Finally, the Regents - who keep pushing for high techy online ed - were embarrassed by their own primitive IT service and the fact that someone else was doing their archiving. So they moved to both an audio and video live streaming of their meetings and archived the video. That is all well and good except that current regental policy is to preserve the "archive" only for one year. When we requested the audio files so that an indefinite archiving could occur, we were told that since the files were now online, they wouldn't be provided (even though they will disappear after a year).
If that sounds improper to you, it probably is - and we will pursue it. In the meantime, we will painfully record the meetings from the "archives" before they disappear and archive them indefinitely. You can't download the actual files; only record them. So a four-hour session takes four hours to record. You might note the contrast between the Regents and the Calchannel [http://www.calchannel.com/] which archives legislative hearings and other Sacramento official activities. If you go to the Calchannel website, you have the option of downloading files or streaming them. And there is no one year evaporation. The Regents could use Calchannel or at least mimic its policy. But right now, they don't for whatever reason.
If you follow California politics, you know that quite recently there was a big brouhaha in Sacramento when legislation was proposed as part of the state budget that would have ended the mandate that local governments make public documents available. (The state must reimburse local governments for costs of mandates so dropping the requirement saved some budget money.) When the dropping of the mandate became known, a firestorm erupted and the mandate was continued. That episode should make the Regents and UC sensitive to the public documents issue.
Anyway, for now, below is a link to the January 15, 2013 session of the Regents. We will be posting later sessions as time permits.
Public Comment Period
Action Approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of October 31,
2012
A3 Discussion Plan
for External Audit Request for Proposal
A4 Discussion
Continuous Monitoring and Continuous Auditing – Internal Audit Partnering with
Management
A5 Discussion
Information Technology Expertise for Internal Audit
A6 Discussion
Information Technology Model and Interim Leadership
Click below to hear the session:
You didn't think the Regents moved to video and an archive out of the goddness of their hearts. They were required to by legislation that passed last year, AB 1723:
ReplyDelete"This bill would require those entities [which included the UC REgents]... to provide for live video transmissions, as specified, and to archive and post the video and audio transmissions on the entity's Internet Web site for at least 12 months and within 48 hours following the initial transmission."
Note that the law only requires they make the video available for twelve months, so, of course, the Regent's wouldn't be interested in offering the video for longer.