The Upper Cumberland Rural STEM Initiative through the Millard Oakley STEM Center at Tennessee Technological University is using HUBzero to power an online collaboration zone designed to bring together three key partner types to enhance science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. Twenty-one local education agencies (LEAs) covering more than 6000 square miles and serving more than 72,000 students, eleven community and business entities, and three post-secondary institutions form the UCRSI. This regional project serves a economically challenged rural area and is part of the TN STEM Innovation Network (theTSIN.org), a funded program under Tennessee's Race To the Top grant from the federal Department of Education. HUBzero allows the UCRSI project to reduce start-up costs and to decrease time to implementation by not requiring a "design and build from scratch" approach to communication. We are able to jumpstart a welcoming interactive web portal where members can immediately retrieve useful information and form working groups to share STEM education resources across the boundaries of k-12 education, higher education, and industry. UCRSI.org hosts open groups formed by the membership of teachers, community volunteers, and families as well as restricted groups for related professional development workshops for STEM education. The presentation will provide a timeline for live site implementation and strategies for membership growth and engagement.

Marc Robinson is an M.S. student of Computer Science at Tennessee Technological University, with a specialty in machine learning. He received his BS in Computer Science from TTU in 2010. While finishing his graduate degree, he serves as the primary administrator for the Upper Cumberland Rural STEM Initiative Hub, a HUBzero platform created with the intent of providing an area for local STEM educators, administrators, and professionals to collaborate and share resources. He also is the show developer and presenter for astronomy-themed presentations at the Millard Oakley STEM Center Virtual Theater.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Marc Robinson; Sally Pardue (2012), "Upper Cumberland Rural STEM Initiative ," https://help.hubzero.org/resources/818.

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