pcstru

Because cost? Seriously, building a usable audit of user access would be complex and high cost. Granular user permissions are a pretty standard way to delegate access based on trust and if you have trust issues, then an access log is just evidence after the fact. Audit of write access on the other hand (who changed this data) should be relatively cheap and such logging was certainly in the architecture of Capita's LEA product a while back (ISTR it was in SIMS DBase too - but I might be misremembering). An audit could probably be done anyway from the DB logs directly although it would need to be mashed up with other logged data to track a change down to a user and it would take someone with extremely good MSSql DB skills to do it.

We did provide "a lot" of training but then we have "a lot" of people. Training for most teachers (of which there are "a lot") was around half a day and they were provided with good documentation for the limited amount they need to do. We did more training with a few 'champions' and the senior leader who took the role of stakeholder representing teachers interests; they then rolled out the half day to the rest of the teachers. Admin staff tended to get much more in depth training - at least half a day but more if they were covering distinct processes or need to create bespoke reports. My MIS lead has probably done all of the training - some of it twice, so just for her alone she has done "a lot"! Did we need to? Is Bromcom so friendly that you can get away with no, or less training than we did? I think we needed to because a) users told us they needed training - not providing that would then be a barrier to adoption, b) because we wanted the project to be a success and training plays a significant part in managing various risks to that, and c) because we want to get the maximum value from our investment and if you don't train people to use the tools you provide, you won't do that - or at least you won't do it very quickly/to a deadline. Bromcom is friendly enough but schools MIS systems are large complex things and there are limits to how accessible you can reasonably make one. So, IMO, don't skimp on training even if the product does look quite easy to use. Overall I think Bromcom is a good system. Well designed, accessible and good value. The people who have to use it in anger seem to like it and that speaks for itself. Technically; hosting is not problematic, the database is complex but well designed, the code that I have seen is well documented and written to a professional standard, there is obviously no client software to install so no faffing around with fat client installs, updates are applied by support so we just need to schedule it in rather than running any upgrades. I am glad we self host despite the significant additional product cost, it gives us some control over when we have to roll out large updates such as the new interface which we would struggle to roll out training for to Bromcom's timescale (I do think cloud providers need to have a little more empathy for the difficulty in delivering training/awareness to hundreds of teaching staff on site (or sometimes system constraints like 3rd party interfaces which drive other systems which may need updating)). Support has been good - response times are generally quite quick and we have had a couple of bugs which have been chased down with dogged determination. All in all I don't think anyone here has regret, so for us, so far, it has been a good move but we probably need 2-3 years to get a good return on our investment involved in the change ignoring product costs (i.e. just our costs involved in the change). I think that is probably quite good compared to other products that were short-listed.

We, a large secondary (2000 students), switched from CMIS/ePortal to Bromcom, self hosted not cloud. We were prompted to look at what was available when Serco declared CMIS/ePortal end of life and we felt that the change to progresso would be as big as changing supplier, so it was an opportunity to look at what our needs were and what was available to meet those. As it turned out, CMIS/ePortal end of life changed with the changes in the supplier from Serco to Advanced Learning but as we were already embarked on the project, we went ahead anyway. We spent nearly a year on supplier selection. The main tasks here were identifying and documenting requirements and inviting suppliers to submit tenders against those requirements. We created some quite complex scoring for evaluating the responses but we also had demonstrations, site visits etc and within the process also allowed users some scope for more subjective views. Perhaps the most important aspect of this was that users felt they owned the decision - they made the choice of the new supplier it wasn't imposed on them. There was a very strong consensus among the group that Bromcom was the best product - which went against senior management who put a lot of value on the 'safety' of choosing the market leader SIMS - a kind of "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" sentiment that probably keeps @PhilNeal sleeping soundly at night. The following year we looked at data transfer, business processes and how we might actually go live without detrimental impact to the business of the school. Users were responsible for checking data quality and identifying what reports etc they needed to support their processes. We ran 3 iterations of the data conversion prior to the final go-live, that allowed for quality checking and corrections. We also started the roll out of training to admin and the teaching staff. We missed a few tricks; it was difficult for people to dedicate time to the tasks when the normal business carried on and there is a contention between training early so people have enough expertise to assess data quality within the new system and leaving training closer to go-live to reduce the amount of time people would have to forget! We did constrain change - looking to achieve a like-for-like coupling with business processes rather than re-engineering processes to make best use of features (or even system constraints). Our final go live/no going back was Sept 2015 and it was relatively smooth considering the large scale of the change and the number of critical business processes that hang off the MIS. In part I think a lot of that was down to the ownership felt by end users - they had made the choices and as a result they felt they had to make it work. People would highlight issues but they were also coming up with the solutions - they had a stake in a good outcome. Had the decision been imposed on them, there would have been a lot of gnashing of teeth - of the "well, no one asked *ME*, did they!" type. The smooth transition also helped avoid loss of confidence that sometimes plagues new implementations, so teachers can't blame the MIS for not submitting registers on time, we know it is them! So, summary : it is a big task. There was a lot of pressure to do it quicker than the two year plan I put together but two years for all the phases was IMO about right for a school of our size. It could probably be done quicker but with a loss of quality which would just increase costs when going live. Pro's and Cons - I think they are probably too specific to each school for ours to be useful. That said, our users are generally very pleased with the new system and I don't hear much of people harking back to the "good old days". We are now embarking on a programme looking at our business processes and how we can re-engineer these to make best use of the software or dispense with 3rd party systems.

I think part of the problem is that Hyrdo in the UK is generally storage, not (primary) generation. It doesn't make sense to build storage for gas plants that can spin up and down with demand. Coal is somewhat less responsive but we aren't building those. Hydro make sense coupled with Nuclear which is not very responsive to demand, but we haven't been building any new Nuclear for a while. Hydro would also make sense with Wind and Solar but it's very expensive to put in place vs another gas plant and any commercial operation would only be exploiting a difference between the rate they can buy and sell power, which in the current market wouldn't stack up against just building the renewables and grabbing the feed in tariffs even though some of the time the grid can't actually use the power.

From the article : Going forward, he added, all employers should clearly explain any rules that would allow them to check on their workers' online activities. "All employees should be notified personally of the said policy and consent to it explicitly," he wrote. IMO, you are doing well if you have that covered.

Star Wars : The force awakens. OK, but it is 95% a remake of the first one.

I wore out copies of Bowie albums in my teen years but the replacement copies still make it onto the play lists some four decades later. One of the greats. Very sad news.

Err, only if they were specifically published with a licence that allows you to do that. Basically unless you have something that says you can use the work in that way, then you do not have the rights to do that. As a rights holder I can do what I like with my works but just because I publish it on-line for 'free' doesn't mean someone else can pick it up and start redistributing it on their site or media for 'free'.

Games/code are protected by copyright. In the UK copyright is an automatic right that is granted to the creator of a work at the time the work is created. So, unless you have the permission of the creator of the work, or the work was offered with a licence that allows such use, then it is almost certainly not 'legal'.

IRM UK - Seminar - Chris Bradley, Information Management Fundamentals ... might be of interest? (came to me as an unsolicited spam email which may or may not reflect the quality!).

I was tempted until I ran the compatibility check and realised that £499 would double because I would need to upgrade to the bleeding edge. I think the price will quickly fall, apart from anything else the current product has a bunch of value added stuff that has to be pushing up the price.

Not that course, but perhaps covers some of the same ground (?) : Knowledge Management and Big Data in Business.

(My) Sanctuary : People 22, Food 40, Water 690 Tells it's own story.

Blimey, it took Whitehead and Russell 300 pages (and 7 years) in Principia Mathematica to 'conclude' that 1+1=2. I'm not sure that your average year 6 could grapple with that!

I guess if we didn't have them, we (the IT dept) would have slightly less work, although if PC's belong to classrooms rather than people, I can see that being a problem - "Oh it was broken when I came in". Making the call based on our (IT) workload would be a case of tail wagging dog. I can't see how they can do their job without using them at home. We have so many systems they have to use; email, VLE, MIS, attainment analytics etc, I think they would have a strong argument that they simply can't do their job without the technology. In terms of checking that they are using them for that - I don't think that's my problem. It would be a capability issue for their managers.

We issue staff laptops. We do not have classroom PC's for teachers. Other than provide a classroom PC, I can't see how we could expect teachers to operate without them. I don't see any particular saving providing fixed PC's for teachers but there would be a massive reduction in flexibility. In short, I don't see them going away any time soon.

Assetto Corsa DLC 3, with the old Escort RS1600 and Brands Hatch. Amazingly fun car to throw about and Brands Hatch is a world class circuit.

Heh, well - I just hope 45 isn't somehow past it otherwise I'm in the deep stuff!

Yes! What do you actually want to do? What interests and engages you? You have 20 (probably +) years of working life left - you are a) by no means too old for most things and b) if you plan over that time scale, there is no reason you can't achieve almost whatever you want.

Reminds me that after my wife had finished at this time of year, I used to find the dustbin stuffed with presents she'd been given by the kids. First time I was actually quite shocked and saddened - I know most of it was tat but even so! I used to secretly rescue the teddy bears. This Christmas it's just me and them.

Neat idea but I wonder how well it will bear up to long term use as padding gets compacted. I find at speed, helmets feel like they are being sucked off my head so with no chin strap if the padding isn't tight that might result in it feeling very odd.

Not the reaction I want from a bed during earth moving moments.

I've yet to tell my mother that this year I have to spend Christmas with Nick, Piper and because I haven't seen him for a long time, Shaun. (Entirely justified the cost of purchase in one.)

I think we may be misunderstanding each other. It is not possible to consent fraudulently. Who would have said they did? The person who has admitted they are considered a minor in respect of your right to process their data? I think if you need their parents permission then you need more than that minor declaring via a checkbox : "sure they give me permission- lol". Sure. I have some doubts that it could be achieved in practice (~80/20 ish), my point is really to try and illustrate how the change might viewed as strengthening someone's rights to protect their data from companies that exploit that data for their own interests (which may or may not coincide with the interests of the data subject/s). That is a good thing - IMO.

In the situation we are talking about, the onus would be on the data processor to prove they have the proper consent and the right to process the data. That is rather difficult to do if the actual, real person is standing up in court and saying "No, I do not consent to you processing my data".