Brehm seeks partnerships

Thirty-three days into her tenure as chancellor has left Sharon Brehm a bit frazzled. \nShe faces page after page of reading, of signing, of names and titles and phone numbers to remember. She attends countless meetings and luncheons and University activities. She's even managed to swing by the MAC for an opera theatre performance. \nBrehm might be frazzled, but she hasn't lost her focus.\nShe still adheres to the basic principles and goals she lauded upon accepting the position of chancellor at IU, and she plans to work closely with faculty, staff, administrators and students to bring her plans to fruition. \nOne such principle involves linking IU to the corporate world through a complex system of partnerships designed to enhance the research and profitability of both parties involved.\n"Certainly the notion of working together with business and industry throughout the state and in part with local businesses is a great idea," Brehm said. "In fact, the important developments within past generation have been increasing connections between University research and the private sector."\nThis "tech transfer" consists of the full spectrum of activity from basic research to creating products and marketing them effectively, Brehm said. \n"Both new and established companies can and do get involved tech transfer," Brehm said. \nWhile certain sticky issues do exist in tech transfer, including what Brehm termed "intellectual property" -- who owns which ideas, the concept has proven quite successful at other major research institutions. \nA partnership recently established between the University and the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, will test tech transfer's success at IU. Established in 1941, the Crane division covers more than 63,000 acres and employs nearly 3,800 individuals in Indiana's south-central region. It reaped $695 million in the 2000 fiscal year, according to Crane's public relations office.\nSmithville Telephone, a regional provider of telecommunications services, has installed the fiber-optic cable linking Crane to IU. \nResearch efforts will forcus on the development of technologies for improving system use to provide more cost-effective maintenance operations on Navy ships. \n"This research partnership will develop the learning process and technologies to leverage the systems' from those engineers and technicians who design and support the system as well as learning from the weapon systems' diagnostics and individual maintenance actions themselves," Fisher said. "This would provide knowledge focused for the sailor who must maintain these systems, with obvious benefits for both military and commercial systems' supportability."\nAccording to McMullen, IU and Crane have worked in tandem for the past three years in developing and researching Internet technology-related projects. \nCrane has also agreed to partner with other higher education institutions throughout Indiana. But IU was specifically targeted because of its involvement with the Internet2 Abilene Network Operations Center, as well as several networks for the National Science Foundation, according to Dave Fisher, Chief Information Officer for Crane.\n"IU is a recognized world leader in data networking," Fisher said. "Crane can leverage off the technical expertise at IU to provide sustainable and cost effective fleet support."\nThe gigabit fiber link will be used in seminar and distance learning applications, McMullen said. But its primary objective will be in assisting joint IU-Crane research endeavors.\nThe partnership will allow IU to further its research interests in knowledge management, secure distributed computing systems and advanced instructional and training technologies, McMullen said. It will also allow opportunities for advancement in secure data transmission and high-speed optical networking technologies.\nThe partnership will also enable opportunities for technology evaluation at the Smithville Telephone Company as well, McMullen indicated. The gigabit link utilized in linking IU and Crane is the first installation of its kind. IU and Crane are evaluating the fiber provided by Smithville in a "beta test agreement."\nThe system will specifically benefit the computer science departments on the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses. The School of Library Science, the School of Education and the University Information Technology Services will also be targeted. Other IU science departments and the Kelley School of Business could be involved in the future as well, McMullen added. \nMcMullen lauded Vice President for Information Technology Michael McRobbie for his role in nurturing the partnership.\n"Vice President McRobbie has been very interested in building stronger ties with Crane to the mutual benefit of both IU and Crane," McMullen said. "Based on IU's strength in high performance networking nationally and internationally, it was natural for IU and Crane to center one of the projects on providing stronger communications infrastructure between the two institutions, which can serve as the basis for further projects."\nExact costs for system installation are being discussed with Smithville Telephone and Crane, according to Fisher.\nA Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility (IUCF) and Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane) was signed Tuesday, March 13, 2001. This CRADA will meet an emerging need to test and validate the performance of 21st century space and military systems for operation in space and special military environments.\nPreliminary studies have shown that short, high-intensity pulses of high-energy protons from the IUCF accelerators are useful as simulators of important aspects of these special environments. This cooperative program has benefits for both military and commercial systems.