Sharepoint as a school website

[hellybobs]

Hello

 

Does anyone use sharepoint as there school website?

 

We are wanting to see what it can look like etc.

 

Helen

[shadowx]

Dear god no...

 

Why are you considering Sharepoint out of interest?

 

Do you use it already inside the school or are you thinking of getting an install just for a public site?

[hellybobs]

I work at an LA level and we use it for our Intranet and are looking at the possibility of website creation for schools. Just looking for more of an insight.

[john]

*please don't post multiple copies of the same topic in different forums - Threads merged and tidied*

[shadowx]

I work at an LA level and we use it for our Intranet and are looking at the possibility of website creation for schools. Just looking for more of an insight.

 

*headdesk*

 

Speaking as an ex web developer and school technician who has had the misfortune of setting up Sharepoint I implore you to drop all notion of sharepoint...

 

*Web-Dev head on*

Sharepoint is ugly, it forces users through convoluted menus, unusual structures and absolutely terrible permissions systems. It adds complication for no apparent reason. It looks (and is) unprofessional, laughable even. I would NEVER trust an institute that uses sharepoint as a public facing website. It smacks of laziness, ineptness and a general feel of "What the hell were you thinking?"

 

*tech head on*

Sharepoint is a useless blob of software that is bloated beyond all means. Using apache + nix I can host even a complex site using the bare minimum of hardware (and for free might I add). Using Sharepoint to host a comparable site would require quad or even more core servers with 8+gb of RAM, SQL installations, Windows Server installations, an AD to run authentication, it's own IIS installation and most likely you'd be encouraging the use of Microsoft TMG (with it's own pain in the backside config and stupid stupid interface) you are also hopelessly insecure... There's a reason the majority of the web runs on Linux, because it's SECURE, FAST and it WORKS. Microsoft is used for the bare minimum of web servers because it's UNSAFE, UNSTABLE, SLOW, EXPENSIVE and BULKY.

 

I just can't fathom why you would suggest that your schools use Sharepoint? It's so... wrong. It's like suggesting that schools replace their transport vans/busses with motorized wheelchairs, one per student. I just can't grasp the concept!

 

Have you looked at providing alternatives? Even if it comes back to using windows and IIS (even though that's a silly idea). IMHO your best bet is to look at setting up a mini hosting sub-business within the LA, base it off of Wordpress (a completely, entirely free web software platform AKA CMS) and apache (Again, ENTIRELY free, stupidly secure and lightweight used by 90+% of the web) and then your techs can simply spawn off a new user with it's own webroot and MYSQL database for each school that wants a site, some simple customization either in-house of paid for can give a huge range of templates for the school to choose from and you're sorted. Probably cost you a tenner for an old server and it's done! (Ok, maybe a bit more but it'd be 25% of the cost of using Sharepoint and it'd look more professional, be safer, more stable and simpler.)

[hellybobs]

I have just been asked to look into as we use it as the LA's fileshare and intranet. Schools may soon be using it as there fileshare so the less programs we use the better i.e. if sharepoint ticks all boxes we would then be able to use it for both file shares and websites.

[MikeGilbert]

One of our suppliers uses Sharepoint for their Partner Intranet. It's fine under IE, but not under Chrome - pages don't scroll, basically...

[Simcfc73]

I have setup the school with office365 with the free sharepoint sites. The online sharepoint looks alot slicker than the old version but I really cant see the point of it for schools. I quite like the skydrive feature but it links in with sites so I am not sure we will use this either. Sorry but Google has won this fight.

[ozydave]

Agree sharepiont is a beast and out if the box on pretty, but disagree it can be very useable as a website.

It can be styled to look like any other website. Some examples http://www.topsharepoint.com/nptlg

 

Coupled with inbuilt link to active directory it just makes it so usable. Hands up all those that have copies of policies on websites and stored internally in shared areas not knowing which is the latest version

 

I am working towards doing just this. Our web manager has styled our sharepiont intranet to look like the website

Just my 2 pence worth

[unixman_again]

We use SP for our intranet and it works well. Actually we've made it pretty well idiot proof in that the four or five people who update it, use M$ Word and save the documents as html and doc. The html pages are displayed in SP using CEWP. Sadly, it's not completely idiot proof. One person saves the doc to her PC and the html to the server and then complains when somebody else updates the section and her changes get lost. I hope that eventually she'll wake up and read the instructions about how to save doc & html both to the server.

 

We chose SP as there are some plugins available for the Unity MIS system and eventually we're going to incorporate these.

 

The public facing website runs on a CMS and we won't be moving to SP for that.

 

My last school used Learning Possibilities and their CMS is SP based. It worked fine, but it was a bit of a beast and there were constant problems with check in/check out; people forgetting to check in the bits they had changed and wondering why the changes didn't appear. There were also several cases whereby the entire website would be deleted by a careless user. It is very easy to delete your entire site in SP, so if you are going to use it either make sure you have very capable users or do what I did and have the users update the site using something that they are familiar with (see my first paragraph).

[TheScarfedOne]

*headdesk*

 

Speaking as an ex web developer and school technician who has had the misfortune of setting up Sharepoint I implore you to drop all notion of sharepoint...

 

*Web-Dev head on*

Sharepoint is ugly, it forces users through convoluted menus, unusual structures and absolutely terrible permissions systems. It adds complication for no apparent reason. It looks (and is) unprofessional, laughable even. I would NEVER trust an institute that uses sharepoint as a public facing website. It smacks of laziness, ineptness and a general feel of "What the hell were you thinking?"

 

*tech head on*

Sharepoint is a useless blob of software that is bloated beyond all means. Using apache + nix I can host even a complex site using the bare minimum of hardware (and for free might I add). Using Sharepoint to host a comparable site would require quad or even more core servers with 8+gb of RAM, SQL installations, Windows Server installations, an AD to run authentication, it's own IIS installation and most likely you'd be encouraging the use of Microsoft TMG (with it's own pain in the backside config and stupid stupid interface) you are also hopelessly insecure... There's a reason the majority of the web runs on Linux, because it's SECURE, FAST and it WORKS. Microsoft is used for the bare minimum of web servers because it's UNSAFE, UNSTABLE, SLOW, EXPENSIVE and BULKY.

 

I just can't fathom why you would suggest that your schools use Sharepoint? It's so... wrong. It's like suggesting that schools replace their transport vans/busses with motorized wheelchairs, one per student. I just can't grasp the concept!

 

Have you looked at providing alternatives? Even if it comes back to using windows and IIS (even though that's a silly idea). IMHO your best bet is to look at setting up a mini hosting sub-business within the LA, base it off of Wordpress (a completely, entirely free web software platform AKA CMS) and apache (Again, ENTIRELY free, stupidly secure and lightweight used by 90+% of the web) and then your techs can simply spawn off a new user with it's own webroot and MYSQL database for each school that wants a site, some simple customization either in-house of paid for can give a huge range of templates for the school to choose from and you're sorted. Probably cost you a tenner for an old server and it's done! (Ok, maybe a bit more but it'd be 25% of the cost of using Sharepoint and it'd look more professional, be safer, more stable and simpler.)

 

I'd urge you to do some more research one this, and then you will be surprised by the number of highly functional, visually pleasing and dynamic corporate websites out there - based on Sharepoint.

[nev104]

At the school I work at we use sharepoint for out intranet/vle. It works well with easy to use for staff and students. We also use talmos from core education to get student data from cmis so there timetables and homework are all on the same page. All works very well together. Wouod be happy to provide a screenshot if you like

[p858snake]

My local primary school does: https://samfordss.eq.edu.au/Pages/default.aspx

[hellybobs]

A screen shot would be great please, my email is [email protected]

[hellybobs]

Thank you all for the responces, they are grealty appreciated and very helpful!!

 

Thanks guys

[Sylv3r]

One of our suppliers uses Sharepoint for their Partner Intranet. It's fine under IE, but not under Chrome - pages don't scroll, basically...

 

Theres a fix for the Chrome / Sharepoint scrolling issue. But I can't seem to find the link I found the details on and I can't remember what I did.

[funkyfin2000]

Hi Helen,

 

I work for a large new company in the UK who were once an LA! We developed over 60 school websites in SharePoint 2007 very cheaply (for schools) and had really good results. One day set up and the school managed it afterwards, as they had the skills in house as they were using a SharePoint based Learning Platform. In reality, they have just used my service for support when they needed changes as SP2007 was a tad unwieldly to use in the real world.

 

Moving forward we will be moving those 60 schools websites to Office365 Public Sites which will give much better looking websites and also much more intuitive to update.

 

If you would like any further information, or example 2007 sites we have live at the moment, drop me a PM!

 

Rich

[Singist]

We've designed and created 20/30 external websites Using SharePoint 2007/10 for primary schools. Here's a few http://www.st-barts.bolton.sch.uk Lever Edge Primary Academy Home Our Lady of Lourdes Home http://www.st-brendan.bolton.sch.uk The only issue I have is with templates. There aren't any decent free ones that Microsoft provide which is a scandal with the licensing you pay. Topsharepoint came through with a couple of free ones. Thankfully, 2013 are offering far more friendly and aesthetically pleasing template designs. Can't wait to play once we move schools to Office 365.