October 1, 2020
By Sara Jeanes, eduroam Product Manager
If you talk to folks outside of higher ed IT, eduroam is, more likely than not, the only Internet2 service that people know. The community immediately sees the value in being able to quickly authenticate to WiFi with the single credential, no matter which campus they might visit. For our urban campuses, this is even more helpful since with more than 700 universities running eduroam, you are likely not far from connectivity either at the local library or on public transit.
This highly valued federated service lets us collaborate with our colleagues no matter the campus we are on. This is a core thread that resonates more than ever. As municipalities look to provide broadband to rural communities and figure out how to provide remote instruction to hundreds of thousands of students. As students spend more than half their time remote learning while we fight this pandemic, connectivity takes a prominent place as a critical need to keep up moving forward, and working to make sure we do not fall behind.
We can look to examples in Utah, Florida, and Delaware and see the impact eduroam can have as a salve for our distancing woes.
With the continued and now more rapid expansion in a community federated wireless solution, we are looking to evolve and scale the service to meet this ever growing need. In this first stage, we ask two actions of you, please complete this survey so we can better understand how your needs are evolving and how we can work to address them. Secondly, we will be holding three focus groups throughout the month of October and would like to see your zoom-weary faces there. You can register for a specific session by clicking one of the links below:
- Oct 15 – focus group #1 – 11am MT / 1pm ET
- Oct 20 – focus group #2 – 11am MT / 1pm ET
- Oct 22 – focus group #3 – 11am MT / 1pm ET
Thank you all for your resilience as we work through these tough times together and your participation as we work to make our community better on the other side.