[sims] SIMS Learning Gateway - Hosted Version.

[william_tropico]

Hello,

 

Our Principal is looking at getting SLG for our school to cut back on printing reports and issuing students with planners timetables etc. We have had this in the past on site (although this was before I started) but moved away from it to other VLE packages. Flash forward a few years and now looking at re activating it but have Capita host it rather than a sever on-site. I don't know much about it apart from the generic documentation they send. I am hoping that someone can provide me with their experience on using SLG and if the hosted solution is better than having it on site?

 

Here are a few thoughts currently going through my head.

• Hosted vs on-site?
  
• Worth getting profiles? (what do they do?)
  
• Network stores, can students/staff access network drives (will this work with hosted option)
  
• Administration (easy to use, configure)
  
• 
  

 

If we do get it I want it to work and not become another clunky file store that about 5% people use. Also if anyone can provide their roll-out of it?

 

Any info will be great.

 

Thank you,

William

[gpjt]

AS you probably know its all based around Sharepoint 2013.

 

We found it to be slow and not very user friendly.

[william_tropico]

We found it to be slow and not very user friendly.

 

Was this the hosted version or on-site?

 

We use offce365 so I am quite confident with sharepoint but if it is slow/clunky that will be a major problem as that's the reason past VLEs have failed

Edited May 22, 2015 by william_tropico
spelling

[kevin_lane]

At current we use sharepoint 2010 for our VLE, and we also use SLG, which is the bit you are referring to, not sure how Capita give you the setup but, basically it depends on cost and if you have the infrastructure to support it, and not only that you are going to need some to drive it as well as this will be big change for the school you must get the staff at the back of you. which can be easily said than done, profile is part of the SLG and SIMS it allows your staff to work on their reports when they are at home you can also import your own templates aswell for this, you can get Network access however not easily and you need to install web parts but I know people on here use homeaccess+ ?? not sure if that's the correct name but I believe this can give you the access to resources on the network from home, our SharePoint DB is around 600GB so can be very large.....I think VLEs are ok but I just think they are too much of a faff, however we have to be seen to be providing the means for people to work and learn from home. and also depending on how much time you want to spend on the installation as administration can be some what of a headache.

 

also you need sims if you don't have sims then not sure what other products you would use.

[william_tropico]

you are going to need some to drive it

Was this a member of the IT team or SLT?

 

I don't want to rush into this as I really cant be dealing with an expensive system that is not engaged by staff/students/parents. Guess I need to find out exactly what the higher ups want it to do.

[RLR]

We recently moved away from the SLG because it was a specific skillset and we found 90% of parents only ever logged onto it to download reports. They didn't use any of the other features which come with it. This meant every time a report was published we would get large volumes of calls and emails from parents asking what their login information is again. This can obviously be sorted out by implementing a retrieve account information on sharepoint. We had other issues with it being not very user friendly. Instead we use InTouch to email out reports to parents. Works very well.

[kevin_lane]

Myself and SLT, plus on a development level in regards to making custom web parts which you can do and I know some schools have done but I don't have the skill set and I don't really want to but if you do go down this road then good luck but like I said to use SLG you need sims as that's how it pulls the information into SLG

[matt40k]

I wouldn't recommend SLG, sounds like you'd be better off with:

 

HomeAccess+ - Home Access Plus+ - this would allow students\staff access to there work, failing that, look at Office 365\Google Apps, then use the OneDrive\GoogleDrive for file storage.

@Schoolcomms can send out reports - ONLINE REPORTING - Schoolcomms - which works very well.

 

I'd also have a look at SalamanderSoft, I know they can sync SIMS (or other MIS) with Moodle\SharePoint and Outlook\Email so you'd have the timetables where you need them. Its also very get them to set it up and forget.

[vikpaw]

Another +1 for Salamander.

I wonder if Salamander can do their own version of SLG, and just push your reports to Office 365 Sharepoint for you. They have or at least had a Salamander Learning Gateway, so I don't see why not, and you won't be limited to what SLG does. I only mention this as you're au fait with Sharepoint.

For ease of use, particularly for the end user, i'd look at an off the shelf solution like Insight from TASC software coupled with one of their other tools.

[robjduk]

I would urge you to reconsider SLG. Its slow and hard to manage when compared to the many other systems out there and as mentioned above, parents use hardly any of it.

 

As for your question, I looked into hosted SLG a few years back and it seemed a hell of a lot of money while they still insist you mange it with updates. Things could have changed but I would throw all the money in the world at it to remove the need to touch SLG again.

[jumpinjamez]

We dropped SLG for Tasc Insight.

 

Its cheaper and so much better.

 

I shudder when i think how much was spent on SLG for 3 year +s and hardly anyone used it all. It was slow and clunky.

[vikpaw]

The Salamander Gateway was cheaper last time i looked, plus you can just take certain components, and they can work with other MISes and also with other Learning Systems. I recently found out, they work with LP+. I also found out PupilAsset is an MIS, not just an analysis tool! Who knew?

 

For an off-the-shelf product that avoids Sharepoint you can't really do much better than TASC.

[mthomas08]

Hello,

 

Our Principal is looking at getting SLG for our school to cut back on printing reports and issuing students with planners timetables etc. We have had this in the past on site (although this was before I started) but moved away from it to other VLE packages. Flash forward a few years and now looking at re activating it but have Capita host it rather than a sever on-site. I don't know much about it apart from the generic documentation they send. I am hoping that someone can provide me with their experience on using SLG and if the hosted solution is better than having it on site?

 

Here are a few thoughts currently going through my head.

• Hosted vs on-site?
  
• Worth getting profiles? (what do they do?)
  
• Network stores, can students/staff access network drives (will this work with hosted option)
  
• Administration (easy to use, configure)
  
• 
  

 

If we do get it I want it to work and not become another clunky file store that about 5% people use. Also if anyone can provide their roll-out of it?

 

Any info will be great.

 

Thank you,

William

 

We have it hosted, only problems is if you lose the internet or their system has problems.

 

We've had our fair share of issues on their hosted site, we are relying on the link between their system and our SIMs. I have to say however I prefer them to host it.

 

You gain free the Teacher App (at least we do) which is certainly worth having if it works...

 

ADMIN - Password reseting is a pain, I absolutely hate the expired accounts for inactivity or password age... these are Students and Parents who may/may not ever use IT and we find our selves reseting a lot. We even have a generic email template that we use....

 

Network Stores - nope we don't use this and didn't know anything about it?????

[pete]

We had hosted SLG and dropped it for various reasons, but the main one was (despite badgering them for 4 years) there are no metrics/logs available to check how many parents are actually using the thing, so demonstrating ROI wasn't possible.

 

We also had feedback from end-users that it was slow when attempting to write reports.

 

We switched to InTouch instead because then we're actively pushing stuff to parents (and seeing them respond) rather than putting stuff up on a website but having no idea if they're looking at it.