Some faculty members will be gone today and hope to come back Saturday with new ideas about information technology at Iowa State.

Between 75 and 80 faculty members are going to the Faculty Spring Conference at the Des Moines Area Community College Conference Center in Newton, said Dean Ulrichson, president of the Faculty Senate.

The conference, which is titled “Faculty Roles in the Information Age: Challenges and Opportunities,” began at 8 a.m. today and will go until 1 p.m. Saturday.

“It is to solicit ideas for what we should do to support faculty and the university in using information technology more effectively,” said Ulrichson, professor of chemical engineering.

The conference will include a discussion on the effects of technology on both teaching and research, said Ann Thompson, professor and chairwoman of curriculum and instruction.

The conference also gives faculty from different departments a chance to interact, she said.

“The faculty conference presents a nice opportunity for faculty across the campus to get together,” Thompson said.

Ulrichson said faculty are the ones who implement the information technology in teaching and learning.

“We want to assess what the opportunities and problems are — what we need to do to support faculty in implementing technology into the academic environment,” he said.

Ulrichson said they want to create task forces to “take ideas and develop action plans” after the conference is over.

The goal is to come up with a recommendation for the faculty and administration for the use of information technology, Thompson said.

“We hope to come up with specific recommendations as to the direction, policy and procedure that we can use to assist the use of technology, both in the classroom and research setting,” she said.

ISU Provost Rollin Richmond will be speaking about expectations near the beginning of the conference.

Diana Oblinger, vice president for Information Resources and chief information officer for the 16-campus University of North Carolina system, will also speak at the conference. She has co-edited three books and worked for IBM in management positions. She will be speaking on “The New E in Education.”

The conference will feature a series of speakers from across campus, Ulrichson said. Faculty members will also break out into group sessions to talk about topics such as information technology teaching and learning, outreach, research and innovation, and university organizing, planning and resources.

Peter Siegel, director of Academic Information Technology, said the conference will give faculty a chance to share ideas and “move toward the same vision” in information technology.

“The main goal is to get a significant group of faculty members to share the best ideas that people have,” he said.