UEN Projects and Initiatives For FY2013

UEN and the University of Utah collaborated to install fiber optic cable and optical Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) equipment to critical sites throughout the Salt Lake City Metropolitan area. This fiber ring connects two sites on the University of Utah campus, the new Downtown Data Center and the Level3 Data center. UEN is currently working to complete an operational Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Utah. Once the MOU is completed the next task will be to propose an annual operating budget.

UEN was awarded a grant by the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the first round of the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP) as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). You can learn more about the grant and UEN's progress at www.uen.org/btop.

UEN is providing connectivity and exhibit support for the SC12 Supercomputing Conference to be held in November at the Salt Palace.

The NSF EPSCoR Inter-Campus and Intra-Campus Cyber Connectivity (RII C2) award leverages the facilities and statewide reach of the Utah Education Network (UEN) to expand the capabilities of the of the research and education communities to more effectively engage faculty and students across Utah in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

These are sites that were awarded last year in the RFP process and are now being installed. Included in this list are Head Start, Libraries, Charter Schools and other public education sites. Over 300 sites were awarded in the last RFP and, although most of these are circuits already in place, some are new and most involve the installation of new equipment. UEN is in process of working to finish Ethernet WAN Services to the five of the remaining elementary schools in Utah that do not have broadband service.

GEOMAX is the CenturyLink Ethernet service used by many of the UEN stakeholders. The equipment used to run this service, Nortel Optera, is aging, prone to failure and in need of replacement. As a result of the last RFP a project is now underway to replace the Optera equipment with more dense and feature rich Tellabs gear. A major activity currently underway is to plan the transition that will begin next spring. The project will include 78 locations and touch over 500 new and existing circuits.

Construction of the Utah State University Regional Campuses and Distance Education building is complete and ready for the installation of equipment.

Provide Diverse Network Path through Nine Mile Canyon with Strata/Emery Telcom. Project is now complete. Working with Strata we have repointed all Uinta Basin circuits improving the capacity, moving from a multi-homed environment to point-to-point circuits. This also gives UEN and Strata full visibility into the network, improving troubleshooting capabilities. This also involved changing all core backbone equipment in the Basin.

In addition, a WAN backbone project is moving forward to provide a diverse path for both the Uintah Basin and Southeast UEN stakeholders between Price and Roosevelt. This will provide a diverse path for UEN network customers so in the event of network outages or incidents, customers can still access the network and Internet service.

UEN and the University of Utah plan to move equipment to the new downtown data center in Salt Lake City.

UEN, working with the University of Utah Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC), provides connectivity to the Idaho Regional Optical Network. This has been a longstanding relationship, going back to Utah’s role as a regional provided for Internet2 connectivity for Idaho State University. Routing issues were causing a problem earlier this year for IRON and UEN worked with Internet 2 and IRON to identify the problems and provide solutions. Internet2 now provides direct routing capabilities to IRON. Without this solution we were in danger of loosing this important collaboration.

UEN shares our Internet2 connection with the University of Montana. During the last round of discussions we were asked to also provide backup commodity Internet service. Last spring we worked through and agreement to provide this service and are now in the last stages of completing, only waiting on UMontana for routing details.

The NOC currently uses projectors to display the tools used to view network activity and resolve issues. The current configuration does not allow for optimal utilization of these tools. Moving from projectors to monitors and reconfiguring the NOC layout will allow staff to make better use of their time and have real-time constant access to critical NOC tools.

The FCC's rules require all broadcast stations to maintain an online file available for public inspection.

Each year UEN contracts with Telecommunication providers expire. Also, each year new circuits are added to the UEN network. Working across all UEN departments and with UEN stakeholders, we assess network needs, develop a Request for Proposal (RFP) and submit. This must follow the e-rate filing window and also comply with University of Utah purchasing guidelines. This year nearly 100 sites have been included in the RFP. On October 2, 2012 a pre-bidders conference was held to answer questions from potential providers and kick off the RFP process.

The Telecommunication industry is changing. All carriers are now using Session Internet Protocol (SIP) services in their internal networks. This allows providers to use the native capabilities of Ethernet to provide telephone trunks and services. UEN and its stakeholders continue, at present, to receive telecom services via legacy copper connections. UEN has been asked to explore the SIP environment and determine current and future options for landing telecommunication trunks and services. A Request for Information (RFI) has been developed, potential providers have been identified and a two day event is being planned to meet with vendors and discuss SIP options.

We have been notified by our server vendor, Omneon, that our current hardware and software will no longer be supported. Hardware and software upgrades are being offered at a significant discount thru the end of 2012 to bring our equipment current.

The Board of Regents has expressed a desire to move all services to the University of Utah Downtown Data Center. In order to best facilitate this objective it will be necessary for UEN to add the Board of Regents site, located at the Gateway, to the Metro Ring. UEN is currently working with University of Utah staff and the Board of Regents to make this happen.

In 2008 the Utah Legislature passed a law requiring textbook companies to hire an independent reviewer to show how their materials align to the Utah core. In 2010 this mandate was temporarily suspended. Since that time UEN developed a new core database which broke a lot of the functionality of the online interfaces. To meet the mandate of the law, the code is being rewritten and relaunched.

Standardize on two Database platforms rather than supporting many. Currently UEN utilizes Oracle, Sybase, MSsql, MySQL, Informix, and PostgreSQL. UEN will move primarily to PostgreSQL and maintain Oracle at current status. PostgreSQL is a robust open source Database server architecture which works well in our environment. Oracle and MSsql are still required for some third party applications. We will not be adding any new instances of any other platform.

Update web hosting to Virtual Machines and more automation for the web and software developers.

The license for our current media infrastructure is set to expire. This allows us to continue the license and also expand to other multimedia capabilities such as open educational resources, shared course content, and faculty produced content.

We hope to make small updates to refresh UEN.org and improve usability and navigation.

Evaluate VMware's vCloud Director and pilot its use with Higher Education Institutions.

Implement improvements to UEN's educator portal, my.uen.

Certain software applications can be obtained at a reduced cost through consortium licensing. UEN is identify those licenses and working with higher Ed and public Ed constituents to execute consortium licenses.

UEN collaborates with public Ed districts and charger schools to provide media content for K12. The Utah Instructional Media Consortium licenses media accessible through my.UEN and eMedia. UEN handles the financial, licensing, and technical support for the consortium, schools contribute an annual membership assessment based on their student population.

It is time to rewrite UEN's popular Lesson Plan Tool since it was over 10 years ago when it was last updated.

Open Tapestry is a tool that allows educators to gather online resources and organize them into categories--or Tapestries. UEN plans to integrate a customized version for Utah educators.

UEN is working with developers from Canvas and Equella to make eMedia resources easy to find, play, and contribute while working in the Canvas LMS.

Hosting of the State Longitudinal Data System as partner in the Utah Data Alliance. A multi-agency, shared data repository which contains multiple points of data that span the preschool, elementary, secondary, post-secondary, and workforce experience. Provides a structure for data exchange and data quality.

Because UEN is part of the Internet 2 network, we are exploring new applications obtained through the I2 partners. These include new video conferencing tools, integrations with Canvas, another applications that may be obtained at reduced prices through national partners.

UEN has been providing IVC support to state agencies for the past two years. The needs of state agencies have grown and it is now time to clarify the UEN role and determine how UEN resources should be used. UEN has provided draft plan, presented that plan to interim Executive Director Eric Denna. Dr. Denna has discussed this draft proposal with State DTS directors. We are awaiting further instructions as to how to proceed.

IVC firewall traversal is always a challenge. UEN engineers have worked for the past two years to develop an effective method to bypass firewalls without compromising the network and our stakeholders. We have rolled out this solution throughout the public education environment. Currently UEN staff is working with USU to adapt the VRF solution, implement throughout USU sites and develop a plan to engage all of the USHE community. The VRF solution involves placing IVC devices into UEN IP address space and making configuration changes at the Layer 3 switching devices.

UEN's Distance Education Catalog helps students, counselors, and parents find any course that is delivered and available via a UEN delivery system (i.e., IVC, Satellite, IP Video, and UEN-TV). The course may be offered by Utah's high schools, colleges, and universities.

Two issues are involved in this one project. First, in fall of 2011 Google began allowing secured (SSL) searches. This effectively blinded the UEN provided M86 solutions to these searches. M86 has been working through most of the past year to resolve this issue and has provided a patch to their service that provides a certain level of security, but is not optimal. This patch has been applied to all M86 devices.

Secondly, UEN has been providing a filtering cluster to provide this service to entities who did not want to operate their own filtering hardware. The equipment providing this service was old and not 10G compatible. UEN had to curtail this service and has now moved those entities formerly using our filtering solution to a cloud based service provided by M86.

Includes technology testing, determine specifications and requirements, RFI/RFP, identify technology alternatives (if any) for specific distance education classes/events, assemble planning team.

First Phase: Design/Engineer and apply for Community Impact Board (CIB) funding to upgrade Daggett, Grand and San Juan DS3 and OC3 based microwave network to broadband Ethernet based licensed microwave radios. Refresh includes microwave radios, ancillary power and back up equipment, and associated core and edge layer 2/3 network hardware.

At the request of USBE and the Commission on Civic and Character Education, UEN will help to develop an online course or series of course for teacher professional development.

Migrate UEN Systems and install Layer 3 POP to Downtown Data Center.

UEN Professional Development received a small grant from Intel to support rolling out 4 online classes from Intel to our statewide audience of teachers.

UEN Professional Development created several new courses for fall including the 4 Intel classes, online classes about teaching with Canvas, eBooks and eReaders in the Classroom, Teaching and Learning with iPads, and a 1-day class on New Utah Core Projects and Resources.

UEN Professional Development will develop 2, 2-credit courses (one on online course development and one on "classroom management" in the online environment). These courses for the online teaching credential run through USBE will begin in January.

UEN Professional Development has launched a project to develop 1-page "guides" called "9 Ideas for…" that will include ideas for integrating new technology tools in classroom instruction. Guides will be formatted for printing and available online.

In 2009 Utah was designated a National Science Foundation EPSCoR Jurisdiction. The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) status enables Utah to compete for federal research funding opportunities not available to non-EPSCoR states. UEN is providng the Utah EPSCoR, CI-WATER and iUtah EPSCoR infrastructure, web site and outreach support.

UEN is providing instructional design support to USBE specialists as they create more online experiences for professional learning. This allows teachers and specialist to experience Canvas, and also obtain easy access to subject-specific UEN tools and resources.

NetSafe Utah helps K12 schools remain compliant with the Children's Internet Protection Act requirement of providing Internet safety and cyber-bully prevention instruction. NetSafe Utah is funded by the Utah legislature through a Sexual Exploitation of Children Prevention grant administered through the Utah department of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Services. NetSafe is free for schools, parents, and caregivers.

UEN assists with the technology intensive concurrent enrollment project and the mulit-campus faculty teams designing and delivering the courses. UEN has created a website and videos about the project.

UtahFutures.org is a web resource that helps Utah's students and job seekers make career and education plans online. Laura Hunter is a steering committee member and Karen Krier is a member of the work group.

Each year UEN provides expertise to out stakeholders in installing IVC equipment and peripherals. This past summer we were involved in stakeholder requests to provide assistance in various degrees for over 80 sites. Although UEN does not have any IVC funding, we are able to work with our vendors and stakeholders to provide great pricing and helpful expertise in acquiring and installing IVC equipment.

This is the fourth and final year that the UEN security department is working with USHE to provide security assessments. These assessments will begin in late October and proceed at one each month. Two or three UEN staff will be involved in each assessment and these take us away from UEN for up to a week each month. Also, the preparation and foundational work take many hours prior to the actual assessment week.

UEN assists with professional development sessions, presentations, information booths, technical support, and publicity for various state conferences. UEN also hosts the UtahSAINT and TechSummit conferences each year.

Community partnerships with: special education community, museums, broadcasters, libraries, literacy advocates, Sundance, municipalities and government agencies and local business are working with UEN to connect with diverse audiences through enriching activities and programs.

VoteUtah is collaboration between Utah public broadcasters. The main goal is to provide information about local candidates and issues through tv, radio and online.

STEM education is a high priority for Utah. UEN helps by providing education, outreach, technical, and community engagement support for several STEM grants and initiatives.

Teachingchannel.org provides online professional learning videos and experiences for teachers. UEN is exploring how this fits with USBE and district professional learning initiatives. Ideas include making P.D. more convenient for teachers and hosting videos produced here in Utah.

A specification document is currently being drafted on how eBooks would be implemented for Utah's K-12 schools. This includes how eBook content would be distributed to and paid for by districts.

Attend summit in February in Orlando; Host follow up meeting in SLC in May; Offer additional sections of 4 classes both through UEN and in other districts in the state

Provide 20-30 presentations and volunteer conference staffing

The UEN bylaws haven't been updated in several years. Once approved by the UEN Governing Board, they bylaws will be posted online.

UEN's many constituent groups will be represented through an advisory council to inform our work. The council details are still in progress.

In order to stay compliant with various funding agents, and also to maintain transparency with constituents, UEN will continue to update and post documents related to our governance, planning, and processes.

UEN desires to have a comprehensive database that will track all equipment. The major components needing to be tracked are: 1. Date of purchase, 2. Purchase price, 3. Useful life and 4. Expected replacement date. Assembling this information in one place will allow UEN to more effectively plan for equipment upgrades, timing, cost and need. UEN is working with the University of Utah to leverage existing resources and expedite this project.

UEN's legislative communications plan included four areas of research completed in 2012, targeted publics, objectives, strategies, tactics, messaging, activities and evaluation. Tactics, included a one-page .pdf document with UEN's FY2014 funding request and updated UEN Brochure (in print and online) were available at www.uen.org/legislature. Interpersonal and small group strategies with legislators were implemented during the 45-day session. Evaluation: The legislature partially funded UEN's request as we continued to sustain and build relationships with the legislative and executive branches of state government.

UEN strategic planning revolves around five key questions. We will continue to work through the planning questions with staff, board members, advisory council representatives, and other constituent groups. Once the Board has approved the general direction on questions 1-3, the UEN leadership team will handle day-to-day operations with questions 4 and 5.

UEN can both benefit from and contribute to a STEM educated workforce with a carefully coordinated student employment program. We need to work out the financial, training, mentoring, evaluation, and supervision details prior to implementation.

What projects and services are dependent on each other? That is the question that this project is attempting to answer. We are developing a tool that will show these relationships and interdependencies, thus assisting in decision-making when considering services that can be eliminated and also services that may be considered for expansion and addition.