EduNet: A Wireless Broadband Infrastructure Bringing Opportunities
 for West Central Illinois

The mission of Carl Sandburg College (IL) is “to provide accessible, quality education in a caring environment by keeping the learner’s needs at the center of decision making and by working in partnership with communities of the college district.”

To provide accessibility to high-quality educational services for citizens and communities within the 3,000-square-mile Carl Sandburg Community College District 518, the college proposed building a wireless infrastructure that would cover the entire district and provide delivery points at all 21 K-12 Community Unit School Districts within the district. The logic behind the selection of delivery points was to simply take advantage of public school buildings that have already been bought and paid for to provide access to educational and managed services to citizens in their own communities.

The Carl Sandburg College (CSC) Board of Trustees approved a feasibility study in September 2002. The results were positive for the project. A request for information was issued in November 2004, followed by a request for proposals in January 2005. The board then awarded the contract for the construction and maintenance of the network infrastructure to Derbytech Computer Works of East Moline, Illinois.

Construction of the network was commissioned on June 1, 2005. Phase I of the project connected nine schools to the network, and the entire network was completed at the end of November 2005.

Objective

The objective of the EduNet project was to provide a broadband infrastructure connecting strategic locations within the district to provide the following educational and managed services:

1. Distance learning opportunities
2. Dual-credit offerings
3. Course sharing among K-12 schools
4. Broadband internet connectivity
5. Adult education
6. Teacher recertification
7. Technology training
8. Educational cable TV access
9. Economic development opportunities
10. Connectivity gateway to institutions of higher learning
11. Help with No Child Left Behind initiative

Appropriateness to Target Audiences

The target audiences are the K-12 students, teachers, and community residents within the Carl Sandburg College District, spread over 10 counties.

Distance learning and dual-credit classes are being offered through the network, and the network has proved to be reliable, robust, and fast. Adult education, college credit classes, and job-training workshops are being planned for adult learners and displaced workers.

In addition, meetings have been organized for superintendents of the 21 school districts under the heading of Collaborating for Education in order to explore more ways to take advantage of the network infrastructure to deliver educational opportunities for students and district residents. The network will also be used to address the increased graduation requirements school districts are now facing.

Most recently, Knox College in Galesburg and the University of Illinois Extension Centers have expressed a strong interest in joining the EduNet consortium to provide access to unduplicated educational services through the network throughout the region.

Budget Feasibility

The college received four responses to the RFP issued in January of 2005. Three of those proposals called for building towers all through the district to connect locations within the district. The Derbytech, however, proposal called for the use of existing infrastructures such as water towers, grain elevators, silos, and tall buildings in the district for the installation of point-to-point Wi-Fi antennas, which would lead to lower costs of constructing the network.

Derbytech also proposed a partnership vision through which the consortium would allow Derbytech to commercialize a portion of the network in exchange for reduced ongoing maintenance costs. Derbytech will offer commercial internet through this portion of the network to district residents and businesses that do not have access to broadband internet access.

The EduNet covers 3,000 square miles within 10 counties and provides 21 delivery points within the district. In addition, the network also ties together the Carl Sandburg College branch campus in Carthage, the Education Commons in Carthage, and the Carl Sandburg College Extension Center in Bushnell.

Carl Sandburg College applied for and has become an approved e-rate service provider. Subscription fees that the school districts pay to EduNet are e-rate reimbursable expenses.

The proposal accepted by the CSC Board of Trustees from Derbytech put the construction cost of the network at $645,000, and the yearly maintenance costs at $84,000. The partnership vision reduced the yearly maintenance costs to $42,000. The costs were amortized over a period of five years, to be paid by Carl Sandburg College and the 21 partner school districts on a quarterly basis, based on their student enrollment data as of fall 2004.  

Carl Sandburg College Board of Trustees approved the use of the college’s working cash fund to initial cost of construction of the network. The fund will be paid back using the monthly subscription fees collected from the schools.

Evaluation

The network connectivity speeds and reliability have been extremely good, and initial reports from schools using the network have been outstanding. More schools are being connected as we get permissions from city councils and villages to use water towers and tall structures. The entire network is built with redundant paths and equipment, so that there is no single point of failure.

The college has hired an EduNet Coordinator to manage the day-to-day operations of the network and to provide logistics and support to EduNet members. Reports from technology coordinators and superintendents from school districts suggest that Derbytech is extremely prompt in responding to questions and issues that have arisen.

Replicability

As complicated as it might sound, the project uses simple concepts of point-to-point, line-of-sight wireless networking and redundancy. Wireless technology has advanced dramatically over the past few years, making wireless broadband networks a reliable, low-cost alternative to traditional wired networks.

This network can be replicated in any and all parts of the state and the country. In fact, CSC President Thomas A. Schmidt mentioned during a hearing organized by Illinois State House Speaker Lisa Madigan that if every community college put in place a similar network that covered its respective districts, every square inch in Illinois would have access to broadband infrastructure.

This broadband infrastructure, in addition to providing access to educational services to residents and communities within rural West Central Illinois, will spur economic growth by providing a robust backbone through which business activities can take place.

Looking Forward

Ten K-12 school districts have partnered with Carl Sandburg College so far, and more are expected to sign on in spring 2006. Western Illinois University has announced its partnership with Carl Sandburg College and EduNet. (Please see news release: http://www.wiu.edu/newsrelease.sphp?release_id=4013).

EduNet project has won the Illinois Council of Community College Administrators Innovation Award for 2005 (http://www.sandburg.edu/News_Releases/viewarticle.asp?ID=1547).

For more information, contact
Samuel Sudhakar
Vice President, Technology Services
Carl Sandburg College
(309) 341-5297