PhilNeal

The physical link is quite easy to achieve. What is more critical is reporting to DCSF. If these schools have one DSCF number then they can operate as one database. If not creating the necessary returns will require separate databases. Partnership Exchange would allow you to create and maintain a single database view over two schools.

We are looking to support this as soon as we can. If a donkey year is 6 months then I don't think we are talking of more than 1. The issue for us is test - every platform we support increases the test burden greatly. Supporting 64 bit for Citrix and TS is important strategically for us so it is a priority.

We have an arrangement with UniServity but we have a responsibility to ensure that others are not disadvantaged. I hope that gives you the reassurance that you need. I haven't got to the bottom of the XML issue yet but will update you when I have the information,

If you email me your details and the version that you are using I'll see what we can do.

Also this documentation is incomplete we have requested from David, the reason given the documentation is incomplete captia are awaiting the becta report in june to finish the documentation. We have requested the original documentation as it was written in sept 2007 but this also apparently doesn't exist. Penfold I have spoken to David about this and think there must be a misunderstanding here. We aren't waiting for Becta but what is true is that with the push to SIF we are questioning how much further we take IMS. Please contact David again as he can't trace any record of the dialogue.

The only thing I can suggest is checking to see that you have the latest printer driver installed. Otherwise try asking on SupportNet

SLG doesn't contain any data, it is pulling and pushing data into the SIMS DB. At the moment our web parts are for SharePoint but if there is demand, the architecture will support a non SharePoint deployment with a little more work. Some VLEs are creating their own views onto SIMS data.

The SIMS Learning Gateway is an application tier which sits under the MS Learning Gateway. There are web parts for various specific tasks such as editting attendance marks, recording assessments, writing reports etc. There are some web parts available for pupil/parental access to data. For VLEs that are based on SharePoint, it allows a single view for teachers for everything that they require. In addition there is an active directory provisioning tool which will maintain entries from SIMS of parents, pupils, teachers etc.

I'll have to get some help to answer your points around XML. I have realised that it is probably the .doc outputs that I have seen opened through OpenOffice. I'm afraid that supporting third parties does require an expensive infra structure that we do charge for.

IMS is a web service that can be called by a number of VLEs. It can keep the VLE up to date with pupil, class and teacher info. The exporter offers access to a much wider range of data and puts the info into a file for another application to pick up. It can be run as a command line.

There is nothing put into our XML outputs to stop OpenOffice from working and as far as I am aware the majority of SIMS outputs can be opened by OpenOffice. The exception is graphs in Assessment Manager where we haven't done the extra research to see how to achieve it. We have also made sure that the MS free viewer can be used to stop teachers having to purchase MS Word. There is a comprehensive third party interface for SIMS and there are a large number of companies using it including Pars. We don't charge for using it to extract data but we do if you start to write data back into SIMS. David Grashoff is the person to contact at Capita.

Yes SLG has Profiles web parts. At the moment the web parts are designed to fit into SharePoint - that might change in the future depending on demand. The web parts are designed to give staff access to everything they need to be able to do in the classroom. There are also web parts for parents and pupils which can compliment a Learning Gateway based VLE. I will talk to the sales guys to find out about sub-dividing.

I have asked the team to prepare an estimate but we haven't set a date yet. I have an aspiration to do it by the Autumn.

So there is absolutely nothing to stop Open Source fans from using IMS to link to Moodle. We don't charge extra for the IMS links and they are fully documented.

Profiles isn't available on PDAs.

Some LAs had to go earlier because the CFR had to be done and that was only supported on the SQL Server version. Hosted users should find that the SQL Server version is a lot faster.

I can't speak for your LA support unit but they would need to release the licence patch to you. There is no cost from Capita in doing this. The IMS links are used by a number of VLEs now including UniServity & Fronter. The May release of SIMS will expand the IMS capicity slightly by allowing exports of non-teaching staff. In the future we will support the movement of assessment data back into Assessment Manager.

Worth looking again as they have been completely re-engineered and are getting good reviews!

Penfold, we did discuss the future of IMS in light of Becta's preference for SIF but in view of the fact that IMS works today we have continued to support it and indeed take it futher. Please try again as the doc should be available, if not email David and copy me in on the email. [email protected].

I can't help I'm afraid. SupportNet is more likely to give you answers to this type of question.

It's resource 507 on SupportNet. If you have difficulty getting to it then email [email protected] who will email it to you by return.

I'll track it down.

SIMS supports an IMS service FOC so that you can dynamically maintain Moodle's pupil, course, teachers etc. We can't do the Moodle bit though.

Yes there is a program known as Options which sorts out this issue. You can get a good idea of how people use this by posting a question on SupportNet. You are probably already licenced for Options.

Apologises, my posting last night was incorrect. The actual position is as follows: To service 285 schools in Oxfordshire they have: 6 SQL servers for .net. Schools are not evenly distributed on these. 2 are mainly the 27 secondary schools. 13 terminal services servers 1 file server with the .net and FMS program files on (1 per school) 3 SQL FMS servers fairly evenly distributed 2 domain controllers and an IIS server