What is OpenRange?

OpenRange embraces Oklahoma’s heritage of resilience, collaboration and innovation.  It allows Oklahoma schools and technology centers to capitalize on the accomplishments and strengths of Oklahoma’s statewide IT consolidation efforts.  It provides access to the combined purchasing power of all educational institutions and their affiliates and enables schools to provide existing technology services more efficiently and the ability to expand those services quickly and cost-effectively.

Where is technology in Oklahoma Education?

There are currently 526 school districts and 29 technology centers in the State of Oklahoma.  Each has similar technology needs and services, but vary in levels of expertise, implementation and success.  They all face increasing technology demands from federal, state and local organizations; new educational reforms; forward-looking teachers and administrators and, of course, technology-driven students.

Unfortunately, many schools lack the funds to provide a reliable technology infrastructure and almost all lack the funds to adequately move toward innovative education methods utilizing technology.  Individually, they lack the bargaining power to drive down costs for technology for our students.

Most schools also struggle to secure technology systems, maintain high availability levels and recover from disasters.  In addition, schools face technology staff retention and development hurdles and must meet all of these needs to keep pace with the ever-changing technology industry.

How does OpenRange help Oklahoma Education?

OpenRange creates a model in which schools and technology centers are less dependent on capital expenditures to meet their technology needs. Instead, this shared services model makes technology an operational expense - all the while reducing costs and simplifying technology budgets.

OpenRange leverages economies of scale to provide consistent, quality-driven and cost-efficient technology services for education entities, administrators, teachers and students – regardless of their size.

OpenRange allows schools and technology centers to take advantage of statewide IT services to improve the educational experience for teachers and students while reducing the costs and complexities of providing those services internally.

What is OpenRange’s potential?

We are confident we’ll see substantial cost savings for the State of Oklahoma.  As a point of reference, we conducted a high-level assessment of one student information system platform used by roughly 10% of Oklahoma’s school districts and representing 30% of the student population.  The results of that study indicate a shared services offering for those districts could present a positive net present value of $8.3M.

More information available soon!

Web: openrange.ok.gov
Twitter: @OpenRangeOK
Email: info@openrange.ok.gov