History
and Goals
In
1997, the Commission on Higher Education convened a Technology Task
Force to research to teaching with technology. In conclusion
of its research, the Task Force put forth a white paper, Looking
to the New Millennium: New Jersey’s Plan for Higher Education.
The
task force was integral in developing the state’s $50 million
Higher Education Technology Infrastructure Fund. A total of
$45 million was committed to enhance individual campus infrastructure
and required a dollar-for-dollar match. The remaining $5 million was
set aside for interconnectivity among the High Education institutions
in New Jersey. It also required an institutional match to
create a single broadband network utility to support the collaborative
efforts of colleges and universities in the state. The task
force completed its work after five months and established a Technology
Advisory Committee to assist the Commission and Presidents’
Council in developing a statewide network and governance
structure. In 2000, a network governance
structure – NJEDge.Net – was established with the
Presidents’ Council Executive Board serving as the board of
directors.
From
the outset, the undertaking was predicated on the assumption that
broadband connectivity is a utility that is critical to carry out the
core missions of the higher education community in New
Jersey. It was further recognized that there are true
economies-of-scale to be realized by investing cooperatively in this
utility.
At
the start of 2003, NJEDge.Net had built a state-of-the-art network
through a partnership with Verizon. A governance and
organizational structure was established, and operational procedures
were implemented. Today there are over 45 higher education
institutions participating in the NJEDge.Net and together they account
for a combined total of over 1 gigabit of Internet and 300 megabits of
Internet 2 bandwidth traveling over a managed IP infrastructure that
covers the entire state.
Goals:
- To
ensure NJEDge.Net goals and objectives align with the missions of the
membership and the overall NJ higher education enterprise.
- To
leverage the collective buying power of the membership to achieve
economies-of-scale through statewide buying consortia:
- Internet
services
- Internet2
access
- Statewide
videoconferencing resources
- Long
distance telephone service
- Software
site licensing
- Emergency
notification systems
- To
represent the common interests of the institutions it serves in
leveraging relationships with vendors and in working with statewide
and/or national programs and initiatives:
- Partnership
with Verizon
- Maintenance
of an active vendor affiliate program
- Member
of the national StateNets consortium
- Member
of various national buying consortia
- To
identify new application services that will bring value to the
membership and provide leadership in the implementation of
collaborative statewide applications:
- Videoconferencing,
streaming video and multicast video
- Authentication
and security
- Digital
library initiatives
- Network
attached storage
- To
support outreach within the State of New Jersey
- Facilitating
workforce development initiatives
- Promoting
systemic collaboration with K-12
- Extending
the reach of other not-for-profit and cultural entities such as the New
Jersey Performing Arts Center, Liberty Science Center, NJ Historical
Society, etc
- Promoting
and supporting research and development partnerships with business and
industry and other sectors of society.
- To
ensure that the resources of the network can be utilized fully and
effectively by member institutions by providing training and
professional development programs:
- Blackboard,
Angel, Sakai, Moodle and other open source and proprietary learning
management systems
- Best
practices in managing campus data and video networks
- Faculty
development programs and workshops
- To
build a sense of community and information sharing among members:
- The
Annual NJEDge.Net Conference
- Annual
best practices showcase
- To
organize and coordinate member driven activity groups focused on
specific communities of interest:
- Educational
Activities Task Force (EATF)
- Distance
Leaning Academic Advisory Board (DLAAB)
- The
Cyber Infrastructure group
- Data
Resources Group (DRG)
- Video
Resources Group (VRG)
- Voice
Services Group (VSG)
- Networking
and Performing Arts Initiative
- Cost-saving
for telecommunications
- To
provide leadership in research and development of current and next
generation technologies:
- Multicast
video
- Authentication
- HDTV
- Video
streaming
- VoIP
- Network
attached storage
- Desktop
video conferencing
- Podcasting
- Web2.0
-
To raise funds and obtain property by grant, governmental
appropriation, gift, bequest or devise from the public and from all
other available sources, to invest and reinvest the same to apply the
income and principal therefore, as the Board of Trustees may determine,
exclusively for such educational, scientific and academic purposes.
