• All students, teachers, and faculty will experience an enhanced and individualized level of learning characterized by an improved and more productive educational process.

• Every student, teacher, and faculty member in the public schools and public higher education institutions will have the necessary technology available in their learning environment to gain access to the Information Superhighway.

• All teachers and faculty in Utah’s public schools and public higher education institutions will have access to the training they need to help students learn — using computers, video, and the Information Superhighway.

• All teachers and faculty in Utah’s public schools and public higher education institutions will have available the instructional and technological support which will permit them to successfully utilize the technology in providing educational experiences for their students.

• Students will be provided with learning opportunities to develop the information technology, information literacy, electronic collaboration, and problem-solving skills necessary to be competent, functional and competitive in the job market and society.

• Every public school and public higher education institution will develop and implement technology plans to help teachers and faculty be more effective in providing learning opportunities for students.

• As citizens connect to the electronic highway, they will have access to those learning resources and educational materials that will promote and encourage lifelong learning opportunities.

Located at the Eccles Broadcast Center on the University of Utah campus, the Utah Education Network is responsible for serving the state’s teachers, faculty, learners, and parents by providing an educational delivery system and associated services which utilize technology to compliment the educational experience.

The Network is also answerable to the State Legislature, the Governor’s Office, the State Board of Regents, and the State Office of Education. This Network partnership provides leadership for the development, coordination, and management of the state’s educational telecommunications infrastructure and related services.

The State Board of Regents, in addition to looking to the Network for telecommunications leadership, looks to the Network as an active partner in coordinating the scheduling and distribution of college credit telecourses, inservice training, administrative teleconferences, and faculty telecommunications training.

The State Office of Education, in addition to looking to the Network for telecommunications leadership, looks to the Network as an active partner in coordinating the scheduling and distribution of telecourses, the ITV schedules on KUED and KULC, inservice training, administrative teleconferences, and telecommunications training.

The employees of the Utah Education Network are also stakeholders. The organization must provide education and training opportunities so that employees improve their ability to better serve the customer while also realizing their own personal career goals. An environment of trust, loyalty, and truthfulness among employees compliments the Network’s effort to further education through the use of technology.

The Network is an active partner with the state’s Library Data system and is well represented on the Library Data Communications Committee. Likewise, the Library Data system has representation on Network committees and is actively involved in the development of policy, standards, and protocols.

Clearly, stakeholder interests are multi-faceted and interests are becoming increasingly intertwined. All major stakeholders must be served appropriately. A decline in service to one group will inevitably lead to a decline in service to other stakeholders. To ensure the success of the organization as a whole, it is therefore imperative that adequate attention is given to each respective group of stakeholders.

Advances in digital technologies have made possible the convergence of telecommunications technologies like telephones, televisions, cable, and computers. This convergence is eliminating the distinct lines that separate these different information media. Providers can now work collectively, collaboratively, and/or competitively to distribute information. The result is an information revolution that thrives on the concepts of change and choice for the consumer.

Some of the trends have been identified as:

• Rapid and continued growth of the World Wide Web (Data, Audio, and Video).
• Emergence of "super carriers" - high speed, full service offerings.
• Wireless, intelligent terminals.
• Competition may take a long time to significantly impact costs.
• The regional Bell companies have been challenged in providing a strong product marketing strategy. There were some early service weaknesses, lack of choice (offerings), and the degree of innovation has been judged to be somewhat inadequate. It has been difficult for them to compete in areas where competition obsoletes major technologies in ten (10) to twenty four (24) months.
• Convenience and cost sometimes prevails over quality.
• Migration or convergence of voice (audio), video, and data to the same medium may present some very difficult challenges (e.g. packet overload delays within non-discriminatory deliver systems).
• Internet standards are still lagging behind technology development.
• Rules, regulations and laws may greatly and directly impinge upon the availability, implementation, and use of new technologies.
• Ultra high-speed bandwidth facilities suitable for servicing the requirements of integrated network services are still several years away.
• Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Lines (ADSL) and High-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Lines (HDSL) versus cable modems will probably not have widespread implementation beyond the larger metropolitan areas in the near future.
• Demand explosion followed by a market implosion.
• The telcos have been fascinated by cable competition (entertainment via interactive television) and have only begun to recently recognize and respond to the potential of the Internet.
• Gradual shift to interactive forms of radio and television is in evidence.
• Gradual shift to a digital environment will take four to seven years.
• PC/data network inter-connectivity in an ultra high-speed bandwidth integrated environment is highly desirable, but is still not occurring very rapidly.
• Urban school needs are emerging as a significant issue of concern that needs to be further addressed.
• Digital television in rapidly approaching with anticipated changes in the broadcast industry as already evidenced in the cable industry.
• Asynchronous instruction will play a stronger role in the future.
• The major long-distance carriers are attempting to fashion alliances with established cable providers to permit immediate access to the local market.

One of the greatest challenges for service providers is satisfying consumer demand for information products and services like: multimedia PCs; expanded and enhanced on-line services; increased Internet traffic and a need for expanded bandwidth; interactive video services; three-dimensional graphics; digital video disks; voice over IP; and more. It is anticipated that consumer/market demand will continue to drive technological innovation. Consequently, companies must be flexible and adaptable in order to remain viable in this changing technological environment. For example, it has been suggested that the personal computer will be the primary engine of technology in the home in this decade. However, digital television and convergence of video, audio and data will ultimately have an impact on exactly what the primary mode of technology will actually be.

A 1998 report from Worldwatch Institute stated that more people around the world are getting access to telephones and the Internet. In 1960, there were 89 million telephone lines worldwide. Between 1990 and 1996, 200 million lines were installed bringing the total number to 741 million. Cellular phone users have increased an average of 52% per year sine 1991; there were 135 million users in 1996. The Internet is estimated to have 107 million users mostly in industrial nations — 62 million are in the United States with another 20 million in Europe. "With 500 million people — 8% of humanity — projected to be online by 2001, we can barely guess how the Internet phenomenon will shape the 21^st century."

Another trend is that the emphasis of the national education system is moving from a "teacher centric" system to a "student centric" system. This is a natural phenomenon brought about by the rapid evolution of technology and the opportunities offered by an "Information Age."

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has now been in effect for over two years. The most significant telecommunications reform law in 62 years, it is expected to incite competition, minimize (and possibly eliminate) regulatory barriers, and accelerate the convergence of local and long-distance phone businesses with cable operators, cellular companies, broadcast concerns, computer manufacturers, and others. This major revamping of the telecommunications industry is expected to allow for increased media ownership, permits phone companies to sell television services, deregulated cable rates, etc. While we have witnessed this revolution in recent mergers and acquisitions, we have yet to see real, dramatic instances wherein the Law has actually realized its intent.

Also, for the first time, the 1996 Act includes schools and libraries among the explicit beneficiaries of universal service support. The Act was designed to ensure that eligible schools and libraries have affordable access to modern telecommunications and information services that will enable them to provide educational services to all parts of the nation. The resultant Universal Service Fund (E-Rate) is based on need and location and provides 20% to 90% discounts for telecommunications services. While this program holds great promise for education, we have yet to realize its benefits.

Utah has also adopted a major telecommunications deregulation bill that allows for increased competition, while also promoting cooperation among telecommunications services provided within the state.

Utah’s 1997 population climbed to 2,048,753 for a 2.3% overall increase. The increase is primarily due to a natural increase of 31,316 and an implied net in-migration of 15,037. From 1996 to 1997, Utah’s rate of population growth of 2.3% was more than twice the national rate of 0.9%.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates Utah was the fourth fastest growing state in the country.

Utah has now experienced seven consecutive years of net in-migration with an estimated 122,000 more people that have moved into the state versus those that have move out.

Over 60% of Utah’s new population growth during the last seven years has come from natural increase - the difference between births and deaths.

Utah county has experienced the largest population increase. Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, and Weber Counties combined account for 70% of the state’s overall growth.

Utah enters 1998 with the longest sustained economic expansion in modern economic history.

Job and population growth rates in Utah continue to be twice the national average.

During 1997, Utah’s per capita income ranking moved from 49^th to 44^th. The median household income in Utah ranked 17^th highest in the nation at $37,038. However, average-annual pay in Utah ranked 33^rd, well below the national average at $24,572. This is attributed to more part-time workers and a younger workforce than in the rest of the nation.

Utah’s economic expansion has now peaked. Growth rates in jobs and housing peaked in 1994; growth rates in personal income and wages peaked in 1995; and home sales and residential construction peaked in 1996.

The success of Utah’s economy is explained by the current prosperity present in the national and regional economies, the rapid growth in the state’s construction industry, and the diversity of Utah’s economy. The U.S. is in its seventh consecutive year of economic expansion and the Inter-mountain States lead the nation in economic vitality and growth.

Job rates for 1998 are expected to hover around the long-term historical average of 3.6%. This rate of growth is still nearly double the national rate and would be the eleventh consecutive year of 3% or higher job growth. The reasons for the slower growth include a tighter labor market, slower growth in exports, and improvements in other state economies, particularly California.

Utah’s construction industry, which led all other Utah industries in the rate of growth for the seventh consecutive year, has been the primary engine for economic growth for the past several years. The structure of Utah’s economy continues to diversify relative to that of the nation. Industries such as high technology, tourism, and air-bag manufacturing have helped make the current expansion the longest in recent history.

Utah’s unemployment rate as of October 1997 was 3.0%; well below the national unemployment rate of 4.4%.

Based on a national ranking, Utah has the largest percentage of persons living in family households with 88.5%. Utah also ranks first as the state with the most households comprised of married-couple families at 64.8%. Utah ranks last in the percentage of persons living in group quarters with 1.7% and has the lowest ranking of single-headed households with 11.7%. Utah still has the most persons per household nationally with 3.15 and the most persons per family with 3.67.

The Utah economy is expected to slow in 1998 due to lower net in-migration; lower residential construction (due to building moratoriums and restrictions); improvements in other state economies (especially California); slower growth in exports; a tighter labor market; and a less affordable housing market.

Utah’s educational technology initiative is fortunate to have the commitment and strong leadership of the Legislature and the Governor. Their continued support makes Utah a national leader in the realm of information technologies and their use in the classroom.

During the 1998-99 school year, it is anticipated that the state’s K-12 student population will decrease for the first time since 1963. The total projected enrollment is expected to be 478,832 statewide. Total statewide enrollment is projected to remain relatively flat over the next few years with minor increases occurring until 2002 when a 2.4% increase is expected. The lowest student population is concentrated in the elementary grades with the highest population in grades 7 through 12. This group of students will impact higher education over the course of the next few years.

There will, however, be "pockets" within the state that will see increases in the student population. The districts that are most likely to see growth are Jordan, Tooele, and Washington Districts.

With the state’s population is predominantly located along the Wasatch Front in an area between Ogden and Provo -- it is difficult to provide enhanced educational services to rural areas. Technology has made it possible to provide expanded learning opportunities to students in some of the state’s most remote areas, allowing students more choices in their scholastic endeavors. Utah continues to explore ways in which technology can provide new learning opportunities. While the Utah Education Network receives considerable support from state government, two additional programs also receive legislative support. They are: the Electronic High School, Utah’s Electronic Community College, and the Western Governors University. The Utah Education Network works closely with each entity to promote expanded learning opportunities through the use of new telecommunications technologies.

On a statewide scale, the Governor has taken a leadership role in support of new telecommunication’s technologies. His vision of making Utah a world leader in telecommunications and information technology has become a reality for many of the state’s businesses and citizens. Great emphasis is given to creating an environment that favors partnerships, "co-opetition", interconnection, and investment in Utah -- a trend which is expected to continue given the commitment of the current administration.

Through a number of telecommunication’s providers, Utah’s citizens have access to fiber optic services across the state. Fiber now serves a number of communities by providing the most advanced quality telecommunications transmission available, and it is anticipated that it will continue to expand to include those not presently served.

New technologies are emerging and where appropriate assimilated into the infrastructure. The use of satellites, CVDS, and ATM are such examples. The development of digital television will also affect the overall delivery of broadcast services throughout the state.

The Utah Education Network operates out of the Eccles Broadcast Center at the University of Utah. Currently, four different service providers have fiber connections in the building. They are: US WEST, TCI Cablevision, TCG, and ELI. This demonstrates the Network’s intent to work with the state’s different service providers explicitly to promote cooperation and competition -- all in an effort to provide the best possible service to the state’s teachers and learners.

The Network also utilizes an extensive translator and microwave system that delivers information to areas throughout the state, serving communities like Monument Valley for example. Recently, satellite delivery has also been incorporated. Plans are also underway to incorporate digital television as mandated by the federal government.

Located at the Eccles Broadcast Center and managed and operated by the Network staff, the Network Access Point (NAP) is located at the Eccles Broadcast Center — providing educational access, broadband, and Internet capabilities.

Network staff needs to be responsive to dynamic application needs and recognize the importance of developing and acquiring the most effective, pertinent, and highest possible quality content for delivery. Staff is heavily involved in researching, piloting, and exploring new applications opportunities to benefit the state’s teachers and learners. To ensure that Network efforts are in line with requested services, an ongoing evaluation effort includes input from media specialists, Network partners and stakeholders, and representatives from both the public and private sectors.

The strengths of the Utah Education Network include: a unique partnership among public education, higher education, public libraries, business and governmental agencies; credibility within the industry; the ability to create and work in a collaborative environment; a unique position of leadership through consortia arrangements and legislative mandate; a genuine desire to support the educational effort; a mission that is well defined and clear; a vision of what can be done through the use of technology; a high quality product; good, highly motivated, committed and experienced people who are well respected; strong support from the Governor’s Office and the Legislature, which results in consistent funding; an expanding team orientation; and a dynamic work environment.

Weaknesses include: an over-extended staff (although great improvements have been made); too little space to adequately house staff; communication roadblocks that sometimes result in a lack of understanding among constituents about Network services and policies; name recognition; difficulty keeping support structures up to system expansion; improving but insufficient empowerment of front line staff; in some areas of the state, the staff is still occasionally perceived as the ‘experts from Salt Lake’; some lingering tendency to put districts into categories rather than providing for flexible, district specific solutions; lack of an urban schools solution; the challenge of implementing a system which relies heavily on the cooperation of many diverse entities; the on-going challenge of allowing the many pressing operational needs to curtail or reduce the required focus on strategic level directions; some reluctance to catch the vision of out-sourcing, the ‘team’ concept, and distributing our networks; and some residual concerns about UEN taking away resources, time, and funding from KUED and KUER.

Opportunities include: a new, more open and competitive telecommunications environment; new and emerging technologies; competition and cooperation among service providers; to act as a clearing house to help educational institution’s network and share electronic educational services; to produce multimedia information resources that are not commercially available, to recommend standards for networking to improve quality, access and efficiency of education; to assist schools, colleges, applied technology centers and universities in making the transition to a technology-based education; to develop an urban schools solution; to introduce new technologies to educators and train educators in the use of technical networks; to develop policy for educational technology; to provide leadership in overall state telecommunication policies; to pursue corporate, federal, and foundational funding for education technology; to provide more efficient, user friendly and ultimately humane systems; to benefit from the opportunities associated with outsourcing; to significantly improve the options for students to become more technically competent and technologically literate; and to continue to be a consortium, coordinator and forum for the discussion and development of educational technology services. DTV provides a significant opportunity for increased service delivery and options for integration.

The greatest threat to the Utah Education Network is not listening to or understanding the needs of our customers (i.e. the State Office of Education, the Board of Regents, superintendents, institutional presidents, teachers, students, etc); not acting as a true consortium, driving the agenda; not cooperatively working with private providers; not being accountable to the legislature and governor’s office; the potential loss of CPB funding; not involving teachers and faculty in decisions; not moving up the OSI stack and focusing on infrastructure over applications; becoming bogged-down with too many partnerships, thereby hindering the move forward; the perception that the Network is superimposing an additional level of structure to the education system; duplicative and uncoordinated efforts by other agencies; and not addressing the year 2000 (Y2K) problem within the Network infrastructure and in cooperation with the Network’s users..

In order to fulfill its mission and to rise to meet the expectations that exist for services, the Utah Education Network must base all its activities on the fundamental premise of customer service. Summative and formative research are presently underway. These efforts need to be continued to evaluate if customer needs are being met.

Success of the Network will depend in large measure on its ability to bring all the interested parties together to work toward a common goal of using telecommunications technology in the service of education. Network staff must empower both its employees and partners, and avoid being territorial, or engaging in empire building. It is critical that appropriate opportunities to out-source services to educational and private enterprise partners be implemented in the overall Network agenda.

In order to ensure that the state’s educational-technology needs are met, it is essential that close and careful partnerships are maintained with the State Board of Regents, the State Office of Education, the Governor’s Office, the State Legislature, the state’s institutions of higher education, the state’s school districts, and with private industry.

Network staff must continue to explore a number of funding opportunities, including looking at ways to more efficiently utilize present funding in current areas, prioritizing activities and reallocating existing funds, seeding new ventures, and continually examining the relationship among all Network services. Also, staff should seek new business partnerships and grant opportunities as alternative sources of revenue.

Technology is only as effective as the people who use it. To receive the maximum benefits offered by new information resources, it is therefore imperative that teachers, administrators, and where appropriate students, receive adequate training. Network staff must continue to promote and maintain an aggressive position in educating the learning community in the benefits of utilizing technology to teach.

The Network must invest in the training of all staff to be conversant in all of the services that are offered by the Network and to be able to represent the Network’s mission, principles and objectives to any and all constituencies and audiences.

Additional implications include:

1. With the convergence of technologies, there will continue to be emphasis on new technologies like DTV. There is significant potential for DTV to utilize some channel capacity to provide the broadcast side of video-on-demand to schools and homes.

15.0 Utah Education Network Public Information and Communication Strategic Plan

Public Communication Benchmarks

KULC’s Mission is to make available, through broadcast transmission, a range of high quality instructional materials and learning resources for use by teachers, students and citizens of Utah. This mission is closely correlated with and supports the Mission, Guiding Principals, and Benchmarks of the Utah Education Network.