[Barbara R. Walters, PhD – AKA Barbara Walters Doehrman]

CUNY Eportfolio Symposium 2014
November 25, 2013 Meeting
AGENDA AND BRIEF NOTES

PLEASE JOIN THE CAT EPORTFOLIO SUBCOMMITTEE. MEETING NOTES WILL BE POSTED THERE IN THE FUTURE. THANK YOU AND HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Conference Date: APRIL 2, 2013, 9-4
@Macaulay Honors College
Three rooms:
• Classroom – 22 people
• Screening room – 72 people, stage setting
• Lecture – 75 movable chairs
Other than specific invitees, people will apply

Below is the schedule from last year. Right before the conference we combined the two breakouts.
9:00 to 10:00 Breakfast
10:00 to 10:30 Unconference Overview (72 seats)
10:30 to 11:30 Topical Breakouts 1,2,3 — Classroom(22) , Lecture Hall (75 people), Commons and Cabaret
11:30 to 12:30 Topical Breakouts 1,2,3 — Classroom(22) , Lecture Hall (75 people), Commons and Cabaret
12:30 to 1:30 Lunch and Birds of a Feather
1:30 to 2:30 Reports from Breakout
2:30 to 3:00 Open Mic
3:00 to 4:00 Coffee and Cookies (Invite CIS)

AGENDA FOR TODAY:
1) Decide on scope – View initial concept —
We decided to expand to Eportfolios and Academic Technology.
a. Below are suggested topics. Please post additional ideas.
eportfolios, retention, online advising, assessment, early interventions, intellectual property, plagiarism, social media, social pedagogy, and hybrid, rapgenius, poetrygenius, newsgenius plus what comes out of CUNY IT

3) Create Invitation/Application :
Last year’s: http://macaulay.cuny.edu/community/eportfolio-symposium/
Lisa Brundage and Joe Ugoretz will update for 2014.

4) Announcement at the CUNY IT Conference

NEXT MEETING WE MIGHT LOOK AT NOTES FROM LAST YEAR AND DISCUSS PLANS AND VENUE FOR PRE-AND POST-SYMPOSIUM FOLLOW-UP

[Carina Nieves]

April 2nd is a weekday and may not bring a lot of people to the conference. Also I have been to Macualay Building multiple times for a conference and the place seems so small.The ePortfolio Symposium would be better attended if the location was bigger and has convenient travel options. A suggestion would be John Jay where the IT Conference has been held for the past 3 years and has large new spaces.

[Joseph Ugoretz]

I think these are valid concerns but we are somewhat constrained by the availability of spaces and dates. I think we also found last year that a “quality not quantity” approach gave us a very productive atmosphere. Rather than trying to attract the largest number of attendees, we focused on a working atmosphere and real discussion among people who were interested in taking an active role (no presentations or panels).

We can definitely consider other models but I do think that the small “unconference” model that we used last year has some real advantages over the large scale conference. After all, we already have the CUNY IT Conference which is very successful, and we don’t really have a need to recreate that.

[Bill Bernhardt]

I’m sorry I could not participate in the ePortfolio Symposium planning meeting yesterday. However, I want to strongly agree with Joe’s post. One massive IT Conf. per year is plenty! The Symposium last year was not a showcase (like the yearly IT), but a more intimate, working event for which McCauley was an excellent venue.

[Carina Nieves]

Sorry let me clarify my response. I don’t mean this event to be like the IT Conference. I just find the rooms at that building very small. The break out session rooms were not spacious and for one session people were sitting on top of each other. The classrooms fit a max of about 22 people. What happens if we have a larger turn out this year?

[Joseph Ugoretz]

Hi Carina, I do understand and know the limitations of the building. After all, it’s my own home campus! 🙂

What we did last year and what we could do again is to limit attendance to 72 people total. We just won’t accept a bigger turnout. If this means we have to put people on a waiting list or even disappoint some who try to register too late, that will be unfortunate but unavoidable. We can also be more conscientious about enforcing sign ups for the breakouts (or we can eliminate the small breakouts).

The John Jay facility is in high demand (and high cost) and our budget is very limited. Early on we made the decision not to have vendor sponsorship, and not to charge any fee for registration. We could revisit those decisions, of course. To some extent we have to make a virtue out of necessity, but I do think it is a real virtue, not an imagined one.

If you (or anyone) has a good, large, comfortable alternative which can be available to us at a price we can afford, we should certainly look at that. But I do think that there is something to be said for the intimacy and group dynamics we can build with a more limited attendance.

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