Each semester students are charged $112.50 for their Technology Access Fee, which is used to fund various learning-through-technology programs like multimedia classrooms, replacement of old software and hardware, and to staff and maintain the computer labs.
Plans are now being made to use the TAF money for 2003-2004, which totals $2,259,100. Of that money, $244,700 has been set aside by the Technology Access Fee Advisory Committee of ETSU to fund innovative projects.
“Right now we’re soliciting those innovative projects, and various departments on campus are submitting proposals for that money,” said Dr. Steve Bader, dean of students and TAF Advisory Committee co-chairman.
The TAF committee is made up of staff and students. The committee will only consider innovative projects that meet certain criteria, such as the educational benefit it will provide to students, the length of the project, the number of students to be served, feasibility of the project and most importantly it must improve teaching and learning at ETSU.
Last year, TAF money for innovative projects were used for a statistics lab in the math department, a sequential art laboratory in the art department, a teacher mentoring center, a digital speech and language station, disability services adaptive equipment and to fund computers in the Peer Career Center, Bader said.
Departments on campus can submit ideas for TAF money allocated for innovative projects until March 21.
The proposals are sent to the department deans who send them to the appropriate vice president where they are prioritized and then sent to the TAF committee that decides which ones to implement. Then the Office of Information Technology orders and installs the needed equipment after the Physical Plant estimates the cost of any needed renovation to the project areas.
Bader said that he thinks it is important students know of the way their money is being put to use. “I think this would be of interest to the students that there are actual innovative projects out there that are going to be finished this year in addition to these other categories that I already mentioned that are continuing like the multimedia classrooms and the laboratories,” he said.
A large amount of TAF money is used to replace old computers.
“Now, of that budget, some of it goes to hardware replacement for the computer labs and those computers are managed by the Office of Information Technol-ogy,” Bader said. “And we change out those computers about every three years, so that is where a big piece of that money goes.”
ETSU buys computers from Dell which usually only provides three-year warranties. After the warranty period is up it costs more to maintain the computers than they are worth.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword,” Bader said. “You’ve got more old computers sitting around out there and somebody’s got to maintain them, and that’s where the cost of the university comes in.”
Carl Dury, chief information officer with OIT, said that computers generally do not last much past three years anyway when they are used like those in the computer labs are.
Hard drives, monitors — anything with moving parts will wear out soon with that much use. “They are on all the time, running all the time except during holidays,” Dury said. “So the TAF money has really helped students. Before TAF was available, computers in the labs were six or seven years old.”
The old computers are sold at an annual auction that ETSU holds, where they can go for as much as $15, Bader said.
Other uses for TAF money include a Microsoft access fee, which the university must pay to use Microsoft software, the university’s MountaiNet bill for network service and also to take care of the electronic media in the Sherrod Library.

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