April 11, 2008, at 9:00 A.M
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U TAH ED U CATION NE TWORK S T ee RING COMMITT ee AGENDA APRIL 11, 2008 9:00 a.m.- Committee of the Whole / Business Meeting 11:00 a.m. Welcome and Introductions Tab 7 SUMMARY OF LEGIslATIVE RE S U L T S FY 2009 – DI S CU ss ION . 1 ATTACHMENT A – TAB L E 1 . 5 Tab 8 STRATEGIC PL ANNING AN D BU D GET FOR FY 2009 – DI S CU ss ION . 6 Tab 9 GIGE AN D EL EMENTARY SCHOO L CONNECTION S – ACTION . 8 Tab 10 MY .UEN WEB STATI S TIC S – DI S CU ss ION . 12 Tab 11 UEN .ORG RE D E S IGN – DI S CU ss ION . 14 Tab 12 SOUTH W E S T VI S TA US ER ’S GROU P CONFERENCE RE P ORT 2008 – DI S CU ss ION . 16 Tab 13 TAN D BERG AW AR D E D NE W INTERACTIVE VI D EO CONFERENCING PL ATFORM – DI S CU ss ION . 22 Tab 14 NET W ORK PERFORMANCE METRIC S – DI S CU ss ION . 24 Tab 15 STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTE S . 26 Tab 16 OTHER . 32 i U PCOMING Mee TING S Steering Committee Meeting - June 13, 2008, 9:00 a.m. Instructional Services Subcommittee Meeting - June 13, 2008, 11:00 a.m. Technical Services Subcommittee Meeting - June 13, 2008, 11:00 a.m. Please place these materials in your Steering Committee Binder. ii UEN Steering Committee - April 2008 C OMMITT ee OF TH E WHOL E T AB 7 SUMMARY OF LEGIslATIVE RE S U L T S FY 2009 – DI S CU ss ION Issue UEN staff worked closely with Legislative leadership and Higher Education Appropriation Subcommittee members to promote the Steering Committee’s adopted budget request for FY 2009. UEN continues to have excellent support from the Co- Chairs of the Subcommittee, Sen. Greg Bell and Rep. Kory Holdaway and from the Subcommittee members. The Executive Appropriations Committee and Legislative leadership in both houses were also supportive of the UEN budget request. The Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee placed UEN’s funding request of $6.0 million for FY 2009 very high on the ongoing ($2.2 million) and one-time ($3.8 million) funding priority lists recommended to the Executive Appropriations Committee. Unfortunately, in mid-February, State revenue projections were lowered by $230 million less in ongoing and $110 million less in one-time funding. In addition, the Legislature decided to place $100 million of one-time education funds in reserve to anticipate potential downturns in the State’s economy. Background The final FY 2009 appropriation for UEN is an increase of $2.5 million ($1.3 million one-time and $1.2 million ongoing). The new funds will provide for employee compensation increases, important network projects and the first phase of a multi- phase project to expand bandwidth capacity in the elementary schools. Salary and benefits for UEN employees. UEN received the standard salary and benefit package provided for higher education employees. An across-the-board salary increase of 3.0% will be added to employee contracts starting July 1. Additional funds equal to an increase of 9.9% of current health insurance costs will be used to address adjustments in employee health benefits. Selectively upgrade core segments of the network backbone to 10 gigabits/ second. There are five key segments of the UEN network backbone infrastructure where the network is now reaching peak capacity. The dependability of the network is threatened unless capacity is significantly increased. We received an excellent bid from Qwest to make a tenfold increase in half of our backbone links from 1 to 10 gigabits. With the $400,000 ($200,000 one-time and $200,000) ongoing) appropriated for FY 2009, UEN will be able to authorize Qwest to proceed with the project as soon as the federal government approves our E-Rate application (hopefully by early this 1 summer) to pay the remaining two-thirds of the project cost. We are confident that we can complete these network backbone improvements before school and college classes start this coming fall. Upgrade connectivity for elementary schools and charter schools. Over the past four years UEN received financial support from the Legislature to connect all of the universities, colleges and secondary schools in the state to the UEN network and the Internet with 1000 megabit/second fiber optic connections. Until now, local school districts have been responsible to connect elementary schools to the nearest UEN hub. Also, UEN has not been funded to connect charter schools with high capacity fiber connections. Unfortunately, that has meant that half of the elementary schools and nearly all charter schools in the State have inadequate network capacity needed to support network intensive tasks such as online testing, administrative and classroom data systems, curriculum and on-line courses. These elementary and charter schools have copper wire T-1 connections to the UEN network, which provide network capacity of 1.4 megabits/second that is 600 times less than the capacity at secondary schools. We are grateful that the Legislature supported the UEN budget request to begin a multi-phase project to connect elementary and charter schools to the network with high capacity fiber optic connections. For FY 2009, we were allocated $1.2 million ($700,000 ongoing and $500,000 one-time) to begin phase one of the project. This funding will allow us to proceed with contracts with several local telecommunications companies to connect approximately 95 elementary schools and 23 charter schools to the network with 100 Mb/s or greater connections. The elementary schools are in 15 different school districts in both rural and urban areas of the state. UEN has also applied for $2.4 million Federal E-Rate funds for this project, so State funding will be leveraged on a two to one basis. We will initiate these projects as soon as federal approval is extended, hopefully by mid-summer. Enterprise-level hosting of Course Management Systems (CMS). A centrally- hosted enterprise-level course management system at UEN has produced significant cost savings for USHE colleges and universities and a powerful teaching and learning tool. USHE institutions have eliminated costs of CMS hardware, software, and technical staff support. Students and faculty increasingly rely on the UEN system to connect online to each other, their instructors, learning activities, shared course content, research materials, library and textbook resources. Since 2005, the number of students and faculty logins to the UEN-hosted Course Management System has grown from 30,000 to 1.5 million per term. UEN received $200,000 in one-time funds to purchase equipment needed to enhance processing ability and storage capacity to accommodate the migration of the University of Utah to enterprise-level hosting by UEN. With this increased capacity, we will be able to move the University to our hosted CMS this fall. Richfield Data Center - Disaster Recovery Improvements. For FY 2009, UEN received an appropriation of $380,000 in one-time funds to provide storage capacity at the Richfield Data Center. The additional storage equipment ensures continuity and quick recovery of vital government data for State agencies and educational entities when disaster interrupts normal operating activities. 2 UEN Steering Committee - April 2008 Other Legislative Action related to UEN HB 311, Higher Education Distance Learning Partnerships, sponsored by Rep. Brad Last, proposed to appropriate $5.0 million ($4.7 million one-time and $300,000 ongoing) for videoconferencing equipment to expand higher education distance learning partnerships among USHE institutions. HB 311 was passed in the House 65-0, but it was not prioritized for funding and therefore was not considered in the Senate. HB 331, Use of Utah Education Network for Telehealth, was sponsored by Rep. Gordon Snow. This bill would have allowed UEN to provide telecommunications services to members of the Utah Telehealth Network (UTN). This change in scope of membership was desired by UTN to provide an option to pursue Ethernet capacity made possible by an FCC grant awarded to UTN last fall. Serious concerns about the potential use of UEN were raised by rural telephone companies, and the Utah Rural Telecommunications Association (URTA) opposed the legislation. Based on that opposition, Rep. Snow withdrew the legislation. Recommendation This is an information item requiring no further action from the Steering Committee. 3 4 UEN Steering Committee - April 2008 TAB 7 ATTACHMENT A TAB L E 1 5 C OMMITT ee OF TH E WHOL E T AB 8 STRATEGIC PL ANNING AN D BU D GET FOR FY 2009 – DI S CU ss ION Issue Strategic planning for 2008-09 has begun. A working draft of the 2008-09 budget is being created at this time using the FY2009 Appropriation figures. Background Each year UEN communicates with its constituents to determine their current needs. This assessment becomes the foundation for UEN planning for the upcoming year. Discussions occur at C-Forums, T-Forums, Technical Coordinators Council, Public Education Advisory Committee, Higher Education Advisory Committee, Regional Service Centers, Chief Information Officers, School Districts, Technology Committees, the Steering Committee, and the like. At the same time internal departmental budgets are being created based upon past and present priorities and completion. During the months of April and May we will be visiting in person and on the system to exchange information and ideas with representative groups. During the latter part of May and early June we will hold Instructional and Technical Retreats to prioritize our goals and objectives to meet the needs of the state and of UEN. The Steering Committee members will be invited to attend and participate in these retreats.