EdWhittaker

Hi I'm posting here in hope that someone may be able to help. My company provides an on-line behaviour management facility to a school on LGfL. The week before half term they found that they were unable to connect to our site. Their managed service provider blamed us saying our servers were down, as other internet services were unaffected. After a lot of messing about we eventually got to speak to the managed service provider who agreed it wasn't our fault. Another week went by and they suggested that the fault lay with LGfL. It's now 7 (yes, seven!) weeks the school has been unable to reach our site. Staff can log in perfectly well from home, but not from school. Has anyone experienced anything like this before or got any suggestions?

Our product logs you out after 15 mins of inactivity. We get loads of complaints about this being far too short a time so we've had to stick in an admin tool that allows schools to extend the time-out period to whatever they want - and they do. As a teacher myself, I know that many of my colleagues are far too lax and undisciplined when it comes to password security and good practise; a number of times I've gone into a classroom and found that the previous teacher had walked out leaving himself logged in to the machine - CMIS, email, the lot. I've know one teacher tell a kid his username and password to log in to CMIS Facility so the kid could take the register while he did some marking! Basically, if you had a system that would log you out after 5 mins inactivity the teachers wouldn't put up with it.

Had me flummoxed too!

Surely that should read: Everything SIMS does, but properly, for about 1/6th the cost... or less

Why, are you going to build one? All of the above (you can keep the kitten, thanks) Oh, and a licence fee of less than £5k a year.

The only reason this is expensive is that current MIS systems are so bloated and flakey that it takes an army of developers to implement the simplest change. Should not be such a problem with an agile, well designed system.

Of course there is room for another MIS. If there isn't, my company is wasting an awful lot of time and money! But what do we mean by an MIS? It's true that Capita et al are bundling all sorts of features like attendance, parent portal, pupil tracking etc, etc. But these are not core MIS functions. The key function of the MIS is to store the data in a systematic and efficient way and to make that data available quickly and reliably to ANY APPLICATION connected to it. The problem at the moment is that major suppliers suppress innovation and competition in this plug-in market by charging high licence fees. Things are made more even difficult for the small provider by having to keep up with continual changes and updates to the software, some of which, it is suspected, are for no other reason than to make things difficult for the small provider. There are other examples of anti-competitive practices - witness the battle between Bromcom and Capita for example. Bromcom are big enough to look after themselves but smaller companies might just decide it aint worth it. What the big companies are after is complete domination of the market, a one-size-fits-all complete package that does everything a school needs ... badly! Schools vary so much in size and character that it's unlikely that this solution would be flexible enough to accommodate each schools needs. So what's needed is an open access MIS - no licence fees and guaranteed interoperability. This will allow innovation and competition between school software providers who can produce the bespoke solutions that many schools require. There are enough small companies out there, each providing one small piece of the jigsaw which when put together will provide all the functions a school needs. All it needs is a common, open access database at the centre.

ok, wrong choice of words, lets say 'less expensive' then. Despite not knowing anything about nor ever having seen it? Fair enough, if your system aint broke, don't fix it. If it does exactly what you want it to in the way you want it done and you're happy with the cost, then you don't need to change. However, many schools are not happy and are looking for better solutions.

As a teacher, I know I've had parents who have refused to give daytime phone numbers because (quote) "I don't want to be bothered at work" (!) There is little you can do in the face of an attitude like that.

What, not even for something better and cheaper?? This is part of the problem, if you don't mind me saying so. People sticking with what they know because it's all they've ever known and they are 'comfortable' and familiar with it is a natural human response, but it is a barrier to innovation.

I think I've said before, fine in theory but in practise every ICT project HMG gets involved in turns to dust. What would probably happen is that the 'backbone' would end up being so complex and convoluted with so many restrictions and requirements that it would turn out to be so difficult and expensive to work with that only the big boys would have the resources to do so (can you see where this is going ...?) that you would end up more or less with what we've got now. Problem with efforts for interoperability (and single sign on) so far, it seems to me, is that major players are each trying to get their own solution adopted; so that they can effectively dictate the direction of travel. One of the biggest failings of Becta (and there were many) is that they tended to talk only to the big IT providers and didn't look below the radar to see what innovative and new solutions might be out there.

Ah, Grasshopper, to achieve true enlightenment, understanding and tranquillity you must first study the ways of the Shaolin monk ...

and thereby lay themselves open to further litigation if they cannot show that the decision was made on purely commercial grounds; but I appreciate this was just thinking out loud. I don't think any LA or school is going to get sued by anyone over existing contracts; I think this is just a shot across the bows to warn them to make sure it's done correctly in future. My company has been on the receiving end of this way of working a couple of times. Out of the blue an announcement is made that the LA has 'negotiated' an LA wide contract with 'a big, well known MIS supplier' which we knew nothing about. Next we a call from a school saying that they are dropping our product because the feel 'obliged' (their word) to use the solution endorsed by the LA - even though they acknowledged it's not as good! I know of one case where the LA bought in a borough wide VLE that nobody used because it was not suitable for what the schools actually needed. What a waste of (our) money. I'm sure you guys can come up with lots more examples of that sort of thing, I don't think it's that uncommon. I think tightening up on the way LA contracts are awarded is no bad thing.

Indeed this is true , we've all read Orwell's Animal Farm; that's why the company needs to have community interest (CIC) status. This guarantees that all profits are re-invested for the benefit of the (education) community and cannot be distributed to shareholders. in an ideal world, yes. In this world, if it was managed by the government a) it would take 8 years to complete b) cost hundreds of millions of pounds c) be abandoned as unworkable 6 months after launch The government's track record on managing IT projects is appalling.

Quote from Quantas spokesman on the day: "Looks like there has been some sort of problem with an engine"

"1.13 Recommendation 8 – The Department considers the benefits of an immediate freeze in respect of further changes in the specification for data returns. This would support their commitment to urgently ensure all schools are freed of bureaucracy and to reduce the burden of data collection on schools (Paragraphs 1.49 to 1.52)." As if!! These things are determined by civil service pen pushers and ambitious politicians. it's their JOB to turn out a continuous stream of bumf! If anyone's expecting something to happen, note that the report also says that, in many respects, little seems to have changed since Becta's last report in 2005.

This is true. However my experience is that quite often school management are unable to grasp this point. There is a tendency to view things done by school staff as being 'free'. Teacher's time, admin staff time (indeed IT staff's time) is very rarely costed. So whereas I can often show that using our product, for example, will save, say, two hours per day admin time, 'Mavis in the office' is still employed by the school, still has to be paid so the actual saving in real cash terms is effectively zero. I can show how pastoral leaders in school can work more efficiently and be more effective in their job. Cuts no ice with school management, because it does not free up any extra cash in the budget.

Hear, hear!!

No I'm not, I'm talking about the fees that Capita charge commercial companies if they want to develop an app that writes to and reads from SIMS.

see my post 127

And as long as they pay hefty licence fee.

The £5k is a one-off. Check the numbers here http://www.capita-cs.co.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/SIMS%20Partner%20Brochures%202010/Partner_Management_10.pdf

?? So let's say I want to be a SIMS technical partner, for example (got your calculator ready?) Licence SIMS Software £5000 Installation on my computer £1000 (plus expenses) SIMS SQL new software releases £150 per year Partner support £3500 per year Access core data + lesson / attendance data £150 per school per year and if I want all the bells and whistles that's £200 Not exactly free then, is it? I'm talking free, as in £0.00 per school per year Small firms can be deterred from entering the market by these charges, thus stifling innovation. Those firms that do get into it simply recoup the cost by increasing the cost to the schools, making the add-ons more expensive than they need be.

And that's part of the current problem; MIS suppliers trying to offer complete generic solutions to all tasks and making it difficult (or just plain expensive) for smaller companies to provide more bespoke (or just better) alternatives. Schools should be able to buy a basic MIS package and then choose from a whole range of tools from a range of suppliers, all of which just slotted into the MIS because they're all using the same API. So much easier to swap suppliers if you're not happy.

@matt40k and tmcd35 I think your points have been addressed quite well in the above posts (thanks, localzuc). At the end of the day, like Scholarpack, we're just trying to make a difference. The market needs opening out and there needs to be some innovation and competition. Somebody needs to start putting the requirements of schools before those of shareholders. If people don't like what we come up with then I'm sure they won't use it - which is fair enough.