ICT Reliability / Prevalence of problems

[crc-ict]

First of all, may I apologise if this is the wrong area of the forum to post this on. I didn't think it really fitted in anywhere else.

I am currently in the final year of my Education and ICT degree with the intention of working as an educational ICT tech when I finish, and am starting to work on my dissertation, which is looking at technical support requirements in primary schools.

I was hoping that some of you good people here might be able to help me out with some statistics. What I'm looking for is some indication of the number of computer problems experienced, and time spent resolving them, in a typical week/month/term (whatever is easiest for you guys to estimate).

If you could give me some estimates of this, together with the approximate number of computers in your school and whether it is a primary or secondary, I would be very, very grateful. I would have used a poll, but I need to know the size and type of school too.

If you would rather not post replies on the forum, please feel free to PM me.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Chris.

[alan-d]

Sorry I can't really help as I'm in a Secondary School.

What you are asking though is simple enough, but you will come across a lot of variables such as the age of equipment being used and the IT skills of the user.

Each would have an impact on the numbers you are asking for.

I'm not trying to put you off - just thought you may want to consider this when compiling your results.

Good Luck

[crc-ict]

@alan-d: Thanks for the advice.

Just to clarify, this is not my primary research (this comes later!) I am just looking for some numbers which can then be combined and fiddled with to get a very rough average of problems in schools to use in my introductory comments.

Any data that anyone is willing to provide will be of use - whether from primary or secondary - as I'm just trying to get a feel for the frequency of problems within an educational environment.

Thanks,

Chris.

[RobC]

If you're feeling brave, you could always ask this question on the uk.education.schools-it newsgroup, although don't be too surprised if it turns into a bit of a flame war. (Not that all threads there do, but some do in spectacular fashion!)

[SimpleSi]

I work in 9 primary schools fomr small (2 years per class) to large (2 classes per year) and I would say the average number of problems dealt with on each visit (1 visit/school/week) would be 4 or 5.

However , the problems range from no interactive whiteboard working (lead dropped out of computer) or no display on laptop when connected to projector to install PAT (Pupil Assesment Tracker) software on all teachers laptops (which can take several visits to complete).

Also, there is regular work like changing print catridges and cleaning projector filters)

On average, in my schools, a "standard" primary (1 class/year) would have a suite of 16 computers, 2 computers per class( 14 in total) and 2 others (Staff room and library system) - so say about 32 plus teacher laptops - another 7 or 8 plus 3 admin computers.

Hope this helps

regards
Simon