The first objective of the project is to install a high-speed fiberoptic network which connects the partner organizations in Lane County, Oregon. The first phase of the network will connect the University of Oregon to the Eugene School District, the Springfield School District, the Bethel School District, the City of Eugene (including the Eugene Public
Library), Lane Community College, Sacred Heart Hospital, Symantec, and Oregon Public Networking (formerly Eugene Freenet/Lane Online), a public access community organization. Later phases will connect additional partners including the Lane Education Services District, Lane County, and additional state agencies, as well as additional industry partners, as funding permits.
The second objective is to install public access points and/or electronic classrooms at each of the partner organizations. Many of the partners are installing multiple points: the University of Oregon is installing four access points for its students, staff and the wider University community; Eugene School District is installing one public access point and connections to classrooms at each of its four high schools; Springfield School District is installing access points at both its main office and at its high school. Symantec and Sacred Heart are providing connections to existing equipment which will be used primarily by their employees and associates. Eugene Public Library and Oregon Public Networking will provide full public access, through both new equipment purchased by federal funds and existing equipment at their sites. Thus there will be a variety of configurations for access points, depending on the character, needs, and mission of the partner organizations.
The third objective is to develop shared online information services. One major component of these shared services is a set of resources based on World Wide Web technology. A central World Wide Web server located at and staffed by the University of Oregon will provide access to a variety of resources on partner networks and on the Internet. Additional web servers on partner networks are also being established, and we are developing
cooperative mechanisms for data coordination and training in web publishing.
The fourth objective on the Lane Education Network is to develop and evaluate applications on the network. A number of demonstration projects were described in the original proposal to NTIA, and several others have already been identified since the award was made. Progress on each of the demonstrations projects is outlined below.
4J workstations in classrooms 1 July 94 - 1 Sept 94 Symantec router installation 1 June 94 - 1 Nov 94 Hub site room prep/power conditioner 1 Nov 94 - 1 Dec 94 Router and network connection: Sacred Heart 1 Jan 95 - 1 Mar 95 Multimedia server installation 1 Dec 94 - 15 Jan 95 Hub router installation 1 Jun 94 Router installation: LCC, 4J, 1 Feb 95 - 1 Mar 95 Springfield, Bethel, EPL Circuit installation: LCC, 4J, 1 Feb 95 - 15 Mar 95 Springfield, Bethel, EPL Access point room preparation 1 Nov 94 - 1 Feb 95 Access point installation: UO 1 Dec 94 - 1 Jan 95 Access point installation: LCC, 1 Dec 95 - 1 Mar 95 Springfield, 4J, Bethel Leased circuit upgrades: Springfield, 4J 1 Jan 95 - 1 Mar 95 Access point installation: Eugene Public 1 Mar 95 - 1 July 95 Library LCC network upgrade 1 July 94 - 1 Sept 95 Network fully operational 1 March 96We are on schedule as of early January. The 4J school district has installed workstations in classrooms throughout the district and is near completion of the internal networks in the various schools. One grant partner, Symantec, is connected to the UO campus network using interim routers at each end; the grant- funded routers are on order. Several of the other partners (UO, 4J school district, Springfield school district, Oregon Public Networking) have interim connectivity through their existing Internet connections. A multimedia server, a Sun Microsystems SPARC system 1000, has been purchased and installed at UO and is already in heavy use; the UO is providing a number of services, including USEnet news and world wide web publications, to several of the partners. Hub site preparation is complete, including the acquisition of adequate power conditioning.
Final network design for the metropolitan- area network connecting the partners has been completed, including choice of hardware, precise circuit locations, routing protocols, network management, etc. The network has been officially named the "Lane Education Network," or LEN. Router hardware will consist of 4 Cisco 2514 routers, 2 Cisco 4500 routers, and one Cisco 7000 router at remote locations, with a Cisco 7000 router at the central site. Cisco 4500 routers will be placed at those sites where we expect growth in usage to be fastest. It should be noted that in the eight months since the initial grant application a completely new generation of router hardware has become available, forcing various design changes: a Cisco 7000 router was acquired using matching funds in early summer as an interim measure to provide connectivity immediately; the Cisco 2514 is comparable in performance to the Cisco 4000 originally planned but not as expandable; the Cisco 4500 offers required expandability and higher performance, albeit at a somewhat higher price. Most of the router hardware is now delivered or on order, and the majority of the network hardware is expected to be installed during February.
LEN will be connected to the Internet, and one service it will provide to the partners will be Internet access. Although many of the partners already have Internet connectivity, connecting this network will be critical to reducing operating and network management costs, and will provide a common base level of connectivity to all of the partners. IP network numbers and domain names have been acquired for the network and for those partners who need them. An Autonomous System Number has been assigned so that this network can be treated as a unit in Internet routing. Since some of partners already have Internet connectivity from several vendors (including NorthWestNet, RAINnet, and NERO) the external routing environment for this network will be rich and complex.
The internal networks of many of the partners are being enhanced to take advantage of the wide area connectivity provided by the network. Planned enhancements to the Lane Community College, Eugene 4J School District, and Springfield School District networks are described in the initial grant application. We will need to reallocate approximately $20,000 in grant funds to upgrade existing T1 circuits connecting the Eugene 4J school district with its 4 high schools to dual T1's; this connectivity supplements existing connections and will be required due to projected rapid increases in traffic to accomplish several of the demonstration projects planned. Also of interest, the City of Eugene is moving forward to establish its own internal IP network connected to LEN. The City network will provide access to LEN and the Internet from the Eugene Public Library access point as described in the original grant proposal. It will also provide access from several other locations in the city, including the Eugene Convention Center, and will eventually allow users on the Internet to obtain access to City- provided records and information.
Four access points have already been established at the University of Oregon:
It is not surprising that a group as large as this which needed to propose a project months in advance of its implementation would find some changes in circumstance during the project period. The Eugene Public Library presented a bond measure to the voters in Eugene which would have funded a new library building. It was defeated by some 10 votes out of some 50,000 cast. Voters in both Bethel and Springfield School Districts passed bond measures which provided them with more resources to add to the proposal than was once envisioned. The University of Oregon added a fee for educational technology to its price, generating nearly $2 million in additional resources to complement the development of the Lane Education Network.
Despite all efforts to be sure that all partners agreed on their needs and roles in the Lane Education Network, a few misunderstandings surfaced once the grant had been awarded. One involved the connection to Oregon Public Networking which is housed at the downtown campus of Lane Community College. Originally, we thought LCC planned to install a separate access point at the downtown campus to match the federal award, which OPN would share. This proved to be an error, which left OPN without a connection to the network. Because all the partners agreed that OPN was a critical part of the partnership, the Eugene Public Library reduced its budgeted funds by an amount sufficient to pay the connection charges and the University of Oregon increased its matching amount to adjust for the difference. Thus the problem could be accommodated without a revision to the project budget.
A second misunderstanding will require a small revision in the project budget. The Eugene School District planned to provide electronic classrooms in each of its four high schools as part of the match for the grant. They planned, however, to have the grant pay for the installation and charges for the additional T1 circuits to connect the high schools to the network, as described above. This was partially overlooked by the proposal writers, who included the necessary router interfaces but not the charges for installing the second circuit to each high school. Thus it will be necessary to modify the budget to increase the number of circuits. No change in the total project budget or project scope will be necessary, since we have been able to buy the personal computers for the access points for less than originally anticipated. Based on conversations with the Program Officer, we are proceeding on the assumption that this modification will be approved. We also anticipate various other minor modifications in the budget because of changes in technology (such as the Cisco routers, mentioned above) and price reductions; once all the equipment is ordered and final prices are known, we will submit a fully revised budget. There is no indication that the sum of changes will be significant, and they may result in an overall reduction in the total project cost.
We anticipate more detailed descriptions of all the demonstration projects' development, implementation, and evaluation in future reports.