SREB

April 1998

J.B. Mathews

Southern
Regional
Education
Board

592 10th Street
Atlanta, GA 30318
404-875-9211
www.sreb.org

Statewide Educational Networking:
Trends and Issues Highlighted

WANs, wide-area networks, are electronic means of connecting buildings and campuses across an area such as a state to provide access to information and telecommunications services. These are among the fastest growing segments of educational technology today in schools and colleges. Existing higher education WANs are expanding and upgrading to include K-12 schools and public libraries in many SREB states. These networks frequently use a shared state-wide telecommunications structure referred to as a network "backbone."

Educational networks are used for instructional programming, including credit and non-credit courses for higher education, staff development for education and state agencies and instructional programs for
K-12. Some of the networks are also used extensively for in-structional support and resource services such as on-line library databases and periodicals.

This report is based on the results of a survey of the 15 SREB states, Telecommunication’s Status, Trends and Issues in the SREB States, 1997, the most extensive compilation of information on
educational networks in the SREB region.

I. Trends

A. What Technologies are Used?

Educational networks among the states encompass a broad range of technologies. They range from traditional television broadcasts to digital satellite; from mailed videotapes to two-way, interactive video over telephone lines; and from simply using ordinary telephone dial-in connections to using fiber-optic cable connections. Fiber-optic connections allow more data to be sent across lines than with a traditional telephone connection.

Most states have implemented and are planning for newer technologies such as digital satellite rather than traditional television reception, frame relay (a communications technology specialized for sending and receiving data for high speed data transmission), ATM (a communications technology that handles multiple media simultaneously and is used for very high speed voice, data, and video transmission), and wireless systems. Higher bandwidth (which allows more data to go across lines) backbones are expected to handle the growing use of multi-media applications, including video, over the Internet. There has also been a significant increase in the use of two-way, interactive video across dedicated, leased lines for instruction as well as business and administration in recent years.

One of the significant challenges for educational WANs is to provide Internet access from schools, offices, homes and libraries throughout the state. A few states, including Georgia and Kentucky, have
implemented statewide remote access systems, making it possible for students, teachers and staff to reach the educational data network from virtually anywhere within the state without long-distance toll
charges.

B. How Do States Organize and Manage Networks?

The management and operation of these educational networks vary significantly from state to state. In many SREB states, a state-level education agency has developed and is operating a statewide education network. Some of these networks, such as PeachNet in Georgia and OneNet in Oklahoma, provide services to all colleges and universities, schools and libraries within the state.

Others, such as ARKnet in Arkansas and TN EdNet in Tennessee, serve primarily the constituents of a single agency. In Virginia and a few other states, a university provides a statewide network for use by
multiple constituents, including colleges, schools, libraries and state agencies. In other states, like North Carolina, a state administrative agency provides an educational network for multiple users.

Usually a state administrative agency collaborates with or provides basic telecommunication connections to an educational agency for its educational network, or provides a multi-purpose, sharable, statewide backbone. For educational television there is typically a public television agency within the state. Several states, such as Georgia and Virginia, have a collaborative strategic planning process for educational networks, and many networks are shared among the agencies.

C. What Are the Pricing Issues in Educational Networks?

Pricing issues include funds for building and operating a network, what and how education is charged, and rates paid to telephone companies. Funding for the establishment and operation of the networks
varies widely. Funding sources include a combination of charges to users, special/direct allocations and general operating funds of the network agency. Although general operating funds seem to be the largest source, special one-time (non-capital) funding is a large and important factor. Apparently there is currently little use of capital funds. The issue of funding is considered further in the next section.

The rates paid by network operators to telecommunications vendors for services, such as lines with a specified capacity for carrying data, vary tremendously among the states and in some cases within the
state. In many cases, the rates paid are determined by tariffs applied by the state public service commissions. Competitive bidding is used in most, but not all states.

How the network operators charge their users also varies significantly among the networks, from no charge to full cost recovery.

For instance, the Florida Information Resource Network (FIRN) and the Mississippi Inter-active Video Network (MIVN) average their costs and charge users a single, flat rate. In other states, such as
PeachNet in Georgia and NET.WORK.VIRGINIA, distance-based rates or usage-based rates are used.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 in general is moving pricing for telecommunications products and services toward an unregulated competitive market. However, the universal service provisions of the act will require K-12 schools and public libraries to meet certain planning, application and procurement requirements if they are to receive the benefits of discounted prices allowed by the Act.

For example, the FCC will require that technology plans and inventories be documented and approved. Pricing and discounting for services under consortia and statewide networks apparently will be complex and require collaborative and creative work. Also, applications and request-for-proposals for services will be developed and publicly posted. K-12 schools and state departments of education will need to learn how to work effectively with this market to their best advantage. This will require planning and collaboration among a host of agencies for increased leverage and effective procurement strategies.

Education agencies and libraries must do a substantial amount of work to obtain the benefit of the discounts, although it should be well worth the effort.

D. Are There Special Funding and Budgeting Considerations?

Inability or failure to budget for "life-cycle cost" (full cost of making productive use of the product or service throughout its useful life) is a major budgetary problem with all networks. Included in life-cycle cost are installation, training, support staff, maintenance, repair and preparation for replacement. In too many cases, the only cost planned and budgeted explicitly in the beginning is the cost of building the network. That may be the smallest element of the total life-cycle cost.

There is a tendency to view network costs strictly as "add-on" increases in the cost of the organization’s operation. Initially, most network costs may be add-ons, although in later periods they may be offset by improved operations. Cost improvements in areas such as reduced travel, publications, postage, or productivity improvements in the use of staff time, may help offset network costs.

Most state budgeting processes do not address anticipated reduction of costs in other areas. This may be because those associated savings are difficult to identify or may be too new to be identified as
savings. As a result, state network costs are seen as additional funds needed rather than a balanced approach taking into account cost reductions and operational improvements elsewhere.

Educational WANs are creating challenges for states because of their rapid expansion and change as major educational facilities and services. For example, the construction of networks is funded primarily from operating budgets, possibly supplemented with other special non-capital funds. This often presents barriers for educational agencies in obtaining an appropriate level of funding to establish a WAN or even a campus or building network. Current policies, and possibly legal code, for capital funding typically do not anticipate the use of funds for network construction. The inclusion of network construction costs under capital budgets could further the development of educational networks.

E. Are There Other Barriers at the State Level?

How telecommunications services are controlled and managed at the state level is another serious issue. Some existing telecommunications policies and procedures were developed years ago, before the modern telecommunications technology and industry developed, and before networking became so important to education. Existing controls, management procedures and central services are frequently out of date and non-productive.

Following traditional methods, a state telecommunications agency may establish mandatory contracts with more limited services and with higher rates than educational agencies could get directly from
suppliers. Also, a state telecommunications agency may charge colleges and schools more than its actual cost, thus producing excess revenues that may be used to offset other unrelated expenses of the
agency. Such practices, even if justified in the past, may be very counter-productive in today’s telecommunications environment.

To correct such situations, up-to-date legislation, policies and procedures are needed to permit educational agencies to have appropriate discretionary control over the telecommunications and networking systems and services deployed to meet their needs, as is the case with their other resources. Networks are an integral part of a state’s educational facilities and should be managed in a manner similar to its other educational facilities.

II. Emerging Issues

A. Can Network Technologies be Coordinated to Better Serve Education?

Most states have more than one network serving education, each supporting a different technology, such as separate networks for voice, video, or data. However, educational activities typically would benefit from the use of more than one technology at the same time. For example, a typical interactive video class could use on-line library material and e-mail for communicating with individual students; a satellite broadcast course might also use interactive video support for faculty "office hours" and e-mail for the transmittal of handouts; and a Web-based course might also present certain materials via interactive video or broadcast TV.

The challenge is to bring all of the relevant media to bear on a specific educational experience in a convenient and economical manner. This calls for simultaneous access to different technologies, which can be both difficult and expensive with separate networks. The optimum situation would be to have multiple media integrated in one educational network. Evolving technologies are bringing this closer, but states have to plan for and provide more coordination of networks to merge these technologies.

A coming solution may be the next version of the Internet. Internet2 is expected to provide sufficient bandwidth to handle multi-media and quality control and management tools needed for instructional
applications as well as research.

Internet2 technology will also be much less affected by geographic and political boundaries. Educational resources and services will be more easily shared across states and throughout regions. Coordination across state lines to meet common educational needs will become even more valuable, and thus increase the importance of regional planning in these areas.

B. Can Education Agencies Deal with the Rapid Changes?

State agencies have a real challenge to keep up with these rapidly changing technologies and telecommunications services. However, the potential benefits are most compelling. This calls for competent technical and management planning within and among the agencies. This is not an area that education agencies can reasonably ignore or leave to someone else. But not all agencies have the required expertise. Policy makers must work hard to insure collaboration among the agencies as well as with the private sector.

C. Are College and School Faculty Prepared to Use the Technology?

Professional and technical skill development for instructors is an area of critical need and considerable activity among the states. Technology does not solve instructional problems or provide needed services by itself. Increasing attention must be given to professional development and training in proportion to or indeed even greater than the investments in technology and infrastructure.

Teachers must have basic understanding and skills in the use of the technology, but also the ability to access and develop technology-based materials and tools for use in their teaching and other professional activities. For example, instructors must learn how to integrate the use of Internet resources into their instruction. The ability to set up and organize an on-line seminar among students in a business course and selected business leaders illustrates potential use of the Internet.

It should be expected that technology-based educational materials and tools will ultimately be as pervasive and as common as blackboards, textbooks and printed library materials are today. In order for this to happen effectively, schools and colleges must meet the skill development needs of all educators, through schools of education, in-service professional development, personal improvement, training, recruitment, incentives, rewards and support structures.

Unfortunately, investment by the states in this human side of the equation seems terribly inadequate. For example, plans for network installation are too often not accompanied by plans for training the faculty to effectively use the network.

D. Are Additional Expenditures Justified?

There seems to be little doubt about the need for expanded and improved educational networks among state agencies. Significant expenditures are being made in this area to improve access to and quality of
educational resources. Because of rapid expansion in the number of users and uses, costs will probably continue to grow. But is the cost justifiable?

Planners should be ready to provide justification for the cost, beyond "other states are doing it." Additionally, the states and agencies should plan to carry out evaluations to see if promises were kept, or if assumptions regarding needs and benefits were good ones.

III. What Next?

The Internet2 initiative is very significant to the future of educational WANs. The purpose of this initiative is to develop higher capacity networks linking the states and networking tools and services in the benefit of education and research. Largely the major research universities have taken the lead across the nation. The Southern Universities Research Association (SURA) is playing a coordinating role for this effort in the South.

Also, other educational agencies are taking an interest in joining the initiative since their current involvement with the Internet makes clear its limits as well as its potential. These developments seem necessary to continue the progress of educational networks on both statewide and regional bases. Even stronger participation by education agencies should be encouraged.

There must be concerted and coordinated effort to maintain up-to-date assessments of the best strategies for statewide educational networks. Policies and procedures that have been developed over the years to deal with telecommunications and networks must be regularly evaluated and updated. Analysis of future telecommunications and networking issues in education including policy, funding, technology R&D and instructional resource development are essential.

In addition to the states pursuing the individual issues described above, there is also the need for collaboration among the states on certain issues, as the SREB’s Educational Technology Cooperative has shown. SREB’s Educational Technology Cooperative members from higher education and state education agencies in every SREB state assist each other in staying abreast of these issues and others, such as the telecommunications Act of 1996 and the application of new technologies.



Questions

Questions to be pursued by the states, individually and collaboratively:

How should the educational network price its services to its users?

How will funding for network costs become a normal and continuing part of the budget cycle?

Which parts of the network should be funded from capital and which from the general operating budget?

Is there a good model of budgeting for all costs in the full productive life of a wide-area educational network?

What characteristics of organization and governance are most important for statewide educational networking?

What network configurations and architectures are most economical and effective for statewide (and regional) networking, including education?

How can instructors be prepared to make effective use of the new technologies?

When and how can the benefits of an educational network be evaluated?

What are the effective methods for technical and management planning for educational networking within and among the agencies?

How can a state evaluate the effectiveness of its laws, policies and procedures affecting educational networks in relation to current requirements, technologies and services?

How can the states best collaborate in promoting the development and use of wide-area educational networks (statewide, regional, and national)?

Networks Responding to Survey - The 15 member states of the SREB were surveyed to determine the status and characteristics of their statewide educational networks. Fifty-three networks responded to
the survey:

Alabama
Intercampus Interactive Telecommunication System

Arkansas
Arknet
Arkansas Public School Computer Network

Florida
Advanced Telecommunications Services (SUN COM)
Florida Information Resource Network

Georgia
Georgia Statewide Academic and Medical System
PeachNet
PeachStar

Kentucky
Kentucky Information Highway
Kentucky Education Technology System
Kentucky Educational Television Star Channels
Kentucky TeleLinking Network

Louisiana
LaNet
LA Interactive Network for Knowledge via Satellite
Technical College System Office Network

Maryland
IVN - Interactive Video Network
Maryland Distance Learning Network
SAILOR Network

Mississippi
State Data Backbone
Community College Network and CJCWAN
EdNet
MS Educational Television Interactive Video
Mississippi Interactive Video Network
MISNET

North Carolina
North Carolina Information Highway
North Carolina Research and Education Network
North Carolina Distance Learning Via Satellite
NC - EDNET

Oklahoma
OneNet

South Carolina
South Carolina Information Network
South Carolina Educational Television
South Carolina Health Communications Network
Technet

Tennessee
Tennessee Network Information Infrastructure
ConnecTEN
Tennessee Education Cooperative
University of TN EdNet

Texas
Texas Education Network
STARLINK
Texas Education Telecommunications Network
Texas Schools Telecommunications Access Resource
Texas Trans Videoconferencing Network

Virginia
NET.WORK.VIRGINIA
Higher Education Electronic Classroom
Virginia Community College System Network
Virginia Public Education Network
Virginia Satellite Education Network
Commonwealth Telecommunications Network

West Virginia
WV Department of Education/World School
WV Education Information Network
WV Microcomputer Educational Network
WV Network for Educational Telecomputing
WV Teleconference Network

Definitions

ATM - Asynchronous Transfer Mode - A very high speed, connection-oriented, fixed length 48 byte (plus 5 bytes of overhead) cell switching scheme that is suitable for data as well as digitized voice and video.

Backbone - A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major pathway for shared use within a network.

Bandwidth - The amount of data you can send through a connection. Usually, measured in bits-per-second. A full page of English text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 15,000 bits in one second. Full-motion, full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression.

Digital - The use of binary code to represent and record information. It allows the information to be reproduced and transmitted precisely, without distortion, whereas analog transmission (common for voice transmissions) simply amplifies and transmits the information along with any distortions picked up along the way.

LAN - Local Area Network - A limited-distance (usually within a building or campus) high-speed network that supports many computers.

WAN - Wide Area Network - A WAN is a network covering an area exceeding a single building or even a single campus, and generally requiring the connection of its various components through the facilities and services of a commercial telecommunications carrier.

WWW - World Wide Web - The network of servers on the Internet, providing information services under a specific set of technical standards, tools and programming languages allowing easy access and exchange among machines. For example, these servers support "home pages" and other documents which may be linked via hypertext, even across multiple servers.