MANAGING ICT


Making the most of school IT systems


Are you


considering how your ICT systems are


performing and where they can be adapted or improved? Paul Mew offers his advice


E


ducation ICT managers are always considering how well their school’s systems are working and looking at how they can be adapted and improved to ensure they continue to be a key component of the education process. While every school or college is


different, there are key factors that every ICT manager should consider to help ensure the staff and pupils are getting the full benefit of the IT investment. For me, some key considerations are as follows.


Upgrades? Check if upgrades are required and plan for when they


are. While hardware usually has a useful life of several years, software can need upgrading more often and it is especially important to make sure the platform the schools network of machines runs on is suitable for the demands of the school. The majority schools are still running Windows


XP and Office 2003/2007, so tackling the upgrade to Windows 7, or perhaps Windows 8 and Office 2010, in a cost-effective way will be critical to IT budgets over the next 12 to 24 months. If upgrading the entire IT infrastructure is beyond


budgetary constraints it may be worth considering a staggered approach to this. Naturally the details of what is upgraded will very


much depend on budgets and the individual priorities of the school. In some schools this is still very much a hands-on, manual process, so selecting the most appropriate way of automating deployment can be a very helpful, practical consideration.


Security


Make sure communication lines between the school, staff, pupils and parents work effectively and are secure. ICT is all about communication, and yet it is


relatively simple for lines of communication to become ineffective. In my experience, most schools are looking at


some form of parent/student portal, some using their existing school management system, some using their virtual learning environment and some using Microsoft SharePoint to share information. In all of these cases security is absolutely critical as


obviously the data is sensitive, and even the perception of poor security can be damaging to a school’s image.


Also, providing secure remote access to internal systems can make a significant difference to the cost and complexity of a project, so must be considered from the start.


In-house or managed


Decide if in-house, managed services or a mixture of both are better for your school. The manner in which school ICT services should be provided is hotly debated, but like many other questions the answer can vary heavily depending on the type of education establishment and its circumstances. As with all organisations, schools have the challenge of limited IT budgets and ICT departments are under pressure both from workload and the rapid development of technology. Managed solutions are an attractive option to


reduce management and support overhead, but a school needs an eye on long-term costs, flexibility, control and security. An alternative option is to keep systems under


the direct control of the ICT team, but work with a partner to provide additional experienced technical or physical resources as and when required. This plugs the skills and manpower gaps, but keeps running costs down, and allows the ICT team to retain ownership of critical systems.


Plan for the worst…


As the old adage goes, you need to plan for the worst and hope for the best. This applies to IT as much as anywhere else. However, it is surprising how often this apparently obvious essential is either missing or neglected within the education sector. Having a solid, well-thought-out and realistic continuity plan should be an essential part of any school’s ICT function. I have worked with a number of schools to help them create continuity plans in much the same way that any other business would. The perception is usually that curriculum IT is important to the function of the school, however when you actually look more closely at what would cause the most problems a disruption to the administration, and in particular the finance systems of the school, is (in many cases) clearly the most critical. Teachers and lecturers can usually fallback to more traditional teaching in the event of a major IT failure; however there can be serious implications disruption


for to the


significant finance


function of a school. For many educational


establishments


the priority will need to be in remotely backing up data and allowing the relevant staff to have access to this in the event of a major IT outage.


The cloud Schools


should consider


migrating to the cloud – if appropriate. There is a lot of


IT industry excitement around the idea of the cloud which delivers IT services via the internet on a pay- per-use basis, with all of the servers


and infrastructure


being stored and managed by the service provider via the internet.


A product of vastly improved internet connection


speeds, this idea certainly is not a fad, but schools need to carefully weigh up the pros and cons of migrating, or partially migrating, services to this model. While the idea of not having to host your own


servers is an attractive one (from a procurement, running costs and facilities point of view), to fully reap the benefits of cloud computing requires investing in a highly stable and high speed internet connection. It is vitally important to do careful, accurate, long-


term cost calculations to find the best savings, as you may find that for some elements of your IT it is actually more cost-efficient to keep it in-house and hosted on local servers. Generally most adopters are introducing cloud


services tactically with specific services, such as their email or intranet, rather than migrating all their critical services to it.


Printing


You should also look at your printing facilities and costs. Twenty years ago, when ICT was becoming a more common sight in schools, there were predictions that eventually we would see “the paperless office”. Clearly that is still not the case and in fact, ironically, the usage of paper has probably increased in that period. But the proliferation of different IT devices (includ-


ing SmartPhones and tablets) has made the need to print a multitude of documents less vital so it is worth schools looking at the number and types of printer in use, as well as the amount of printing that is required. Paper and especially ink costs can be big burdens


on the IT budget. It is worth considering a print management system that flags up excessive printing or assigns print quotas and limits (such as restrictions on the number of pages). Better still, encourage staff and pupils to limit printing when possible and only when there is no alternative.


Conclusion


A school’s ICT systems are arguably some of the most important assets it has. With the amount of school budget invested in it and the current constraints on spending, there is every reason to make the IT systems work harder and smarter to give pupils and staff the full benefits it can offer.


SecEd


• Paul Mew is technical director at consultancy ramsac.


IT solutions


10


SecEd • March 15 2012


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