Network Award

About the Award

Recognizing the ongoing and mission-critical importance of the campus network infrastructure and architecture, EDUCAUSE offers this Award for Excellence in Networking: Innovation in Network Technology, Services, and Management. The award honors strategic, innovative networking programs or practices that improve the quality of campus network services -- and thus the campus environment -- through new or enhanced network architectures, infrastructure, integration, management, and/or operational practices. Projects need not be institutional in scale to be considered. The selection committee looks for innovative practices that demonstrate creativity, efficiency, or effectiveness in handling common challenges and that can serve as models for other institutions.

The EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee has identified a number of issues of widespread interest on college and university campuses, described on the Web at http://www.educause.edu/issues Projects that address these kinds of issues would be highly appropriate submissions. Other areas of specific interest for campus networks might be:

• QOS
• bandwidth management
• network accounting
• middleware
• directory services
• infrastructure build-out
• wireless
• convergence in video, voice, data
• Internet2 and other high bandwidth networks
• remote access
• security
• special user needs
• funding models
• partnerships
• open-source initiatives
• regulatory issues
• storage area networks
• systems integration
• network operations center

Winners of this award are selected by the EDUCAUSE Network Award Committee, with strategic oversight from the EDUCAUSE Recognition Committee.

This award program is sponsored by Cisco Systems, Inc., An EDUCAUSE Platinum Partner.

Networking Award Winners

Guidelines and Eligibility

• Up to two awards are given each year.
• Projects must have been completed or implemented during the three years prior to the application date.
• Applications may not be submitted in consecutive years for the same accomplishment without significant change since the initial submission.
• More than one project may be submitted from the same institution.
• Projects will not be recognized in more than one category of the EDUCAUSE awards for institutional achievement.
• The applying institution need not be a member of EDUCAUSE.
• Applications may not come from institutions represented on the EDUCAUSE Network Award Committee or on the Recognition Committee.

Recognition

Award winners will receive sculptures specially designed for this program by Colorado artist John Haertling, along with complimentary registration, travel, and housing for one representative at the conference at which the presentation takes place. Winner representatives are invited to present highlights of their project in a conference session. Descriptions of winning projects will be made available on the EDUCAUSE Web site and/or in print publications, and will be highlighted as award winners in the EDUCAUSE Effective Practices and Solutions database.

Applications

This award will be discontinued in 2006.