Wednesday,
August 21, 2013; 9:00 a.m. CT
SCC Continuing
Education Center, Room 302
301 S. 68th
Street Place, Lincoln, NE
VOTING MEMBERS/ALTERNATES PRESENT:
Dr. Terry Haack, Bennington Public
Schools, Co-Chair
Mr. Clark Chandler, Nebraska
Wesleyan University
Mr. Matt Chrisman, Mitchell Public
Schools
Mr. John Dunning, Wayne State
College
Ms. Yvette Holly, UN-Medical Center
Mr. Steven Stortz, Alt. for Stephen
Hamersky, Daniel J. Gross Catholic High School
Mr. Lyle Neal, Southeast Community
College
Mr. Gary Needham, ESU 9
Mr. Randy Schmailzl,
Metropolitan Community College
Dr. Bob Uhing, Educational Service
Unit 1
LIAISONS/ALTERNATE MEMBERS PRESENT
Gary Targoff, Nebraska Educational
Telecommunications
MEMBERS/LIAISONS ABSENT: Mike Carpenter, Doane College; Mr. Ed Hoffman, Nebraska
State College System; Mr. Jeff Johnson, Centennial Public Schools; Dr. Mike
Lucas, York Public Schools; Ms. Mary Niemiec, University
of Nebraska; Ms. Brenda Decker, Office of the CIO; Dr. Marshall Hill,
Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education; and Mr. Brent Gaswick, Nebraska
Department of Education.
CALL
TO ORDER, ELECTRONIC POSTING, LOCATION OF OPEN MEETING LAW DOCUMENTS, ROLL
CALL, INTRODUCTIONS
Dr. Haack, Co-Chair, called the
meeting to order at 9:03 a.m. There were
10 voting members present at the time of roll call. A quorum existed to conduct official
business. The NITC Education Council wishes to thank the SCC staff for helping
host the August 21, 2013 meeting. The meeting Notice was posted to the NITC and
Nebraska Public Meeting Calendar Web sites June 20, 2013.
The meeting agenda was posted to the NITC Web site on August 16,
2013. The Open Meetings Law was located
on the east counter of the meeting room.
CONSIDER APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA FOR
THE AUGUST 21, 2013 MEETING
Mr.
Needham moved to approve the August 21, 2013
meeting agenda. Dr. Uhing
seconded. Roll call vote: Chandler-Yes, Chrisman-Yes, Dunning-Yes,
Haack-Yes, Stortz-Yes, Holly-Yes, Neal-Yes, Needham-Yes, Schmailzl-Yes,
and Uhing-Yes. Results: Yes-10, No-0, Abstained-0. Motion carried.
CONSIDER APPROVAL OF THE APRIL 17,
2013 MEETING MINUTES
Mr.
Dunning moved to approve the April 17, 2013
minutes. Mr. Neal seconded. Roll call vote: Uhing-Yes, Schmailzl-Yes, Needham-Yes, Neal-Yes, Holly-Yes,
Stortz-Yes, Haack-Yes, Dunning-Yes, Chrisman-Yes, and Chandler-Yes. Results:
Yes-10, No-0, Abstained-0. Motion
carried.
PUBLIC
COMMENT
There was no public comment.
DEMONSTRATION: NEW NITC WEBSITE
Elizabeth
Vornbrock and Tom Rolfes
Ms. Vornbrock provided a demonstration of the new NITC website, which went live
an hour before the meeting started. The
NITC 15th Anniversary Booklet
and Video were
highlighted. The Website will be used as
a means to disseminate information and update action items for the Statewide Technology
Plan. Council members requested the ability for work groups to privately collaborate
and work on documents in common, similar to Google Docs. Mr. Rolfes replied
that a collaborative space is not possible, yet, with the current website, but
will be considered sometime in the future.
NETWORK
NEBRASKA UPDATE
Tom Rolfes, NITC Education Manager
Summer 2013 Network Nebraska Upgrade. Two summers ago, Network Nebraska went
through an upgrade of 150 circuits, as well as rerouting changes. New members in Summer
2013 are as follows:
·
Falls City Public Schools, ESU 4
·
Johnson County Central Schools, ESU
4
·
Dorchester Public Schools, ESU 6
·
Milford Public Schools, ESU 6
·
Waverly Public Schools, ESU 6
·
Educational Service Unit 6, Milford
·
Grand Island Central Catholic High
School, ESU 10 and
·
Union College, Lincoln.
Between July and August, these new
institutions had to be up and running which did occur but not without a few
issues. Approximately 93% of all
Nebraska public K-20 students interact with Network Nebraska on a daily
basis. Network Nebraska bandwidth increased
from 1.7 gbps to 2.0 gbps
on each segment of the backbone. Network
Nebraska is looking at different strategies for connectivity and a rebid of
certain infrastructure could occur as early as this fall.
2013-14 Fee Memo. In July, the Office
of the CIO sent out the annual Network Nebraska letter which provided an update
of Network Nebraska, a list of services, and announced this year’s fees. The participation fee went up a bit due to
additional services initiated. The memo
also contained a summary of the participants.
The Network Nebraska Advisory Group and Network Nebraska will have a new
website and this information will be posted.
2013-14 Commercial Peering Service (CPS). Commodity Internet is purchased for Network Nebraska
through a statewide contract. Network
Nebraska will be bringing up an additional 3Gbps of CPS Internet this fall through
its connection to Internet2 out of Kansas City. This
commercial peering services include such companies as Microsoft, Google,
Apple, etc. The net charge will be 25 cents per Mbps/month and will be shared
among all entities that are currently purchasing commodity Internet through
Network Nebraska. This will be a pilot
service for 2014 to determine its potential.
Network Nebraska Advisory Group Report (5/15/2013 meeting notes). The meeting notes were provided as part of
the meeting materials. The group meets by video conferencing and members were
invited to attend if interested. John Stritt and Debbie Schroeder serve as the co-chairs.
Mr. Needham gave kudos to the Network
Nebraska staff (Ben Mientka and Brad Weakly) for their efficiency and expertise
of operations and for bringing up his ESU 9 schools this past summer, all with
new providers.
NASCIO Cross-Boundary Collaboration and
Partnerships Award Finalist;
Nomination. Network Nebraska as
a self-funded and voluntary participation network has gained national recognition. NASCIO (National Association of State CIO’s)
gives an annual award to state I.T. Projects.
Network Nebraska is one of four finalists this year for the
Cross-Boundary Collaboration and Partnership award out of 11 other entries.
NITC
STATEWIDE
TECHNOLOGY PLAN
2012-14 Action Items for
Network Nebraska, Digital Education, E-Gov Strategic
Initiatives.
Mr. Rolfes provided a brief overview to the new members about the NITC
Statewide Technology Plan. This year a
new initiative was approved by the NITC which is the GIS (Geographic
Information Systems) initiative. The GIS
Council will be developing action items for this initiative.
The Council broke up into their
action item work groups to discuss the following recommendations per action
item assigned to the action items.
·
Continuation
·
Modification
·
Completion
·
Discontination
·
Also determine if any new action
items need to be added.
Network
Nebraska Initiative Action Items Recommendations:
N1a Action: The CAP will work
with communities that express an interest in aggregating their public sector
data transport.
Recommendation: Discontinuation
N1b Action: Education entities
will act as primary tenants to encourage the aggregation of data transport by
community anchor institutions through
leased circuits.
Recommendation: Continuation
with minor modification
N2a Action: The
Network Nebraska network design/support team will develop a service level
agreement with local and regional education entities in order to develop a
cooperative support system for the statewide education network that will insure
data transport and synchronous video reliability.
Recommendation: Completed
N2b
Action: The
Chief Information Officer will encourage
the use of the State master purchase contracts for edge devices and monitor
the local site purchases of such equipment in order to promote and encourage
network equipment standardization.
Recommendation:
Continuation with minor modification
N3
Action: The
CAP will accept new orders for Internet service and continue to aggregate
purchasing demand to secure a more economical price for statewide Internet
service.
Recommendation:
Continuation
N4a Action: Develop
appropriate participation criteria (e.g. type of entity, bandwidth expectations,
differential fees) for Network
Nebraska to serve all network participants (i.e. public/nonpublic K-12,
public/nonpublic higher education, public libraries, others).
Recommendation: Continuation with minor
modification
N4b Action: Develop a catalog of
subscription services for Network Nebraska participants.
Recommendation: Continuation with minor
modification
N4c
Action: Bi-annually reissue the Network
Nebraska Marketing Survey and subsequent Report to help steer the strategic
direction of Network Nebraska—Education.
Recommendation:
Continuation with minor modification
N4d
Action: Annually
update the Network Nebraska Marketing Plan.
Recommendation:
Continuation
N4e Action: Maintain an
enterprise MCU bridging service for Network Nebraska participants.
Recommendation: Completed
N4f
Action:
Facilitate the implementation and training of IPv6 routing on a timely basis
across all Network Nebraska entities.
Recommendation:
Continuation
Digital
Education Initiative Action Items Recommendations:
D1
Action: Promote
the usage of the National Repository for Online Courses (NROC) content by
Nebraska educators.
Recommendation: Continuation
D2 Action: Set a deadline, and
establish standard(s) related to the deployment, administration and maintenance
of content management systems by K-12 schools.
Recommendation: Discontinuation
D3
Action: Fully deploy a statewide
digital content repository interface
that allows the assignment of digital property rights and the uploading,
cataloguing, metatagging, searching, and downloading
of digital learning objects by Nebraska educators.
Recommendation: Continuation with minor
modification
D4
Action: Develop
and deploy a statewide learning management system for every K-12 teacher and
learner, grades 6-12, and train teachers in effective instructional design to
integrate synchronous and asynchronous technologies.
Recommendation:
Continuation
D5 Action: Develop
and deploy
Coordinate and facilitate a
statewide directory services structure federation effort that will enable students and teachers a single
sign-on to associated learning management services and content management
resources.
Recommendation: Continuation with minor
modification
E-Government
Initiative Action Items Recommendations
E1Action: Maintain the Education Portal on the State of
Nebraska website.
Recommendation:
Continuation
The NITC will be approving the
2014-2016 action items for the Statewide Technology Plan at their Fall/Winter
meeting.
Council members asked if the Network
Nebraska Advisory Group could review these as well not only for content but to
look at overlap and duplication of efforts.
TASK
GROUP REPORTS
Task groups met during the meeting to work on action items: Emerging Technologies Task Group, Services
Task Group, Governance Task Group and Marketing Task Group.
FCC
E-RATE 2.0 NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULE MAKING
(NPRM)
On July 19th the FCC
announced a major request for proposed changes in the E-rate program. The FCC is requiring comments to be submitted
by September 16, 2013. It would be a
drastic change for Nebraska and for school districts if E-rate would go away.
Approximately 69% of the backbone and Internet funding comes from E-rate. Members were encouraged to submit comments on
behalf of rural states like Nebraska.
Excerpt taken from NPRM:
1.
As the agency charged
by Congress with enhancing access to advanced communications services to
schools and libraries, we seek ways to close the gap between the broadband
needs of schools and libraries and their ability to purchase those services. We start by proposing concrete goals aimed at
closing that gap. Specifically, we
propose the following three goals: (1) ensuring that schools and libraries have
affordable access to 21st Century broadband that supports digital learning; (2)
maximizing the cost-effectiveness of E-rate funds; and (3) streamlining the
administration of the E-rate program. We seek comment below
on the three proposed goals for the E-rate program and on defined objective,
measurable standards to track progress toward meeting those goals.
SUBSECTOR
UPDATES
State College System. Mr. Dunning reported that a shared services
inventory within the state college system is underway. The lack of a redundant transport pathway is
a concern.
Community College System. Mr. Neal reported
that every year, the community college IT leadership group meets. He
will have more information at the next Education Council meeting.
Independent Colleges. Mr. Chandler reported that Union College has
joined Network Nebraska.
University of Nebraska. Ms. Holly reported
that there is a university-wide team that has been meeting to move forward with
federated services in the Big 10. Once local
sites have been validated, they can access anywhere in the nation. This will enhance collaboration.
K-12 Public and Private. It was recommended that the Network Nebraska
Advisory Group consider including libraries as participants. Private and parochial schools could also benefit.
UPDATE:
BLENDED INITIATIVE. Matt Blomstedt. Topics of discussion recently have included
federation, data dashboards, technical feasibility of connections for
educational institutions and the progress of digital education. The ESUCC is attempting to follow the Action
Items set forth in the Statewide Technology Plan. A Federated identity management pilot within
Network Nebraska is putting Nebraska K12 districts ahead of the rest of the
nation. There is a need to explore what
key investments we can make as a state that will benefit everyone. The Data Dashboard system by the Nebraska
Department of Education is aligning with the ESUCC but does not have the staff
to make it happen. Mr. Blomstedt would like to present a business plan to the
NITC for the next biennial budget. There
is a video about connecting educational resources at a level that has never
been done before, produced by the US secretary of education. He will send Mr. Rolfes information on the
video to share with the Council. Mr. Blomstedt
is willing to work with the Education Council in developing the action items
for the 2014-2016 Statewide Technology Plan.
OTHER
ITEMS OF INFORMATION
Broadband Connecting Nebraska Conference. The conference is
scheduled for October 16-17 in Kearney. Mr.
Rolfes will check to see if the council would like to meet there for the next meeting. Video conferencing would be available as
well.
AGENDA
ITEMS FOR THE 10/16/2013 MEETING
·
Review and approval of the Statewide
Technology Plan Action Items by the Education Council
Members were asked to send Mr.
Rolfes agenda items.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr.
Chandler moved to adjourn. Mr. Stortz seconded. All were in favor. Motion carried.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:33
a.m.
The meeting minutes were taken by
Lori Lopez Urdiales and reviewed by Tom Rolfes of the Office of the CIO/NITC.