Memorandum of Understanding
Regarding the
Hawaii Educational Networking Consortium & Ke Ala 'Ike
The Hawaii Educational Networking Consortium shall be a joint program of the
University of Hawaii, Department of Education and East-West Center. The
Consortium is one operationalization of the existing formal partnerships and
cooperative agreements among the institutions. The Consortium's purpose shall
be to develop and promote the use of telecommunications technology in
education and research in Hawaii. The three member institutions will be
responsible for overall direction of the Consortium and its projects, such as the
Ke Ala 'Ike networking initiative. The Consortium will not itself be a formally
incorporated body, but will conduct its business through normal institutional
procedures and in accordance with applicable policies of its members. It will be
guided by an advisory council made up of public and private entities with
interests in educational networking. Administrative support will be provided on
a rotating basis, with the University of Hawaii to initially house such functions.
Ke Ala 'Ike
ala - path, road, trail
'ike - knowledge
One of the initial Consortium projects will be Ke Ala 'Ike, a networking initiative
to support Hawaii education and research. The primary purpose of Ke Ala 'Ike
will be to ensure connectivity among Hawaii's education and research
community in order to provide full access to interpersonal communications
services, libraries and information resources within the state and throughout the
world. Ke Ala 'Ike will also make Hawaii's rich set of education and information
resources available externally via telecommunications. More specifically, Ke Ala
'Ike will:
- interconnect all public educational institutions, rural and urban;
- provide ALL Hawaii students, educators and researchers with equal access to
local library and information resources, the Internet and related national and
international networking initiatives;
- provide access to affiliated education and research organizations, e.g. private
schools, libraries, museums and research organizations;
- provide in-service training and collaborative research opportunities regarding
networking services and especially their application to the transformation of
education to meet society's changing needs;
- provide Hawaii with an infrastructure to enable experimentation with and
deployment of advanced and emerging communications and information
technologies, such as multimedia, collaborative learning environments, digital
libraries and distributed information storage and retrieval systems; and
- provide access to educational electronic information resources to the public in
their homes and workplaces.
To the greatest extent possible, Ke Ala 'Ike will not duplicate existing network
infrastructure or build new physical links. It will attempt to leverage and overlay
existing public and private networks to provide the services needed by Hawaii's
educational community and its customers as described and specified by that
community. Where existing networks do not provide adequate or appropriate
services to meet these needs, new links may be established. Outreach and
services to the general public, workplace and home should be provided through
private sector telecommunications services.
Other Activities
The Consortium will work to actively enhance the international role of Hawaii
through educational telecommunications outreach into the Pacific Basin and
Asia. It will also consider public policy issues relevant to educational
telecommunications and related matters. As needs and opportunities dictate, the
Consortium will engage in other collaborative activities to advance the
understanding and use of information technology for education and research
Hawaii. It will represent the interests of the Hawaii education and research
community in national and international networking forums.
/S/ Michael Oksenberg, President, East-West Center
/S/ Charles Toguchi, Superintendent, Department of Education
/S/ Kenneth P. Mortimer, President, University of Hawaii
