Presented at the National Educational Computing Conference, Baltimore, 
June 18-20, 1995

UMassK12:  Internet Access for Massachusetts K12 Teachers and Students

UMassK12 is an Internet bulletin board system provided without charge to
Massachusetts K12 teachers and students.  It provides a successful, cost-
effective model for K12 Internet access.

UMassK12 started operating in June 1993, and began issuing accounts to the
general K12 community in September. In the 12 months ended August 31, 1994,
it achieved the following milestones in becoming the largest K12
telecommunications service in Massachusetts and one of the largest in the
country:

- Free accounts were issued to approximately 3400 teachers and 1700 students
- Over 700 Massachusetts schools had one or more accounts
- Average use of the system increased from 96 calls per day to 1241 per day
- During the 12 months, UMassK12 received a total of 240,000 calls
- About 800 teachers attended training workshops given by the UMassK12 staff

UMassK12 provides these services on a shoe-string budget.  It runs on a
rather modest host, a DEC 5000/133 Ultrix workstation with 48 Mb of ram and
3 Gb of disk storage.  The host computer, software, and technical support
are provided by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  The software is
a customized version of the FreePort software used on Cleveland FreeNet.
Most Massachusetts residents can access UMassK12 via local calls to 15
University of Massachusetts and State College campuses.  These connections
are donated to the project.  There is also a leased line connected to the
local area network and a modem pool at the Franklin County Technical School;
this arrangement provides toll-free access for an entire county.  Costs for
this line and for some user support are provided by an NSF grant.

Teachers on UMassK12 have access via menus to the whole range of Internet
services, including electronic mail, newsgroups, telnet, gopher, ftp, and
world wide web.  Students can only access selected usenet newsgroups.  Two
kinds of student accounts are offered: basic accounts, which attempt to
avoid student access to inappropriate materials, and extended accounts,
which have access to all internet services except the full usenet feed.
Student and parent signatures are required for all student accounts.

Users have been extremely favorable in their overall reactions to UMassK12.
All the feedback is highly positive.

User support is a major element in UMassK12's success.  We provide prompt
responses to  "Messages to Sysop" and to telephone inquiries.  Clear menus,
help screens, and manuals make it easy to learn and to use the system.  A
two or three hour hands-on workshop enables novice users to understand the
main features of the system and to explore further on their own.

The panel will discuss the general features and policies of UMassK12.  It
will also consider user support and training, telecommunications projects,
and networking logistics.