January 7, 2015 at 10:00 AM - Technology Committee Meeting

Discussion:  Call to order at 10:01 AM.

Discussion:  Staff: Deb Hericks, Scott Isaacson, Rhonda Eis, Gordon Roethemeyer Guests: Karen Haase, Jamen Hall, Brent Gaswick.

Discussion:  Network NE has submitted a budget for funding. NDE has submitted 3 project proposals which were reviewed by the NITC. LB497 recommendations are to distribute lottery funds via NDE in the form of grants. All of these developments will have a positive impact on K-12 education in NE.

Discussion:  A group met to discuss the process of the Statewide Tech Plan. This plan is to help move forward the technology projects across the state (ie: single sign on, identity management, etc). IlliniCloud will like us to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with them so it documented as to our plan to partner with them. Additional grant funding opportunities may be available in the future due to our participation in a multi-state effort such as this. We need to add some language into agreement regarding student data (FERPA, IDEA, etc.) We received a donation from IllniCloud of 25 servers so go toward getting us started with our plan. These are in the inventory of the ESUCC but divided between ESU 2 and ESU 10. Single Sign-on - Will have a demonstrable system of the federated sign-on and application portal by 2/15/2014. Cloud infrastructure - a group of technical staff meets weekly to design and build the private cloud system, with the goal of having a production system ready in the summer of 2015, continuing to add participating ESUs and districts. Cost-efficiency, backup, disaster recovery, data privacy, and security are major considerations in this work. Dave Ludwig and Bob Uhing will work with technical staff to develop common language documents helpful in describing the system and benefits to ESUs and school districts. Vendor Management - We want to be careful to not get locked too tightly into any one vendor. Dean Folkers and Scott Isaacson are going to a vendor management conference for SLDS states January 13-14. Four people plan to attend the ICE conference in Illinois February 25-27 in support of our partnership with the IlliniCloud. This conference is similar in nature to Nebraska's NETA conference. Data dashboard - The pilot of the system continues work with the 9 pilot districts this spring. An additional 35 districts are interested in being part of the next wave of early adopters. Ongoing meetings are being held between ESUs 2, 5 and 10 regarding statewide Power School support. NE Repository for Online BlendEd Learning - beginning planning toward a repository of master courses that can be freely used by teachers statewide . The Safari Montage support contract is up for action in a separate agenda item in this meeting.

Discussion:  Rhonda Eis reviewed her attached report.

Discussion:  Scott reviewed his report--mostly discussed in conjunction with the statewide technology plan.

Discussion:  Gordon Roethemeyer reviewed his attached report.

Discussion:  Continue to review with legal and have approved in March.

Discussion:  Scott Isaacson has been working with Sarfari Montage on negotiations. The current agreement, for $57,200 is for the 2014-15 year only and costs are projected to increase to the range of $200,000-300,000 in future years. A team will be formed based on the ESUCC board's action to evaluate the status of the current solution and specify and prioritize future development work to address gaps and projected needs. Funding for the LOR is included in NDE's eLearning project proposal which is pending action by the legislature. If the project is funded, funds would be available in the 2016-2017 fiscal year.

Discussion:  Dave has had discussions with Krsten Swanson regarding getting a statewide licenses. Several ESUs interested in joining the pilot. February 24-25 is a training in CA.