BECTA Technical Specification Working Group

[GrumbleDook]

This is going to be a long one I'm afraid folks ... a fair bit to cram into this thread so I will break the posts down into seperate areas.

 

Today was pretty much the first real get together of the Technical Specification Working Group.

 

A little bit of background first.

 

BECTA have the remit from the DfES for a host of things to do with technology in education. They are changing the processes they use to ensure that as many stakeholders as possible get some input into specifications they stick out. EduGeek have been invited to join in with this and I was happy to attend (and hassle Andy Gorton again ...).

 

One of the key targets of BECTA is to ensure the setup and smooth running of the National Digital Infrastructure and making sure it meets the needs of its users.

 

Those of you who have seen the diagram for the NDI (which can be found here) will probably have heard it called 'the frog diagram' or maybe even 'Kermit' ...

 

But today started off with Paul Shoesmith giving a breakdown of the 4 areas and going through the series of steps; looking at functional specifications, procurement process, stakeholder engagement and adoption. I have outlined these below but the above link has a lot more indepth information on them.

 

Connectivity Services –

Standards and Specifications.

NEN design criteria (autumn 2004).

Functional specs in final draft.

Technical specification in final draft.

Access management (authentication services) recommendations issued. Contractual arrangements.

Super JANET 5 procurement completed.

UKERNA to provide UK access management federation (sept 2008 … shibbohleth based?).

ISP accreditation for ISP continues.

Adoption.

Peer review process under development.

Content hosting and licensing strategy.

Wimax feasibility.

VoIP feasibility.

 

Learning Services –

Standards and specifications.

Functional specifications published.

Technical specifications in draft.

Contractual obligations.

OJEU notice issued.

PQQS under evaluation.

Contract award (December 2006).

Adoption

RBC Roadshows.

Discussions underway with 'early adopters'.

Advice, guidance and support

 

Data Services –

Standards and specifications.

Functional specifications now commissioned.

Technical specifications to follow.

Interoperability – evaluation of options underway.

Contractual obligations.

Electronic Data Returns – MoU between suppliers and DfES in advanced draft.

Consultation underway on contractual obligations.

Adoption.

Review of support arrangements (in consultation).

Interoperability, proof of concept.

Workshops with potential ‘early adopters’

 

Infrastructure Service –

Standards and specification.

Functional specifications published (Summer 2005)

Technical specifications published (Autumn 2005)

Review commencing May 2006.

FITS published.

Contractual obligations.

OJEU notice issued.

PQQ evaluation complete.

ITT issued and tenders received.

Contract awarded (July 2006)

Adoption.

Workshops being held with 'early adopters'.

Support on KS3 online ICT test.

FITS development programs.

Advice, guidance and support.

 

This is really to give you some idea of what stage the various sections of the NDI are at right now ... (please note thet the above information was taken down very quickly and one or two dates may be out)

 

Then we got stuck into the meat of the session ... the functional and technical specifications of the infrastructure service.

 

These are attached as pdf files but are also available on request as .doc or .odt

techspec_institutional_infrastructure.pdf

functional_spec_institutional_infrastructure.pdf

[GrumbleDook]

Next followed Andy Gorton to actually discuss the above documents ...

 

By jove, his presentation was fast and furious, and so my notes are a little juddery here ...

 

The crux of the matter is that there are 2 specifications ... the Functional Specification tells us about what schools shall, should or may do ... this is really as non-technical as they could be as it is aimed at the leadership in a school or LA.

 

The Technical Specification breaks down the technical requirements to meet the Functional Specification to a greater or lesser degree ... this is for the industry partners, and techies at LAs or schools.

 

They are NOT to be treated as seperate documents ... they are a pair. There will be 2 additional documents, the supplementary advice to schools wishing to implement areas of the functional specification ... and the institutional infrastructure matrix tool. These 4 should give all parties a full rounding of the standards for infrastructures.

 

At this point it is worth mentioning a much repeated theme throughout the day. These specifications are not about standards that are common and compatible ... not about telling people what to do. They are a base line to ensure all schools have an even playing field to start with.

 

The language in the documents are based around shall (must be met), should (highly recommended) and may (wouldn't it be nice if you could do this too?).

 

BECTA want people to view the documents, discuss them ... point out areas that are missing or need expanding ... look at areas that people think really could do with being 'shall' rather than 'should'.

 

The specifications are NOT shopping lists, nor do they replace commercial functional specifications that may be around.

 

There are some things that are out of the scope of these specifications ... things that are already covered or are part of other areas / working groups.

Data management

Technologies are not explicitly mentioned

Curriculum specific areas

Curriculum software

Please be aware the FITS is a pre-requisite of each specification.

 

The specifications apply to both primary and secondary (including BSF), and there is a bias towards central support systems ... in fact almost managed support but I will discuss this in the next section.

 

After a run through of certain aspects of the specifications (primarily the technical specification) we had a chat about the way forward ....

[GrumbleDook]

The way forward consisted of talking about what the working group can do ... what can be discussed and the proccesses involved.

 

BECTA are moving (actually they pretty much have moved) away from the process of; write the specifications, internal review, external review (8 weeks with limited audience) and then publish.

 

They now prefer consultation with stakeholders (ie working groups), write specifications, internal review, external review (maybe still the 8 weeks), consultation with stakeholders (to see about what recommendations have been made to change things), rewrite, internal review, extarnal review (if needed) and then publish.

 

Yes ... it takes longer but it means it is actually based on what people both need and want.

 

Another repeat theme came back at this point ... all specifications are learner / educator specific. We are there for the students ... not to line our pockets or pay our bills ... whatever gets done in schools has to have an impact on the learner.

 

Then Andy briefly spoke about the adoption ... and it was raised that the adoption process is hampered by poor communication from BECTA to schools, partly due to LAs not passing on information or by LAs setting the wrong agenda (Moodle in Leics was used as an example for this ... well, someone had to get it in!)

 

Andy Gorton repeated that this is a base line ... not a definitive 'you can only do this' document.

 

We then broke out into 3 groups to discuss the following questions.

Q1 – what are your views on the specifications presented

Q2 – in additional to those areas presented for the future consideration are there other areas that need consideration?

Q3 – Are the current specifiactions suitable for both primary and secondary

Q4 – Will Quickplace suffice or do we needregular meetings

Q5 – What can Becta do to support you in their use?

[GrumbleDook]

Ok ... final section now.

 

Back to the questions. For some reason I ended up in a group which was primarily stocked with industry partners (Cisco, suppliers, etc). It was quite a lot of fun being the educationalist for a change.

 

Q1 – what are your views on the specifications presented

 

General consensus was that a lot of hard work had gone in and that they were a good start. Certain areas need to be reviewed but most appeared to be happy to be given the chance to look at things. It was raised that there might even be a case of raising the bar in certain areas ... eg although 100 meg to the desk is the minumum (shall) and Gigabit was recommended (should), perhaps gigabit should be the minimum ... this was very contentious and was actually raised in all 3 groups, splitting most of them. So perhaps BECTA have got the balance right on this ...

 

Q2 – in additional to those areas presented for the future consideration are there other areas that need consideration?

 

There are several areas that are very short and threadbare at the moment. More work needs to be done on areas like VoIP, PoE and ensuring commonality of management interfaces (so there is some tracking / linking between different areas ... eg server management and security and MIS management and security to name one of several examples)

 

Q3 – Are the current specifiactions suitable for both primary and secondary

 

The specifications should be a minimum and instead of looking at primary / secondary perhaps BECTA should look more at the size of an institute ... after all a small middle school may not have the same requirements that a large secondary / HE college might.

 

Q4 – Will Quickplace suffice or do we need regular meetings

 

Quickplace is the new online environment for discussion and collaboration for working parties. The idea of a collaborative area was well recieved but people do still prefer face to face discussions. Webcasts of meetings were suggested so people can look back and review ideas and regional meetings might be better than breaking the specifications down into smaller parts. The only concern with this is joingin everything up ... but that was also raised as a concern due to the number of other working parties (looking at the 3 other areas of the NDI as well as other things) that go on ... is someone actually making sure work is linked properly and not repeated? Are thoses areas of cross-over well documentd and published?

 

Q5 – What can Becta do to support you in their use?

 

Get the information out to people ... ensure that all stakeholders are involved and that things like LAs "telling" schools they have to do things a certain way is stopped. Also to make room in the specifications for innovation and to ensure that a drive to centralised services does not wipe out the good practice of schools across the country.

 

---

 

There you have it ... the first meeting (although other meetings have taken place under the guise of industry partners, LAs, RBCs, etc).

 

I had a good, long chat with Paul Shoesmith (Assistant Director of Technical Policy and Standards) about a number of things over lunch. He is keen for EduGeek members to feedback on the specifications ... including those lurkers and occasional posters.

 

We spoke about developments with EduGeek and technical support in schools in general (based around the drive towards central support, BSF, reliance on LAs / RBCs, etc)

 

One thing I would like to point people to is that BECTA have made a number of changes on their website. The search engine is now powered by a Google APIs (see ... they really do use Google now) and it should be easier to find things.

 

Becta website has been developed around 5 areas.

http://www.becta.org.uk

schools.becta.org.uk

industry.becta.org.uk

partners.becta.org.uk

learningandskills.becta.org.uk

 

It is worth exploring.

 

If you have taken the time to read through this whole thread then thank you ... I would strongly recommend people read through the specifications and comment on them, either here or directly via PM.

 

Please remember that BECTA do lurk here (I really should have asked how many of them are members) and you never know ... we may get direct answers ... either way you can be sure they will get your views.

[sahmeepee]

Wow, quite a lot to wade through...

 

I'd say that enforcing the use of FITS is likely to be very unpopular with some schools - look at how many(few) have fully implemented it so far and it's been around quite a while now. Some schools won't be willing to hire an extra helpdesk employee, which would cripple the school's FITS implementation somewhat.

 

I couldn't work out what shall/should/may-status this sentence had: "In most cases, institutions will want to offer parents access to their child’s work [...]", but it looks an awful lot like I'm going to be supporting another 2,500-3,000 users (schools have more parents than pupils) and their password changes. There are umpteen different ways that could be approached, but it's not a small task however you do it.

 

"Many ‘smart cards’/ID cards also allow for electronic registration, helping to keep track of learners" is daydream stuff. If learners don't want to be tracked, their friend will carry the card around and the system/teachers will be none the wiser. There are other benefits to them (as mentioned in the doc) and we use them here, but not for registration.

 

"This requirement implies that an institution needs to strive for a service that can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that maintenance will be kept to a minimum and not scheduled to take place in the institution’s normal working hours." - how do they define normal working hours? Until end of lessons? Until end of clubs? Until support staff go home? Who is carrying out the maintenance if they've gone home? I try to keep maintenance after school and because I'm a kindly soul I work late (gratis) doing service packs on servers and the like. If they're telling me I "shall" do that, I shall need paying for it!

 

I'll read the 69 page techspec when I've got a couple of weeks free!

[john]

I have just scanned through it and for small rural primary schools some of it with its "you must" type statements are not feasable! When schools have 8 year old PCs that need replacing and they get 9 to replace them, then need a bigger network hub/switch, I cannot see the point, or fancy informing the Head / Governors that oh yeah, the £40 16 port switch I used to recomend is no good under BECTA specs, you must have this £390 16 port Netgear L3 QOS Certified Switch with Fibre option upgrades etc.... So it is just not going to work in small schools, I think its clearly aimed at Secondary schools and very large primarys. Please BECTA go back to the drawing board and think of small rural schools with under 100 pupils.

[buzzard]

I Agree with John, I work for a LA and I directly manage all the PRU's and Medical Units. These are no bigger than the average primary school. there will be no way i can have fantastic managed switches, there isn't a requirement for it. At present I use 3Com Baseline switches these perform just as well as the 3Com 4400 that I used in Big High Schools. perhaps a banded table ie 10-30 pupils spec A, 30 - 100 spec B etc, etc. Yes I can see the need to spec stuff but in has to be graded to meet the schools provision.

[russdev]

 

I couldn't work out what shall/should/may-status this sentence had: "In most cases, institutions will want to offer parents access to their child’s work [...]", but it looks an awful lot like I'm going to be supporting another 2,500-3,000 users (schools have more parents than pupils) and their password changes. There are umpteen different ways that could be approached, but it's not a small task however you do it.

 

 

That will come over time as it will be required as part of home link stuff but that will come when mis systems catch up.

 

 

"This requirement implies that an institution needs to strive for a service that can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that maintenance will be kept to a minimum and not scheduled to take place in the institution’s normal working hours." - how do they define normal working hours? Until end of lessons? Until end of clubs? Until support staff go home? Who is carrying out the maintenance if they've gone home? I try to keep maintenance after school and because I'm a kindly soul I work late (gratis) doing service packs on servers and the like. If they're telling me I "shall" do that, I shall need paying for it!

[/qutoe]

 

 

Again dfes will wont 24 service soon aka students can login from home to there files, vle logins etc etc

 

Out of hours depends on the school thats for your school to decide and yes you will need to be paid for it or time off in leu for it..

 

Russell

[MkII]

Am I right in reading the bits about open document standards, seems they are saying MS is NOT an option [as s/w SHALL [] save in opd format??

 

And if so should I keep quiet about it?!

[sahmeepee]

Looks to me like they've sidestepped it by allowing HTML as an export option for powerpoint. Notice as well that it says your software has to be capable of saving in open formats, not that you should necessarily use that capability.

 

The current wording allows for the MS Office, .doc, .ppt etc. status quo.

[MkII]

But MS saves in it's own proprietary open format as I understand it, at this point in time - not open standard. It OPENS .odf fine.

[Geoff]

The ODF Alliance has a Office addon that'll allow MS Office to use ODF natively.

[sahmeepee]

But MS saves in it's own proprietary open format as I understand it, at this point in time - not open standard.

 

By default, not exclusively! (file>save as>pick your open format!) You might be able to argue that the html office makes isn't real html, but I doubt you'd get far.

 

Word:

Text documents:

 

Plain text as (.txt) files

or Plain/Formatted text as Rich Text Format (.rtf) files

CHECK!

 

Excel:

Spreadsheet documents:

 

Comma Separated Variable (.csv) format

CHECK!

 

Access:

Database documents:

 

Comma Separated Variable (.csv) format

(yuck!)

CHECK!

 

Powerpoint:

Presentation files:

 

Hypertext documents (.html) files

CHECK! (just about)

 

Note that the wording is:

 

"shall provide the functionality to create, edit, save and print [...] files"

 

Provide the functionality, not necessarily as default. This has obviously been done this way to satisfy Microsoft - nobody in their right mind would try to save a database of any complexity as a csv would they?

[webman]

If they're going to keep doing things like this just to please the monopoly then we aren't going to get very far I wouldn't be surprised if MS gave them a sizeable "donation" of sorts

[kingswood]

Thanks for the information Tony. I'll have a read of the documents over the weekend and may/may not comment. I am wary of "you need to implement FITS first", because I'm having a rough enough time convincing people that problem-management processes are actually *worth* looking at let alone asking them to hire a service-desk bod!

 

Paul

[john]

Also, with the extentions, don't forget that Office 2007 the file extentions in Word, Excel and Access if I remember right, have changed by default to .docx, .xlsx and .mdbx as they are now stored in XML by default.

[DMcCoy]

I shall require £1m and 3 years to implement all the daft and unreasonable demands from this document. I shall require a resonable regional broadband isp. I shall require users who can think for themselves and don't need to interupt me every 5 minutes.

 

From what I've read, its just lots of ideas which convieniently ignore the issues of implementation. PoE? Ever costed a 100+ port PoE switch? I did for the new block, its more than twice my remaining budget this year!

 

If I didn't read edugeek, how exactly would I find out about these ideas?

 

As it stands I have 40% smaller budget this year, no money to replace the machines that I scheduled to replace when they were bought 4 years ago, and at least 1/3 of my machines have been vandalised (smashing the fronts up is fun for some reason, not that anyone *ever* sees it happen, god forbid that they might have been paying attention).

 

I think becta and the govenment have no bleeding idea what actually happens in schools :/

[webman]

DMcCoy: Absolutely right. Whereas us techies in the "Real World" ™ have to put up with diminished budgets as you mention as schools can divert them to whatever they want and LEAs vary from one area to the other. Very difficult to implement.

[kingswood]

Too true there doctor.

 

Good points.

[GrumbleDook]

The ring fencing of many budgets has now stopped and supposedly the school should have more freedom to buy what they need rather than be told they can spend it in certain areas only.

 

For some schools this can work well as money now flows into the IT pot ... in others it goes the other way as fund previously slotted for IT are driected elsewhere.

 

Please note that the specifications have the pre-requisite of FITS being in place (or started). This means you have that long term replacement strategy that DMcCoy spoke about ... but it is stuck to and moeny isn't pinched when it has been promised.

 

Perhaps the presumption of FITS being started is a major fault.

 

If people can highlight areas of the specifications that are unreasonable or unworkable can they *please* quote it, and if possible explain why it won't work, maybe giving alternatives.

 

And yes ... for most people you would not get this information. This was a common complaint by those representing schools and interest groups (ie people like us and Schoolforge) ... and that is why we are now invited to these events ... to find out what is going on and put our views across.

[sahmeepee]

I should preface my comment by saying that much of what is in these documents is very reasonable and common sense. Laying common sense best practice down on paper (uhm, pdf) has got to be a good thing, especially if it keeps the Bectards from writing poorly researched piffle about Open Source Software etc..

 

It does annoy me that Becta seem to be advocating a huge increase in the scope of I©T in primary/secondary schools whilst ignoring the reality of ever-shrinking funding.

 

The time for this document was really before the money was pumped into schools via standards funds, when people had the cash to act on it. That money is now draining away. My main standards fund income has been cut by 1/3 this year. My eLC income has dropped by over 40% and that will happen again next year. I've always felt that eLCs were weighted far too heavily in the overall budgets, but I would rather they were made available to spend on worthwhile things rather than go away altogether!

 

Some more nitpicks in the docs:

 

Too many Grocer's apostrophe's! [sic] Dozens like these:

Institution’s should disable features that allow an AP to be administered via the WLAN.

Institution’s shall use as high a standard of authentication for WLANs as they do for their wired networks.

Institution’s shall use WPA encryption and should use WPA2/802.11i security where possible

 

They are advocating gigabit links from my edge router to my network core, even though the routers need only be 8mbit/2mbit. I don't see my LEA providing me with a 100Mb link (even just to them) within the next 5 years:

There should be a gigabit connection between edge equipment and the LAN core

and

Routing devices shall support a minimum of 8Mbps/2Mbps for egress traffic (as per

the DfES guidelines44).

[sahmeepee]

The ring fencing of many budgets has now stopped and supposedly the school should have more freedom to buy what they need rather than be told they can spend it in certain areas only.

 

Come on Tony! You sound like the other Tony . Anyone who manages an IT budget in a school knows full-well that when the budgets are merged "to allow more flexibility for the school" the combined total shrinks significantly. That is the basis of the 33-40% drop we are talking about - nothing to do with the priorities of the school. You may remember this from the LfT era. It's an established trick.

 

In this case the powers that be have managed to roll the IT budget into a headline-grabbing "increase in capital spending in schools" by moving it from a non-capital grant to a capital one. Whoop di do.

[DMcCoy]

The school has made every effort to allocate as much as possible, but all budgets have been reduced this year. My biggest problem as it stands is workload. I have begun to find the amount of jobs to do is increasing exponentially. I recently decided to write all my major jobs on my whiteboard, its probably around 18 months work, even without a VLE which we are still missing.

 

Perhaps thats wrong, my biggest problem is other people!

 

Just today I spent the entire morning sorting out online testing (not the rm system - edexcel) because no one bothered to give me the dates when it was to be used. I *was* supposed to be doing a great many other things. My virtual servers have halted at around 60% change over due to every other bloody job for other people (apparently) being more important than my own.

 

Over a year the servers have been in now! My migration to exchange has ground to a halt. What I have done, I'm pleased with - I'm rather a perfectionist when it comes to computers, one of the drags on my time - jobs must be done *right*

 

My install of one or zero was started months ago, however I got side tracked after I discovered that the ldap authentication wouldn't use ssl.

 

I have the fits manual on my desk, where it has been since I printed it, I have been working flat out for the last 2 years - I've not even had time to reimage the computers, work out RIS, get to grips with the wininstall suite, install my latest version of antivirus, vlans, subnets or 802.1x.

 

Most of this unplanned work is dumped on me from a height, school, LA, govenment. Things like sims.net have been a great excuse for users, as its *new* then they can just pass the buck for questions to me rather than engage their brains.

 

If that wasn't enough I am now engaged in a slow siege warfare against out mac suite.

 

 

These proposals will only make it worse, I have ended up working from home remotely from 7pm to 1am on several occasions recently, simply because people expect everything to be on all the time, and the hours I work are when I can't turn things off!

 

I'm not saying the ideas aren't good, but we are moving towards an enterprise level of provision for schools IT, yet we do not have an enterprise budget or salary.

[kingswood]

OK. I thought I would be able to resist taking a peek, but I'm not that strong. Especially when Tony has done such a great job representing our concerns and interests and getting the information to us in the way he has. So- here's a long-ish reply to some of the points found in the "Functional.." document. I will do the same for the technical document if I have the time.

 

The start of the document (1.2.1) is interesting- it speaks of reduced administrative burden on the one hand and taketh it away the next! Reduction of administrative burden is something we all strive for, but with current structures the way they are that may not happen too soon (or ever). It's a kind of management panacea- where they keep their jobs looking for this thing called "least burden" and we keep trying to fix things as they pile more onto us (OK- cynical view there). It would be nice- but lets see what else they say.

 

1.2.1- They talk here of online curriculum resources, NEN, access to a "range of devices". They then say that the institution will need to decide which access devices are needed to meet the demands of the learner and educator. Of course, we do now don't we? So although this is a good thing to bear in mind as an ultimate "this is why you are here" thing, it really should be happening now.

 

1.2.5- Secure email services. Yep. If you have an email server in your school that isn't "secure" then you need to change job. Now.

 

1.2.6- "Should" have access to a learning platform. Agreed. And a good idea.

 

1.2.7- Collaborative tools. Again- this is a sound thing for schools. We are buying into TALMOS for similar reasons, and it doesn't look too bad. If you have the money.

 

1.2.8- LA/RBC advice on access devices. The term "should" is used here. According to Tony's definition of these key words this can be translated "highly recommend". OK. I concede that sometimes the RBC has your best interests at heart and will give you sound technical advice in an impartial manner. Sometimes. That hasn't always been my experience- but I'm sure this will be milk and honey to heads and SMTs who need that advice because they are undertaking large changes in their infrastructure. It's generally good advice and probably worth following.

 

Flexible working and ICT section has me a little worried. The overall theme is some kind of remote capability (what about remote viewing ;-) There is a good focus on avilability of resources for SEN students and those who for whatever reason find themselves out of school for long periods of time. I think this would be worth looking at some more.

 

2.2.1- Parents having access to the inst. "services"? What does this mean? And 24/7 access- I wonder where these ideas come from at times. Have people thought about support needs for this 24/7 access and what this means for ICT departments who are underpaid, undervalued, and underfunded?

 

2.2.3- Parents access to child's work *and* administration data related to that child. What? So if I look at this sideways it perhaps looks like a good idea. But then see above. What with remote access security needs increasing with each idea that is bounced off the wall, it becomes necessary to smoke something very hard-core before you can look at this one and smile and catch the flame of it; and then to get excited about it? You would need to be brain dead. This is a proposal that stinks of Freddy from Elm Street...

 

2.2.4- Sounds good. What do they mean by tools? We need more definition than this of exactly what they mean. I'm thinking things like TALMOS and collaboration again. Would that be right? I don't know any decent technicians who would object to this or stand in its way. But please define it more than you have.

 

2.2.5- Yep. That's obvious. Wired networks have better security, better speed and scalability. Nothing new here. Move along.

 

2.2.6- Secure wireless that will complement wired networks. Yep. And obvious one that. I like it more now.

 

2.2.7- I know this is written for perhaps the less technical person but this is a given. Wireless security is better now than it has been, but it still needs a lot of work. But good points.

 

Protection from inappropriate content, data security and integrity (4.1.1), content and email filtering systems (4.2.1) and although I would question how this should be "managed by LAs/RBCs in discussion with institutions" they do concede (thankfully) that this filtering should be "refined" at institutional levels. This is extended in further sections to cover "safe and secure internet access", documented security procedures for all the above, and protection from both internal and external attempts at damaging the network or (I suppose) its data. A good section with some common-sense attacks at dangers "out there".

 

4.2.5- This is probably at the top of any clean-living systems administrator out there (are there any clean living ones ;-). I recently updated our disaster recovery plans (there were none in place and never have been before this) and made ASR tapes, boot floppies, installed recovery console, make tapes for off-site keeping and utilise external backup media as another layer of safety. This is basically what I think is being promoted here- there needs to be some way to make sure that your school's data is safer and recoverable should the possible happen. Good common sense ideas here that you find in about every good Windows Server manual.

 

4.2.8- SSO. It's called Active Directory Directory Services Authentication. Or Open Directory if you use Macs. But what do they *mean* by "external resources"? And how are they proposing this SSO?

 

This isn't a rant- just some observations and a summary of what I've read from the document. It's good- but it's just fluff with very little substance. As Dr McCoy pointed out- there are too many admins out there who have far too much to do than worry about BECTAs latest and greatest research/findings/data/proposals. It's nice to have them, but *how* are we going to put all this in place with things the way they are now?

 

Sorry for the longevity.

 

Spank you kindly for reading.

 

Paul :-)

[witch]

I sometimes think that I live in an alternate universe.

I have skimmed through all this stuff and, although some of it looks great in principle, the reality of it is that to me, it is as if I am living in 1750 and am reading a specification for a spaceship!.

I know that we must look to the future but we must also try and improve current systems and practices so that we are at least within reach of these sort of proposed improvements . I do agree with getting standards down on paper, but I feel that they need to be a little closer to the real world to have any sort of impact.

I don't work in small rural schools, but in a large (390) first school and a medium sized middle school, which has the first two years of conventional secondary education (7 and 8). Neither school has an IT budget as such, and we are far too busy trying to get 7 year old computers to keep going than worry about switch specifications!

The point about actually getting the info is a good one too - even if the info got to either of my schools it is very unlikely ever to get to the IT coordinator, or me, so it becomes a little pointless.

 

Finally - DMcCoy - STOP doing so much extra, unpaid work! It is people like you that make the powers that be think that we CAN do the job on the money they pay us!

Seriously though, I do worry about the extra hours that most of us put in to get the job done, and agree that this can only get worse, especially if we are expected to implement the BECTA stuff.

But then again, that won't happen because, at least where I live, there will NEVER be the money to do it.