MOREnet's e-Conferencing Solution History

MOREnet began offering e-Conferencing services powered by Centra to eligible customer organizations in March 2004.

MOREnet began looking at e-Conferencing software in spring 2002. An environmental scan of the market leaders was performed and a demonstration of several different applications was hosted at MOREnet with representatives attending from a variety of customer groups. In the summer of 2002 research began on Centra.

e-Conferencing is an Internet-based tool suite that allows people to communicate and create a virtual learning environment over the Internet. Audio conferencing, live one-way video, collaborative conferencing and Web conferencing are all components of the e-Conferencing tool suite. Meeting or class participants can share any applications, documents, websites or presentations with all participants. Chat and polling capabilities provide channels for private communication and group feedback. Archival capabilities allow meetings and class sessions to be saved for later viewing.

After the research, environmental scans and best-of-breed product evaluations concluded, CentraOne was selected as the software to be used in a cooperative e-Conferencing pilot with several institutions. The goal of the pilot was to gauge market demand and determine support requirements for an e-Conferencing service. MOREnet published the results of a pilot project with the CentraOne tool in spring 2003.

In July and August 2003, MOREnet hosted informational meetings at sites around the state to gauge customer interest to a proposed MOREnet-hosted e-Conferencing service.

An e-Conferencing RFP was sent out in mid-September 2003. An external evaluation team reviewed all vendor responses received by the Oct. 17, 2003. All responses were rejected for failure to meet mandatory requirements.

A new proposal was issued Oct. 31, 2003, with revised requirements (both mandatory and desirable). In mid-December, the evaluation team recommended Centra 7 as the award recipient. An order was finalized and placed on Dec. 30, 2003. The Centra 7 Universal License includes Centra Symposium, Centra Conference and Centra eMeeting.