GPN Digest

January 16, 2001
Volume 2, No. 2

1. Network News: New Connections
2. Research Update: ADEC NSF Grant
3. Funding: NEH
4. In the Works
5. Hot Links & NetWord of the Week

Network News: New Connections
Two new connections have been made to the Abilene/Internet2 network since December. Northern Arizona University is connected to Abilene since December 12, 2000 and is sponsored by Arizona State University. The Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) is connected through the Abilene Indianapolis router.

Research Update: ADEC NSF Grant
Digital Inclusion and Hybrid Networks
The purpose of this ADEC (Distance Education Consortium) project is to explore the use of the Internet via satellite for use in advanced hybrid networks, and to examine learning applications issues and community characteristics required to succeed in increasing Digital Inclusion in order to close the "digital divide" that separates rural and low-income Americans from their urban and higher-income counterparts.

Janet Poley, ADEC President, reports that things are moving along swiftly. Dr. Poley looks forward to working closely with the Great Plains Network and states involved in GPN to implement this program.

Dr. Kevin Gamble is on board as the Chief Technology Officer and Project Manager. Randy Ross, former head of the Indian Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, is the Project Tribal Coordinator. Collaborators include Dale Finkelson, Cliff Ritz, and Dan Cotton, all from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Dr. Dan Godfrey, North Carolina A&T; Gary Atkins, Colorado State University; and Paul Jewell, Iowa State University. Dan Van Bellingham is working closely with the team to engage scientists in EPSCoR states.

ADEC expects to locate Tachyon Access Points (TAPS) in 30 research locations this year and anticipates that more locations will become part of the research through cooperation with the EPSCoR Program. The ADEC project anticipates establishing 70 research sites throughout the life of the three year project.

Funding: NEH
If you've been watching public television, you may have caught Ken Burns' excellent documentary on Jazz (it continues this week, see also http://www.pbs.org/jazz/).

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) funded the creation of Jazz to the tune of $1,000,000. Subscribe to NEH's newsletter to learn all about their latest funding opportunities by sending an e-mail to newsletter@neh.gov with the word "subscribe" typed in the body of the message.

(Originally pointed out by Linda Roos, UNL.)

In the Works
GPN Research Home Page web site surpassed the 2000 hits mark toward the end of December. Counting of hits to the page began in early October, several weeks after the site was initially opened.

The folks at Argonne are putting together a virtual cookbook on the Access Grid (AG) to be released at the retreat at the end of January. GPN contributes a grant proposal boilerplate to the cookbook to assist researchers who wish to request funding for an AG node in a grant proposal. Rick Summerhill and Greg Monaco collaborated on the document at the urging of the GPN Collaboration Interest Group.

The GPN Collaboration Interest Group has resumed meeting on Tuesday mornings for one hour, every other week. To join, email GP Collaboration Interest Group.

Greg Monaco will speak at the Access Grid Human Factors Workshop, February 1, 2001, on "Impressions of the Access Grid: A Cognitive-Performance Point of View."

Hot Links
EPSCoR FAQs
Glossary of Networking Terms

NetWord of the Week
multicast -- an economic method to send large amounts of data, especially voice and video, to multiple Internet destinations. Multicasting allows many recipients to share the same data source. This means that just one set of 'packets' or data is transmitted over the Internet for all the destinations, instead of one set of packets per destination.

To include your research/network/community news, contact the Editor.

The Great Plains Network Research News home page