9312638 Williams This proposal requests funds to create a statewide data network linking Kentucky's public four year institutions to SURAnet which is the NSF midlevel network that serves the southeastern United States. This new statewide network connecting Eastern Kentucky University, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Princeton Research, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University to SURAnet through the University of Kentucky is designed to provided access to 111,737 students and 5,625 faculty. The Kentucky Educational Network (KECnet), a formal consortium, will provide the governance structure to insure that all institutions are fairly represented and the necessary steps are taken to meet all of the connectivity needs of Kentucky's higher education community. SURAnet will provide operations management and information services and it will give the universities and colleges a connection to the NSFNET, a high speed (1.5 - 45 million bits per second) National Backbone network. Each of the universities has provided a description of its organization and a statement of the benefits of Internet access that it expects including: greater functionality and network speed to be able to access supercomputers, libraries, and make file transfers along with being able to implement a more reliable mail system. Both students and faculty research will benefit from the network which is a unique opportunity for the schools to explore innovative and educational resources. ***
