MANAGING ICT


Everyone’s talking about the cloud, but if you are considering moving in this direction, how should you go about it? We asked two experts. On this page, Chris Wiseman discusses the benefits of a gradual migration, while opposite Steve Smith answers some key FAQs


A


WIDE RANGE of cloud services and solutions made an eagerly anticipated debut at this year’s BETT Show, promising to deliver cost-savings and robust, secure services for secondary schools and their communities.


Tried and tested in the business world, the cloud can


help to remove the reliance on capital expenditure as organisations only pay for what they use. As more and more secondary schools consider hosted


solutions, many have begun with a gradual migration, implementing selected services to complement their existing ICT infrastructure. This is enabling schools to step into the cloud at their own pace.


Where are we now?


As the government hands purchasing power back to schools and school budgets are being squeezed more tightly than ever, education’s move to the cloud marks an important step towards the delivery of agile, high quality ICT services at an affordable cost. From email and data storage, to learning platforms


and management information systems (MIS), cloud services and solutions are set to play a vital role in the future of educational ICT in schools. However, as with


Getting cloud confident


any new technology, it is still early days in the education sector, so some ICT service providers are now working in partnership with schools to enable them to transfer services gradually. This will help to maximise existing ICT technologies and ensure they are confident about their move to hosted solutions.


FOR BETTER CHILD HEALTH SCHOOL NURSES MORE


A properly resourced school nursing service is required to help schools meet the government’s health and wellbeing objectives.


Research published in the British Journal of School Nursing (BJSN) shows that more school nurses are needed to meet these objectives and ensure school children receive the health care and support they deserve. Therefore


the BJSN has launched a campaign to increase the number of school nurses.


For more information on the campaign visit


http://moreschoolnurses.co.uk Support the campaign or send us your views at:


bjsn@markallengroup.com 10


SCHOOL NURSES FOR BETTER CHILD HEALTH


MORE With the acceleration in academies and the


introduction of free schools, hundreds of schools are facing challenges in the way they will now have to operate. Operating as private enterprises, they will require solutions that are delivered to scale, consistently across all sites. Cloud solutions are highly scalable and flexible,


so even if schools decide to migrate just a selected few services, they will still hopefully benefit from aggregated savings, replacing the benefits they would typically gain through wide-scale local authority procurement. This is especially important at present, as many schools moving to academy or free school status are now firmly in charge of their own budgets.


Let’s get connected


Recent research by Schoolzone reveals that while schools welcome the potential cost-savings offered by cloud technology, they still question the security of data and the reliance on dependable internet connectivity – concerns that have already been resolved through extensive testing and usage in the consumer and business world. However, there are advances taking place across


the private and public sectors to help ensure that cloud solutions will work in schools in the future. For example, the government has announced plans to spend £830 million to give the UK the best broadband network in Europe by 2015 which could play a vital role in the delivery of many cloud services in education.


If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it


When any new technology arrives on the market, the lure of innovation can tempt schools into investing quickly without the right level of consideration for the required teaching and learning outcomes. It is vital that schools evaluate cloud solutions as they would any other technology to ensure that they meet their individual development and improvement plan. This is where the private sector should help schools


by taking a flexible approach and personalising service delivery to meet the needs of each school. This can be achieved by looking at each individual institution, assessing which systems are currently achieving positive teaching and learning outcomes and therefore value for money, and advising the school on suitable investment strategies for these technologies not making the grade. There is no need for schools to discard technology


immediately if it is operating optimally. For example, if a school has recently invested heavily in its server infrastructure and it is still fit-for-purpose, work must be done by the managed service provider to maximise this investment before considering migrating services to the cloud.


First steps


For schools new to the cloud, a good place to start could be the simple migration of email and storage services which only require basic internet connectivity. Movement of these services to the cloud will free up the school’s network, removing the hassle of the network constantly becoming clogged up with a high volume of documents and files. There are some great


free services to consider including Microsoft’s Office 365 for Education, which combines email option with storage space to help students manage their studies, share and store information, and collaborate with other students. Google also provides a similar service with Gmail (email) and Google Docs (storage). Many of these free cloud solutions are built into proprietary hosted solutions such as learning platforms and MIS, so it is a great place to start to help teachers become confident with the cloud. Once schools have stepped into the cloud and


teachers are confident with the selected services, migration of more complex systems such as learning platforms and MIS is the natural progression. The MIS, in particular, is sometimes one of the last services to be considered for migration, as it holds a huge volume of sensitive data. In fact, security plays one of the most significant


roles in hosted solution provision, whereby schools receive on-demand 24/7 protection for their systems, data, learners and teachers, including threat protection, data security, policy enforcement and compliance. A good security system should be robust enough to inspect all web traffic for viruses, spyware and inappropriate content, ensuring that schools are protected from risks and users comply with internet usage policies.


Timescales


I have been asked the question by schools on more than one occasion – “how long should it take to migrate all our ICT services to the cloud?” And the answer I always give is that every school is different and it is down to their technical partner and senior leadership team to devise a personalised plan to achieve this. It could take some schools as little as 12 months if they are at the point of renewing the majority of their ICT infrastructure. However, in reality, it can take between 18 months and two years for a school to become entirely and successfully cloud-based.


The future


In a time of austerity and change, technology solutions must be inherently flexible to enable schools to deliver the interactive teaching and learning experience students expect, no matter what lies ahead. For the education sector to maximise the long-term cost savings associated with moving to the cloud, schools also need to be better informed and assured of the benefits. Using cloud services alongside existing ICT solutions and services and migrating at their own pace, helps schools to instil confidence and as a result, we anticipate a much greater uptake of hosted services in 2011.


SecEd


• Chris Wiseman is sales director for education at Northgate Managed Services.


Further information


The following research papers give an introduction to the benefits of the cloud. • Remotely Hosted Services and Cloud Computing Dave Cliff, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Bristol for Becta in June 2010: www.cs.bris.ac.uk/home/dc/cliff_becta_clouds.pdf


SecEd • September 22 2011


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