September 4, 2024 at 9:00 AM - Information Services Committee Meeting

Discussion:  The Technology Director shared that Geers is winding down and should only have the audits to finalize work.  

Discussion:  The Technology Director gave updates on Future Ready Learning Collaborative (FRDLC). 142 school districts and ESUs are participating in the Proofpoint Security Awareness Training platform, utilizing 22,215 staff licenses. For the 2024-2025 school year, licenses are available for $2.46 per staff user. 4 "light" users (could be students) are included with each staff license purchased. 48 school districts and ESUs are participating in the Duo Security multi-factor authentication system, utilizing 8,646 licenses. 1,354 licenses remain available. For the contract year which runs through March, 2025, Duo licenses are available for $8 per user. 188 school districts and ESUs are participating in the Canvas consortium, utilizing 82,619 licenses. The Canvas team has presented many road-show and single-district training events over the summer to help districts prepare for the start of school. We are working with Instructure to resolve some technical issues with schools coming on board. Discussion regarding Instrusture being bought out by an investment company.  The STEADfast project is a browser plug-in designed to help school districts collect data about the performance of home broadband Internet services and indicate areas of the state where service improvements are needed. This project was started with the development work of ESU 10 using GEER funds earlier, and a pilot with schools is funded with $45,000 of remaining ESSER III state level funds extended into this 2024-2025 school year. Discussion regarding Instrusutre being bought out by an investment company.  

Discussion: 

The Technology Director gave updates on cybersecurity.  The State and Local Cybersecurity Grant (SLCG) state committee voted to advance projects totalling $4.2 million, including two ESU-related projects for $1.4 million, for final approval by CISA and FEMA. That approval is still pending, but expected this month (September). Following that final approval, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency will issue grant award notifications to the approved projects and project work will be able to begin.

Four cybersecurity projects are moving forward with $500,000 in ESSER III funding allocated through ESUCC:

• Establish a Nebraska chapter of the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN)
• We will be oroviding workshops and support at no cost to schools and ESUs on how to create and improve cyber incident response plans.
• Support the Cyber Tatanka training and simulation exercises conducted in the summer
• Fund trials of security operation center (SOC) and penetration testing services

An extension was granted to the NDE for the use of the ESSER funds through the 2024-2025 school year. Our contracts with NDE for this work will be extended accordingly.

ESU 6 gave an update on their cyber grant.  They plan to do a cyber risk assessment on 72 entities.  Endpoint testing and logging are part of their request.  

CNET also has a grant that allows support to schools.  We will be contracting with NNNC to utilize some of that time.  This was part of the year one grant.  They continue to work with the new CIO of Netowrk NE.  

 

Discussion:  No report from Nate McClenahan on SIMPL.  An update from the SIMPL Administrators group on rebranding the SIMPL process.  They are also working on how to get SIMPL outside the state of NE.  More information to come on this work.  

Discussion:  SRS  - The SRS team continues to upgrade the software. An update to the software environment and to the IEP is scheduled for a December release over winter break. The advisory team has decided to use a schedule of two updates per year in December and July.

NVIS - Lake Gatton was hired as a new software developer to fill the opening left earlier this year. He is allocated to the NVIS project and is preparing software for a December, 2024 soft release. Both versions of NVIS will run side-by-side until the DEU reporting cycle is complete in 2025. After that time the new software will completely take over for the current system.

Project Para - The Canvas team has used the Canvas catalog to develop a new, smoother registration process for Project Para users. This is being tested internally and then with districts who use the current system with plans to roll out the new registration system during this fall. When testing is successful, the current system will stop taking new registrations. The current target is October 1st. Users already in progress with the current system will have time to complete their courses, while new users will be redirected to the new registration process.

Discussion:  The Digital Learning Director gave his updates.  He shared updates on AI.  NDE plans to release guidance on AI this Fall.  He continues to present to others on AI.  Behavior Intervention Training (BIT) materials have been released to ESUs, Districts, etc. BIRT will be the reporting tool for the BIT project and will be released this Fall.  He has developed a series of one pagers for the Influence Bold Step Committee. He continues to create podcasts to support areas of need.  The Digital Citizenship Symposium will be held on October 16, 2024. NVIS work continues to move forward towards launching the new website.  He also has begun to help work on the textbook loan process that will begin for 2025-26.  

Discussion:  The Instructional Materials Coordinator gave updates on the TLT training for 2024-2025.  Shared information on the ESUCC website.  Updates on the newly added materials for the OER that align with the Nebraska standards.  This summer some new titles were added to the PD Library.  

Discussion:  For Ted... Administrators check with ESUs on PFA.  He needs numbers when he has a meeting next week.