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Butte College to Lead State Telecommunications Project
The Chancellor's Office for the California Community Colleges awarded a statewide computer upgrade coordination grant in mid-June to Butte Community College located in Oroville in Northern California. The $2,493,000 two-year grant will integrate all 106 community colleges in the 71 district California Community College (CCC) system with California State University's (CSU) existing electronic network. Selected as the grant award recipient among significant competitors, "Butte's comprehensive history as a provider of distance education throughout its rural district and its historically strong collaborative partnership with California State University, Chico were critical factors in the decision to award the grant to the college," emphasized Lebaron Woodyard, Dean for Instructional Technology at the CCC Chancellor's Office in Sacramento. "We are very pleased to have been chosen for this unprecedented project, and are confident in our ability to align both systems to enhance higher education throughout California," comments Project Director, Dr. Frederick Sherman, Vice President of Information and Technology at Butte College. Butte will coordinate the development of the expanded computer network system and act as an intermediary between CCC's Chancellor's Office and the CSU system. Following the installation and testing of the equipment, Butte College will select several partners from across the state to pilot test the system's video teleconferencing capabilities. Once the pilot tests are conducted, every California community college will be linked via video through CSU's Internet connection. The systemwide connection will enable all California community colleges to simultaneously transmit full video and audio data in real-time as well as computer data over the new 4CNet computer network backbone. "Such a system will open the full potential of distance education and the Internet to every community college in California," noted Woodyard when he announced the grant award. Added Butte College's Dr. Sherman, "It will certainly place California colleges and the CSU system squarely at the center of the rapidly evolving national distance education market. Very soon we will be able to compete against other community college distance education systems, such as Miami-Dade in Florida and the Maricopa Community College system in Arizona." The dramatic changes in California's educational system and workforce point to the necessity of better preparing students for the highly competitive global economy. The 4CNet grant will allow Butte College to serve California residents anytime, anyplace through the provision of high quality, cost-effective, and large-scale distance education instructional opportunities. "The upgraded system will enable us to achieve many important outcomes," stresses Dr. Sherman. "Several of the key benefits include improved student grades, reduced student costs, enhanced course delivery to students, and expanded access to instructional resources. Faculty statewide will increase their use of electronic media and communication between colleges and districts in the California Community College system will be strengthened." The network upgrade project was initiated two years ago when the CCC Chancellor's Office and Woodyard, a longtime supporter of computer-based and distance education, convinced the legislature to fund a project that upgrades the Internet backbone in California. The California State University volunteered to expand its existing Internet backbone to provide connection of the entire community college system to the CSU system. The arrangement with CSU significantly reduced the cost to the community colleges and negated the need for an independent network dedicated to community colleges. CSU's Networking and Computing Services Manager Michael McClean indicates that "We know that once we expand the backbone, users will definitely utilize it." However, he further observes that, "The system will not be able to support the full community college system without seriously slowing down the entire CSU system, thus the need to begin planning for an immediate expansion of the system again." The upgrade project is expected to last for two years, with the additional expansion planned in 1999. Initially, the system will bring all community colleges online with high-speed T-1 data connections, which allow data transmission at 1.5 million bits of information per second. It is anticipated that further expansion will increase transmission to 625 million bits per second when newer technology is employed. |
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