Do any of your schools outsource their websites?

[scgf]

We are looking into the feasibility of getting a third-party company to create and maintain our website. We are a high school of around 800 pupils aged 10-14.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations of companies to approach?

 

Many thanks.

[SteveB_NI]

This irritates me... the one thing I want to do in my job here in school but am not allowed to, and you want to outsource....

 

sorry couldn't resist!

[srochford]

I can recommend Brightcode

[Edu-IT]

A school near me got somebody to design their website for them but they update it themselves using a content management system. The advantage of this is that the code is nice, it looks professional and it's easy for the school to update/add content themselves without messing up the design.

[plexer]

We used the edugeek joomla template but found a local web designer who was familiar with joomla to do the initial site and content.

 

Ben

[rush_tech]

You could use the Edugeek joomla package.

[Edu-IT]

We used the edugeek joomla template but found a local web designer who was familiar with joomla to do the initial site and content.

 

Ben

The college that I am studying at has turned to using Joomla for their new website and it looks great! By using an open source content management system the costs to setup a website are greatly reduced because their is no need to develop a system from scratch.

[laserblazer]

We have a Teacher's son doing a new design for us that we will then manage. It's a win/win because he's good at it and it will give him some extra cash whilst at Uni. and will look good on his CV.

[RabbieBurns]

my school blew the whole annual advertising budget on our new website (£15k!!)

[Edu-IT]

my school blew the whole annual advertising budget on our new website (£15k!!)

Is it any better than what somebody could have done with Joomla?

[FN-GM]

15K?? blo**y hell

[RabbieBurns]

Is it any better than what somebody could have done with Joomla?

 

absolutely not! In fact its pretty crap and it doesnt work very well at the moment. Cowboys that did it too.

[SeanVin]

This irritates me... the one thing I want to do in my job here in school but am not allowed to, and you want to outsource....

 

sorry couldn't resist!

 

We out-sourced our web site because we simply did not have the time or expertise to do it ourselves, the hardest part was choosing the supplier. After that it went very smoothly, we gave them some ideas, they came up with a design, we asked them to tweak it and they built the site. The process took about two weeks. It took us another 2 weeks to upload the content. It is a CMS which our [non-techie] Copy and Design Manager keeps up to date. We also pay for hosting so I don’t have to worry about DMZs, reverse proxies, back-ups or redundancy. If we have a problem or want to tweak the design, up until now it has been sorted within an hour. You can see the result at Northgate High School, and I can whole heartedly recommend INCO (INCO Software Solutions)

[SeanVin]

my school blew the whole annual advertising budget on our new website (£15k!!)

 

Ouch! Ours cost £5000 which we got from the Head Teachers fund, as he thought (quite rightly) the previous site was old fashioned and was not a true reflection of the school.

 

Is it any better than what somebody could have done with Joomla?

 

Ours is certainly better than we could have done with Joomla. (See post above for link)

Edited May 19, 2008 by SeanVin
Added quote and response

[katem]

This irritates me... the one thing I want to do in my job here in school but am not allowed to, and you want to outsource....

 

sorry couldn't resist!

 

Me too! I set up an old server with the fab Edugeek Joomla package on, did a lovely header with the school logo, and they decided to outsource it to a person who will set up a web site for something daft like £100 and 'maintenance' at £15 a term. But, they are all template based sites that look like a child has designed them in Publisher.

 

It hasn't even been set up either yet and they decided to outsource this over 3 months ago. I could have had it up & running with all the info on by now, in a week! (It's what I do part time in the afternoons!)

 

Oh well, their loss

 

PS, sorry to hijack thread, needed a rant too :-)

Edited May 19, 2008 by katem

[contink]

One of my schools went with a firm that quoted one thing, built a site and then it sat there with no content updates despite a contract to do so... When the domain name ran out they didn't renew until the head, prompted by me requested a transfer. They ignored the transfer request, renewed and sent a bill for another years hosting (stupid money!).

 

Since then the site has died the company has pretty much died too and so it goes... I'd definitely recommend looking at the Joomla option but make sure you do some training on how to create the articles and potentially do as Plexer did and get someone else in to get all the initial graft sorted.

[Friez]

We were outsourced to a company with regard to our website despite having extensive in-house expertise to do exactly the same at much less expense. Yes, we do outsource but no, we don't agree with the decision.

[Sirbendy]

We don't...I don't see the point. Doing the jobs page takes a few minutes, updating can be done on the WYSIWYG site editor. Admittedly, we don't use any packages or whatever...it's a basic SHTML setup. Quick, simple, to the point.

 

It'll eventually be joined up to the VLE, but for now it's more than enough..I'm just looking at image galleries and bolting a webcam feed for the new site into it.

Edited May 19, 2008 by Sirbendy

[mark80]

We've just created a new site, only to find our hoster (DigitalBrain) can only support HTML.

 

I shouldnt laugh but :D, where is that hosted? 1984?

[Andie]

Our school, and a lot of local secondary and primary schools, have gone with a company called e4education. They design and build, and then train you to add content. We outsourced because of lack of time and expertise mainly. I won't say that it has the quickest or most foolproof method of updating, but the site does look good and the company provide email/phone support which usually sorts out any problems or rethinks with design quickly. We can pay using e-learning credits at the moment (until they disappear). Sorry, can't give you the annual cost. Their website, with examples of their work, is here

[Sirbendy]

I shouldnt laugh but :D, where is that hosted? 1984?

 

Good god, is DigitalBrain not dead yet?

[Ben_Stanton]

We pay some company x amount (reasonable) for the hosting and they also provide the front end. It's asp so database driven, it's actually our Receptionist that updates it on an almost daily basis. Easy to use, anybody could do it.

[Sirbendy]

Ahh..Prestel and acoustic couplers...those were the days..

[dave.81]

Ours is outsourced to a local company, did set us back a fair bit in the first place but the response has been brilliant and we have managed to get pupils join just from viewing it (independant school).

 

We do all the content updates in house, although the women in charge always ends up messing it up so have to fix it every few months.

[Edu-IT]

We out-sourced our web site because we simply did not have the time or expertise to do it ourselves, the hardest part was choosing the supplier. After that it went very smoothly, we gave them some ideas, they came up with a design, we asked them to tweak it and they built the site. The process took about two weeks. It took us another 2 weeks to upload the content. It is a CMS which our [non-techie] Copy and Design Manager keeps up to date. We also pay for hosting so I don’t have to worry about DMZs, reverse proxies, back-ups or redundancy. If we have a problem or want to tweak the design, up until now it has been sorted within an hour. You can see the result at Northgate High School, and I can whole heartedly recommend INCO (INCO Software Solutions)

That's a pretty nice site.