Information Technology Affiliations

Information Technology develops strategic relationships with its peers and members of the greater community to advance the mission of the university. Collectively, the university is affiliated with the organizations listed below. Individually, many IT staff members are members of other professional organizations and initiatives.

Networks

LEARN: Lonestar Education and Research Network
http://www.tx-learn.org
Rice is a member of LEARN, a partnership of 33 Texas institutions dedicated to bringing high-speed connectivity and competitive researching to the lone star state.

RENoH: Research and Education Network of Houston
This initiative between Rice, the medical center, University of Houston, and downtown locations supports research and educational efforts in Houston.

Texas GigaPOP
Texas GigaPOP provides high-speed interconnections among research-focused schools in Texas including Rice.

Internet 2
http://www.internet2.edu/
Internet 2 is a partnership of universities and corporations dedicated to bringing high-speed networking power to its members. Rice participates in the following Internet 2 initiatives: Middleware Architecture Committee for Education (MACE), Shibboleth, The Internet2 Commons, and Abilene.

Research

HiPCAT: High Performance Computing Across Texas
http://www.hipcat.net/
Rice is one member of this consortium of Texas institutions that use advanced computational technologies to enhance research, development, and educational activities.

ResearchChannel
http://www.researchchannel.org/
Rice is a participating member of the ResearchChannel, a media-based consortium of universities that broadcasts activities, ideas, and opportunities related to research.

SURA: Southeastern Universities Research Association
http://www.sura.org/
SURA is a research group of over sixty universities in the southeastern portion of the United States including Rice.

Higher Education

Educause
http://www.educause.edu/
Educause is an organization which promotes higher learning through the improvement of IT services. Rice participates in many Educause initiatives, including Higher Education Bridge Certification Authority (HEBCA), PKI for Networked Higher Education, Middleware, the NMI-EDIT Consortium, the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service, the Technical Activities Group (HEPKI-TAG), and the Educause Learning Initiative (ELI).

Connexions Consortium
http://cnxconsortium.org/ 
Connexions is an open source platform and open access repository for open education resources, enabling the creation, sharing, modification, and vetting of open educational material accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime via the World Wide Web.

Sakai Foundation
http://www.sakaifoundation.org/ 
The Sakai Foundation is a member-based, non-profit corporation engaged in the collaborative design, development and distribution of open-source software for education, research and related scholarly activities. It encourages community-building between academic institutions, non-profits and commercial organizations and provides its members and others with an institutional framework within which Sakai projects can flourish.

Houston

Greater Houston Partnership: Technology Infrastructure Task Force
http://www.houston.org/
The goal of the task force is to identify technology infrastructure enhancements that will foster the deployment and integration of products and services that produce life enhancing experiences for the general population in the greater Houston area.