MassEd.Net Report

Affordable Internet Access through MassEd.Net provides a powerful new tool for teachers. This report summarizes the vision, implementation, and current status of the State's educational Internet service. For more information about MassEd.Net contact Tom Iacobucci.

Why it was created

As stated in the Commissioner's letter, the Depart-ment has had three goals for educational technology: to provide improved learning opportunities for students, to provide powerful new tools to enhance the professional capabilities of teachers, and to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our administrative systems. MassEd.Net was created as part of our effort to meet the second goal—to give powerful new tools to teachers.

The explosion of interest and participation in the World Wide Web was almost a mandate for us to provide teachers with something they couldn't buy on the market—an Internet access service that combined "best-of-class" service, an education focus, and bargain-basement price. We set our sights high because we wanted to reach those educators who had either not yet found a reason to "get on-line", or whose needs weren't being met by existing services. Although there were several Internet service providers offering education-specific Internet service (such as MEOL and UMass K-12), and several providers who offered low prices, none met the particular combination of benchmarks we established.

How it was created

In order to meet the goals we set for the service, we had to "think out of the box." We knew we had to have expert opinion to help us wade through the rhetoric and jargon of the vendors, so we joined forces with the Massachusetts Information Technology Division. Next, we invited several consultants with the political, technical, and policy expertise we needed to join us, and we called our group the Educational Technology Advisory Group (ETAG). This unusual partnership, joining agency to agency and public to private, proved to be invaluable.

Ordinarily, the state would consider either buying an existing service and using the bulk purchase to pass along discounted rates to users, or building a service from scratch. We sent out an RFR and got responses from a strong group of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), each offering a different strategy for how to meet our needs. After a formal selection process, we chose a combination of vendors who, when taken together, represented a new option: building the system from existing parts. Thus, we chose a vendor that subcontracted to a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) called Global NAPs, and a small and innovative ISP called JavaNet. By using a CLEC to provide the data transport and dial-up network, we were able to take advantage of a technical infrastructure with two huge advantages—toll-free dial-up access anywhere in the Commonwealth, and a so-called "megaPOP" architecture that centralizes all modems in a single location (thereby drastically reducing operating costs). Similarly, using JavaNet offered its own advantages, such as the ability to staff the MassEd.Net call center with students from Springfield Technical College, located across the street from JavaNet's offices.

Putting together the deal was only part of the issue, however. The next step was, in some ways, the most important. We purchased enough capacity to offer twenty thousand subscribers free access for nine months and $25 per year thereafter. While we were confident that this offer was too good for most people to pass up, we were concerned that if we only got fifteen thousand users (which would have been bigger than MEOL and UMass K-12 combined) we would have paid for capacity we couldn't use. To get the word out about the service, we asked Governor A. Paul Cellucci to write a letter inviting educators to join MassEd.Net, and included a coupon for the free service and free registration software, including a web browser.

The response was phenomenal. In the first week alone over three thousand educators registered their MassEd.Net accounts on-line. We now have more than twenty-five thousand subscribers. This blistering pace makes MassEd.Net one of the fastest growing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Massachusetts.

What we learned

State government can be innovative - MassEd.Net broke the model of "buy it off the shelf or build it from scratch." Even though the deal sounded almost too good to be true, we made sure that the business model made sense to both the Commonwealth and the vendors. The end result is that the service costs dramatically less than any service on the market, the vendors are happy and are eager to participate, and educators are getting the service they have long deserved.

Partnerships are essential - The Department knew it didn't have the in-house expertise to build the service on its own. By partnering with the Information Technology Division, and by hiring consultants who knew the landscape and cared about education, we were able to do something that would otherwise have been impossible. It wasn't magic—all the pieces were there for anyone to pick up—but it took a partnership to bring it together. The process also emphasized how creative state agencies can be when they work together. In other contexts such collaboration has proven to be full of difficulties, if not contentious.

Price matters - When we were designing the service we asked ourselves what was keeping the majority of educators from getting on-line. We observed that other education-specific services did many things right, but failed to capture a large chunk of the educator population. We decided that price was a deciding factor for people, because Internet service has become a kind of commodity. By offering the service for free for nine months, and $25 a year thereafter, we broke through a barrier that has kept many educators from getting Internet access. Now, nine months after we introduced the service, we have registered approximately one third of all Massachusetts public K-12 teachers.

'Net access is for everyone - As the statistics demonstrate, MassEd.Net has an appeal that reaches across age, years of teaching, and subject taught. MassEd.Net users, when compared to the universe of Massachusetts educators, don't look any different. In other words, the service isn't just for young male "techies."

Status Report

Account Renewal - The renewal system was rolled out in October. Superintendents have determined which educators in their districts are eligible for a subsidized account. The basic eligibility standards are: educators must be actively employed by a Massachusetts public school district and have an instructional role, or serve as a business officer or nutrition director, or be an elected or appointed member of the school committee. Because this is a publicly funded program, it is important to preserve the integrity of the system, so that only eligible educators are subsidized by the state. Superintendents have also been provided with an opportunity to pay the $25 annual subscription cost for educators from their districts.

In those cases in which a district decided not to pay for the accounts of eligible educators in the district, a notice was sent to all affected educators during the last week in October. These eligible educators will still have their accounts subsidized by the State, but will have to pay the $25 annual fee themselves. They can renew on-line, through our secure transaction system, using a MasterCard, Visa, American Express or Discover credit card. We will not be able to accept any other forms of payment (e.g. cash, checks and other types of credit cards). Individual renewals must be made through the on-line process; this requirement was included in our contract with the Internet Service Provider, in order to keep operational costs from raising the subscription price.

Upcoming Feature

MassEd.Net will soon release an exciting new feature for its users. The service, called MassList, will allow users to subscribe, unsubscribe, and create e-mail distribution lists. If you've ever tried to unsubscribe from a distribution list, you know how difficult it can be. With MassList, subscribing to, unsubscribing from, and creating education-specific lists will be done through an easy-to-use web page. Users who create lists will "own" the lists and will be able to determine whether any other MassEd.Net user can automat-ically join the list or whether other users will have to be granted permission to join. List "owners" will also be to remove unruly members from the list. As an example, a fourth grade math teacher could create a list for other fourth grade math teachers across the state. He or she would go to the MassList web page, create a name for the list, indicate whether it will be open (anyone can join) or moderated (join only with permission from the owner), and then enter in any MassEd.Net e-mail addresses of users they know will want to join. Once the list has been created, other users will be able to see the list name, the list purpose (e.g. "for discussion of topics pertinent to fourth grade math teachers"), and, if the list is open, join the list. Stay tuned to your MassEd.Net e-mail for an announcement about MassList!