Columbus, Ohio (January 29, 2010) - Marshall University students, faculty and staff members now have access to the nation’s premier research and education network through a partnership with OARnet, Ohio’s statewide research and education network.
Internet2® is an ultrafast, nationwide networking consortium that connects close to 70,000 research and educational institutions in the U.S. and interconnects with 80 international research networks worldwide.
“We are pleased to be partnering with Marshall University, Internet2 and others to help extend this valuable technology resource to their students and faculty members,” said Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. “These high-speed network connections will help spur collaboration, innovation and economic competitiveness at the University and throughout the tri-state region.”
According to Marshall officials, participating directly in the Internet2 community and connecting to its advanced high-performance network provides the university transformative tools for learning and discovery, and supports research, education and healthcare throughout the region.
“Internet2 gives Marshall networking power that until very recently was available only to the most prestigious research institutions,” said Jan I. Fox, Ph.D., senior vice president for information technology and CIO at Marshall. “We now have access to state-of-the-art telemedicine, bioinformatics, virtual reality and visualization technologies, in addition to advanced collaboration capabilities that connect us as never before to colleagues and information across the country. Internet2 will truly revolutionize what our students and investigators can do, how they do it and who can participate.”
Stephen J. Kopp, Ph.D., president of Marshall University, observed, “Through Internet2, we have a vital new tool that will allow us to help resolve global problems that require the minds and resources of a global community. Our faculty, staff and students have access to more and better information and technology, and can collaborate with partners across the barriers presented traditionally by geography, organizational structure and disciplines of study.”
OARnet serves as the technology infrastructure and operations arm of the University System of Ohio and provides member organizations with unrivaled intrastate connectivity, as well as links to regional, national and international networks. OARnet features a dedicated, high-speed network backbone of more than 1,850 miles of fiber-optic cable serving nearly all of Ohio’s colleges, universities and K-12 schools, as well as educational medical centers, public broadcasting stations and federal labs.
The Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARnet) was established by the Ohio Board of Regents in 1987 to provide researchers with access to the computational resources of the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Today. OARnet provides Ohio’s colleges and universities and their research partners with an integrated technology infrastructure that includes unrivaled intrastate network connectivity and shared services. OARnet specializes in providing custom solutions, whether providing virtualization resources, spanning the globe by videoconference or providing 24/7 network support. For more information, visit http://www.oar.net.
Marshall University is a public university of approximately 14,000 students, including 4,000 graduate and medical students. Founded in 1837, the institution is located in Huntington, W.Va..
About Internet2® is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium. Led by the research and education community since 1996, Internet2 promotes the missions of its members by providing both leading-edge network capabilities and unique partnership opportunities that together facilitate the development, deployment and use of revolutionary Internet technologies.
