Teaching and Learning Technology Advisory Group

Teaching and Learning Technology Advisory Group Charter

University of Wisconsin–‍Madison

Ver. 11/03/16

Purpose of this Charter Document

This charter defines the mission, guiding principles, membership and roles/responsibilities for the Teaching and Learning Technology Advisory Group (TLTAG) and its subcommittees. The charter will be reviewed and updated annually.

Authorization to Operate

The following individuals have authorized the TLTAG and will serve as its executive sponsors.

Mission

The TLTAG will:

1. provide a strong representation and advocacy for technology needs to support teaching and learning at the strategic and service levels of the IT governance and decision-making structure;
2. provide technical analysis and evaluation of proposed IT policies, resolutions, initiatives and projects concerning teaching and learning;
3. provide recommendations and resource prioritization concerning teaching and learning technology, in particular, provide leadership and guidance to support campus alignment, data sharing and usability of the shared student digital ecosystem and its various components.

Guiding Principles and Values

The TLTAG is guided by the following values, principles, and philosophies:

Inclusivity: TLTAG membership will strive to represent the different parts of campus involved in the teaching and learning mission of the university. While not every unit can be represented at all times, positions will rotate over time to cover the various parts of campus.
Forward looking: TLTAG will take a proactive and forward stance regarding emerging practices, strategies and capabilities for teaching and learning as influenced by technology.
Stewardship: TLTAG will strive to identify emerging campus needs concerning technology in the campus teaching and learning environment.
Transparency: TLTAG will be committed to open and transparent processes and decisions.
Alignment: TLTAG will serve to align and coordinate various initiatives, viewpoints and implementations of technology to meet the broad teaching and learning needs of campus.
Usability and Accessibility: Commit to usability and accessibility practices, which facilitate adoption of emerging technologies.

Roles

The TLTAG will have a campus-wide leadership role that is broad in scope as it relates to the use of technology to enable practices and efficiencies in teaching and learning.

• Advisory role to:
  • The IT Steering Committee and IT Core Leadership Team
  • The Vice-Provost for Teaching and Learning
  • The Associate Vice Provost for Learning Technologies and DoIT Director of Academic Technology
    • Awareness role for emerging trends, campus issues, and existing processes.
    • Leadership role for proactive change (process, systems, culture) and specific projects, initiatives, and activities.
    • Communication role for identifying communication needs, developing communication plans and ensuring that desired communication occurs.
    • An endorsement role for specific projects, decisions, and initiatives.

Operations

Sponsors and Executive Committee

The TLTAG sponsors will be the Vice-Provost for Teaching and Learning, the Associate Vice Provost for Learning Technologies, the Executive Director of IT Planning and Strategy and the CIO. The chair, the past-chair and the vice-chair will all serve on the executive committee with the sponsors. The Executive Committee has overall responsibility for TLTAG agendas, conduct of the meetings and activities. The Executive Committee will also fill or assign roles to other IT Governance committees.

The Executive Committee will set the meeting schedule for each academic year. The TLTAG will hold at least one meeting per month during the academic year when the university is in session with agenda and supporting materials provided one week prior. DoIT Academic Technology will serve as the secretariat of the committee by distributing meeting notices, recording meeting minutes and monitoring member meeting attendance and voting eligibility.

General Operations

As an advisory committee, most actions and recommendations by the committee will be by general consensus. At the Chair’s discretion, votes may be taken on matters of importance. All motions, actions and recommendations are advisory to the committee sponsors and the IT Steering Committee.
A quorum for voting will be achieved with an overall majority of members and at least 50% of the subcategory of faculty, staff, students and S/C learning technology representatives. All members on the committee with the exception of the sponsors will be voting members. Motions require a simple majority of members present to pass and any absentee ballots. Absentee votes will be counted if the member is eligible to vote and must be recorded within 72 hours of the in-meeting vote.

Committee members must attend at least two thirds of the meetings to retain their vote. With the exception of the first two meetings for a new member, voting rights are suspended with an automatic abstention vote on any voting matter when a member falls below this attendance threshold and are reinstated when they regain this attendance threshold. Such members will be counted as part of quorum requirements when they attend regardless of their voting status. If because of scheduling conflicts a member is repeatedly unable to attend, the Chair will consider replacing that member with someone else that fits the category.

Subcommittees and other committees

From time to time, TLTAG will form subcommittees that will include at least one TLTAG member and may include subcommittee members outside the TLTAG as needed. Near-term ad hoc subcommittees may include: i) Implementation of the student digital ecosystem, ii) Canvas Migration and Usability Issues, iii) Financial Impacts of T&L technology, iv) Unizin Participation, v) Learn@UW Tools and Operations.
There will be other committees that involve data governance and academic policy development that are related to but fall outside the realm of technology and the IT governance structure. TLTAG and its subcommittees will be expected to form communications, alignment and coordination with these other committees some of which are expected to have some overlap with TLTAG activities.

TLTAG will also maintain coordination and communication with other committees with the IT governance structure.

Membership

TLTAG will have a mix of campus faculty, instructional academic staff, students, academic technology professionals and campus unit representatives. To maintain a working committee the total membership will be approximately 20. Each member is appointed by the sponsors (sponsors consult with campus leadership). Members will serve a staggered two-year term with option of reappointments at the discretion of the sponsors. A one-year term is September through August.

The TLTAG Chair will solicit nominations for vice-chair. Vice-chair nominees must be either new or existing members of TLTAG. At the conclusion of the nomination period, the sponsors will select the vice-chair. After one year, the vice chair will rotate into the chair role and the chair will become the past-chair.

An approximate member representation is shown below and will be reviewed annually by the Executive Team.

• 6 Faculty/instructional academic staff
• 2 Student representatives – graduate and undergraduate
• 4 School and College learning technology representatives (including the chair of the Instructional Technologist Group)
• 2 DoIT representatives (including at least one DoIT Academic Technology representative)
• 1 Collaborative for Advancing Teaching and Learning representative
• 1 Division of Continuing Studies representative
• 1 Division of Enrollment Management representative
• 1 Library representative
• 1 APIR representative
• 1 Graduate School representative