Date: October 22, 1993
To: County
and District Superintendents of Schools
Attention:
Business Managers
Information
Technology Directors
From: William D. Dawson
Acting
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Subject: RECOMMENDED COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK PROTOCOLS
In 1991, the California Department of Education published the Strategic Plan for Information Technology which outlines a vision for the use of technology to enrich and enhance California's public school system. In 1992, the California Planning Commission for Educational Technology submitted The California Master Plan for Educational Technology to the Governor, the Legislature, the State Board of Education, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Both reports recommended that the state establish a voice, video, and data network of networks to support learning and educational administration. The development of the network infrastructure comes under the auspices of the Golden State Education Network as supported by the Industry and Education Councils for Technology in Learning.
To advance the recommendations in the reports, the Department adopted the Internet standard protocols for communications networking and recommends that school districts and county offices of education include the same standard in their technology planning. The rationale and benefits of this strategy are explained in the attached "The Internet Communications Standard."
Please keep in mind that you do not need to replace your existing network communications protocols. Internet protocols can coexist successfully with other protocols within your network, as exemplified by numerous, existing multiprotocol environments. For new networks and new applications, consider the use of Internet protocols so that eventually all schools will be able to participate in the statewide communications network infrastructure.
The Department has been working with an advisory group, the Technical Planning Committee, to develop a framework for planning network infrastructure within districts and county offices of education. This information will be documented in the K-12 Network Technology Planning Guide which will be distributed to you later this year.
Please share this information with others in your school district or county office who are developing communications systems. Planning today to become part of the larger statewide network will position schools and districts to take advantage of statewide, national, and global communications opportunities tomorrow.
If you have any questions regarding the intent of this memorandum, please contact Carole Teach at 916- 654-9662.
WDD:ct
Attachment
THE INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS STANDARD
The California Department of Education has adopted the Internet protocols, comprised of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite, for statewide communications and will be using the Internet for electronic communications (electronic mail, file transfer, etc.) with school districts and county offices of education in the state. For local educational agencies (LEAs) with existing networks and for those that will be establishing them, the Department is recommending that LEAs connect to the Internet through a local point of presence, e.g., an Internet Service Provider (BARRNet, CSUNet, CERFnet).
Rationale for the Use of Internet Protocols
Ubiquity TCP/IP is available on most, if not all, of the computing platforms likely to be important for instructional or administrative purposes. TCP/IP is available for the IBM compatible personal computers (PCs) running DOS or Windows and all versions of the Apple MacIntosh. TCP/IP is standard on all UNIX-based systems and workstations produced by companies such as Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment Corporation, and IBM. Mainframe computer manufacturers such as IBM and Unisys (Burroughs) now support TCP/IP as standard program product offerings for all of their traditional mainframe products.
Applications TCP/IP supports many applications including, but not limited to, electronic mail, file transfer, interactive remote host access, database access, file sharing, and access to networked information resources. Programming and development expertise is available from a wide variety of sources.
Flexibility TCP/IP is flexible, and new data transport requirements can be incorporated easily. It can accommodate educational and administrative applications equally well so that one set of network cabling and one communications system may be used in both the classroom and the office.
Simplicity TCP/IP is simple enough to run on low-end computing platforms such as the Apple MacIntosh and PCs while still providing efficient support for large minicomputer and mainframe computing platforms. TCP/IP benefits from over twenty years of refinement that has resulted in a large and technically sophisticated environment.
Capacity TCP/IP supports local area network and wide area network services within the entire range of network data rates available today, from dial-up model speeds to gigabit speed experimental networks. Communications can occur reliably among machines across this entire range of speeds.
Coexistence TCP/IP can coexist successfully with other networking architectures. It is likely that offices and classrooms that already have networks may be using something other than TCP/IP. Networks of Apple MacIntosh computers will probably be using AppleTalk; networks of PCs may be using Novell's NetWare. Large school districts may be using IBM's System Network Architecture (SNA) in data processing facilities. None of these other protocols provides broad connectivity on a global scale. Network technology vendors have recognized the ubiquity of TCP/IP and provide several means of building TCP/IP-based networks that also transport AppleTalk, NetWare, and SNA messages locally.
Multimedia In addition to supporting standard data transport capabilities used by traditional data processing applications, TCP/IP can support voice and video necessary for teleconferencing and multimedia applications.
Compatibility All of the campus and universitywide networks of the California State University and the University of California systems use TCP/IP for their primary communications services. In addition, thousands of commercial and governmental organizations throughout the state and nation use these protocols. Many K-12 school districts and county offices of education have installed districtwide TCP/IP networks and many more installations are planned.
NREN The High Performance Computing Act of 1991 and the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 provide the foundation for building a national telecommunications infrastructure in support of education and research. The National Research and Education Network (NREN) will be based on Internet technology. The current Internet constitutes a global electronic highway that interconnects over one million computers and enables tens of millions of students, teachers, and researchers to communicate daily, exchange ideas, share data, and collaborate on a wide variety of projects.
Internetworking Benefits
The Internet is already being used by a number of schools in California, as demonstrated by the following examples:
Teachers and students at the Woodside Elementary School in Woodside and the James Flood Elementary School in Palo Alto are using the Internet to integrate telecommunications-based resources into the curriculum. This collaborative project titled "Net Age" will "build bridges between economically and culturally diverse students to improve the academic achievement of all students, to reduce the alarmingly high dropout rate for students of the East Palo Alto area, and to prepare all of the students for life and work in the information age."
Students at Rancho Verde High School in Moreno Valley are using resources available on the Internet to conduct research and complete calculus assignments.
Students at Davis Senior High School in Davis are accessing the San Diego Supercomputer Center over the Internet and turning time-sequenced drawings into animated three-dimensional movies.
The Department is working with representatives from school districts and county offices of education to pilot an application to transmit student records electronically over the Internet. A demonstration project is planned for 1993-94 in five counties and several school districts.
The Department's Research, Evaluation, and Technology Division is participating in a National Science Foundation funded project titled "The National School Network Testbed." Through the Testbed, a UNIX server has been installed in the Department and will be developed initially for easy access to Departmental information over the Internet.
These and many more uses of the Internet will enrich and enhance California's school system.
The Technical Planning Committee
The Department has received valuable ideas and support from a team of telecommunications experts representing school districts, County offices of education, and institutions of higher education. This team, known as the Technical Planning Committee, has met regularly since June 1992 to plan and coordinate the internetworking of all California public schools using a technically sound and cost-effective architecture that will enable schools to participate equitably in the statewide network, the global Internet, and the emerging National Research and Education Network.
The Committee recognized that for statewide communication to occur among local educational agencies and the Department, local network infrastructures must be established first. Many districts already have local area networks in place; others are in the planning stages or are unsure how to proceed. To address the need for a compatible infrastructure, the Committee has developed the K-12 Network Technology Planning Guide, which the Department will publish and distribute to local school districts and county offices during the l993-94 school year. The K-12 Network Technology Planning Guide will help local educational agencies in their technology and network planning and will identify critical network infrastructure issues. The Guide will provide technical models, training and support information, case studies of networking implementations, and funding and security recommendations.
For information call Carole Teach at 916-654-9662.
