The Junction of Teaching and Technology
ANNUAL REPORT 2016
junc•tion: \ʹjəŋ(k)-shən\ 1. a place where two things join
2. something that joins other things together
NJEDge resides at the junction of technology and teaching. At this pivotal point, we support the membership community with networking and academic resources.
STEM to STEAM at Stevens • page 17
Table of Contents
Board of Trustees........................................... 4
Member Connectivity................................. 16
A Message from Dr. Samuel Conn.............. 5
Consortium Purchasing Program.............. 19
Focus on the Board of Trustees.................... 6
IT Advances on Campus.............................. 20
A Message from Dr. Steven M. Rose ........................................ 7
NJEDge Community Programs.................. 22 Corporate Sponsorship............................... 30
The NJEDge Difference................................. 8 Member Institutions................................... 32 Academic & Community Engagement........................... 10
NJEDge Staff................................................. 33
NJVID & VIDYO............................................. 12
In Memoriam............................................... 34 Table of Contents • 3
“We depend on NJEDge for opportunities to grow and learn; whether it’s at the Annual Conference, the Best Practices Showcase, the individual user group meetings, or simply the opportunities to network with others in similar positions across all New Jersey higher education institutions.”
Kathleen Waldron President, William Paterson University Vice-Chair, NJEDge.Net Board
Board of Trustees OFFICERS
Chair: Steven M. Rose Vice-Chair: Joel S. Bloom Treasurer: Kathleen Waldron Secretary: Neal Sturm NJEDge.Net President & CEO: Samuel Conn
PUBLIC RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES
Joel S. Bloom, President, New Jersey Institute of Technology Mira Lalovic-Hand, Vice President and CIO, Rowan University Michelle Norin, Vice President of Information Technology and CIO, Rutgers University David Ullman, Associate Provost for Information Services & Technology and Chief Information Officer, New Jersey Institute of Technology
STATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
Candice Fleming, Vice President, Information Technology, Montclair State University Susan Henderson, President, New Jersey City University William Seaton, Provost/VP Academic Affairs, Thomas Edison State College Joseph Marinello, Director of Information Technology, Kean University Joseph Toth, VALE-Chair, Stockton University Kathleen Waldron, President, William Paterson University of New Jersey
INDEPENDENT COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES Joseph Marbach, President, Georgian Court University Gerard O’Sullivan, Provost/VP Academic Affairs, St. Peter’s University Neal Sturm, Vice President and CIO, Fairleigh Dickinson University
COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Maris Lown, Vice President Academic Affairs, Union County College Maureen Murphy, President, Brookdale Community College Steven M. Rose, President, Passaic County Community College
PROPRIETARY COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES Leonard DeBotton, CIO and Vice President, Berkeley College
OUTSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION
Joseph Seaman, Supervisor, Technology Readiness, New Jersey Department of Education
4 • NJEDge.Net ANNUAL REPORT
A message from Dr. Samuel Conn, President & CEO
W
e are living in exciting and changing times as organizations and institutions in a networked world continue to design and implement their digital DNA and bring innovation to the enterprise. As the incoming president and CEO, I am delighted as I meet our various members and officers, and learn more about how NJEDge.Net can provide value, support, and service to their technology initiatives. Building on a solid past reputation and a spirit driven by value attainment and community ethos, the future for NJEDge.Net looks promising and bright. As we engage in a future planning process that includes re-envisioning how we bring optimal value to members, restructuring for more operational efficiencies and service, and re-emerging with a future state operation, our members will remain the center focus of our purpose-built network. Technology continues to change the landscape for all our members. Integrated platforms that support the full life-cycle of the student; technology, space, and pedagogy combining to create new ways of learning; digital content at the center of a 21st century learning culture; and technology-enhanced learning all characterize the challenges we face. Looking to better provide value and service in higher education, government agencies, libraries, healthcare organizations, and K-12 schools, NJEDge.Net is uniquely positioned to be the “go-to”, trusted technology partner. Leveraging technology to promote member success is paramount to our mission and vision.
“The road ahead for NJEDge.Net involves increased member collaboration, internal assessment and selfstudy, collection of data, and research to construct our next strategic plan.”
Dr. Samuel Conn NJEDge.Net President and CEO
The road ahead for NJEDge.Net involves increased member collaboration, internal assessment and self-study, collection of data, and research to construct our next strategic plan. Believing that with our members we are stronger together, NJEDge.Net offers the potential to rise among its peers, expand its base of support, ensure best-in-class infrastructure, deliver new capabilities, and promote quality and transparency in all facets of operations.
Samuel Conn, Ph.D. President and CEO, NJEDge.Net
A Message from Dr. Samuel Conn • 5
NJEDge plays a key role in ensuring that Passaic County Community College remains on the cutting edge of technology. Each year our faculty and administrators take advantage of the outstanding development opportunities offered by NJEDge. We can always count on the multi-talented NJEDge staff to support our technology needs! Steven M. Rose President, Passaic County Community College Chair, NJEDge.Net Board
Resources are needed for good professional development and NJEDge provides those resources. We depend on NJEDge for opportunities to grow and learn; whether it’s at the Annual Conference, the Best Practices Showcase, the individual user group meetings or simply the opportunities to network with others in similar positions across all New Jersey higher education institutions. NJEDge also provides our faculty and students with access to educational videos through NJVID. It provides the William Paterson University community with a huge resource of vetted educational videos as well as a way to upload self-created videos for teaching and learning. In addition, NJEDge provides access to Internet2 for research and scholarly sharing. All of these rich resources are part of our membership and contribute to the value of being part of NJEDge.Net. Kathleen Waldron, President, William Paterson University Treasurer, NJEDge.Net Board
6 • NJEDge.Net ANNUAL REPORT
The establishment of NJEDge.Net is among the noteworthy accomplishments of the New Jersey Presidents’ Council as a means of encouraging partnerships and collaborations within New Jersey’s system of higher education. NJEDge.Net has brought significant resources to institutions at considerable cost-savings. NJIT is proud to have played a pivotal leadership role in its founding. Today the same partnerships and collaborations prepare NJIT and our sister institutions to address new technological challenges and to share and learn from one another in areas that transcend IT infrastructure. As a president and member of the Executive Committee, I am most proud to help oversee this transformation as services expand to those that directly benefit students, faculty, staff and researchers at large and small institutions alike. Joel S. Bloom, President, New Jersey Institute of Technology Vice-Chair, NJEDge.Net Board
From its conception, I have always viewed NJEDge’s biggest value to be a facilitator of collaboration. From the Early Network Advisory Board to the Educational Activities Task Force to the Data and Video Resource Groups, the Strategic Planning discussions and, of course, the Annual Conference; NJEDge facilitates collaboration. The creation of the physical network providing connectivity and services to resources otherwise not easily available or affordable is certainly a strong aspect of what NJEDge provides. But above all, for us it is really the extensive collaboration. Neal M. Sturm Vice President & Chief Information Officer Fairleigh Dickinson University Secretary, NJEDge.Net Board
A message from the Chair of the Board of Trustees
T
he year 2016 is one of transition for NJEDge. We celebrate the legacy of our founding president George Laskaris upon his retirement and welcome, with great excitement, Dr. Samuel Conn as our new president. George Laskaris built NJEDge to become a nationally recognized research and education network. Under George’s leadership, NJEDge.Net developed into a national leader in higher education technology. We thank George for his years of dedicated and exceptional service and wish him a happy and healthy retirement. Dr. Samuel Conn joins NJEDge from The State University of New York Empire State College, where he was executive vice president for Finance, Administration and Information Technology and chief information officer. He brings more than 35 years of combined, military, professional, industry and academic experience in the field of technology and information systems. He began his work in higher education in 2001 with a focus on informationtechnology management, administrative and educational technologies, e-learning networks and online program construction and management. His service to academe includes leadership positions in information technology at Regis University, Virginia Tech, Georgia Military College and Southern Polytechnic State University. Sam brings great experience, energy, and vision and we all look forward to him leading NJEDge to the next level. On behalf of the entire NJEDge.Net Board of Trustees, I appreciate your continued support in the organization and look forward to providing even greater service to the New Jersey Higher Education Community.
“Sam brings great experience, energy, and vision and we all look forward to him leading NJEDge to the next level.”
Steven M. Rose Chair, NJEDge.Net Board of Trustees
Steven M. Rose, Ed.D. President, Passaic County Community College Chair, NJEDge.Net Board of Trustees
A Message from Dr. Steven M. Rose • 7
Purpose Built—The NJEDge Difference It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent but the one most adaptable to change. —Leon C. Megginson, Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge
“Rich media learning objects, most often delivered via high definition video and real time collaboration via video conferencing suites is now de rigueur for every institution.”
Ed Chapel, Ph.D. Senior Vice President, NJEDge.Net
8 • NJEDge.Net ANNUAL REPORT
M
egginson’s redefining “change” of Darwin’s classic The Origin of the Species resonates with me when I reflect upon the NJEDge organization and the value we bring to our membership. The NJEDge team, over the years, has coined the term “purpose built” when describing the products and services we offer to our members and the notion of responsive adaptation to the environment and surrounding conditions outlined in the Darwinian framework is at the heart of this concept. Consider the many disruptive developments and challenges that we have met head on and handled together through our consortium over the past decade and a half. Foremost among these was the emergence of broadband connectivity as an essential tool for teaching, learning and research, and the prohibitive cost of these resources as a barrier to entry and full participation in the digital education movement. With broadband capability came the proliferation of content and the seemingly limitless capacity to information; adding to this mix are intellectual property concerns and learning modules, both synchronous and asynchronous, all seeking individual response. Meanwhile, synchronous and asynchronous learning models flourished, degrees granted through distance education programs grew in leaps and bounds. Teaching and learning suddenly required learning management systems. Instructional designers emerged as the recognized experts regarding method and pedagogical efficacy rarifying the content and wisdom provided by resident faculty. Rich media learning objects, most often delivered via high definition video and real time collaboration via video conferencing suites is now de rigueur for every institution. And finally, with all of this content and learning capacity, the reality is that learning can be highly customized and personalized. The digital bread crumbs that all of the participants leave behind have opened the door to big data-based analytics for monitoring and predicting student success. And one more thing: All that we have built with all of our precious and private information is under unrelenting attack on the security front. Amid this litany of changes and challenges, our consortium ethos has served us well. The triad of the ever-changing higher education landscape create a series of daunting challenges to our members. NJEDge will respond to these realities through an iterative process of responsive adaptation and find solutions for you, our members. This process is fully realized in our network, which has been redesigned in response to your needs for bandwidth, high definition video, highly available and recoverable services and, most recently, with a completely refurbished core optical infrastructure that can scale to accommodate high performance computing requirements and, at the same time, respond to the unrelenting security attacks that challenge us all.
In November, we will formally unveil Illumira, the core component of NJEDge’s comprehensive digital content repository management and presentation suite. While our other portfolio of products and services has evolved in similar fashion, I wanted to highlight one among them. The NJVID application originated as a video management and repository solution focused primarily on the needs of higher education libraries to store, classify and deliver video content via Internet streaming protocols and to do so in a manner that protected the commercial interests and the intellectual property rights of the content creator. Today, the NJVID product has become an invaluable tool for the entire college and university enterprise and it has been widely adopted by members of the New Jersey higher education community as well as colleague institutions throughout the country. Running on all manner of computing and mobile devices, it interoperates seamlessly with all of the industry leading learning management systems and browsers while providing digital rights management compliant access to both commercial and locally developed audio, video and document content that is curated and discoverable with the most current tagging protocols. It is responsive to the universal accessibility standard with feature rich and affordable closed-caption and transcript creation tools, and it allows for the integration of adaptive learning strategies by inserting testing and quizzing protocols into the content stream. So compelling is the evolution of the NJVID platform that I daresay Charles Darwin would declare it an entirely new species—the product of the iterative, member-driven process of responsive adaptation to the wholly redefined higher education landscape. Accordingly, I am pleased to announce that the NJVID name will be retired this year as it no longer conveys the breadth and richness of the features and functionality of its highly evolved successor. Its capabilities have eclipsed its original design and the appeal and adoption of the application as a proven and valued educational technology solution has reached well beyond the borders of New Jersey. Beginning with our upcoming annual NJEDge member conference in November, we will formally unveil Illumira, the core component of NJEDge’s comprehensive digital content repository management and presentation suite. Thanks to all of our members and colleague institutions throughout the country who have shepherded this product along to its current state. Please join us at the annual conference for the unveiling of the renamed and rebranded application.
Ed Chapel, Ph.D. Senior Vice President, NJEDge.Net
The NJEDge Difference • 9
en•gage: \en-ʹgāj\
1. to hold the attention of 2. to induce to participate
ACADEMIC & COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
In a 2014 survey, NJ CIOs rated “community” as the foremost distinction of NJEDge.Net. Community and academic engagement for professional development for faculty, administrators, network staff, CIOs play an important part of the service and support we offer. That’s our EDge. Community programs run throughout the calendar year. There were 1500 participants at our community programs this past year. Every year there is a creation of new community programs. Although this may be direct-
10 • NJEDge.Net ANNUAL REPORT
ed by new trends, more often it is the members who ask NJEDge for action.
The 2015 annual conference—Rethink, Refresh, Reboot—brought out phenomenal speakers. Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, whose research and publications focus on STEM education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance, is such a speaker. He was recently named by President Obama to chair the newly created President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. Dr. Hbrabowski astounded the presidents, CAOs, CIOs, librarians and other participants from the executive echelon with his eloquence, expertise and charm. Richard Cullata, Director of the Office of Educational Technology for the US Department of Education, shared Using Technology as a Lever to Redesign Learning with the participants.
Getting the right guest speaker makes the world of difference in community programs. NJEDge has been extremely fortunate because the plenary speakers were all spot on. NJEDge is a member-driven organization. Member engagement in professional development programs is the intersection of collaboration and technology. Joey Lee, Research Assistant Professor and Director of the Games Research Lab at Columbia University’s Teacher College, spoke at the second Gamification Symposium at Rutgers. Blake Haggerty, Executive Director for Digital Learning and Technology Support, NJIT, spoke about “Identifying Pain Points” and ITIL at the User Services Symposium. Sandra Miller, Deputy CIO, William Paterson University and Gayle Stein, Rutgers University, took up the mantle for the second annual Instructional Designer Workshop.
One of our most exciting developments is VALE (Virtual Academic Library Environment of New Jersey), now headquartered at NJEDge. Judy Arvin (left, with Sheri Prupis) has been appointed VALE Business Manager and Coordinator. The current chair, Joe Toth, Stockton University, leads the executive committee to make sure that VALE remains vital for the higher education academic library community. VALE coordinates outreach, planning, and purchasing for its members. The conference was held in January and featured Daniel Russell of Google as the keynote speaker.
The summer luncheon was bittersweet. We bid goodbye to George Laskaris, the inaugural president and CEO of our consortium. George led NJEDge.Net for 16 years and built it into one of the nation’s most recognizable statewide networks. In his honor, we created the George Laskaris Leadership Award to be given to an individual in our community who has championed innovation in technology, teaching, or public service.
Academic & Community Engagement • 11
NJVID today hosts more than 16,500 hours of user uploaded content that is viewed by students, faculty and staff from the convenience of their personal devices.
NJVID & VIDYO NJVID continues to grow in terms of features and usage in 2015-16. The team worked on developing and adding innovative new features that have been applauded by the user base of faculty, students, instructional designers, and CIO’s. This year also marks a new hallmark for NJVID: The service crossed one million views in April 2016. 12 • NJEDge.Net ANNUAL REPORT
T
he NJVID platform now features a fully redesigned, 100% HTML5 player on all new and major browsers, and with a built-in capability for flash fallback on older browsers. This update helps the membership overcome security issues caused by Flash based media players. It also added new features: Section 508 compliance and WAI-ARIA support. NJVID today hosts more than 16,500 hours of user uploaded content that is viewed by students, faculty and staff from the convenience of their personal devices. FlexCaptions: Higher-education institutions today have a greater need for closed-captioning that complies with ADA laws and makes content more accessible to international students. The process involves multiple pain points with institutions required to identify vendors, transfer content and add captions manually. Automated services do not provide the level of accuracy and are often cost prohibitive. NJVID addressed this vital industry need by developing a cost effective closedcaptioning integration with Cielo24, a popular service provider. Through this integration, users can seamlessly request and add captions with up to 99.99% accuracy to their uploaded NJVID content. Members can also have an approval workflow to ensure that captions are created only for required content. Commercial video hosting update: NJVID commercial video service today hosts more than 8700 titles from over 110 media vendors. In February 2016,
NJVID partnered with SWANK Motion Pictures Inc. to offer Hollywood titles from all major studios. NJVID was also able to negotiate attractive discounts for any titles that are licensed by our membership. With this capability NJVID subscribers can license and view Hollywood film classics, and access new features such as MARC records, reporting and licensing tools. 2016-17 Product Roadmap: NJVID continues to outshine its competitors in its capabilities in developing new features while delivering the same level of service and support at an unmatched price, as it has done since its inception. The ability to add quizzes within videos; screen capture and recording; Public API for third party integrations; a redesigned backend administrative interface are some of the new features being developed as a part of our roadmap for 2017.
Other noteworthy user features: nn HTML5 player now supports playback speed control and ability to Chromecast to any device nn Ability for content owners to create chapter markers and publish them for everyone to see nn Embeddable Playlists: Users can generate embed code for sharing a playlist on a website nn Updated workflows for LMS integrations nn Bulk editing of metadata and improved template functionality nn Integrations with Moodlerooms nn Added support for tags and keywords
NJVID & VIDYO • 13
College of Staten Island, CUNY
“NJVID’s seamless integration with Blackboard LMS makes it easier for faculty and students to upload video content.”
Patricia Kahn, Ph.D. Assistant Vice President for Technology Systems & CIO, The College of Staten Island
The College of Staten Island (CSI) was faced with the challenge to provide a solution for the streaming and preservation of media used in academic and administration areas. Concerns for publishing video content on Blackboard as well as publicly hosted sights such as YouTube needed to be addressed. In addition, the ability to provide closed-captioning as well as applying permissions to view content by role in a secure environment was also a requirement. NJVID’s cost effective and robust solution addressed these challenges and met the needs for CSI. NJVID is being used today by a variety of academic and administrative departments including Education, Media Culture, Psychology, Library, Public Relations, Information Technology. NJVID’s seamless integration with Blackboard LMS makes it easier for faculty and students to upload video content without going to the NJVID portal. Users can also upload videos in a variety of areas – i.e. assignments, discussion board, content modules, etc. A look at how CSI is using VDI and NJVID to support accessibility: CSI was faced with a challenge of providing students with disabilities access to software required for their courses. Limited resources only provided access to this software in certain labs and workstations. Students were clearly at a disadvantage. In order to address this challenge and provide for a Universal Design environment, CSI leveraged a VDI environment and provided accessibility software from the cloud. Students were now able to access software from any location on campus as well as from home. Taking this a step further, closed-captioned video tutorials were created and stored on NJVID to provide further support for these users.
Montclair State University
Montclair State University has been using NJVID services in many domains across campus. Patrick Scioscia, Instructional Designer, uses NJVID service and its features and works with instructors in making video and digital media content more inclusive of courses delivered through Canvas. Through the years, MSU’s instructional technology team provided NJVID with valuable feedback, many of the features were developed and are in use. Patrick recently presented a poster on NJVID at the 2016 NJEDge Faculty Showcase. The poster, entitled Media Usage, Accessibility and Closed-Captioning in Today’s Course Pedagogy, highlighted the importance of accessibility and functionalities such as closed-captioning in education. NJVID has built-in features including keyboard shortcuts that give users accessibility to a media-player and screen-reader friendly website, and more. Additionally, NJVID has made closed-caption creation easier for instructors and administrators to access across the community.
14 • NJEDge.Net ANNUAL REPORT
James Madison University, VA
NJVID’s newest subscriber, James Madison University located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, has been ranked among the most innovative schools by US News & World Report.
“James Madison University Libraries began working with NJVID in 2016 to host streaming video content. Previously the Libraries at JMU used a locally developed system intended for digital images; but, as streaming content gained momentum across campus, the need arose for a more robust system. Unlike the local system, NJVID not only consolidates individual streaming titles on a single platform, but assists us in tracking usage and license renewals and facilitates patron discoverability. NJVID staff have provided us with several web demonstrations and remain available for any questions that arise.”
Sarah Koechlin James Madison University Libraries
Vidyo conferencing solution provided by NJEDge
N
JEDge, in partnership with IDSolutions and Vidyo, offers members a state-of-the-art, easyto-use, and affordable video conferencing platform for administrative and academic use. NJEDge membership receives consortium discounted pricing on the upgrades, support and conferencing hardware. The service is currently in use by more than 25 higher education institutions and K12 schools in New Jersey.
The video conferencing starter pack is available to NJEDge members who subscribe to an NJEDge circuit at no cost. The starter pack includes: nn A dedicated tenant for institutional use that can be customized with institutional logo and support information nn Up to 5 concurrent Vidyo lines available per member under startup pack with additional lines available for purchase; allows up to 5 concurrent calling capacity nn Up to 100 installs of Vidyo Desktop client available for guest users nn Up to 25 accounts available to be registered on the dedicated tenant nn Access to VidyoReplay service: Record your live sessions and share them with participants for playback at a later time nn Access to VidyoGateway service - Connect and control third party H.323 and SIP endpoints and cameras nn Access to VidyoVoice services: This service provides local access numbers for voice-only participation from any wired, wireless, or IP telephone nn Unlimited toll-free phone and email support
The Vidyo solution provides video conferencing capabilities to distant learners and allow students to benefit from the easy-to-use class resources. Members can join meetings from their computers as well as personal devices such as tablets and mobile phones from any location using the native Vidyo application allowing for meetings on the go. Users can webcast their meetings and simultaneously record them in high definition. NJEDge has also created a ready knowledgebase of articles related to the usage of Vidyo services.
NJEDge’s Board of Trustees meeting via Vidyo NJVID & VIDYO • 15
con•nec•tiv•i•ty \kä-nek-ʹti-və-tē\
1. the state or quality of being connected
2. capacity for the interconnection of platforms, systems, and applications
MEMBER CONNECTIVITY
NJEDge works with various last mile vendors to design an affordable, geographically diverse network for last mile connectivity. 16 • NJEDge.Net ANNUAL REPORT
NJEDge worked in conjunction with Passaic County Community College to create a shared services arrangement for the benefit of the college and the Paterson Board of Education, a New Jersey Abbot school district. NJEDge participated in multiple planning meetings with members of both institutions. The result of the agreement is a high bandwidth, redundant network design which provides both institutions with the resources they need to carry out their individual goals and initiatives while enjoying a reduced cost for the services.
NJEDge worked with various last mile vendors to design an affordable, geographically diverse network for last mile connectivity to NJEDge.Net’s purpose built educational and research network. This network design protects against multiple points of failure and provides institutions with highly reliable connectivity for their critical applications including Paterson’s PARCC testing.
NJEDge then worked with the last mile vendor to install and activate the network connections. While the physical build of the network was challenging, Passaic and NJEDge worked together to overcome those obstacles and ultimately succeeded in delivering on the promise of a successful shared services network.
“Each day on my way to my office I would pass by a school building that was part of the Paterson K-12 system. This building was literally 25 feet away from our main downtown Paterson campus and about 50 feet away from one of our campus infrastructure network closets. I had known previously that the Paterson school system had run fiber to each one of its schools to connect back to their central networking core located in one of its high schools. I then wondered was there a way I can create a partnership between PCCC and the Paterson School district and NJEDge to explore the feasibility of sharing an Internet circuit and its costs? Certainly both schools can use expanded capacity but the cost of expanding that capacity can be extremely high for each school to go it alone. Once I determined that the costs for running fiber from our network closet and the needed electronics would be less than $20,000, I thought I could develop a plan to show how much we can save by sharing circuits. Certainly from a cost sharing prospective it made a lot of sense and the thought of having expanded capacity for both of our institutions made it a goal worth achieving. I worked with NJEDge’s Bruce Tyrrell, Jim Stankiewicz and Ed Chapel to develop an engineering and cost plan to present to both PCCC’s and Paterson’s Boards.Once both boards accepted the proposals and developed the MOU’s it took about 6 months to get everything installed and working. Today PCCC’s and Paterson’s Internet capacity was expanded from 700 Mbps combined to 1.5 Gbps combined provisioned over a 10 Gb connection. This 10 Gb circuit now gives us the flexibility to dynamically allocate bandwidth based on usage, quickly increase our total bandwidth when needed, and also allows us to seek other partners in Paterson to join our consortium.” Robert Mondelli, Vice President of Information Technology Passaic County Community College
Member Connectivity • 17
The NJEDge.Net consortium is able to leverage the combined purchasing power of the membership which provides the ability to drive down costs as well as the visibility to leverage relationships with service providers to procure creative solutions to solve member problems. NJEDge, always on the lookout for better ways to connect all of our members, was contacted by a new service provider building out in Sussex county, looking to leverage its new network build to create opportunities. This provider, well established in New York City as a premier provider of dark fiber and high bandwidth, low latency services for the financial sector was building out their fiber footprint to connect a large health service provider to a hospital local to our member. Sussex County Community College is located in an area of New Jersey that has long been underserved by telecommunication service providers. Due to this circumstance, this NJEDge connected member has been restricted in its ability to directly connect to and leverage the services of the NJEDge network. NJEDge has provided services to Sussex via a costly and comparably low bandwidth IP connection provided by the incumbent local exchange provider. NJEDge worked with the college and this service provider to design and procure a high bandwidth connection between the college and NJEDge.Net’s POP in Newark. This connection greatly improves the college’s ability to leverage its NJEDge network connection and provides a cost effective path for future upgrades. Sussex is also looking to replicate the success of Passaic County Community College by offering to share this bandwidth with other underserved education entities in this area of the state.
A Technician’s Guide to the
NJEDge Network
NJEDge has created a purpose-built, high performance, highly redundant, scalable regional network to service our members. 18 • NJEDge.Net ANNUAL REPORT
High performance networking describes the ability to scale bandwidth from 10, 40 to 100G for transit, content provider and the NJEDge Core. NJEDge provide a set of services to our membership that optimizes campus load balancing and route diversity for better resiliency against service provider disruptions. NJEDge’s High Performance Network
Recent improvements
nn Optical Network allowing the flexibility to add variable services (1-100G) over a single fiber, therefore maximizing the utilization of the current regional fiber infrastructure
nn Relocated Points of Presence in Philadelphia and Newark, NJ to increase scalability, enhance our connectivity with Content Providers and provide more connectivity options to members
nn Scalable direct customer connection via 10g links that can be easily scaled from 1 to 10g based on customer needs nn Simplified Membership Connectivity leveraging LISP as an alternative to BGP, which allows for easier provisioning and optimal load balancing nn LISP positions NJEDge to offer innovate disaster recovery services at the regional level nn NJEDge’s Peering efforts provide direct connectivity to highly utilized services like Google, AWS, MSFT, and Apple nn Private Network Connections with Facebook and Netflix
nn Implemented a Network Visibility Tool which includes DDoS detection capabilities nn Replaced/Upgraded our optical backbone to provide highly scalable connections nn 60Gbits of IP Transit Capacity nn 80Gbits of Content Provider Capacity nn NJEDge continually strives to improve the resiliency of the network
Consortium Purchasing Program Send Word Now New Jersey Institute of Technology needed “single sign-on” (SSO) for students, which Send Word Now (SWN) had on its roadmap but wasn’t planning to deliver until later this fall. Relying on the RFP that NJEDge had conducted the prior year, and invoking the purchasing power of the entire consortium we were able to get SWN to revise its product roadmap and deliver SSO this summer so that NJIT and other members could rely on it during their peak new student registration activity this fall. VMware From an overall consortium purchasing perspective, the major initiative for FY16 was completing the “burn down” of tokens under the ELA, which came in better than forecasted, as well as completing the opt-in for continuation of 30% discounts on VMware support renewals for FY17 and FY18. NJEDge was able to help University Hospital by negotiating with VMware on its behalf for an unlimited agreement that will save the hospitals millions in license and support costs and provide a stable cost structure for its new datacenter over the next five years. NJEDge participated in a VMware convenience contract RFP issued by The Quilt (National Coalition of Regional Networks). This contract was awarded to Carahsoft and locked in significant discounts for at least three years. Since 2013, Carahsoft has been helping to manage our ELA order fulfillment and therefore knows our members and is well-known by our members. Members will continue to be able to access the best available non-ELA discounts on new license purchases (17% off Academic List) because we are mobilizing the purchasing power of NJEDge’s sister networks across the country. Several members also took advantage of our Nutanix and F5 contracts for hyper-converged infrastructure and next generation firewall devices, respectively. These are particularly helpful to public institutions because many of them could not purchase these cutting-edge, emerging technologies without NJEDge’s assistance in setting up the contract vehicles. Microsoft and Quality Matters Our consortium discounted rates for Microsoft Enrollment for Education Solutions and Quality Matters remain perennial favorites among members. We are seeing nearly universal participation among higher education institutions in these contracts. We are always monitoring all our contracts to make sure NJEDge continues to offer our members the greatest discounts and most favorable terms.
“Joe Rearden and the team at NJEDge were instrumental in helping NJIT to recently procure a new campus wide mass notification system. As a member of the RFP process, I was pleased with the expertise, professionalism and thoroughness that the NJEDge RFP committee brought to the table. I was even more impressed by Joe’s ability to help bring the weight of our consortium’s purchasing power and RFP process to bear in order to get the vendor to release new features in tune with campus needs and our academic calendar.”
Robert N. Gjini Assistant Vice President of Faculty Systems New Jersey Institute of Technology Consortium Purchasing Program • 19
IT advances ON CAMPUS A
new era began at the College of Saint Elizabeth in fall 2016 as the first coeducational traditional undergraduate class was welcomed to campus. To prepare for this class and future generations of CSE students, a review of academics, campus facilities, and sports programs began in 2015. Upgrading the technology on campus became a major priority. Working with NJEDge and a New Jersey Higher Education Technology Infrastructure (HETI) grant, the college was able to upgrade the network infrastructure by doubling its bandwidth through a purchasing agreement with NJEDge which enabled it to expand wireless capability throughout the campus, upgrade the legacy phone system and install a generator for the network operations center. Being part of the consortium allows CSE to receive significant savings for hardware and software purchases, participate in professional development programs and collaborate with the other NJ colleges and universities. The college is continually looking to NJEDge and the NJCIO Forum for guidance in current and future technologies.
C
IOs have a litany of things to worry about, but ransomware has risen to the top. A ransomware discovery in an academic shared folder surfaced as a challenge to student-faculty collaboration: should non-university controlled devices be allowed to make changes in shared teaching and research folders? The stinger was that the ransomware event took place nine months prior to discovery, and there was no unaffected backup, as it was beyond the retention window. Luckily, the files were not essential, but what if they were? Because of the NJEDge NJCIO and Security Resources Group meetings, no institution has to bear the burden alone. SRG made it clear that no foolproof prevention existed (at any price), and draconian access restrictions run counter to the collaboration culture of higher education. By collaborating with NJEDge members and developing new strategies to prepare for and mitigate security incursions, Monmouth can support faculty-student research and teaching collaboration at a reduced risk without adding cumbersome restrictions or costly preventative solutions.
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T
he computing staff at the Institute for Advanced Study has been working over the past several years to transform IT service delivery to “BYOD-friendly” model which allows scholars to work on devices appropriate for their research. This transition incorporated a number of projects including the deployment of wireless access points across the campus; the creation of a secure, authenticated, ubiquitous wireless network for scholars and staff; participation in the eduroam initiative; improvements in identity management, directory services and authorization systems; augmenting the Internet and I2 bandwidth available; as well as numerous improvements to the data security infrastructure. The result is a campus which offers scholars the flexibility for connectivity and interactivity that they seek, while simultaneously maintaining IT’s ability to support and protect users and their data. These transitions have been aided in several ways by membership to NJEDge. Most notable is the ease, availability and affordability with which IAS is able to add additional bandwidth, as well as to leverage the efforts of NJEDge’s strategic peering initiatives. The consortium’s VMware purchasing program allowed for the quick scaling of the institute’s systems. Federated identity management has made possible local and regional partnerships that extend BYOD service model beyond physical walls. Lastly, but certainly not least, the ability to work closely with peers and partners throughout the NJEDge organization and community has benefited IAS’s projects immeasurably, making them more well-thought out, more secure and more robust.
T
hrough NJEDge Consortium Purchasing Program, Stockton University ITS (Information Technology System) implemented a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) that is available for use by all students and employees. VDI allows for remote access to campus resources, secured by both Active Directory and Google Authenticator for two factor authentication. Transforming desktops into an on-demand service makes it possible for members of the campus community to work from any location, and on any device. With multiple connection options the university need not support as many computer labs because students can access their course materials anywhere at any time. With VDI, there is an extra layer of security under control of the IT system. Through NJEDge’s consortium buying system, the software and support to implement virtualization is acquired at significant savings.
IT Advances on Campus • 21
NJEDGE COMMU Freeman Hrabowski, Sheri Prupis, George Laskaris
Ed Yaw, recipient of the Charles McMickel Award for Excellence & Innovation, with George Laskaris
Mary Balkun explaining the design and scholarship of her winning poster
The 2015 Annual Conference
Rethink, Refresh, Reboot
Gamification Symposium Joey J. Lee, Ph.D. Research Assistant Professor, Columbia University (Teachers College) Keynote Address: Games for Social and Educational Impact: Lessons Learned and What’s Next?
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UNITY PROGRAMS Thomas E. Heinzen, Ph.D., William Paterson University, presenting on “Practice Using Game Design to Increase Student Completion Rates”
Faculty Showcase Ignite
Stevens Institute of Technology was honored to host the NJEDge STEAM showcase on our campus. More than 200 years ago, John Stevens built his estate at Castle Point, the site that would eventually become Stevens Institute of Technology. He was also known for his ingenuity in designing the first steamboat to successfully navigate the open ocean. As such, STEAM was a perfect theme for NJEDge and Stevens’ Division of Information Technology. STEAM is defined as a movement toward problem-solving in an uncertain world and marks a paradigm shift to focus on the engineering design process. NJEDge continues to produce knowledge communities focused on design processes and learning technology of the modern age. The Division of Information Technology has worked with NJEDge for years and has gleaned from attending and presenting at the annual conferences. This was an incredible opportunity for our faculty to showcase their great work and collaborate with their colleagues. Expanding teaching and learning with technology internally at Stevens and in a collaboration with NJEDge to the external environment is key to faculty development.
STEM to STEAM at Stevens Faculty Best Practice Showcase
NJEDge Community Programs • 23
Instructional Design Workshop
User Services/Instructional Design As higher education professionals, we find creative ways to turn problems into opportunities. Part of what it takes to be effective is being able to take a step back, identify pain points and rethink how we can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of services and processes. Just as these challenges are common across our institutions, so are best-practice strategies that can help avoid staff burn-out while rethinking the support of IT services.
Above: Blake Haggerty, Executive Director for Digital Learning and Technology Support New Jersey Institute of Technology, keynote speaker Right: Audience member Bill Duelly, NJIT, User Services Symposium
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ANNUAL SUMMER LUNCHEON
Above and below left: Luncheon attendees Left: The executive staff with George Laskaris Below right: Sheri Prupis, Steve Rose, George Laskaris, Sr. Rosemary Jeffries, Ed Chapel
NJEDge Community Programs • 25
Security Resource Group T
Above: From left, Demetrios Robous, Stockton University and Michael Reekie, NJEDge.Net Below: Timothy Fairlie, Rider University Opposite, top right: Ed Chapel addressed SRG audience
he Security Resource Group (SRG) was formed by the membership with a mutual understanding that security goes beyond the perimeter of your network. The group focuses on uniting the people, processes, standards and technologies that defend against threats to the members. We are uniting people, through monthly webinars, quarterly meetings, and a security summit at our annual conference. We collaborate on workflows, and cybersecurity processes to prevent losses, efficiently utilize resources, and determine wisely where to invest in the infrastructure. We utilize and promote national standards to employ local policies specific to membership. We recommend technologies that provide data driven metrics to observe indicators. We are providing a pathway for the formation of a security governing body for the members. As a proactive community focused on fortifying the ingress and egress to our networks, systems and applications, the group is dedicated to providing a platform-agnostic approach to sharing security resources and has met four times in the last six months, with three fruitful inperson sessions. As a group we have discussed organizational concerns, openly shared strengths and weaknesses, and have joined together to strengthen the core security for the membership. The concerns have been tabulated and the top three membership concerns reflect MEMBERSHIP data protection, CONCERNS management ownership of security and best practices, policies and resources.
Data Protection: Data Loss, theft, Breach detection and response Management Ownership of Security: No ability to implement policy and lack of business focus on security Best Practices, Policies & Resources: Change control, Password management, Remote access, two-factor Authentication Network Protection/Analysis: Network Segmentation, DDOS protection, Defense beyond the Perimeter, Defense as a Community
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Outside Partnerships: Hosted Services, Security staff, penetration testing End user device protection: Ransomware, Malware, clicking links Incident Response: How do you know it happened and what is the first step if you know End user awareness: End user education and training
Graphic courtesy of freepik.com
The SRG will utilize an ITIL framework for services and security management to align the efforts of security practitioners within the membership to the critical business services. The efforts of the SRG will strengthen the security posture and fortify information and services for all members.
Security Re
sour ce Gr oup
We are NOT DICTATORS, ENFORCERS or the POLICE. We ARE here to DEFEND and PROTECT.
VALE (Virtual Academic Library Environment) Dedicated to Innovation & Collaboration In FY16, the Virtual Academic Library Environment of New Jersey (VALE) continued to support its mission— to further excellence in learning and research through pursuing new jersey innovative and collaborative approaches to information resources Virtual Academic Library Environment and services—mainly by facilitating cooperative purchasing for its 54 member colleges and universities and by offering professional development activities for the faculty and staff of these institutions.
VALE
OUTREACH VALE co-sponsored and underwrote the annual Users’ Conference, a program that included a keynote address, 20 posters and 14 breakout sessions, most centering on the conference theme of “Library as Locus: Energizing your Campus Community.” The event is free to members. The FY16 keynote speaker was Dan Russell, Google’s Senior Research Scientist for Search Quality and User Happiness, who spoke about advanced search techniques in Google and other web tools. VALE sponsored the Assessment Fair that featured 12 posters on topics from collection analysis and e-metrics to user statistics and information literacy. The Fair committee invited vendors to outfit tables and received representatives from LibAnalytics, the Association of Research Libraries Assessment Tools, EBSCO, Counting Opinions, and the MISO Survey.
VALE • 27
Dedicated to Innovation & Collaboration
VALE new jersey
Virtual Academic Library Environment
COOPERATIVE PURCHASING & SERVICES VALE manages part of the life cycle for electronic resource purchases, trials, license negotiations and invoicing, and provides vendors and member libraries with a single point of contact. In FY16, VALE dealt with 13 vendors for agreements on 71 databases; it invoiced members for payments totaling $3,724,401.86, which it passed to vendors as received. This aggregated purchasing power is a viable cost-saving mechanism for academic libraries in the state. The VALE Executive Committee vetted and negotiated subscription to Consortia Manager, software modules that automate parts of the database licensing process. Consortia Manager should streamline operations and assist in managing our database portfolio, and will permit members to interact with aspects of the licensing process and to mine statistics and data from consortium activity. The committee reviewed progress of VALID, the open-source library management system project, in light of the software project partners’ decision to reform the underlying corporation. That decision resulted in an extensive revision of software structure and capabilities, further extending possible implementation dates. In response to this and other factors, we decided to discontinue the project, a decision made more difficult by the VALID implementation team producing a viable business plan for the original endeavor. We will pursue options similar in tenor to the VALID plan. PLANNING
The Executive Committee examined VALE’s operations and organizational structure, an internal review it deemed necessary. It engaged a consultant to facilitate a retreat and report on its results, which was summarized in writing. As a result, VALE reorganized, disbanding 12 committees and creating four new ones defined more closely to its operational and functional activities; negotiating e-resource deals; maintaining a successful conference; communicating with membership; assessing services; planning for future endeavors; and managing large-scale projects. Each new committee is co-chaired by two Executive Committee members to ensure contact with the Executive Committee.
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Academic Technology Group T
he mission of the Academic Technology Group (ATG) is to identify and facilitate activities and events that address the institutionalwide interests of a broad range of audiences. The ATG addresses the impact of technologies on academic and administrative environments while promoting the meaningful infusion of technology into higher education curricula. The group also plays a leadership role in bringing together instructional and user support service technologists, faculty, and administration to share expertise in these areas: nn Online and hybrid learning initiatives nn Learning Management Systems nn Innovative discipline-specific software nn Assessment nn Tools that support teaching and learning with technology nn Classroom equipment nn Learning spaces nn Support for Bring Your Own Device nn Emerging technologies nn Virtualization in support of academics
Our work is carried out through events such as the Faculty Best Practices Showcase in the spring as well as in group meetings and webinars with speakers and demonstrations periodically throughout the year. In addition, many ATG members have active roles in the planning, presenting and participation in the NJEDge Annual Conference which is held in the fall. There are several challenges facing ATG this year including the rapidly changing pace of technology and its place in education, student success technologies (active learning, personalized learning, Business Intelligence and analytics), and optimizing educational technology. In addition, changes in the LMS market (mergers and acquisitions, feature development), social media management and best practices in rich media creation and curation provide ongoing challenges facing our colleagues. Participants never leave an NJEDge event without notes including best practices, sound advice and ideas to apply to their work, usually as soon as they return to their institutions. An important component of these meetings are the intangible benefits of enjoying the collegiality of the group and the various areas of expertise that are brought to the table. We believe there is potential for dramatic and positive change in higher education based on the use of existing and emerging technologies.
Academic Technology Group • 29
A program in transition: Affiliate to Corporate Sponsorship Mutually beneficial relationship
2016 CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
NJEDge.Net partners with New Jersey companies to provide New Jersey educational institutions real-time access to innovative educational technology. New Jersey institutions benefit from having access to the advice and expertise of leading educational technology companies. Companies reap rewards by having a window into the issues constantly challenging the many facets of New Jersey’s educational communities.
How the New, Streamlined Program Works What’s the Same?
The basic premise of the program is the same: companies pay a yearly membership fee and receive significant discounts for supporting NJEDge.Net events. There are different levels of benefits, so that each company can pick the level of support that works for them.
Crucial financial support NJEDge.Net’s relationships with vendor companies are a robust component of NJEDge.Net’s annual budget. Corporate Sponsorship dollars substantially support NJEDge.Net community-building events and groundbreaking programs.
Companies want NEW Companies constantly update the products and services they offer to New Jersey’s schools. In recent years they also have updated how they communicate with potential customers. Companies want better ways of connecting with decision makers and tech users at NJ institutions.
NJEDge.Net members want BETTER
What’s Different? nn NJEDge.Net is transforming professional development and online learning! NJEDge.Net has transitioned the vendor relationship program from an “Affiliate Partner Program” to a “Corporate Sponsorship Program.”
Institutional members have requested more specific, tightly focused opportunities to interact with specific types of vendors, in venues that maximize their ability to “one-stop shop.”
nn NJEDge.Net is encouraging vendors to move toward interactive professional development via social media instead of webinars.
New ways to bring vendors and members together
nn The old, difficult-to-navigate Affiliate Program is gone. In its place is a sparkling, user-friendly website garnering “likes,” compliments, and new visitors.
NJEDge.Net is working hard to keep our vendor opportunities fresh, dynamic, and on the right “track” so that New Jersey schools and students can continue to benefit. In 2016, NJEDge. Net is creating innovative opportunities for better quality interactions between vendors and institutional members.
F R IE N D S
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nn Vendor options at our 2016 conference are breaking new ground, offering updated features and pricing that help companies maximize their marketing dollars and optimize attendees’ opportunities to get better information about companies’ offerings.
RT NERS PA
N IN
OVATOR
S
NJEDge.Net 2016-17 Corporate Sponsors
MRA I N T E R N AT I O N A L
ePlus is an engineering-centric technology solutions provider that helps education institutions imagine, implement, and achieve more from their technology.
MRA is an HP reseller providing New Jersey’s public schools, universities, and government agencies with support, maintenance, consulting, and managed print services.
Promedia’s solutions for education are designed to maximize student achievement, empower teachers to innovate and engage in the class-room, and enable IT to effectively deploy & manage technology.
Aspire’s suite of collaboration, mobility, and digital media solutions streamlines operations, reduced costs, and creates a connected and collaborative environment for students, parents, and staff.
CISCO’s Connected Learning extends college and university education with mobility, collaboration, personalized learning, and security solutions.
CDI LLC develops and implements comprehensive and innovative hybrid technology solutions that enhance day-to-day workflow processes.
Core BTS integrates technologies from global leaders with its Professional Services Organization and a delivery framework to customize solutions that deliver innovative experiences for its educational institution customers.
Brightspace by D2L offers a dynamic learning management system with extensive multimedia and mobile support that allows students and teachers to collaborate, share, and discuss in the classroom and beyond.
Dyntek provides advanced infrastructure solutions and IT consulting to bring aligned, updated, efficient technology solutions to the education sector that support personalized education, Common Core, BYOD and more.
Optima Global Solutions Inc is an Information Technology Consulting firm in business since 2001 which provides IT solutions for accounts payable, human resources, smart process applications, and enterprise mobility.
Serving the Education and Healthcare sectors, PBG Networks provides information technology products and services, including managed services, desktop virtualization, wireless networking, and converged infra-structure.
PKA provides the next generation of network servers, Big Data solutions, enterprise storage, cloud services, virtualization migration, wireless, hybrid, and handheld technologies that are indispensable to education institutions.
Schoology is a learning management system for K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and corporations that allows users to create, manage, and share content and resources.
Varonis provides a unique platform that collects, stores and analyzes metadata non-intrusively, in real-time, on the major platforms that store unstructured data.
Corporate Sponsorship • 31
Member Institutions Higher Education
K-12
MEMBERS Bergen Community College Berkeley College Bloomfield College Brookdale Community College Caldwell College Camden County College College of Saint Elizabeth County College of Morris Cumberland County College Fairleigh Dickinson University Georgian Court University Hudson County Community College Institute for Advanced Study Kean University Mercer County Community College Middlesex County College Monmouth University Montclair State University New Jersey City University New Jersey Institute of Technology Ocean County College Passaic County Community College Princeton Theological Seminary Ramapo College of New Jersey Raritan Valley Community College Rider University Rowan College at Burlington County Rowan University Rutgers University Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Saint Peter’s University Stevens Institute of Technology Stockton University Sussex County Community College The College of New Jersey Thomas Edison State College Union County College University Hospital Warren County Community College William Paterson University
MEMBERS Linden Public Schools Madison Public Library Montclair Board of Education Newark Public Schools Passaic County Technical Institute Paterson Board of Education The Pingry School
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS Atlantic Cape Community College Drew University Essex County College Felician College Princeton University Rowan College at Gloucester County Rutgers - Robert Wood Johnson Salem Community College Seton Hall University
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ASSOCIATE MEMBERS Bayonne Board of Education Bloomfield Board of Education Bound Brook School District Bridgewater Raritan Board of Education Camden Board of Education Carlstadt-East Rutherford Board of Education Colts Neck Township Schools East Orange Board of Education East Windsor School District Edison Township Public Schools Hazlet Township Public Schools High Point Regional HS Board of Education Jersey City Public Schools Keansburg Board of Education Leonia Board of Education Livingston Public Schools Board of Education Madison Board of Education Milltown Public Schools Millville Board of Education Moorestown Board of Education Morris Hills Regional School District Mount Olive Board of Education New Brunswick School District New Jersey School Board Association North Arlington School District North Warren Regional School District Parsippany Troy Hills Board of Education Perth Amboy Public Schools Readington Board of Education Red Bank Middle School Ridgewood Board of Education Sayreville School District Somerset Public Schools Somerville Board of Education South Plainfield Public Schools Board of Ed. Team Academy Charter School Toms River Public Schools Union City Board of Education Watchung Hills Regional H.S. Woodland Park Board of Education
Government County of Burlington County of Salem County of Sussex City of Millville State of New Jersey (all agencies) ASSOCIATE LIBRARY SUBSCRIBED MEMBER VALE (Virtual Academic Library Environment of New Jersey) OUT OF STATE HIGHER EDUCATION ASSOCIATE MEMBERS OF ILLUMIRA Aquinas College Carnegie Institute for Science Chesapeake College Cleary College George Mason University Jackson College Lawrence Theological Macomb Community College Madonna University
NJEDge Staff Samuel Conn, PhD President and CEO
Ed Chapel, PhD Senior Vice President
Sheri Prupis, MA Vice President for Academic and Community Initiatives
Sujay Daniel , MS Chief Technology Officer
Bruce Tyrrell Program Manager
James Stankiewicz Director, Internet Engineering
Joe Rearden, JD Business Planning Manager
Adam Bathiard, MS Systems Administrator
Abhishek Hegde, MS Production Coordinator
Judy Arvin VALE Business Manager and Coordinator
Blake Prupis Production Coordinator/Verizon FIOS Project
Andre Sharrief Administrative Assistant
Adrian Levins Secretarial Assistant
Members • NJEDge Staff • 33
In Memoriam
Sadly, we note the passing of
Richard Sweeney
University Librarian at NJIT, long-time Executive Committee member, and friend to many, who passed away in May of 2016. He will always be remembered for his great contribution to VALE’s success, his wide-eyed humor, and his concern for his colleagues.
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About NJEDge.Net is a non-profit technology consortium of academic and research institutions in New Jersey. Through its deployment of an advanced regional optical network, NJEDge.Net supports its members in their institutional missions by providing collaborative resources and networked information services in support of teaching and learning; research and development; outreach and public service; as well as economic development throughout the state of New Jersey. It is a state research and education network which provides statewide technology infrastructure to colleges, universities, K-12 schools and hospital/medical institutions. Members depend on NJEDge.Net for cost-effective deployments of new technology and advanced applications made possible through our consortium buying power. Service and support for our participating members account for a combined total of over 9,000 gigabits for Internet and Internet2 and bandwidth travelling over a managed IP infrastructure that covers the entire state. In providing a broadband statewide network, NJEDge.Net establishes standards for interoperability, achieves economies of scale and supports new and emerging technologies to foster and support productive use of technology across the academic enterprise. NJEDge and its members work in concert to explore, plan, fund and assess a multi-faceted array of networking technologies, IT products and services as well as professional training and development opportunities with the singular intent of delivering greater value.
www.NJEDge.Net conference.njedge.net | www.njvid.net | www.njtrust.net www.facebook.com/NJEDge NJEDge.Net 218 Central Avenue, Suite 3902 Newark, NJ 07102 Phone: (973) 596-5490 | Fax: (973) 596-5499 Email: njedge@njedge.net
