InstructionalLabsCommittee

Table of Contents

 

Introduction to the Instructional Labs Committee (ILC)

The general purpose of the Instructional Lab Committee (ILC) is to provide a venue for faculty and support staff to meet, discuss lab needs and desires, recommend policies for adoption by BSOE and to plan, discuss and approve instructional lab equipment purchases. The ILC meets as frequently as requirements and opportunities present themselves.   Recommended meeting frequency is once per quarter but this can increase when necessary, such as during an equipment procurement cycle, which tends to occur in the Spring quarter.    

The ILC generally involves itself with issues regarding the BELS Teaching Labs, Senior Design Labs, Game Design/Computational Media Teaching Labs, and Biomolecular Engineering Teaching Labs as these labs often split BSOE funds for instructional labs.   The ILC may discuss issues regarding the ITS Computing Labs but has no direct influence over those operations.   The ILC may also discuss issues related to the BSOE computing infrastructure but generally, those facilities fall under the preview of the BSOE Computing Infrastructure Committee (CIC).

The ILC membership includes the people listed below, however, Department Chairs and other interested faculty are always welcomed.

Membership

  • Steve Petersen - Faculty, Electrical Engineering Dept
  • Martine Schlag - Faculty and Chair, Computer Engineering Dept
  • Gabriel Elkaim - Faculty, Computer Engineering Dept - Robotics Group
  • Kevin Karplus - Faculty, Biomolecular Engineering Dept
  • Jim Whitehead - Faculty and Chair, Computational Media Dept
  • (open) - Computer Science
  • Maureen Mclean - Assistant Dean, Baskin School of Engineering
  • Bob Vitale - Director of Laboratories & Facilities, Baskin School of Engineering
  • Russ Evans - Senior Development Engineer.  Baskin Engineering Lab Support
  • Hugh Olsen - BME teaching lab manager, Biomolecular Engineering Dept

 In general, most courses have lab fees that account for the costs of parts & tool kits given to the student, consumables left in the lab (wire, solder, drills, glue guns, etc) and lab printing. Lab printing has been calculated by Instructional Computing to be 15 cents per page and BSOE tech staff have recently confirmed that 15 cents/page is a reasonable rate when considering paper, toner and student staff support.

Charge To The Committee

Serve as the forum for: Discussing, planning and implementing strategic direction for instructional laboratories. Creating Schoolwide procedure and policy for instructional laboratories. Recommending deployment of Schoolwide computing resources-such as Instructional Equipment Replacement (IER) funding. Discuss issues affecting operation and maintenance of instructional laboratories. Resolving conflicts between users and technical staff regarding instructional laboratories issues.   Recommend courses of action to Dean.

Process

SOE CE and EE Department Chairs identify one faculty member each from CE and EE departments to serve on the committee. Instructional laboratory technical staff serve on the committee. SOE faculty-at-large communicates instructional laboratory concerns to faculty committee representatives who, in turn, brings issues to the committee. Technical staff bring issues to the committee. Committee members forward agenda items to the BSOE Director of Laboratories and Facilities. Committee meets four times a year at the beginning of each academic quarter and summer session or on ad-hoc basis as needed. The committee analyzes issues and takes action or makes recommendations, as appropriate. As appropriate, Assistant Dean presents the committee's recommendations to Dean for action.