JHU SGAThe 114th Session
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Free Academic Resources Meeting

Unknown · 112th session · dated June 28, 2024 · updated June 28, 2024

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This document is from a previous session and is kept for the record. It may have been amended or replaced since.

Follow up Meeting on 6/28/2024

Participants: Stone, Tim, Amy, Tiffany Mfume

Agenda:

  • Indicate that the iClicker change received overwhelming praise
  • State that we did two surveys, one using Microsoft Forms and another one in person. From these we solidified that there are additional needs
  • Request 1:
    • Additional McMillan Suite products (Achieve)
      • Full reduction may not be possible, but ask for partial reduction
      • Used by Gen Physics, Chemistry,
  • Request 2:
    • Zybooks
      • Used by Gateway Programming Courses (Java & Python)
  • Request 3:
    • Not as expensive, but Chem21Labs for Gen Chem Lab
  • Rational: Like iClicker, these resources are “beyond textbook”--they are software designed to provide practice problems, and they charge astronomical prices

Minutes

  • Stone: Iclicker was incredibly successful, and we did 2 surveys after this implementation: one about IClicker, and the other on other resources
  • Stone: Did two different campaigns, one in person as well specifically about the types of resources people want to see, and we compiled them together
  • Stone: Request one: Additional McMillan Suite Products. Basically they are extra practice problems and homework assignments, courses like general physics and chemistry all use these products and are quite expensive for students, seems possible for McMillan.
  • Mfume: Definitely open to it, talked about it to Hopkins people here about how feasible it is to manage, it is not a problem. #1: extra tools cost more and #2: not used uniformly compared to other ones. It would be specific courses and it’ll be specific to like which exact classes. “Are you using the same license for how many licenses?” Need to do more work to see what it would cost based on how many students would actually need it, then negotiate with McMillan. Can definitely push this to the top, definitely possible but needs to be worked out about which specific courses. Is it different between courses? Tim: It should actually be the same, as recently a lot of the teachers changed it.
  • Mfume: Launched iCLicker in January, it wouldn’t be ready in the Fall. But it would be open in the spring if it is possible.
  • Amy: A lot of other resources that classes use are starting to be standardized, and they are all under the McMillan to seek that out.
  • Mfume: What is the cost?
  • Amy: Around 85.
  • Amy: Other student organizations also have student codes, since that was possible would it be possible for the entire student body… not sure what is possible..
  • Mfume: Any student can join jump and it is one of the benefits, they have the budget for that. But, the thing about it there is it’s not the only thing. We have an expectation to engage with the program in some degree, so if students are interested in JUMP, they would get that, but also need to participate in the whole program.
  • Amy: Also, since it was last semester, would it be possible to get refunds for iClicker?
  • Mfume: No, it is not possible - with regards to all of that, the bureaucracy and all of that, it would be easier to do a whole trade exchange on a national scale than get retroactive refunds.
  • Tim: If this is not possible, is it possible for students to get credit?
  • Mfume: Probably not, there are other opportunities to enhance the student experience, rather than compensating students for agreements that we never promised.
  • Stone: Is it possible to have an academic grant like the computer grant?
  • Mfume: There’s a high level project going on regarding all the academic resources that someone can use, not her department to procure all the academic resources at 1 reduced fee, there are a couple of companies. When you go into those types of contracts, there would be a lot of specifics on how to deal with it. There’s some concerns on how to deal with it, there was 1 fee for all academic resources, less than 400 for the semester. Students were opting out of it and decided to opt back in, things got messy. Can check in on the next status of the other project regarding contracts with Barnes and Nobles to reduce the price of more things, specifically of standardizing more resources first and then get approval to use certain resources all cataloged in Barnes in Nobles.
  • Stone: More talking points, Achieve is the top priority, there are also some other materials. Zybooks is for gateway programming courses, it is not owned by achieve that is also used a lot. Another one is Chem21 labs, it is also a homework site that is only used by the General Chemistry Lab. A plethora of Hopkins students take general chemistry classes, and the fee is about $10 per student, so it would not be a huge cost.
  • Mfume: The main partner for making decisions: 1 how are we going to pay for it, and 2 how are we going to execute this service. Great partnership with education, specifically with CTE, they would manage the access of these, they would be fully on board for execution, hardest is how to pay for it. There is also a third component: any unintentional consequences?
  • Stone: Anything we need to do to help?
  • Mfume: We know from faculty and deans about how they say they use these resources - what would be helpful is asking more so “whether or not faculty are using it more since it’s no cost in the case of iclicker” or would these resources be used more with the implementation of free resources.
  • aander93@jh.edu (Brittini Brown and Tiffany Mfume)