VLE and dodgy dealings

[edie209]

I would like to ask a few opinions please.

My school decided to buy a VLE from a local company because one of the Senior Managers had been impressed with it. I went along to see it and thought that it was ok but not outstanding and gave the Head my thoughts on it. As the price was 20K and it wasn't a finished produted I recommended we take a look at moodle and see how the school got on with that for starters, as we all know moodle is free and a server will cost what about 1K. But no the Head goes ahead and buys this VLE anyway. It doesn't interface with Sims so the guy who wrote it asks me for a copy of the sims database for the school so that he can interigate sims. I was uneasy with this so I contacted scomis (local sims support) who agreed with me and told me that he would need written agreement from Capita. Well it looks like he is still going to try and get the school to give him the database without permission from Capita.

What would you do?

[alan-d]

Point out the Data Protection Act for one thing.

[bishopsgarthstockton]

Who/what is Capata?

[mortstar]

Who/what is Capata?

Capita are the makers of Sims - most likely a typo.

[edie209]

sorry tring to eat dinner answer the phone and write this I will edit

[bossman]

We were informed by our LEA when i asked if i could have the password for the Sims database so we could interrogate it that they are not at liberty to allow us or anyone else to interface with our database without theirs or Capita's explicit permission. I took this to be a definite NO from them.

[simongrahamuk]

We were informed by our LEA when i asked if i could have the password for the Sims database so we could interrogate it that they are not at liberty to allow us or anyone else to interface with our database without theirs or Capita's explicit permission. I took this to be a definite NO from them.

Was that the SA password?

[Geoff]

We've discussed this before.

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...&p=74305#74305
http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...&p=51029#51029
http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...wtopic&p=28038
http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...&p=35090#35090
http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...&p=45961#45961

Accessing the SIMS database directly is a breach of the EULA. You must use the APIs provided by Capita. Additionally any commercial company doing integration with SIMS should buy a SIMS license from Captia.

[NewOrder]

What was the vle so we can steer clear ?

[enjay]

If they speak to Capita, they might be able to get (at a price) a dummy database so they can at least see what it looks like, but there is no way on earth I would give them our live SIMS database - pupils' names, photos, addresses, dates of birth and so on are not things which we should go around giving out to other people, and that's before you consider the academic and/or financial information which some of us have in SIMS too.

[zag]

20k for a vle! LOL