Moving to cloud MIS

[tlockwood99]

Having worked as a teacher and in EdTech, I now work part-time as an EdTech Consultant and offer free, impartial advice to schools looking to change MIS. I'm advising a Secondary School at the moment, who want a cloud MIS system and wondering why Secondary Schools are slow to move to cloud systems v Primaries. Any thoughts from the EduGeek expertise and experience would be most welcome.

[paulkerton]

The three big ones are:

Arbor

Bromcom

RM Integris

 

We are using Bromcom, and are really happy with them to be honest. All of them have their benefits over each other. It might be worth speaking to each, explaining what you do and seeing if they can give you demonstrations of their tools.

[TechMonkey]

In a simplistic sentence, inertia, fear of change and unwillingness to change ways of working.

 

But it is a big change, and is one of the few things that affects nearly every aspect of the school. It is also only very recently that there has been much choice in the MIS market that offered much difference. So it was often better the devil you know.

[dcwhitworth]

I guess one simple answer is probably SIMS. Their failure to produce a successful cloud based product (or indeed a 21st century product) leaves schools with little option but to change their MIS which is decidedly non-trivial. Plus concerns about cloud security and reliability, and an unwillingness to move off the 'biggest' product, both of which might have had some validity a decade ago but are increasingly irrelevant now.

[djm968]

I have found that a lot of Schools have been the victims of inadequate project management on previous large scale IT projects and this can cause reluctance to change. The other side of that coin is that most Schools are unwilling to pay for decent project management which is imperative for a project of this scale for something as critical as a MIS cloud migration.

[Ditto]

I think the interesting point you raise is your comment about primary versus secondary in terms of willingness to change. For all schools, the points raised above I think are equally valid, the big ones bearing fear and/or reluctance to change, but I'd also add a lack of ability to look at long term total costs and benefits.

 

I've seen reluctance to consider a shift in both primary and secondary schools, but the sample is small. A complete lack of time from SLT is also an issue, as they can be flat out maintaining the status-quo just focussing on day to day running he school, so just don't look elsewhere. Perhaps the bigger MATs have people who have the time to look at shifting. Some of the biggest MATs have moved, which is interesting when compared to standalone secondary academies.

 

A fantastic data source for reviewing the 'switchers' profile is the blog from @bringmoredata - here is the latest commentary https://bringmoredata.blogspot.com/2020/12/mis-market-moves-2020-covid-didnt-stop.html

[paulkerton]

Further to this there are a few issues that I suspect/have seen:

• Fear of change, from SLT to the office staff that use it a lot
  
• Comfortable with the familiar (even though SIMS 8 will be a huge change)
  
• Feeling that SIMS has been around for nearly 4 decades now, so it's best to stick with it due to longevity
  
• LA / Ex-LA support units who still support SIMS sowing fear and doubt about changing. Seen this one a lot.
  
• Fear of training requirements. Even though this will happen with SIMS 8 anyway, some people will prefer kicking it into the long grass
  
• Business managers clinging onto FMS, and the fact it links with SIMS .net is a big thing for them, so don't want to move the MIS.
  

 

I think a lot of people think SIMS 8 (whenever it arrives) will be SIMS .net without any further requirements to train staff.

A lot of schools are going to be taken by surprise when they see the replacements for .net and FMS I think.

[Ditto]

The three big ones are:

Arbor

Bromcom

RM Integris

 

We are using Bromcom, and are really happy with them to be honest. All of them have their benefits over each other. It might be worth speaking to each, explaining what you do and seeing if they can give you demonstrations of their tools.

I'd agree that as a top trio. To get a little more breadth, I'd suggest Advanced Learning's Progresso (or OneAdvanced's Cloud School) and SchoolPod. If primary only, also look at ScholarPack. Although currently mostly for independent schools, iSAMS is a mature product. Following their recent sale, it wouldn't surprise me to see focus on state sector going forwards.

[kennysarmy]

I have found that a lot of Schools have been the victims of inadequate project management on previous large scale IT projects and this can cause reluctance to change. The other side of that coin is that most Schools are unwilling to pay for decent project management which is imperative for a project of this scale for something as critical as a MIS cloud migration.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but you're saying the staff of a typical secondary school are unable to manage a project of this type?

[JTP]

To add to this, I would say that when I worked in a secondary, which is a good decade a go, unless someone in senior management was driving a project & making sure that people who were not buying in to change were chased up & pushed, there would always be some level of failure.

[djm968]

Correct me if I'm wrong but you're saying the staff of a typical secondary school are unable to manage a project of this type?

No what I am saying is that the management and delivery of some projects by third parties to Schools, sometimes falls short of what School staff expected and "they get away with it" because you are a School and you are not paying a 5 figure sum for project management.

[nicholab]

It also a good question why does the IT team not able to crack the whip and get people doing what there told?

[ozydave]

For us the main show stopped is our broadband.

Our school was built in 2013 and the only way we could and still can get our broadband was through our local authority.

We cannot get broadband from any other supplier.

The broadband from the LA has never been the best. Drop out are prob once every two months. Recently the county main switch died and we were out for 3days. our sip phones also go through the switch. We had our internal network obviously so was able to carry on teaching and use SIMS.

 

I keep the fire burning for going to a cloud SIMS

[nicholab]

There must be an ISP that will work for you I once had 5 telegraph poles installed to get fibre installed. The install cost was £10k have you looked at the https://www.ukwispa.org website and see if there is anyone in your local area? You could go for Lea and some kind of fail over just for MIS/e-mail.

[mrhall]

Cost is our biggest concern.

 

The SIMS contract renews in March - and is over £10K

 

We struggle to think of a good time of year to switch without paying twice.

 

SIMS is far from great - but it is the devil we know...

[ozydave]

There must be an ISP that will work for you I once had 5 telegraph poles installed to get fibre installed. The install cost was £10k have you looked at the https://www.ukwispa.org website and see if there is anyone in your local area? You could go for Lea and some kind of fail over just for MIS/e-mail.

Cheers,

I have been trying since 2013 to get another supplier. Current fiber comes down the local highways department ducting.

We are on a housing estate where a company owned the rights to the ducting and will not let anyone else put fiber down the pipe. All of the houses around here have to get their broadband from the same company and Sky I believe.

But that still don't help getting the cable to our building. We have had BT open reach out a couple of time to survey. There is a BT green box on the main road but we would have to pay for all the civil works to dig the road up and lay ducting across our fields

[nicholab]

Cheers,

I have been trying since 2013 to get another supplier. Current fiber comes down the local highways department ducting.

We are on a housing estate where a company owned the rights to the ducting and will not let anyone else put fiber down the pipe. All of the houses around here have to get their broadband from the same company and Sky I believe.

But that still don't help getting the cable to our building. We have had BT open reach out a couple of time to survey. There is a BT green box on the main road but we would have to pay for all the civil works to dig the road up and lay ducting across our fields

 

Does this ISP not have a business package you could use? Also will Openreach not do the install with fibre on poles? Can’t believe the management have not pushed for this upgrade. How was the school original connected to the phone network and how can’t there be a requirement that schools have to get a proper connection.

[nicholab]

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/219551-bromcom-vs-sims-costs.html

[kennysarmy]

Cost is our biggest concern.

 

The SIMS contract renews in March - and is over £10K

 

We struggle to think of a good time of year to switch without paying twice.

 

SIMS is far from great - but it is the devil we know...

 

 

We planned our migration to take place between the exam downloads day and school re-opening in September.

 

Test migrations, testing and some training had taken place in June July.

[mrhall]

So how long did you pay twice? If we move in August - we've paid SIMS for the next sixth months....

[kennysarmy]

So how long did you pay twice? If we move in August - we've paid SIMS for the next sixth months....

 

Yep, exactly that we still had SIMS supported until March 31st this year.

 

What can you do?