Membership

Membership to the Great Plains Network (GPN) provides both tangible and intangible benefits.

Tangibly, GPN is a cost effective, high-fidelity, high-capacity, shared network access point, connecting universities and state networks throughout the midwest and great plains.

Intangibly, GPN is a powerful and dedicated research advocate, championing the needs of its members and working diligently to amplify and fortify the advanced cyberinfrastructure of the region.

GPN Members

Many GPN members are internationally renowned for excellence in education and research via advanced cyberinfrastructure — GPN membership helps them to remain at the cutting edge of these advancements. Other members are developing their cyberinfrastructure capacity — GPN membership allows them to learn from others and form strategic alliances.

GPN also partners with state networks, high performance computing centers and other organizations, like the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA), the MidSouth Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Society (MCBIOS), Internet2, and the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), on behalf of our members.

Full Member

Arkansas State University

Black Hills State University

Dakota State University

Kansas State University

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Northern State University

Oklahoma State University

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

South Dakota State University

University of Arkansas

University of Arkansas at Little Rock

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

University of Kansas

University of Missouri

University of Missouri, Kansas City

University of Missouri, St. Louis

University of Nebraska

University of Oklahoma

University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

University of South Dakota

University of Tulsa

Wichita State University

Affiliate Member, University

Iowa State University

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

University of Wisconsin-Madison

WiscNet

Affiliate Member, Corporate

Adva Optical Networking

Ciena

Membership Benefits

What we do for our members?

GPN is a recognized national leader in advanced networking services. GPN manages and operates a High Performance Research and Education Network that

Offers more bandwidth for less cost
Takes advantage of economies of scale
Provides peering and caching services (Google, Netflix, Akamai) that reduce traffic on members’ commodity networks
Connects members to cloud services
Moves quickly on behalf of members to take advantage of new opportunities while minimizing risk
Collectively bargains for better pricing
GPN members have a shared history, common values and mutual trust.
GPN is recognized as a national model of collaboration
Provides valuable opportunities for individuals (even at the same university) to make connections.
Connects researchers on campuses to regional and national initiatives
Serves as a platform for building collaborations and communities of interest
Engages members on emerging topics and provides members with peer groups
Facilitates engagement of new technical staff and faculty with others across the region
Adds value to existing and planned collaborations
Provides researchers a forum maximizing impact of their research
Assists researchers to identify collaborators
Brings national experts to the region

Opportunities for Collaboration

GPN staff actively seek out and help members pool their skills and knowledge across disciplines in a host of technical and research areas. Often, these efforts start as less formal communities of interest and develop into projects of their own. Many of these efforts have attained national and international recognition. Others have lead to the development of more robust campus infrastructure. Recent collaborations include:

Network Infrastructure
Data Lifecycle Management
Shared Research Storage
File Sharing Service
Bioinformatics
Federated Identity Management
Grid Computing
Network Research
K20 Interactive Distance Learning

Rate & Fees

GPN has two general fee categories:

GPN Consortium Fees
GPN Network Fees

GPN Consortium Fees support the overall management and operations of the Consortium as well as research and cyberinfrastructure initiatives, working groups, workshops, maintaining an online presence and the GPN Annual Meeting.

GPN Network Fees support a variety of network-related services to participants of the GPN Network Program. These services are categorized as either a Shared Service or a Fee-For-Service and the following guidelines are used for cost allocation and setting fees for network services.

Both consortium and network fees are outlined in the following document: GPN Service and Fee Schedule.

How to Join

GPN is organized under the rules set forth in the GPN Consortium Agreement. There are two categories of GPN membership available: regular membership and affiliate membership.

Please complete an agreement and mail to:

Bill Mitchell, Executive Director
Phone: (573) 268-7214
bill@greatplains.net

Gregory E. Monaco, Ph.D., Director for Research and Cyberinfrastructure Initiatives
Phone: (785) 554-9657
greg@greatplains.net