October 4, 2022 at 11:00 AM - Information Services Committee Meeting

Discussion:  Call to order at 11:00 AM.  

Staff:  Kraig Lofquist, Deb Hericks, Priscilla Quintana, Scott Isaacson, Andrew Easton

Discussion:  The Tech Director gave an update on the GEER process.  The deadline for schools and ESUs to submit eduroam funding requests was September 15th. 1With remaining GEER I funds, the Governor’s office funded the purchase of robotics and STEM kits for schools and ESUs. Combining previously unused funds, orders were placed on September 30th for $1,467,137.29.  Requests for items and reimbursements totalled $4,191,747.89.  No reimbursements were funded at this time.

Discussion:  The Technology director gave updates on the Future Ready Digital Learning Collaborative. Proofpoint is a security awareness training and anti-phishing solution. An effectively-statewide license has been purchased for Proofpoint for K-12 schools and ESUs. We will be offering Proofpoint beginning this month to staff and students at ESUs and schools for participation. Duo security is a multi-factor authentication solution which emerged as the leader from an ESU 3 and NOC selection process. Similar to Proofpoint, a fund to subsidize the purchase of Duo security for ESUs and districts is available up to $300,000. 

Dr. DeTurk and Andy Boell convened a second cyber security task force meeting in September to prioritize cyber security needs and organize stakeholders ahead of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) funding of $18 million allocated to Nebraska over the next four years.  This is to be used and divided to benefit state and local government subdivisions including ESUs and school districts. The state of Nebraska will make its one application to the Department of Homeland Security for the funds and will sub-grant them to recipients in the state. Matching funds are required to receive grant funds, increasing from 10% to 40% over the years of the grant. Patrick Wright, the Nebraska state Chief Information Security Officer, has also convened an IIJA grant committee.  The Technolgy Director is serving on both committees at this time. 

Discussion:  Nothing new to report.  

Discussion:  The SRS team has continued to make improvements and fixes based on user feedback. We are busy with ADVISER reporting through the end of October and that is the majority of helpdesk requests at this time. A new record generation process in SRS is in place and will make the records more automated and help resolve errors now and in the future. The 504 add-on to SRS is coded and ready to release.  The SRS advisory board established November 1st as the release date. Trevor and Rita have visited a number of ESU locations during the last month to conduct training on SRS for new users and administrators. These have been well attended and generated positive feedback. Our contractor X-Eqt is beginning work with our team to update the SRS software to current code and user interface standards. This work will be ongoing through this school year and is currently scheduled for release in July, 2023.

The new Project Para site went live for all users over the summer.  There are currently over 800 users registered in the system at https://para.myesu.org. The team is working on additional reporting features for supervisors and program management.

The new NVIS site is next on our team’s list after SRS ADVISER reporting and the 504 feature release.

Discussion:  The Digital Learning Director gave updates on his work.  There is continued discussion on how to build out more of the social studies inquiry work.  Continue to collaborate with SDA affiliates on work moving forward.  There will be some live shows/podcast created for upcoming legislative session.  Distance Learning - working with legislators on lottery funding for future work.  There has been 99 podcast to date.  Will do a monthly post of what ESUs are doing throughout the month. 

Discussion:  Working to get new standards uploaded to the OER.  Social Studies inquiry project only has a couple more to have those completely uploaded to OER.  SORA library has had increased usage from the Hope Rising presentations last month.  Looking for additional requests for books to be added.  TLT will have Copyright Training on November 16-17, 2022.  This will also be recorded.  

Discussion:  Cybersecurity

Discussion:  Meeting adjourned at 11:51 AM.