KanREN is “connecting beyond the connection” in multi-faceted ways to strengthen its membership through a number of initiatives that build alliances and create opportunities for—and among—the KanREN membership. KanREN strives to address challenges our members face, develop a deeper involvement and understanding of the issues that affect our members, and care about the things that our members care about.
With a focused commitment to help Kansas higher education researchers, educators, and students, the Kansas Research and Education Network (KanREN) has partnered with member public universities, and national partners to create a Research Engagement program. The RE program’s singular focus is to assist academics and researchers at our regional universities in obtaining access to and increasing adoption of advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI). Whether it is desktop computing, campus research computing, HPC clusters, organizing digital data for efficient analysis, or moving research data across the country, KanREN can help researchers get the most out of their campus resources.
KanREN’s RE program builds on nearly 3 decades of experience interconnecting and collaborating with academic and enterprise IT at the public universities of Kansas. KanREN staff are knowledgeable and well connected with regional and national CI programs, creating a unique position to assist in making the multi-disciplinary “human connections” necessary to facilitate CI collaboration. To get involved, join the Research Engagement Program email list (request invite) and slack channel (join) to network with KanREN and other researchers to discuss areas of shared interest, and to discover available resources and needs.
KanREN RE program staff are actively engaged in NSF grant review panel, XSEDE campus champions, Software Carpentry instruction and the GPN Cyberinfrastructure program. The KanREN RE program offers workshops on python programming, R programming, grant writing, Unix/bash shell introduction and programming, and many other research related topics. KanREN RE/CI workshops are available to all Kansas higher education faculty, staff and students.
The Kansas Learning First Alliance (KLFA) is coalition of organizations in Kansas representing school boards, administrators, teachers and teacher educators, parents and the Kansas State Department of Education. Founded in February 1999, Kansas is the first state to have a partnership affiliated with the national Learning First Alliance.
KanREN is pleased to be an active member of the Kansas Learning First Alliance (KLFA) as of October 2015 to partner with a coalition of education organizations seeking to impact our collective, education mission. As part of KLFA, we hope to provide input, advocacy, and expertise to inform the issues, initiatives, and efforts that are of direct interest to our members.
KanREN helps bring stakeholders together. KanREN works with Kansas communities to bring a “community-based” approach to connectivity that builds local relationships, collaboration and capacity within a municipality or county.
