New Optical Network Launches University Forward

Senior Staff Writer

Courtesy of ARE-ON.net

   The University takes another technological step forward with the implementation of the Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network.  ARE-ON is a high-speed, fiber-based optical communications network governed by the presidents and chancellors of public four-year universities in Arkansas in cooperation with the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.

   According to Director of Information and Technology Bobby Hoyle, the process of establishing ARE-ON on campus has been underway for about three years, and now the University is months away from connection to the network.  The University has already built a distribution hub and housing for ARE-ON on campus and will begin connecting buildings with high-speed fiber optics.

   With the final implementation months away, the University hosted a meeting Aug. 22 to provide faculty and staff with a progress report and discuss ARE-ON’s potential on this campus.  Hoyle said the University wanted to challenge the faculty on how they can use and incorporate this new technology into academic life, using the analogy that you can have the nicest, fastest car, but unless you know how to drive it, it’s useless.

   Executive Director of ARE-ON Mike Abbiatti and Chief Technology Officer of ARE-ON David Merrifield gave two presentations on the network, explaining it’s possibilities and discussing with faculty and staff how to implement the network in classrooms, research facilities and other areas of the campus.

   “(ARE-ON) is one of the most significant economic development initiatives Arkansas has undertaken,” Abbiatti said.

   According to Abbiatti, ARE-ON will serve as an economic development asset for Arkansas in that it will provide a collaborative environment for every member of the community, as well as providing a link between the cyber-infrastructure initiatives in the state for global research and educational communities.

   Abbiatti told the faculty and staff present that they are all economic development specialists, and he said the ARE-ON formula for success is the use of ARE-ON with innovative applications, which will equal economic development.

   “Higher education is an amazingly large economic development engine,” Abbiatti said.  “We get faster and better learning and, therefore, better students in the end because we can meet their expectations.”

   In his presentation, Abbiatti noted ARE-ON’s core agendas include research, academics, healthcare and emergency preparedness.

   ARE-ON will benefit research by providing a faster server to share information.  In addition, ARE-ON can provide faculty the opportunity to collaborate with fellow experts through national and international initiatives.

   “(The) research going on at Arkansas four-year universities is tremendous, but there is a bottleneck in getting what you create out to others,” Abbiatti said.

   From an academic standpoint, ARE-ON will allow faculty to access computing resources otherwise unavailable to the traditional classroom for use in virtual learning environments and content-specific projects.  Faculty will have access to shared-content repositories both as contributors and consumers of peer-reviewed objects.

   Faculty and staff present at the Aug. 22 meeting pointed out several advantages ARE-ON could provide, including:

• Access to hi-definition video to interact with the state, nation and world.
• Improvement of video feed for distance learning courses.
• Use of 3D interactive graphics for demonstrations in courses such as biochemistry.
• Real-time simulations.
• Affordable and space-saving repositories online for library use.
• Real-time training for clinical experience through virtual hospitals.
• Ability for international students to communicate with families abroad.

   According to Merrifield, chief technology officer for ARE-ON, “The network we’re building gives the ability to go beyond the borders of the classroom, the university and even the U.S.

   Merrifield said that while ARE-ON will provide connectivity within the state between public four-year universities, it would also provide connections outside of the state through national networks with the same sort of technology coming to UAM.  ARE-ON will provide connectivity to places like Oklahoma, Louisiana, even Asia and Europe.

   According to Merrifield, the state owns the whole infrastructure, so they were able to by step the phone companies.  Merrifield said this would allow for more growth, whereas purchasing from the phone companies can hinder growth due to costs.  He said, while the costs involved with establishing this network are not small, they are not as great.

   “We’re here trying to help your campus, students and faculty to communicate and innovate new things you can’t currently do under the constraints your under,” he said.

  The final speaker of the meeting, Bill Ashmore, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville who has been involved with electronic computing since 1962, provided more insight into the benefits of the network.

   “Computing is broadening and deepening as it should, and it’s moving to its final phase, I think, as a utility,” he said.

   Ashmore explained that ARE-ON would allow the University to get a visual-based learning system, which will improve the inefficiencies with education.  According to Ashmore, education is inefficient because it forces the eyes to work at the data rate of the ears.

   “We are visual critters,” he said, “and we need to use our eyes well.”

   Ashmore explained that the combination of visual and oral learning is efficient, and ARE-ON will provide faculty with the ability to combine these two aspects of learning for students.

   In concluding the meeting, Ashmore pointed out the importance of faculty and staff joining forces to collaborate on ideas for the implementation of ARE-ON.

   “We distinguish ourselves as a species by our ability to come and reason together,” Ashmore said.  “The group mind will beat the individual mind.”

   The University will provide the campus community to brainstorm together on the uses and implementation of ARE-ON by providing faculty and staff with a venue to collaborate on ideas.  Hoyle will send this information to faculty and staff via e-mail.  

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