Wednesday, February 18 at 9:00 am CT
Host site: Varner Hall Board Room, 3835 Holdrege, Lincoln
Remote sites: ESU 13, 4215 Avenue I, Scottsbluff, NE; Wayne State College IT
Bldg, Wayne, NE; Metro Community College, Fort Dodge Campus, Omaha, NE;
Schuyler Community Schools Administrative Office, 401 Adam St., Schuyler, NE
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mr. Burke Brown
(Lincoln site)
Mr. Mike
Carpenter (Lincoln site)
Mr. Matt
Chrisman, Mitchell Public Schools (Scottsbluff site)
Mr. John Dunning,
Wayne State College (Wayne site)
Dr. Dan
Hoesing, Schuyler Community Schools (Schuyler site)
Mr. Steve Hotovy, Nebraska State College System (Lincoln site)
Mr. Gary
Needham, Educational Service Unit 9 (Lincoln site)
Mr. Mary
Niemiec, University of Nebraska (Lincoln site)
Mr. Randy
Schmailzl, Metro Community College (Omaha site)
Mr. Steven
Stortz, Alt. for Stephen Hamersky, Daniel J. Gross Catholic High School
(Lincoln site)
Dr. Bob Uhing,
ESU 1 (Wayne site)
LIAISONS/ALTERNATES PRESENT: Dr. Kathleen
Fimple
MEMBERS/LIAISONS ABSENT: Mr.
Derek Bierman; Yvette Holly, Dr. Mike Lucas; Mr. Greg
Maschman, and Mr. Darren Oestmann;
Ms. Brenda Decker; Mr. Brent Gaswick, and Mr. Gary Targoff
CALL TO ORDER, ELECTRONIC POSTING,
LOCATION OF OPEN MEETING LAW DOCUMENTS, ROLL CALL, INTRODUCTIONS
Co-Chair,
Gary Needham, called the meeting to order at 9:01 am CT. The meeting notice posted to the NITC Web site
and the Nebraska Public Meeting Calendar December 12, 2014.
The agenda was posted to the NITC Web site December 30, 2014 and updated
February 13, 2015. The Open Meeting Statutes were
located on the southeast corner of the NET Board Room. Ms. Lopez-Urdiales
called the roll and found 10 voting members or alternates present. A quorum was
reached in order to conduct official business. Members and guests introduced
themselves.
CONSIDER APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA FOR
THE FEBRUARY 18, 2015 MEETING*
Mr. Hotovy
moved to approve the meeting agenda as presented. Mr. Brown seconded. Roll call vote: Brown-Yes, Chrisman-Yes, Dunning-Yes, Stortz-Yes, Hoesing-Yes, Hotovy-Yes, Maschman-Yes, Needham-Yes, Schmailzl-Yes, and Uhing-Yes.
Results: Yes-10, No-0, Abstained-0. Motion carried.
Ms. Niemiec
arrived to the meeting.
CONSIDER APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES
FROM THE DECEMBER 17, 2014 MEETING*
Mr. Uhing moved to approve the December 17, 2014 as presented. Ms. Niemiec seconded. Roll call vote: Uhing-Yes, Schmailzl-Yes, Niemiec-Yes, Needham-Yes, Maschman-Yes, Hotovy-Yes, Hoesing-Yes, Stortz-Yes, Dunning-Yes, Chrisman-Yes, and Bierman-Yes. Results: Yes-11, No-0, Abstained-0. Motion carried.
Mr. Rolfes provided a historical background on
Network Nebraska and its partnerships prior to the presentation.
INTERNET2 AND NET+ PRESENTATION
Michael Ruhrdanz,
Director of Information Technology Services, UNL
Internet2 –Overview. Internet2 is a private network built specifically to support the needs of higher education. It is managed by the University Community with 252 members from U.S. universities. It is an exceptionally fast, high capacity network (100G/sec) with very low latency. It enables applications not otherwise capable of operating across the internet via LOLA (LOwLAtencyaudio/visual system). There are 41 Regional and State Education Networks Interconnect with Internet2
Internet2 and Nebraska. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln connects to Internet2 through a 100Gb/sec network connection to Kansas City. Internet2 is made available to all Network Nebraska participants. No one needs to do anything special to use Internet2 –the network itself makes the decision regarding how best to route network traffic.
Internet2 Commercial Peering Service. Internet2 has installed direct peering connections to over 80 of the most popular service providers such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Netflix, and Apple. This helps to ensure that bottlenecks that periodically exist within the Internet don’t impact education. This also reduces latency to the most popular services through a reduction in network hops and less constrained network segments.
Internet2 –“NET+” Services. This is a means to acquire services that are commonly used within education. It is not simply a buying consortium. Vendors cannot request to become part of the NET+ program –Internet2 members themselves must champion a service. One contract is developed including the terms and conditions that most education institutions demand. It potentially saves a great deal of procurement and legal staff time. Only a limited number of services of the same type will be included in the NET+ program.
Council
members were given an opportunity to ask questions.
These are
posted on the NITC website.
LB 49: A BILL FOR AN ACT relating to schools;
to require formation of allied systems as prescribed.
This bill
has been introduced by Senator Sheer.
LB 371: A BILL FOR AN ACT relating to education;
to create the Nebraska Council for Educational Success; and to provide powers
and duties.
The bill
was introduced by Senator Sullivan. A hearing
was held on January 27.
LB 402: A BILL FOR AN ACT relating to education;
to amend sections 79-1336 and 79-1337, Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska,
and section 9-812, Revised Statutes Cumulative Supplement, 2014; to change and eliminate
provisions relating to distance education incentives; to harmonize provisions;
and to repeal the original sections.
The bill
was introduced Senator Baker. A hearing has
been scheduled for March 2.
LB 519 (not in meeting docs): A BILL FOR AN ACT
relating to education; to amend sections 79-1001, 79-1003, 79-1007.11,
79-1017.01, and 85-1412, Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska, and section
9-812, Revised Statutes Cumulative Supplement, 2014; to change provisions
relating to the Nebraska Education Improvement Fund; to provide for best
practices aid, grant programs, and assistance as prescribed; to provide duties
for the State Board of Education, the State Department of Education, the
Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education, and the Department of
Labor; to change provisions relating to state aid to schools; to harmonize
provisions; to repeal the original sections; and to outright repeal section
79-2306, Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska.
The bill
was introduced Senator Sullivan. The
bill proposes that beginning in July 2016, the lottery fund would be
redistributed differently than it has been in the past.
LB 520: A BILL FOR AN ACT relating to education;
to amend sections 79-1336 and 79-1337, Reissue Revised Statutes of Nebraska,
and section 9-812, Revised Statutes Cumulative Supplement, 2014; to change and eliminate
provisions relating to distance education incentives; to harmonize provisions;
and to repeal the original sections.
This is
another bill introduced by Senator Sullivan for redistribution of funds which
will include early childhood. A hearing has
been scheduled for March 2.
LB 589: A BILL FOR AN ACT relating to education
funding; to amend section 9-812, Revised Statutes Cumulative Supplement, 2014;
to provide for allocation of the Nebraska Education Improvement Fund; and to
repeal the original section.
The bill
was introduced by Senator Pansing Brooks. This bill also affects lottery funds. A hearing is scheduled for March 2.
Mr. Rolfes
reminded the Council that they can sign up for Bill Tracker from the
Legislative website.
NETWORK NEBRASKA UPDATE
Tom Rolfes,
Education I.T. Manager
Project Management Report (2/1/2015), Tom Rolfes. Mr. Rolfes presented the monthly Network
Nebraska enterprise report provided to the Technical Panel. He recommended that Network Nebraska be
concluded as an NITC enterprise project on 7/1/2015 as public K-20
participation has reached 100%. After 7/1/2015,
the project will be primarily be dealing with operations, reliability and growth
in the private K-12 and private higher education sectors.
NNAG Meeting Notes.
The Network Nebraska Advisory Group held a special meeting to discuss
dynamic provisioning of Internet access.
If the project could slim down the bandwidth actually ordered from
providers, then it could lower the administrative costs for participants. Cost avoidance dollars would be used on
applications related to the transport and management of Internet access. Network Nebraska has had a 100% retention of
its membership during its eight year existence.
Today, Harvard
University will be making an announcement about Network Nebraska
being a “Bright Idea”, and being
recognized as an innovative government program.
The press release will be out today.
Walter
Weir, new NITC Commissioner, joined the meeting.
E-rate Modernization
The Office
of the CIO is in the process of filing e-Rate applications
for the State of Nebraska. The deadline
is March 26. The filing process takes
place completely online.
RFP 4862 Update
The RFP
was released to get bids for the Internet egress for Omaha. The unit cost is projected to drop from $1.35
to $.67 per megabit. The blended Network
Nebraska Internet rate will be about $.93 per megabit. Partners will be asked to look at their usage
reports in order to better inform their needs to order Internet.
NITC ACTION ITEMS
Review
of 2014-16 Action Items
Digital
Education is one the strategic initiatives.
The Education Council takes a lead role in developing action items
towards accomplishing this initiative.
The co-chairs discussed options to develop the action items. Most of the current action items pertain to K-12. The co-chairs would like to have a
brainstorming session to address issues and develop action items to bring back
to the Council for review and discussion.
Mr. Rolfes recommended that the following questions be part of the
discussion:
·
Network Nebraska
will be completed as an enterprise project by summer 2015: What and how do we include this as a continued
service? What additional services or capabilities does the Council and the
participants want Network Nebraska to implement?
o Future Policies
o Future Shared practices
By group
consensus, the council agreed with the approach and tasks. Members who volunteered to be part of the task
group were Burke Brown, Mike Carpenter, Dan Hoesing, and
Steve Hotovy.
If others were interested, they were to contact Mr. Rolfes.
Task group
membership may change due to the NITC Initiative revisions and Statewide
Technology Plan action items. The task
groups have not met and were not asked to meet until the new action items are
further developed.
SUBSECTOR UPDATES
State colleges, Steve Hotovy. From the systemwide
level, the shared student information system continues to be an excellent
example of collaboration. There have
been a number of upgrades that have been implemented. Don Mihulka was acknowledged for his efforts
with the student information system implementation and is currently working on
getting the student dashboards implemented.
Dr. Gabrielle Banick met with their staff
regarding the transfer initiative which went live January 2015. There are already 6,500 equivalencies. Peru
state is upgrading their system with the State Department of Administrative Services
Master Lease Program. This is another example
of collaboration. The Electronic
Transcript Software is working with all state college entities. The agency is looking at an upgrade to their
gateway payment software. The RFP
process is underway. It is anticipated
that implementation would occur at the end of the calendar year.
Mr.
Dunning, Wayne State College, reported that there were a number of departments
looking to IT to help with business process automation. The potentially negative news is that there
are number of state college offices looking at the level of Return On Investment (ROI) regarding IT processes and implementation.
Community colleges.
There was no update.
Independent colleges, Mike Carpenter. No report.
Mr. Carpenter wanted to comment that today’s discussions were very
encouraging.
University of Nebraska, Mary Niemiec. Ms. Niemiec would like to demonstrate the
transcripts module at a future Education Council meeting. The University of
Nebraska Medical Center is exploring “simulations” for classroom learning. The University of Nebraska became a member of
the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA). In addition, the
University continues to work with the other states that are currently not
members. An internal dashboard has been
developed. It is database driven and meant
to be used by academic divisions such as financial aid, admissions. If other entities are interested, they were
asked to contact Ms. Niemiec for code.
Mr. Weir also stated that the servers have been refreshed. He also reported that the University is
working on a cloud first strategy. Blackboard
will be moved to the cloud. Box is
already in the cloud, as well as Office365 with no cost for email. He will share a document from EDUCAUSE with
the chairs. Dr. Fimple reported that
there are now 19 states participating in SARA.
There is a push in the south to get more of the southeastern states to
participate. On May 14, the “Partnering
for Success”, 2015 Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium, will be
held by UNL at the Cornhusker Marriott Hotel.
Members of the Education Council were invited. The Symposium organizers are looking for
presenters. It was suggested the Council
do a presentation about the Council and the NITC.
K-12 public & private.
Burke Brown reported that the NESA writing tests have been completed
with relatively no issues. He thanked
the leadership of Network Nebraska for engaging the Nebraska Department of
Education and the online testing contractor, DRC. Schools are gearing up for the Math testing. Net+ services would be a great opportunity
for collaboration. Mr. Stortz, on behalf of private schools, is
pleased with NNAG’s recommendation to admit the Lincoln Diocese Catholic
schools as a single school system.
OTHER BUSINESS
There was
no “Other” business.
AGENDA ITEMS FOR THE 4/15/2015
MEETING
Agenda
items for the next meeting included:
·
Report
from the action items working group.
·
Demo of transfer.nebraska
CONSIDER LOCATION(S) FOR THE
4/15/2015 MEETING
The new
NITC Chair, Felix Davidson, will be invited to the next Education Council
meeting. The Lincoln location will be
determined at a later time.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. Brown
moved to adjourn. Mr. Hotovy seconded. All
were in favor. Motion carried by
unanimous voice vote.
The
meeting was adjourned at 11:35 a.m.
Minutes
were taken by Lori Lopez Urdiales and reviewed by Tom Rolfes of the Office of
the CIO/NITC.