ICTRambling

Be aware that one of the risks being outweighed may be breaching the Data Protection Act (at least while we are still in the EU)

This isn't stricly correct - I believe you were asking for the proprietry install notes that have been written for the technicians to use when carrying out an install. You were quoted a day rate (Less than £400) for a technician to carry out the intstall and then offered a 50% discount as a goodwill guesture. sonofsanta is correct, you are perfectly entitled to set this up yourself and there are install notes freely available online but obviously if we have developed proprietry resources or are being asked to support something then we are entitled to put a charge on this. At the end of the day it comes down to the time/cost balance - is it easier (and cost effecitve) to do it yourself or quicker to pay someone to do it while you carry on with other work.

Care to elaborate?

There are free alternatives such as the S2S web site I posted earlier and I also understand that the authority policies allow the use of e-mail to transfer data (with appropriate security) and there may well be other options that the authority support. The Data Protection lead for the city can advice further on this (Bham schools can e-mail my work account for his contact details if the school don't already have them) and we are currently working with some schools and the authority to look at which option will work best for them. What we haven't currently got is a supported solution for external schools to automatically transfer data securely to/from the local authority, obviously we are working on this to see what additional services we could provide to schools. However, as a provider to the local authority we have contractual and policy obligations that we need to comply with - the current (historic) VPN service is provided to allow staff to securely connect from home into the school network and when this was originally designed as a service it was signed of by the local authority and audit as complying with all the current regulations. When we introduce a new service it will need to go through a similar process. While the connectivity option may not be the cheapest available, part of the additional cost or value added is that it will give you automated data transfer to /from the city amongst other things.

Can I just remind schools to check with the city about data transfer arrangements as VPN will not be available and it is causing problems in a couple of schools.

Unfortunately, Link2ICT are not able to offer a VPN solution for Data Transfer - which is why there is mention of the S2S website elsewhere. I would suggest that schools contact the relevant people within the Local Authority to see what they recommend. I would also be interested in hearing how other schools across the country transfer their data.

Apologies for cross posting but there appear to be two discussion on this, see: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/internet-related-filtering-firewall/91964-broadband-provider-thinking-leaving-bgfl-internet-2.html I've provided a brief update on this other thread.

Hi Folks, There still appears to be some confusion about what is included with the different subscription offering for Birmingham schools from Link2ICT. The new service guide is available at http://www.link2ict.org/serviceguide and this makes it clear which services require the ISP service. Three starting points to note: The VPN accounts are linked to the ISP service as they are designed to allow staff to connect from home to the school network. These are redundant once you move to a different ISP and will be decommissioned. Several systems or services are only visible within the network such as the knowledgebase and these will no longer be available to you Your method of data transfers to the city will need to be changed to comply with the Data Protection act - this will require the use of the s2s website and the current Government guidance on this is available at: Transferring personal data securely - Schools Link2ICT are happy to arrange a meeting with any school that are considering this to talk through exactly what needs to be considered, just log a call with the Service Desk

Data Protection act prevents you from taking anything more than the minimum information necessary to carry out the task. Just 'cos the information is there, doesn't mean it can be legally shared!

BGfL have a service desk that's always a good place to start, lol

Webwasher does pro-active scanning of the html code looking for common fragments that are used in bypass sites and there are at least 3 mentions of such things on the topic list - this would trip the filters.

Link2ICT will be supporting Netmedia Plus as well as Primary and Secondary skinned Moodle's - more information will be available on the 26th. Chase up the Help Desk for more information. If you want to discuss this offline find ICTRambling on Twitter and DM me

Get the head to make the request to the service desk and BGfL will enable messenger for the school!

Just picked up a new proxy that the students have found and been using .... until now that is ... he he he pupilpass.com Reported it to smartfilter so should be in their updates tomorrow And another one ... proxie.co.uk and another one: http://www.electricmilkshake.com This comes from the very useful mailing list provided by peacefire.org (filtered). If you sign up they e-mail you every time they create a new anonymiser

OK, I've only scanned the posting and may be missing something obvious but ... are Bigital Brain on Becta's framework list? The website quotes: The ten framework suppliers are: * Azzurri Communications Ltd * Etech Group * Fronter * Netmedia Education * Pearson Education Limited * Ramesys * RM Education plc * Serco Ltd * UniServity * Viglen Limited