Faculty Council talks survey, IT

By Cindy Garcia
[email protected]

A new survey will hit student inboxes soon.

The University of Iowa Faculty Council reviewed an upcoming survey and discussed changes in information technology in a meeting on Tuesday.

Speak Out Iowa, an anonymous campus climate survey on sexual misconduct, will be sent out to all degree-seeking UI students on Oct. 26. Data collection is estimated to go on for 45 days. The survey is one of many being launched at higher education institutions across the country following White House pressure.

“We anticipate by 2016 this will actually be required, so most universities, including Iowa, have decided to get ahead of this instead of behind it,” said Carolyn Hartley, the head of the Antiviolence Coalition subcommittee.

Hartley estimated the survey should take approximately 30 minutes and officials hope for a 30 percent response rate. Students will receive incentives including gift card giveaways.

“The other thing we’re very excited about this survey is that there’s a commitment from universities to be sharing their data and learning what they can from different institutional experiences,” she said. “We anticipate that some other Big Ten schools will be using [the same survey] as well.”

Hartley said students in intensive language programs will not be surveyed, namely because there are no resources to translate the survey into other languages.

Hartley worries the survey will not reach male students as effectively because sexual misconduct is typically regarded as a “female issue.”

Banners, pop-up tents, and tables will be set up in anticipation of the survey’s release to provide students information.

Hartley said the results of the survey would be released in the spring.

Officials also provided an update on OneIT@Iowa.

The state Board of Regents has called for further collaboration and restructuring of IT across the three state universities. OneIT@Iowa is an umbrella initiative designed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of IT by reducing costs of general day-to-day campus services, according to its website.

Steve Fleagle, the UI chief ITS officer, said the project has a three-year timeline, which started last spring.

He clarified several rumors during the meeting, including one that suggested off-shoring would occur, sending UI jobs overseas.

“That was one of the recommendations that was made, but we were successful in getting around that,” he said. “I think that would have been a disaster, but right now, there are no plans to do that.”

Fleagle also said the main goal of the program is to free up IT personnel across campus by streamlining technology.

The first institution to undergo IT changes was the UI College of Law.

“I think it’s worked very well in the law school,” said Christina Bohannan, the Faculty Council president and a law professor. “I actually haven’t noticed that big of a difference.”

Fleagle also said security threats will remain a priority even as streamlining is being revamped.

“Now, there are people that are going after our intellectual property, so we’ve never been the prime target by hacking groups before and now we are,” he said. “And to be in the cross hairs is a little scary, to tell you the truth.”

UI and University of Northern Iowa employees have reported tax fraud in the past, although whether it stemmed from a data breach remained unclear. Iowa State University, on the other hand, suffered a data breach in 2014.