The Ocean State Higher Education Economic Development and Administrative Network (OSHEAN, pronounced "ocean") is a non-profit coalition of colleges, universities, K-12 school, libraries, hospitals, government agencies and other non-profit organizations, providing Internet-based technology for its member institutions and the communities they serve. OSHEAN is a member of the Rhode Island technology community, regularly contributing expertise and resources to a wide range of initiatives, from school enrichment activities to community forums on technology-related issues in the public interest. OSHEAN regularly pursues opportunities for local, regional and national collaboration and plays a national leadership role in professional education for IT professionals and policy development in the information technology arena.
OSHEAN is building a communications infrastructure for Rhode Island's institutions of higher education, state and federal government agencies, non-profit research organizations, workforce development initiatives, and economic development efforts.
History
OSHEAN, Inc. is a consortium of non-profit organizations tasked with the creation of an Internet communications network. The organization collaboratively delivers and maintains a secure communications infrastructure for Rhode Island's research, education, health care and public service communities.
OSHEAN was founded in 1999 through a collaboration by RINET (Rhode Island Network for Educational Technology – K-12), the University of Rhode Island and Brown University. The consortium of non-profit organizations, now totaling 28, was originally formed to bring an Internet2 point-of-presence to Rhode Island.
Initially several institutions of higher education in Rhode Island formed the OSHEAN membership. In September 2001 the consortium expanded into the health care community after Lifespan became OSHEAN's 11th member. OSHEAN further branched out to state government in October 2005 when the Rhode Island Department of Administration, now the RI Division of Information Technology, joined the consortium.
OSHEAN reached beyond the borders of Rhode Island for the first time in 2002 to welcome Wheaton College as its 13th member.
In 2011, OSHEAN merged with RINET (Rhode Island Network for Educational Technology) and began to directly service pK-12 and libraries across Rhode Island.
In 2021, OSHEAN completed an upgrade of their Layer 2 network architecture to enable 100G backbone connections, EVPN, and segment routing.
The National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1985 to 1995 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States. The program created several nationwide backbone computer networks in support of these initiatives. Initially created to link researchers to the NSF-funded supercomputing centers, through further public funding and private industry partnerships it developed into a major part of the Internet backbone.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that serves as the President's principal adviser on telecommunications policies pertaining to the United States' economic and technological advancement and to regulation of the telecommunications industry.
Internet2 is a not-for-profit United States computer networking consortium led by members from the research and education communities, industry, and government. The Internet2 consortium administrative headquarters are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices in Washington, D.C. and Emeryville, California.
The Eclipse Foundation AISBL is an independent, Canada-based not-for-profit corporation that acts as a steward of the Eclipse open source software development community, with legal jurisdiction in the European Union. It is an organization supported by over 320 members. The Foundation focuses on key services such as: intellectual property (IP) management, ecosystem development, development process, and IT infrastructure. Its members include industry leaders who have embraced open source as a key enabler for business strategy.
OW2 is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to developing open source code infrastructure for middleware enterprise information systems. OW2 federates IT vendors and users, universities, and research centers from Europe, Asia, and the Americas, representing thousands of IT professionals.
The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California is a nonprofit corporation formed in 1997 to provide high-performance, high-bandwidth networking services to California universities and research institutions. Through this corporation, representatives from all of California's K-20 public education combine their networking resources toward the operation, deployment, and maintenance of the California Research and Education Network, or CalREN. Today, CalREN operates over 8,000 miles of fiber optic cable and serves more than 20 million users.
The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit technology consortium founded in 2000 as a merger between Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group to standardize Linux, support its growth, and promote its commercial adoption. It also hosts and promotes the collaborative development of open source software projects. It is a major force in promoting diversity and inclusion in both Linux and the wider open source software community.
CANARIE is the not-for-profit organisation which operates the national backbone network of Canada's national research and education network (NREN). The organisation receives the majority of its funding from the Government of Canada. It supports the development of research software tools; provides cloud resources for startups and small businesses; provides access and identity management services; and supports the development of policies, infrastructure and tools for research data management.
Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) was launched in 2004 as a collaboration involving the State of North Carolina, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), Duke University, and North Carolina State University. RENCI is organizationally structured as a research institute within UNC-CH, and its main campus is located in Chapel Hill, NC, a few miles from the UNC-CH campus. RENCI has engagement centers at UNC-CH, Duke University (Durham), and North Carolina State University (Raleigh).
The Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) is an organization whose mission is to promote networked information technology as a way to further the advancement of intellectual collaboration and productivity.
The Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) is a non-profit membership organization which advises and connects higher education institutions interested in establishing or strengthening academic collaborative programs in the North American region.
Merit Network, Inc., is a nonprofit member-governed organization providing high-performance computer networking and related services to educational, government, health care, and nonprofit organizations, primarily in Michigan. Created in 1966, Merit operates the longest running regional computer network in the United States.
Ira H. Fuchs is an internationally known authority on technology innovation in higher education and is a co-founder of BITNET, an important precursor of the Internet. He was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2017. Since 2012 he has been President of BITNET, LLC a consulting firm specializing in online learning and other applications of technology in higher education.
UNAVCO is a non-profit university-governed consortium that facilitates geoscience research and education using Geodesy. UNAVCO is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to support geoscience research around the world. UNAVCO operates the GAGE Facility on behalf of the NSF and NASA. As a university-governed consortium, UNAVCO supports the goals of the academic scientific community. UNAVCO has 120 US academic members and supports over 110 organizations globally as associate members.
EUROGEO is a European scientific society, which networks geographers. It is an international non-governmental organisation. Since 1987 EUROGEO has been a participative member of the Conference of International NGOs of the Council of Europe. The association is involved in national and international activities and projects in geography including those related to education and training. It is a not profit organisation, which aims to develop, support and promote policies designed to advance the status of geography; establish and promote cross-border cooperation; promote education and training in geography from a European perspective and represent nationally and internationally the views of its members.
The Open Commons Consortium is a 501(c)(3) non-profit venture which provides cloud computing and data commons resources to support "scientific, environmental, medical and health care research." OCC manages and operates resources including the Open Science Data Cloud, which is a multi-petabyte scientific data sharing resource. The consortium is based in Chicago, Illinois, and is managed by the 501(c)3 Center for Computational Science Research.
The Réseau d'informations scientifiques du Québec is the optical research and education network in the province of Quebec, Canada. The Risq is a non-profit cooperative established in 1989 by leaders from Quebec's universities, RISQ originally connected those universities to the U.S. government's NSFNET using leased telephone connections. It manages the education and research network in the Province of Quebec. This organisation offers telecommunication services to the Provincial universities and the Colleges of further education (CEGEP), the school boards, research institutes, university hospitals, government departments, agencies, cultural and service organizations.
Missouri Research and Education Network (MOREnet) is a member-driven consortium, operating as a separate business unit within the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. They are primarily made up of Missouri's K-12 schools, colleges and universities, public libraries and government organizations. In addition to maintaining a computer network for Internet access to school districts and libraries in the U.S. state of Missouri. they also provide technology consulting, a technology help desk as well as professional development and training, consortium discounts and a la carte services by a team of approximately 85 subject matter experts.
Cybera is a not-for-profit corporation responsible for the operation of Alberta's Optical Regional Advanced Network. This network, known as CyberaNet, connects Alberta's research universities, colleges, K-12 schools, not-for-profits, and business incubators to one another and to the global grid of research and education networks using optical fibre. Cybera is funded by grants and its membership. The head office is located in the University of Calgary Research Park, with an additional office in downtown Edmonton.
Open educational resources in Canada are the various initiatives related to open education, open educational resources (OER), open pedagogies (OEP), open educational practices (OEP), and open scholarship that are established nationally and provincially across Canadian K-12 and higher education sectors, and where Canadian based inititatives extend to international collaborations.
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