Proposal Number: EPS-1006988 Institution: University of Nebraska Project Director: F. Fred Choobineh
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Nebraska plans to invest in the foundation for a statewide cyber backbone for high speed data and video transfer that will be created by expansion of the Nebraska University Regional Optical Network (NURON), a fiber ring between Lincoln and Omaha with connectivity to Internet 2 through Kansas City. The project?s lead institutions are: the University of Nebraska (NU) Central Administration, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), and University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Institutions located in 29 Nebraska communities will participate in the project.
Expansion of NURON is planned to be completed in three phases; however, the goal of this project is to invest in the first phase of the three phases required to build the network. In phase 1, 21 institutions (29 sites) of higher learning across the state, ranging from community colleges to research universities, would be connected. NURON will have seven primary sites (hubs), connected by fiber loops, that would serve as access points for secondary sites. Secondary sites would be connected to the hubs in star configuration. These hubs would be used to connect to Network Nebraska-Education which already has begun providing regionally unified technology for distance delivery of educational content including formal K-12 courses and to the Nebraska State Telehealth Network which currently links 83 state healthcare providers.
Intellectual Merit Expansion and enhancement of NURON is expected to provide Nebraska with cyber-infrastructure (CI) resources to connect the state?s Education and Telehealth Networks to higher education?thus providing new education, healthcare, and research opportunities to citizens of the state?and to connect these networks to national cyber networks providing access to supercomputing computing and other resources around the state, country and the world. This project would facilitate a) collaborative intra- and inter-state research in multiple disciplines by forming research clusters with the required critical mass and b) the creation of distributed sensor networks tied to NURON hubs for collection of real time environmental and climate data to conduct environmental and climate research. Examples of research and education efforts enabled by this NE RII C2 project include: (a) The Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at CERN in Switzerland - Five UNL Physics faculty members are participating in this large scale international project at the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). (b) Geosciences and climate modeling - UNL researchers are trying to use the Great Plains as a testbed for studying regional climate impacts. They will simulate land surface fluxes of water, carbon, and energy impact atmospheric processes at scales ranging from local weather to global greenhouse effects. (c) Bioinformatics - Nebraska researchers generate an enormous amount of molecular genomic and proteomic data. The investments of the RII C2 proposal would further enhance the analysis capability of Nebraska?s current (RII 2007-2010) researchers beyond the current grant, and further assist algal researchers who are a part of the RII proposal (RII 2010-2015). (d) Computational Nanoscience - Five UNL and two UNO faculty members collaboratively have been working in the area of computational nanomaterials. Examples of their notable discoveries include the discovery of a new form of water, prediction and understanding of electron tunneling through ultra-thin ferroelectrics, discovery of the first metallic nanocluster - hollow gold nanocages, and many others. This area is the focus of the Nebraska - Puerto Rico RII Track-2 proposal.
Broader Impacts The creation of a state cyber backbone will remove distance as a barrier to sharing and collaboration and would a) facilitate expansion and accessibility of online courses and provide an impetus for establishing formal policies among state colleges and universities for acceptance of online credits hours by non-originating institutions; b) provide a statewide reliable network with higher speed and bandwidth to deliver K-12 course content to disadvantaged students and, in turn, level the playing field for the rural students with respect to their metropolitan counterparts; c) permit sharing of medical expertise across Nebraska; d) permit creation of a reliable monitoring network for security enhancement; and e) connect University of Nebraska research and extension sites dispersed throughout the state.
NEURON Connections Expand Across Nebraska Eight colleges and universities in Nebraska received vital upgrades to their connections to the Nebraska University Regional Optical Network (NEURON), thanks to a $1.17 million Track C2 grant to Nebraska EPSCoR. NEURON is the cyber optic backbone ring that facilitates high speed data transfer and connects Nebraska institutions to the worldwide Internet 2. The Creighton University connection to the network was upgraded to 10 gigabits, enabling collaborations with research universities in the state and enhancing Creighton’s distance education. Advanced computational collaborations were further enhanced by an upgrade of the NEURON connection between University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the Peter Kiewit Institute in Omaha, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center from 10 gigabits to 30 gigabits. Wayne State College, in northeast Nebraska, was connected to NEURON through a 1 gigabit line, and an additional 300 megabit line was connected to a second campus, College Center. The College Center campus in South Sioux City is a collaborative higher education location combining the teaching/coursework from Wayne State College and Northeast Community College (Norfolk, Nebraska). For Wayne State College, the increased bandwidth has had a cascade of benefits, improving access to the student information and human resources systems, and making possible the installation of a small super computer cluster. The cluster will allow students to gain experience in parallel computing and management, and could lead to participation in the Open Science Grid. Through this grant, Nebraska’s tribal colleges received significant cyberinfrastructure upgrades. New 100 megabit high speed connections to NEURON became possible with the installation of new fiber cable for Little Priest Tribal College in Winnebago and Nebraska Indian Community College’s campuses at Macy and South Sioux City. The tribal colleges moved quickly to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by greater internet bandwidth. Little Priest Tribal College (LPTC) expanded distance course offerings to its students and now offers joint classes with instructors at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and University of Nebraska Medical Center. With the increased bandwidth, LPTC established a radio station that streams its content to a nearby tower for broadcast. The increased bandwidth significantly improved the experience of Nebraska Indian Community College students who participate in their Video TeleConference systems, and allowed the college to teach 90% of its courses online. The final component of the grant is the extension of multiple 10 gigabit lines from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to Grand Island, where several higher education centers connect. This lays the groundwork for connecting the University of Nebraska at Kearney to the NEURON ring, and will support NEURON access for a number of central Nebraska colleges, such as Doane and Central Community College. The critical cyberinfrastructure installed from this grant enabled partner institutions to undertake upgrades of their own, including upgrades at Chadron State College and of over 200 K-20 sites across the state. Through strategic network upgrades, Track C2 aimed to 1) broaden opportunities for advanced research and collaborations among academic institutions, and 2) facilitate access to distance education and specialized health care for rural Nebraska residents. Future investments will extend NEURON connections to western Nebraska.
