BCNET News
Coast Mountain College Celebrates Gateway to Advanced Network
Coast Mountain College, an accredited post-secondary institution that serves the rich and diverse communities and learners of BC’s beautiful northwest region, celebrated its gateway to the BCNET Advanced Network. The high-speed, private, dedicated research and education network is enabling access to new technology services for faculty and students and enhancing student achievement.
From left to right: Ivor Mackay, BCNET IT Manager, Clarence Lee, BCNET Director of Client Services and Communications, Colin Elliott CMTN Director of Emerging Technologies, Applied Research and Libraries, Kevin Morrison CMTN Co-director of IT, Mark Snelling CMTN Director of IT, Ken Burt, CMTN President & CEO, Justin Kohlman CMTN VP Academic, Bala Katherisan, BCNET President & CEO
On September 13, executive members of the Coast Mountain College (CMTN) community came together to celebrate Advanced Network connectivity. The event celebrated the completion of a massive network expansion project, where BCNET partnered with the College to transition the infrastructure at seven campus sites from the BC Provincial Learning Network (PLNet) to BCNET’s Advanced Network. These new high-speed networks bring 692% more capacity for delivering online services—affording a competitive advantage for education and innovation.
CMTN's President and CEO spoke to the importance of advanced digital infrastructure, “Information technology is critical to our business activities at CMTN, from admissions, employee and student recruiting, finance, payroll, classroom activities, faculty and more—this affects everyone in our college community.
Enabling Applied Research
CMTN also spoke to the importance of connectivity for applied research. The College is growing its applied research activities and the new connectivity ensures its faculty have access to improved services and better bandwidth for data collaboration in BC, across Canada and around the world. This partnership also benefits students in important ways through improving online accessibility through Coast Mountain College's libraries.
“We have increasingly moved to online resources and have a large collection of e-journals and e-books. One of our biggest roles of the library is to help students connect to and understand the digital world. All of these things require a stable connection and a lot of bandwidth.”
CMTN Director of Applied Research, Libraries and Emerging Technology, Colin Elliott
Access to Cloud and Shared Services
“From our seat at the table, we strive to continue our technological advancement through initiatives such as eduroam, BCNET EduCloud and the CANARIE Joint Security Project, while remaining grounded in Indigenous principles to guide our path. In an increasingly digital economy, we hope to arm the workforce of tomorrow with the technology skills to serve Northern BC and beyond.”
MARC SNELLING
CMTN IT Director
BCNET President and CEO, Bala Katherisan
“Our core service is, and will continue to be, the Advanced Network that connects our learners, faculty and researchers to all the resources that the vast expanse of the province, country and the world has to offer. In recent years we have assembled an unparalleled portfolio of services aimed at improving efficiency, increasing capacity, reducing risk and promoting knowledge and expertise in information technology.”