learning resource centers. Suggest possible committee name change to better clarify issue being addressed by the committee. Mike suggested that the name be changed to the "Information Resource Committee". Parr suggested the need to create certain modules of various LRC, each representing a different level of affordability and technology standards. Parr stated that he will distribute questions and survey before November meeting to develop vision and goals for the LRC Committee in the next year. Mike suggested the collaboration with other committees (Faculty Development) to completely develop LRC resource modules. Mike also suggested collaboration with student advisory committee.

Mike McCarthy suggested that an aspect of the LRC assessment tool be used to investigate possible site savings in the form of combined broadband communication hookups (voice and data).

The meeting concluded with destination of the online health infomatics course developed by Mike McCarthy, Mark Allen and Arnold Hassen.

Next meeting is scheduled for November 15th 12:30 to 2:30 at the Flatwoods Days Inn.