Anywhere Learning Happens: The eduroam Global WiFi Access Service
These include many different types of institutions — universities, colleges, research facilities… It's notable that those institutions that were early adopters of eduroam were performing research at the R1 level and, seeing the value of providing eduroam services, they have up to this point made up the largest percentage of our primary participants.
Grush: So today, do researchers still make up the predominant group of on-the-ground users for eduroam-US? I'm guessing that use patterns might change over time.
Bieber: From the subscriber institutions of eduroam-US now, I'd say the predominant group of users we see would be researchers who are collaborating remotely with colleagues at other institutions. And I'd strongly agree, use patterns are changing. Changing patterns will certainly show more administrators, staff, students, and others… expanding even to users from affiliated local and regional groups and organizations. And importantly, we see the growing adoption in K12, which I'll talk about in a minute.
Grush: Saira, your institution, the University of Florida at Gainesville, has undertaken some very innovative programs with eduroam. Could you tell us a bit about that, and how the Gator community is stepping up to innovate with eduroam?
Hasnain: Of course.
We have several projects, some of which we have been working on long term. For example, one of the first things we did, more than six years ago, was to approach the Gainesville Alachua County Regional Airport Authority to arrange to offer eduroam at the airport. That project would expand eduroam services into the community and allow us to become innovators beyond the campus. It is a type of "smart city" resource that became very popular and well-utilized.
Among the advantages we immediately enjoyed was the safety and security for our students and faculty traveling to and from Gainesville. They do not need to use the usual, publicly exposed networks for connectivity when traveling through the airport. That includes many young applicants coming to Gainesville for their campus visits. And, to mention usability again, this is a very straightforward, seamless experience for our students, faculty, and potential recruits.
In another project of interest, we approached the City of Gainesville Regional Transport Service to work out a plan to equip area buses with eduroam hotspots — with the idea of providing constant connectivity in all the bus transportation services that students, faculty, and staff use around our campus and within the greater Gainesville area. This ambitious project will ultimately include a fleet of about 125 buses and will fully cover all schedules throughout the region. We are still working on some of the details, such as clarifying the responsibilities of the city versus what the university will maintain, but we are getting close, including the execution of a successful pilot with just a few roaming buses, and I can tell you it's very exciting.
Grush: That project seems to be a literal implementation of the "roaming" aspects of eduroam!
Bieber: All kidding aside, this project genuinely explores the potential of eduroam, and it shows how we can make connectivity the easy part of some very innovative projects.
We can make connectivity the easy part of some very innovative projects.
Hasnain: Another very practical and important project we have in place is to check the strength of all the signals propagated around campus, both inside and outdoors, and in our various project areas off campus. We want to ensure that everyone gets usable and high-quality service, anywhere we extend eduroam.
Grush: Brett, you said you'd talk about connectivity for K12 — how is that taking hold? Is eduroam expanding into K12 and other areas of education that might not have seen a lot of adoption of eduroam thus far?