Mission Statement / 3
Web Page Address & Contact Information / 3
NETS Executive Committee / 3
NETS Staff & Video Facilitators / 4
Regional Distance Learning Networking in Northwestern Minnesota / 5
Network Status/Activity/Load Levels / 6
NETS Accomplishments Brief / 7
Near Term Improvement Efforts / 8
Far Term Improvement Efforts / 8
Usage Levels / 9
Usage Character & Traffic Patterns / 11
User Technical Support & Maintenance Record / 12
Cost & Efficiency Measurements / 15
Historic Utilization Measurement & Patterns / 16
Access History By Campus / 17
Data Tables / 20
Course Listing / 24
Non-Credit Workshops/Meetings / 28
Web Streamed Events / 28
NETS Mission Statement:
The Northwest Educational Technology System, NETS, is a coalition of northwestern Minnesota institutions of higher education who employ technology to foster cooperation, communication, efficiency & access. Members utilize NETS to meet their own mission objectives & facilitate access between public resources & users. NETS infrastructure & policies are in place to expand opportunities through resource sharing between member institutions, to access distant resources & to form partnerships with other public & private entities.
NETS Executive Committee:
Bemidji State University Dr. Jon Quistgaard, President
Leo Morgan NETS Proxy
Minnesota State Community & Technical College Dr. David Gabrielson, Provost
MSCTC-Fergus Falls
NETS Executive Committee Chairman
Minnesota State University Moorhead Dr. Roland Barden, President
Brittney Goodman NETS Proxy
Northland Community Technical College Kent Hanson, Provost
NCTC-East Grand Forks
University of Minnesota, Crookston Dr. Charles Casey, Chancellor
NETS Coordinator Jeff Sinks
NETS Staff:
NETS Coordinator Jeff Sinks
NETS Scheduler Mike Hanson
NW-LINKS Scheduler Corky Miller
NETS Site Video Facilitators:
Bemidji State University Leo Morgan
Leech Lake Tribal College Shanon Nelson
Minnesota State Community &
Technical College
Fergus Falls Larry Haus
Detroit Lakes Doreen Hauge
Moorhead Perry Werner, Carrie Curie
Perham Admin Offices Cathy Robberts
Wadena Laurie Harper, Dorothy Platz
Minnesota State University Moorhead Bob Schieffer
Northland Community & Technical College
East Grand Forks Milt Kinzler
Thief River Falls Dave Olsen
Northwest Technical College Bemidji Ann Campbell
University of Minnesota, Crookston Jeff Sinks, Mike Hanson, Corky Miller,
Dennis Magsam
Whitefeather-Moe Center/Redby Nancy Poxlietner
Network Status Sample Showing Levels of Activity/Load
§ NETS is Circled
§ % indicates percent of capacity being used
NETS Accomplishments Brief:
Applications & Services:
NETS provides the regional component for all digital access for member institutions. In addition, NETS provides technical support for video applications & web streaming & coordinates telco contracts & line maintenance.
§ NETS members utilized 17,923 hours of video use last year, a 5% increase from last year.
§ Credit course offerings activity remains the major video application for NETS at 73% of total activity. This is consistent with the past years. 186 college courses were offered at NETS sites. 555 college credits were offered. 135 courses were hosted by NETS members. An additional 51 courses were hosted from colleges & universities outside of NETS.
§ 375 hours of web video streaming was posted for members this year.
§ The Leech Lake Tribal College was brought on line for video only.
§ Two Non QoS video units were brought on line at NCTC.
§ NETS made an agreement with OET to lease some of its unused bandwidth on the DS3 circuit to Detroit Lakes, reducing NETS costs.
§ MSCTC non QoS units were added to the NETS multipoint control unit to increase multi-site video capabilities & allow broader access to these units.
§ NETS assisted in the installation of 2 new video classrooms at MSCTC Fergus Falls.
§ NETS is participating in statewide planning for a statewide higher education networking oversight board.
§ NETS added the ability to integrate telephone calls into video conferences.
Collaboration & Communication:
NETS meets formally with the following entities:
§ NETS Executive Committee
§ MnSCU & U of M directors of telecommunications/technology
§ MHESO
§ The Minnesota Learning Network Forum
§ Minnesota higher education regional network coordinators
§ NWLINKS Joint Powers Board (K12 & regional libraries technology consortium)
§ OET (Office of Enterprise Technologies-MN Dept. of Administration)
NETS participated in 2 Conferences on Networks, Technology and Education held in Bemidji & Fergus Falls. Education Commissioner Alice Seagren, OET Commissioner Gopal Khanna, UM Vice Provost Billie Wahlstrom, MNSCU Associate Vice Chancellor Gary Langer were part of a panel who participated in a discussion on northwestern Minnesota technology needs.
NETS meets frequently with the following groups & individuals:
§ Site facilitators
§ Faculty
§ Technology support staff & directors including MnSCU & OET CIO’s, OET
§ Superintendents & principals
§ Telcos
§ NETS is a member of the NWLINKS Joint Powers Board. NWLINKS is the regional consortium for networking between school districts & libraries in northwestern Minnesota. NWLINKS funds one full time technician position at NETS. NETS continues to provide site technical support to NETS & NWLINKS users & site technicians.
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Near Term Improvement Efforts:
Areas of Focus:
§ Assist users in understanding & developing applications for web streaming media.
§ Bring the Roseau Community Center on line, under the umbrella of NCTC.
§ Assist in the testing of utilizing I2 as the vehicle for video access to NW MN K12 sites.
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Far Term Improvement Issues:
Technical:
§ Security needs to be improved for management & diagnostic servers.
§ Work with users to mitigate limitations of LAN housed non QoS video units.
§ Continue to explore opportunities for circuit sharing to reduce costs. Moorhead is an area where opportunities appear to be developing.
Funding & Collaboration:
§ NETS will continue to participate in efforts to establish a statewide higher education learning network governance entity to improve oversight, awareness & funding stability for regional networks.
§ Visibility & understanding of NETS & its services should be improved for faculty & staff.
§ Aging of video/technology room equipment will be an ongoing issue for NETS members.
§ Funding for K12/library network access continues to be severely limited. School districts & libraries are important vehicles for community access to higher ed.
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Usage Levels:
NETS recorded 17,923 site hours of use last year. This is an increase of 5% from last year.
Credit course offerings account for 73% of total NETS activity.
135 courses were hosted by NETS members.
An additional 51 courses were hosted by higher educational institutions outside of NETS. 555 Credits were offered.
Usage Levels:
NETS member institutions receive a significant number of college courses from outside northwestern Minnesota. 27% of the courses held at member campuses via NETS came from institutions outside of the region. The U of M & St. Cloud State University are the major out-of-region course providers.
186 college courses were offered at NETS member campuses via video conferencing.
BSU / 63 / 24 / 16% / 18% / -34% / -33%
NTC / 26 / 10 / 6% / 7% / 24% / 43%
DTC / 31 / 10 / 8% / 7% / 55% / 67%
EGF / 68 / 20 / 17% / 15% / 13% / 0%
FF / 1 / 1 / 0% / 1% / + / +
LEECH / 0 / 0 / 0% / 0% / 0% / 0%
MSUM / 44 / 15 / 11% / 11% / -21% / -17%
MTC / 18 / 7 / 4% / 5% / -56% / -50%
REDBY / 0 / 0 / 0% / 0% / 0% / 0%
TRF / 73 / 21 / 18% / 16% / 59% / 62%
PERH / 0 / 0 / 0% / 0% / 0% / 0%
UMC / 60 / 20 / 15% / 15% / -9% / -9%
WTC / 22 / 7 / 5% / 5% / -37% / -36%
Out of Region / 149 / 51 / 37% / 38% / 5% / 11%
NETS / 406 / 135 / 73% / 73% / -8% / -8%
Total / 555 / 186 / 27% / 27% / -5% / -4%
Usage Character & Traffic Patterns:
Regional traffic involves activity between member sites only that never leaves NETS managed resources in northwestern Minnesota.
Inter-regional traffic involves sites outside of northwestern Minnesota.
Joint Higher Ed/K12-Library is traffic between NETS colleges & K12 school districts &/or regional libraries.
User Technical Support Record:
NETS tracks technical support calls to the NETS network operations center requesting assistance.
Maintenance is repair of failures that did not affect scheduled activity.
.
Categories:
NETS=Region infrastructure core, i.e. lines, routers.
Site=Room equipment or room operation.
InterTech=Statewide video service &/or statewide infrastructure core.
UM=U of M Mpls. Video services.
Other=Scheduling confusion, campus worm effects & other networks outside of NETS.
LINKS=K12/library network infrastructure.
FY06 / FY06 % of Total / FY05 / FY04 / FY03 / FY02
NETS / 40 / 12% / 63 / 103 / 87 / 89
Site / 194 / 57% / 176 / 193 / 200 / 144
InterTech / 43 / 13% / 51 / 47 / 111 / 43
UM / 7 / 2% / 6 / 22 / 30 / 12
Other / 43 / 13% / 20 / 45 / 37 / 40
LINKS / 11 / 3% / 9 / 20 / 18 / 19
Total / 338 / 325 / 430 / 483 / 347
Maintenance
NETS / 5 / 14% / 5 / 36 / 23 / 38
Site / 28 / 78% / 15 / 28 / 50 / 40
InterTech / 2 / 6% / 2 / 1 / 0 / 0
UM / 0 / 0% / 0 / 7 / 0 / 3
Other / 0 / 0% / 0 / 3 / 2 / 2
LINKS / 1 / 3% / 0 / 4 / 12 / 4
Total / 36 / 22 / 79 / 87 / 87
User Technical Support Record:
Site or room related trouble/help causes, as opposed to network problems, made up 57% of all technical support calls. These charts break down site problems to show where assistance was needed.
QoS vs. Non-QoS:
10% of all trouble events are experienced by non-QoS, (Quality of Service), codecs.
Non-QoS units had 3 times the number of QoS trouble calls.
Failures caused by lack of QoS are a service limitation not really a malfunction. It is a limitation which users have chosen.
Breakdown of Site Related Technical Assistance Help CallsSite or Equipment in Room Turned off-No/Late Technician / Audio Needed Setting / Operator Assist with Room Operation / Site Hardware Repair/Cable Disconnect / Other- Often requests to extend meeting- Meeting never scheduled-Campus LAN worm infects are also in this category.
% of Site Related Total
49.5% / 4% / 16% / 12% / 19%
Number of Calls
90 / 7 / 29 / 22 / 34
% of Total Help Calls
27% / 2% / 9% / 7% / 10%
Maintenance:
Maintenance events are efforts preemptive or reactionary to fix site or network failures that are not disruptive to scheduled network video activity. These are up 64% from last year. All of this increase was in classroom equipment not network wide hardware.
Outages that affected a significant portion of NETS in FY06 were limited to a single campus only. No network wide or multiple campus failures occurred.
NETS upgraded to a converged data network with IP video the summer of FY05.
Cost Efficiency:
Total Network costs are made up of recurring base infrastructure & staffing costs.
Full base represents total network costs.
Member costs are network costs after grant funds & other income are applied.
Costs are charted against the hours NETS video was utilized. Video is no longer the best method to track efficiency since video & data were converged in FY04 but is included to provide a historical comparison.
This chart measures the cost of regional digital infrastructure (all data including video) in comparison with FYE enrollment.
Costs are this year (FY06) compared to FYE figures 1 year behind (FY05).
Utilization History:
Access History:
Below are brief descriptions of the most frequent access patterns of each member for video applications.
Regional =within NETS only.
Inter-Regional=Outside of NETS
Joint=Access to K12/Library location.
BSU’s major video conferencing application involves graduate & undergraduate courses to higher ed sites around the region & state.
Leech Lake Tribal College has less than a full year history. They have used their video conference facility to web stream guest speakers for viewing by tribal members.
MSUM undergraduate & graduate courses access sites at community colleges, school districts in Minnesota, St. Cloud State U & the U of M.
Access History:
NTC Bemidji shares classes with other community/technical colleges in the region & has programs with the Learning Center in Redby
The Redby Learning Center has participated in courses from NTC Bemidji & native language courses.
Perham houses the administrative offices for MSCTC. Meetings are their main video application.
Access History:
MSCTC shares courses among their 3 campuses, as well as MSUM.
Graduate courses from other colleges often utilize these sites as does some talented youth math classes for middle school aged students.
System wide meetings are a common application.
Access History:
NCTC East Grand Forks & Thief River Falls campuses primarily shares courses with other community, technical colleges, especially each other but also deliver courses to K12 communities in the region.
UMC’s access is driven by joint courses with BSU, Southwest State University & the U of M. System wide meetings & staff development are also frequent applications.
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NETS Data Tables:
Video Usage by Semester FY06 (Hours):
1st half FY06 July-Dec 2005Credit / Non Credit/Workshop / Meeting / NonQoS / Inter-Regional / Regional / Access K12 / Total
BSU / 823 / 0 / 148 / 3 / 550 / 421 / 50 / 971
NTC / 220 / 0 / 97 / 23 / 144 / 173 / 0 / 317
DTC / 465 / 2 / 360 / 39 / 84 / 743 / 0 / 827
EGF / 1206 / 1 / 85 / 62 / 203 / 1089 / 0 / 1292
FF / 253 / 0 / 341 / 0 / 42 / 552 / 0 / 594
LEECH / 0 / 1 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 1
MSUM / 430 / 2 / 98 / 0 / 255 / 275 / 129 / 530
MTC / 99 / 0 / 325 / 27 / 48 / 376 / 0 / 424
REDBY / 0 / 0 / 21 / 0 / 0 / 21 / 0 / 21
TRF / 1041 / 0 / 68 / 4 / 101 / 1008 / 163 / 1109
PERH / 0 / 0 / 336 / 30 / 88 / 248 / 3 / 336
UMC / 807 / 5 / 339 / 4 / 673 / 478 / 16 / 1151
WTC / 559 / 0 / 326 / 10 / 0 / 885 / 0 / 885
STREAM / 182 / 31 / 61 / 0 / 0 / 274 / 0 / 274
Sub Total / 6085 / 42 / 2605 / 202 / 2188 / 6544 / 361 / 8732
*2nd half FY06Jan.-June 2006
Credit / Non Credit/Workshop / Meeting / NonQoS / Inter-Regional / Regional / Access K12 / Total
BSU / 775 / 0 / 99 / 0 / 428 / 446 / 108 / 874
NTC / 423 / 0 / 79 / 54 / 36 / 466 / 0 / 502
DTC / 705 / 5 / 287 / 59 / 123 / 874 / 33 / 997
EGF / 1253 / 0 / 97 / 81 / 54 / 1296 / 80 / 1350
FF / 258 / 0 / 253 / 2 / 39 / 472 / 0 / 511
LEECH / 0 / 6 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 6 / 0 / 6
MSUM / 519 / 23 / 93 / 0 / 362 / 273 / 181 / 635
MTC / 259 / 0 / 239 / 96 / 21 / 477 / 0 / 498
REDBY / 279 / 0 / 23 / 0 / 54 / 248 / 0 / 302
TRF / 1074 / 0 / 104 / 82 / 24 / 1154 / 198 / 1178
PERH / 0 / 0 / 246 / 29 / 68 / 178 / 10 / 246
UMC / 749 / 113 / 188 / 0 / 787 / 263 / 27 / 1050
WTC / 692 / 0 / 249 / 26 / 22 / 919 / 12 / 941
STREAM / 101 / 0 / 0 / 101 / 101
Sub Total / 7087 / 147 / 1957 / 429 / 2018 / 7072 / 649 / 9191
TOTAL / 13071 / 189 / 4562 / 631.33 / 4206 / 13616 / 1010 / 17923
*Data based on history & scheduled events as of 5/1/06