UWIDEC APC P. 10

2003/4

UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

Access to APC documents

1 The APC is envisaged to be the main meeting-point for a “virtual campus”. While the non-virtual campuses make their uncertain way towards a digital future, it behoves the APC to boldly go where they have yet to tread and transform its activities as fully as possible into contemporary modes.

2 Where once the history of an entity such as the APC would have consisted in Minutes and Papers stored in archives and scattered amongst its changing membership, it is now possible for these materials to be available openly and accessibly to any one who needs to see them. Paper documents fail in general to circulate beyond the very small group to which they are originally sent. New members of a Board do not know what has gone before. Persons not on a Board but who need to know its decisions can only find them with considerable difficulty. It is not surprising issues are never resolved and that one arm of the University does not know of decisions taken elsewhere that affect it.

3 While one cannot make people consult records, one can at least provide them with easy access. The suggestion is, then, that the Papers and Minutes of the APC should be posted on a University website.

4 At the moment, documents such as these are accessible to members of the University, but at considerable cost in effort. They are not in general accessible to members of the public. If it is thought that such a restriction is to be preserved, one mechanism would be to protect the website with a username and password. Members of the University would be told a standard pair of symbol sequences that will give them access to the website. Hackers will have to hack.

5 The proposal should be viewed by the University as a pilot scheme for its many committees and Boards. If it is successful and is not abused, the University should move its other significant records to similar sites with similar (or identical) access.

Office of the Board for NCC/DE

October 14th, 2003