CC* Planning: Virtual Research-Education Ohio (VROhio)

Governor Mike DeWine allocated $12.1M through the Governors Emergency Education Relief (GEER) program to upgrade OARnet's last-mile internet connections to 40 smaller higher education institutions (HEI) through a unique opportunity. This funding is a result of growing reliance on cyberinfrastructure to support in-person and remote teaching and research.

For smaller institutions, having access to additional advanced CI enriches existing programs while enabling new opportunities for research and training that rely on external, shared, and co-developed resources. To foster full use of new connectivity resources, OARnet and a team from nine smaller HEIs (Northwest State Community College, Chatfield College, Lorain County Community College, Terra State Community College, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Sinclair Community College, Columbus State Community College, Xavier University, Baldwin Wallace University), service providers (OSC and the CWRU Electron Microscopy Facility) supported by national entities (EPOC, The Quilt, InCommon/Internet2, Trusted CI), are planning two CC* proposals - 1. "Regional Connectivity for Small Institutions of Higher Education" track and 2. "CI-Research Alignment" track.

The regional proposal will develop statewide research and teaching DMZ and VPN networks and a federated identity management system for secure access to shared network-accessible resources in classrooms and labs. The CI-Research Alignment proposal will provide human infrastructure and processes needed to co-develop shared educational resources and curricula, such as interactive laboratory simulations and other virtual environments for STEM training that will also enhance the high school to higher education STEM pipeline (College Credit Plus Program.)

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.