Thursday,
September 2, 2010, 1:00 PM CT
NSEA Board Room, 4th
Floor
MINUTES
VOTING MEMBERS/ALTERNATES PRESENT:
Mr. Arnold Bateman,
Mr. Clark Chandler,
Dr.
Mr. Ken Clipperton, Alt. for Chuck
Lenosky,
Mr. Ron Cone, ESU 10
Mr. Don Davis, Alt. for Mr. Jeff Stanley, Conestoga Public
Schools
Dr. Terry Haack,
Mr. Leonard Hartman,
Ms. Yvette Holly, University of
Mr. Jeff Johnson,
Mr. Dennis Linster,
Mr. Steven Stortz, Alt. for Stephen Hamersky, Omaha
Gross High School
Dr. Bob Uhing, ESU 1
LIAISONS/ALTERNATE MEMBERS PRESENT: Mr. John Stritt,
ESU 10; Mr. Gary Targoff, NET; Ms. SuAnn Witt and Mike
Kozak, NDE
MEMBERS/LIAISONS ABSENT: Mr. Ed Hoffman, Nebraska State College
System; Mr. Craig Pease, Ashland-Greenwood Public Schools; Mr. Randy Schmaizl, Metropolitan Community College; Ms. Brenda
Decker, DAS-CIO; Dr. Marshall Hill, CCPE
CALL TO ORDER,
ELECTRONIC POSTING, LOCATION OF OPEN MEETING LAW DOCUMENTS, ROLL CALL,
INTRODUCTIONS
Co-chair, Dr. Haack,
called meeting to order at 1:05 p.m. The Meeting Notice was posted to the NITC
and Nebraska Public
Meeting Calendar Web sites on July 8, 2010.
The agenda was posted to the NITC Web site August 27, 2010. A copy of
the Open Meetings Act was located on the counter at the entrance of the meeting
room. Roll Call found 12 members present. A quorum existed to conduct official
business.
Co-Chair Dr. Haack
asked that members and guests introduce themselves.
CONSIDER
APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA FOR THE SEPTEMBER 2, 2010 MEETING
Mr. Bateman
moved to approve the September 2, 2010 meeting agenda as presented. Dr. Uhing seconded. Roll call
vote: Bateman-Yes, Chandler-Yes,
Cone-Yes, Haack-Yes, Stortz-Yes,
Hartman-Yes, Holly-Yes, Johnson-Yes, Clipperton-Yes,
Linster-Yes, Davis-Yes, and Uhing-Yes.
Results: Yes-12, No-0,
Abstaining-0. Motion carried.
CONSIDER
APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM THE JULY 6, 2010 MEETING
Ms. Holly moved to approve the July 6,
2010 Minutes as
presented. Mr. Johnson seconded. Roll
call vote: Uhing-Yes, Davis-Yes, Linster-Yes, Johnson-Yes, Holly-Yes, Hartman-Yes,
Stortz-Yes, Haack-Yes, Cone-Yes, Clipperton-Yes,
Chandler-Yes, and Bateman-Yes.
Results: Yes-12, No-0,
Abstaining-0. Motion carried.
PUBLIC COMMENT
There
as no public comment.
PRESENTATION:
ELEARNING VISIONING MEETING UPDATE
FROM AUGUST 19, 2010
Matt Blomstedt, ESU
Coordinating Council
Dr. Chipps arrived to the meeting.
Matt Blomstedt
and Gordon Roethemeyer provided an update about
recent meetings at which various entities shared concerns, thoughts and ideas
about the need for statewide learning management and content management for all
students and teachers in K-20:
·
August 19,
2010, Learning Management System & eLearning Vision Team meeting, Ayars & Ayars, Lincoln. There
were approximately
40 individuals in attendance representing K12 and higher education. The meeting’s objective was to arrive at a
common eLearning vision for Nebraska. Mr. Blomstedt also
serves on the Governor’s P-16 Committee.
·
September
1, 2010, eLearning and Virtual Schools discussion held at the Harms Technology
Center in Scottsbluff. ESU 13, in partnership with Western Nebraska Community
College, has a virtual learning academy. There were approximately 15
individuals in attendance in Scottbluff, joined by
numerous ESU staff and Panhandle school administrators over videoconferencing. Dr.
Hoesing, Superintendant of Alliance Public Schools, provided a keynote address.
ESU’s
have a statutory responsibility to provide distance education and administer a
statewide learning management system. The
ESU Coordinating Council is re-evaluating what they are doing in regards to distance
education and e-learning, and would like to see more statewide collaboration.
Mr. Kozak arrived to the meeting
The Education Council has no funding or
direct authority but the NITC does have a statutory requirement to develop a Statewide
Technology Plan. Network Nebraska and
Digital Education are two of the NITC’s strategic initiatives and eLearning and
digital content management comprise several of the action items. The Education Council also makes funding
recommendations for IT projects to the NITC.
Although Nebraska’s Race to the Top grant
applications were not funded, there is still lots of
interest in virtual high schools and eLearning.
There have been discussions of utilizing lottery funds for this
initiative. There are 190 static
videoconferencing rooms and over 300 mobile videoconferencing carts listed in
the Renovo system to help conduct high school and college video distance
learning. There is increasing interest
in a statewide content management system and perhaps a statewide learning
management system but the feedback reveals that entities would like more time
to study this concept. Over the next
year, it was suggested to determine what systems are in place, evaluate if it
would be in the best interest to have a single or multiple systems, examine
opportunities for distance education incentives and ways to increase usage, and
develop a vision that is evolutionary and flexible.
LB 1208 was written in such a way as to
explain the value of Distance Education Units if the demand exceeds the supply
but there was no language allocating the use of the lottery funds if the supply
exceeded the demand. The Education Innovation Fund had a positive balance of
lottery monies in July 2009 but the balance was transferred by the Governor and
Legislature to the University of Nebraska to use towards the state budget deficit.
The Education Innovation Fund excess balance is growing at approximately $2
million dollars per year. Ideas for
further discussion were as follows:
·
Introduce
a new bill this upcoming legislative session to use lottery monies for an eLearning
initiative. Due to the budget submission
deadline of September 15, if there is not enough time to develop and submit a
proposal for the biennial budget and no state agency to include it in their
budget. A project proposal could still
be developed and submitted to the Education Council and Technical Panel for a
voluntary review prior to the Legislative session.
·
Use
the information from Mr. Kozak’s Issues Document for
the Nebraska Virtual School-STEM Academy as an important initiative within the
statewide learning and management system.
The NVS-STEM Academy was estimated to cost approximately $5.5 million per
year.
·
Upgrade
of infrastructure in public schools is needed if daily learning and content
management is to become a reality.
·
It
was suggested to utilize the Distance Education Council’s blog to post discussions
prior to the next Education Council meeting.
·
It
was suggested to get a bill in place as a placeholder similar to how LB 1208
occurred. Senator Adams was suggested to
introduce the bill.
After discussion, it was decided to form a Task
Force within the next 30 days to develop a white paper and proposal for the October
28 meeting. If members are interested in
serving on the task force, they are to contact Mr. Rolfes.
Mr. Targoff left
the meeting
NETWORK
Tom Rolfes, Office of the CIO
Interrelationships between CAP, NNAG, EC, DEC, ESUCC. Mr. Rolfes
distributed the summary of the various information technology groups and their
interrelationships. Neither the Educational Service Units,
Distance Education Council, nor the Educational Service Unit Coordinating Council
has any reporting requirements to the NITC. However, the NITC is required to
have representation from the ESUCC on at least one of its advisory groups or a
temporary member would be appointed to the Commission by the Legislature. The Education
Council and Technical Panel each has ESU representation
on its membership, as does the Network Nebraska Advisory Group.
Service Level Agreement. The agreement is in its very early draft stage. Members were asked to review the document and
provide any feedback and recommendations.
The Office of the CIO’s goal is to have signed agreements from all
partners by July 2011.
NETWORK
NEBRASKA ADVISORY GROUP - AUGUST 30, 2010
MEETING AGENDA
Dennis Linster,
Dr. Haack stated that a conference call was
held regarding the purpose of the advisory group and that the call was very helpful
and provided needed clarification. Network
Nebraska Advisory Group (NNAG) met on August 30. Some of the topics covered in
the meeting were as follows:
·
Traffic
Shaper is close to being deployed.
·
A
discussion was held about fees and charges. Mr. Linster serves
on the MHEC Board which meets quarterly and from his comparison, Nebraska has
the best Internet and Network rates in the nation.
·
Metro
Community College and Nebraska Wesleyan are now Network Nebraska partners.
·
Rick
Golden discussed how the network management system would help monitor and
manage the network.
·
It
was decided that NNAG’s role with the Learning Content Management System was a technical
role.
·
Discussed
charter responsibilities – membership guidelines and leadership. John Stritt and Dennis
Linster will co-chair for another year.
·
The
next meeting is Wednesday, October 20.
Mr. Linster would like suggestions as to how to
communicate better with the Higher Education sector. K-12 does a great job at communicating with
its ESUs and districts.
Dr. Haack left the
meeting and Dr. Chipps assumed control of the meeting.
Ms. Holly wanted to acknowledge Brenda Decker
and Rick Golden for the formulation and original vision of the Collaborative
Aggregation Partnership and early joint projects between the State and the
University of Nebraska.
TASK GROUP REPORTS - FUNDING/ERATE
SuAnn Witt, Department of Education
The Task Group has not met since the last Education
Council meeting but there will be a meeting before the October Education
Council meeting.
TASK GROUP REPORTS - SERVICES TASK GROUP
REPORT
Ron Cone, Educational Service Unit 10
The Task Force has not met since the last Education
Council meeting. There may be some
reorganization due to the marketing and services task group. Discussions occurred regarding the pros and
cons of the Network Nebraska Advisory Group (NNAG) and Services Task Group merging
into one. If this were to occur, then
there would be a need for further discussion regarding:
·
strategic
future of services
·
how
to evaluate services provided to the customers
·
how
to report outages
·
what process would be used to recommend
new services such as the learning management system.
The Services Task Group lead and NNAG Co-chairs
were asked to meet and discuss this concept before the next meeting and bring
back a recommendation to the council.
Mr. Linster left the meeting.
TASK GROUP REPORTS - GOVERNANCE TASK
GROUP
Yvette Holly, University of
The Task Group asked for recommendations on
the draft proposed survey to evaluate the viability of NNAG. Ms. Holly reported that Brenda Decker has
reviewed the draft. The members
suggested including the list of goals in Questions 1 and 2. The audience for the survey will be the Education
Council and CAP members. Once revised,
Mr. Rolfes will send it out next week. With
some wording changes, it was suggested that the survey could be used to
evaluate the other Education Council Task Groups. This will be discussed at a
future meeting.
TASK GROUP REPORTS - MARKETING TASK
GROUP
The Task Group met on August 10 to discuss the
Network Nebraska website and survey results.
The Marketing survey indicated that Network Nebraska needs to do a
better job of communicating its services to all entities. Council members were asked to provide
feedback on the December survey draft. The Marketing Task Group hopes to
segment the survey to gear it toward particular subgroups such as technical
staff and teaching staff. In the marketing plan, an electronic newsletter was
discussed. The goal is to publish three
electronic newsletters. One will be done
in December which would include information about Network Nebraska services, the
Network Nebraska survey, and will direct people to the website. The other two newsletters will be published
in April and August. Development of the
newsletter is on hold until services information is fine tuned. To assist in the development of the business
plan, the Task Group recommended that a set of questions be developed that
would be answered by the Council members and customers. The Task Group’s next meetings will be held
on September 23 and October 20.
Membership will be one of the items of discussion.
BIENNIAL
BUDGET AND I.T. PROJECT PROPOSAL REVIEW PROCESS
Tom
Rolfes, Office of the CIO
Agencies’
biennial budgets and I.T. project proposal forms are to be submitted by
September 15. If there are any
education-related projects, the Education Council will need to meet in October
to make recommendations to the NITC by November 15. Mr. Rolfes will be in contact with members if
this should occur.
OTHER/ANNOUNCEMENTS
Update
(Awards):
The following five federally funded I.T. projects were awarded to Nebraska:
NTIA Broadband
Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP)
NTIA
Broadband Mapping Program
FCC Rural Healthcare
Pilot Program
USDA Broadband
Infrastructure Program (BIP)
·
Southeast
AGENDA ITEMS AND
CONSIDER LOCATION FOR THE OCTOBER 2010 MEETING AND ADJOURNMENT
The
next meeting of the NITC Council will be held on October 28, 1-4pm CT via video
conferencing. Following are proposed
meeting agenda items:
Members
were asked to contact Mr. Rolfes if they had any other agenda items.
With
no further business, Dr. Chipps adjourned the meeting at 4:08 p.m.
Meeting
minutes were taken by Lori Lopez Urdiales and reviewed by Tom Rolfes of the
Office of the CIO.