University Applications Task Force

One of the challenges facing CENIC is whether a supply-side strategy or a demand side strategy will be more effective in mobilizing the political will and fiscal resources needed to deploy gigabit networking technology for education in California. The mission of the University Applications Task Force is to develop a demand-side strategy for the One Gigabit or Bust Initiative. We hope to discover sources of demand, identify the underlying applications, and to implement one or more demonstration projects, probably in concert with other needed pilot programs.

The University Applications Task Force (UATF) is a coalition of volunteers working with CENIC towards improving outcomes for educators, students and administrators through the application of technology.

The goal of the UATF is to help drive the vision of a ubiquitous symmetrical gigabit network from the demand side of the equation.

A first step will be to identify higher education.s need and demand for high bandwidth networking to the desktop. One of the approaches we suggest is empirical -- discover demand by soliciting the opinion of actual users and future users of the network regarding their actual and expected demand. The UATF also aspires to bring together a statewide conference on networked applications to further assess education's demand for high bandwidth applications throughout California. We hope to help sponsor a demonstration project and socialize its findings to identify the benefits of Gigabit networking to California's education system and economy.

Larry Martinez of CSU Long Beach has kindly set up accounts for task force members to use the CSU Long Beach BeachBoardsystem for message boards, virtual meetings and document sharing. To request an account, contact Jaine Kim.

The products of this task force will be:

• Discover -- Develop and administer a statewide empirical survey to gather information about networking demand from the following groups: Educators, Students and Administrators of higher education.
• Identify -- Host a statewide conference of educators, leaders and innovators with an objective to identify meritorious innovations and pilots of university applications, with a view to selecting one or more that can be demonstrated on a gigabit facility.
• Implement -- Implement a pilot study of a selected application to be delivered over a gigabit network in a targeted and controlled test zone.
• Report -- Prepare a report to CENIC summarizing the work and findings.

The goals and milestones of this task force are as follows.

The goals and milestones of this task force are as follows.TF expects to more fully develop an execution plan by working with its members in a series of working sessions and by means of volunteer committees. A draft plan is suggested for the volunteers to review, including: