ACADEMIA

Organizations Will Explore Potential of Advanced Networks for Liberal Arts Colleges and Universities

The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) and Internet2 have signed a letter of agreement for reciprocal membership. The two organizations will collaborate to explore and raise awareness of advanced networking applications for teaching and learning, libraries, performing arts, language instruction, health science, and other areas. The timing is in alignment with Internet2's new membership structure, which creates a category of membership geared towards liberal arts colleges. Joint project work is scheduled to begin in January 2010.

NITLE and Internet2 will work together to identify test cases for applying advanced networking within liberal arts contexts, with an initial focus on the arts and humanities and opportunities for inter-campus teaching.

"This partnership is an investment in exploring the potential of Internet2's high-bandwidth, low-latency network, which has strategic significance for the liberal arts sector," Eric Jansson, director, NITLE Labs, said. "For example, research shows that when certain qualities are achieved in high-definition video-conferencing, you receive an exponential increase in cognitive engagement. At a certain point, virtual collaboration becomes so life-like that the feeling of being present is just there, hence the recent term 'tele-presence.' Such engagement is consistent with liberal arts models of learning through rich interaction and dialogue."

"One of the collective projects the liberal arts sector needs to actively engage is the question of how to build shared resources and services," said Dave Smallen, vice president for information technology at Hamilton College. "Our investigations at Hamilton -- through the New York Six consortium looking at ways to share digital media from our existing library collections, and through a Teagle grant to investigate applications of high performance computing in a liberal arts environment -- suggest to me the important role that high-speed, high-bandwidth network infrastructure can play in answering this important question."

The partnership will more generally allow the two organizations to exchange expertise.

"Both Internet2 and NITLE see great potential in exchange of expert resources," said Ann Doyle, senior program manager of the Internet2 Arts & Humanities Initiative. "Joint programming is one possibility, as is inviting experts from campuses involved with our organizations to speak at or participate in meetings, workshops, and conferences."

Doyle added, "We are very excited about this partnership as I believe advanced networking will provide the greater Internet2 community access to the expert resources of campuses in the NITLE Network, as well as providing those campuses access to Internet2 members, and the opportunity to pursue membership directly with Internet2. The opportunities for exchange and collaboration here are unlimited."

Doyle and Jansson will work closely to advance the partnership between the organizations.

Conversations between NITLE and Internet2 began in August 2009. The letter of agreement was finalized on October 29, 2009.