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Process for Becoming a Member of the NANSLO RDN

This process is extrapolated from the table on the NANSLO Consortium Membership Levels page.  That page is an edit of the table that was produced during the April 2012 meeting in Boulder.  

1) Contact and Orientation

(Contact and Orientation information must be made available through the NANSLO website and be available to easily e-mail to interested people and institutions along with instructions for scheduling a lab demos and Sandbox tours.):  Initially someone at an institution will learn about NANSLO and RLS through our publications, a presentation at our Annual Conference or another conference, word of mouth from colleagues, or a number other methods.  They may convince their institution to look at NANSLO and RWSL or they may simply come on their own to learn more about us and remotely delivered web-based lab exercises.  Once they or their institution have contacted us, we will want to schedule demos of some RWSL labs and lab exercises, provide them with a tour of the faculty sandbox, access to our open course-ware, links to research literature, top level funding requirements for a node, information on grant opportunities, the names of NANSLO RDN participating institutions, contact information, and anything else that will help them familiarize themselves with NANSLO and the services we provide.

2) Exploration (Tier 1):

Once contact and orientation have been completed an institution will want to look at the NANSLO RDN more closely and they will want their faculty and IT people to try things out for themselves.  This activity will generate some cost to the NANSLO RDN so the institution will have to be serious enough to pay hourly usage fees.  (We may want to make these 'reduced introductory fees'.)  They will need to schedule access to the faculty sandbox so they can work through some lab exercises on their own.  They'll need to schedule optional training sessions, see our supporting documents, have access to research outcome guides (including the pedagogy for simulations, lab kits, RWSL), be given detailed funding requirements for an RWSL lab, and be made aware of the technical standards required by the NANSLO RDN.

3) Pilot and Small Scale Usage (Tier 2):

After faculty and IT people have had a chance to look closely at RWSL and decide this is definitely something they wish to try with some of their students they will want to run pilots.  Although some institutions may want to build their own RWSL Node at this point, it is not required and they will more likely want to take advantage of NANSLO remote lab services to test the response of their students to this technology.  It is recommended that to keep our entry threshold as small as possible that institutions that wish to access remote lab services for a "small" amount of time should be charged a reduced membership fee as well as the hourly usage fees.  It is highly unlikely that an institution would want to serve remote lab services back to the NANSLO RDN at this point even if they do build their own RWSL Node.  It would be far less expensive for them to simply use existing NANSLO RDN remote lab services.  Beyond RLS institutions will require tech support on a small scale, tech consulting by phone (for free), and a non-voting seat on one or more discipline panels as appropriate.  If they need site support there will be an extra charge.

4) Network User (Tier 3):

These institutions have decided to make RWSL remote lab serves a staple tool of their lab delivery strategies and are using more than a small amount of RWSL lab time.  They have not built their own RWSL Node or at least are not providing remote lab services to the NANSLO RDN.  These institutions will pay a full membership fee and the hourly usage fees, require access to tech support of students and faculty, and use the NANSLO RDN centralized scheduling service.  They will receive full voting representation on all appropriate Discipline panels, be able to request new RWSL labs be developed through the discipline panels, and have a non-voting seat on the NANSLO Board.

5) Network Provider (Tier 4):

These institutions have decided to make remote labs a staple of their lab delivery strategies, are using more than a small amount of RWSL lab time, and they are serving remote lab services to the NANSLO RDN.  These institutions (like Tier 3 institutions) will pay a full membership fee and the hourly usage fees, require access to tech support of students and faculty, require tech support for setup and operation of their RWSL Node, and use the NANSLO RDN centralized scheduling service.  They will receive full voting representation on all appropriate Discipline panels, be able to request new RWSL labs be developed through the discipline panels, and have a full voting seat on the NANSLO Board and participate in the R&D and Technical Standards Committee.  In addition they will be able to provide tech support to other participating institutions and receive compensation for the number of hours they serve remote lab services to the network.

6) RWSL Lab Developer:

Institutions that have an RWSL Experiment Designer/Architect on staff and enough RWSL capacity to spare may from time to time be contracted by NANSLO to develop new RWSL labs for the NANSLO RDN.  Such development will be done on a contract basis and NANSLO will provide compensation according to the contract.