MERC

MERC Board of Director’s Meeting

Jan. 19, 2005

Attending: Russell Helm, Don Doucette, Rita Gulstad, Greg Wirth, Sandy Crews, Joel Lareau, George Rickerson, Chad Sheppard, Mark Mabe and Nancy Piringer

MERC Board Meeting Logistics – Piringer

The May 25 and August 24 meetings will be from 9:30 a.m. - Noon instead of 9 a.m. - Noon. Sherry Loyd will send an e-mail.

MERC Budget Report – Piringer

The actuals fund balance will drop as the budget only included expenditures for 6 months. The current budget fund balance will change as well as the salary and benefits lines will be changing. Piringer reminded everyone that the current budget fund balance will reduce by $200,000 closer to the end of the year for the discounted membership dues. Doucette motioned to accept the budget, Lareau so moved, Wirth seconded, and all were in favor.

External Performance Measures Update – Phelps

Ben Phelps updated the Board on progress made to date with the External Performance Measure initiative. He reiterated that this project is to determine what MOREnet’s value is and how MOREnet influences their customers. He stated that there was 75% participation from those invited to participate from the higher education sector. That was 80 people from public and private institutions.

Currently the team is completing the program logic models and have determined that the results will show quantitative results by impact as well as mini case studies. The four major areas identified from the focus groups show that MOREnet’s customers have the greatest value in the areas MOREnet provides: 1) network connectivity, 2) online resources (and everything that includes), 3) distance learning and conferencing (video and e-conferencing), and 4) training, technical assistance, consulting and consulting services.

Early analysis to date, shows two emerging themes from the data: 1) many customers perceive a major cost avoidance savings by nature of their MOREnet connection. They see that as being even greater than any pure dollar differences in prices compared to some kind of alternative connection. 2) several institutions have informed the team that because of the MOREnet connection, or shared network, it has created several opportunities for institutions to collaborate among themselves, or in groups, on various topics and they believe that has been facilitated by being on a common network.

The team is continuing to evaluate what the alternative cost might be if customers were to try to replicate a “MOREnet like” connection through some alternative means. They are also conducting a survey of all 50 states and the networks within those states to see what other configurations and data that have been derived in those states might be helpful to the team if used as comparative data. The team will be making an in-progress presentation of the research to the Gathering of State Networks in early February.

There will be some opportunities to collaborate again with the other three states who are conducting similar research. The team continues to be on track to provide a written report in March. Once the analysis is complete, the team will then use the findings from the analysis of the higher education group to derive some draft conclusions. The team will then make some suggested recommendations that will be brought back to the MERC Board to approve, modify, accept or make additions to before they finalize the ultimate product.

Phelps believes the team will be ready to share those recommendations in March. Doucette asked when the data would be available to engage in the legislative discussions. Phelps replied that in mid-February there will be some results that could be used with the public.

MOREnet Customer Survey Update – Piringer

Piringer reported that Phase I has been completed and MOREnet is ready to proceed with Phase II. She reminded everyone that the vendor is Vangel and Associates and that they will be performing yearly customer satisfaction surveys. March will be the first survey and will be considered the benchmark. Prior to March a draft survey will be created for a field test of 10-15 customers from each primary customer group (K-12, MERC & Libraries) to be sure that the questions being asked are logical and understandable from the customer perspective. The goal of this yearly survey will be to assist MOREnet in refining and tuning services to better meet customer needs.

MERC Events Update – Piringer

HELIX 2005
Piringer shared that there was a very good response to the Call for Presentations. More than enough proposals were received to fill all 4 tracks. She thanked the conference planning committee for their hard work. Mike Sisto of IBM will give the keynote presentation – information to be on web soon. Registration is set to open in early February. She reminded everyone to encourage people to attend.

Piringer questioned the Board as to their thoughts on promoting HELIX at an upcoming StateNets Working Group meeting in early February. Specifically, is it okay to promote attendance from outside the state? Gulstad recalled that we’d had that discussion and that they agreed it was okay.

Helm asked about not charging the registration fee for the banner user group. The group would like to conduct a working group session and bring many people and indicated that the registration fee was too costly to do this. Helm is going to suggest to them that they hold their working group session either directly before or after the HELIX conference so that those wanting to attend both the conference and session are able to do so.

Piringer reminded the Board that $30,000 has been allocated in support of one free seat for each institution. Piringer asked the Board members to let her know who will be using that free seat from their institutions.

CIO Virtual Forums
The first virtual forum was in December. Randy Raw, of MOREnet, spoke on Security. All attendees of that forum said they’d attend the event on Jan. 29, 2005, which will be Mike Lynch on HIPAA. The February virtual forum will be on FERPA. Piringer asked the Board to let her know of any topics they’d like to see at future virtual forums.

Piringer told everyone that each institution has three free e-meeting seats for the remainder of FY05. This allows the institution to create a meeting on the fly, using one seat for themselves and two seats for whomever they are meeting with.

Spring IR Meeting Plans
The Spring MERC Institutional Representatives meeting will be held during HELIX on April 7 from 8-9:15 a.m.

Legislative Activities
MOREnet’s legislative handouts were shared with the group. Piringer asked everyone to let her know of any legislative events they might be holding that MOREnet could participate in.

Bill Mitchell joined the group to discuss the state of the Senate public testimony sessions. He shared that he is hearing conflicting information, however, it had been suggested that someone from higher education attend. Joel Lareau will be testifying for MERC. Update: Lareau did not testify. When he called to register he was told they didn’t want him testifying as a user of MOREnet. He should wait until the February sessions.

MERC Size-Appropriate Bandwidth Discussion – Niederhelm

Niederhelm reported that there will not be a cost savings by reducing the 10Mbps minimum capacity to 6Mbps for select sites. MOREnet does expect to realize some cost savings on the existing circuits through the procurement and bid activities that have occurred over the last 3-6 months. MOREnet will know more on the budget in May and will be able to suggest how to proceed from there.

Based on bandwidth utilization statistics and contingent upon final analysis and contract awards from the recent Ethernet and DS3 bids, MOREnet staff recommends that the minimum bandwidth level for MERC public higher education sites be set at 10 Mbps. Given current budget unknowns, MOREnet staff recommends that the maximum bandwidth cap of 45 Mbps be retained.

Rickerson moved that the document titled Size-Appropriate Bandwidth for MERC 2-Year and 4-Year Public Institutions 1-19-05 be approved, Gulstad seconded. Doucette confirmed that agreement was just made that the Board make no change at this time. The Board will revisit this item at the May 25th Board meeting and will continue to review this regularly as data becomes available to them. All were in favor.

Proprietary School Request (Hickey College) to join MERC – Piringer

Hickey College wants to join MERC. It was agreed to let them apply. Piringer is to contact them to start the application process. When the application is submitted, Piringer will email the Board with all of the general institutional information, to include the actual electronic application forms (not summarized) and the MERC guidelines. The Board will respond with their votes.

MHEC Technologies Initiative – Piringer

Craig Klimczak, IR for St. Louis Community College, serves on the MHEC Technology Committee. MHEC charged Craig with identifying new program areas that would benefit the state of Missouri and also with identifying new members. With two seats coming open, Craig is asking the MERC Board to provide input on nominations to the committee. Craig stated that he intends to keep the MERC Board informed of the MHEC Technology Committee activities. The Board agreed that Russell Helm and Wes Wingfield would serve for MERC. Piringer to let MHEC know.

Meeting adjourned at 10:38 a.m.