Innermumbo

Blue Sky Stuff? Interesting thread... However, whilst the school MIS may currently be considered a niche market, how do others think that this holds as we move into true integrated and largely interoperable teaching and learning environments? My point is that the MIS will increasingly be considered to be 'at the heart of learning'. Learning Platforms with VLEs, Cashless Catering, Library systems, etc., etc., will all be largely driven by the information maintained and updated in the school MIS. Who wants to maintain user information in all of these different places? And where such systems as VLEs 'catch' information about performance - useful to the MIS - who wants to be manually exporting and / or re-keying this information back into the MIS? Free School Meal data is another example of information that is useful to Cashless Catering systems and held in the MIS. The horizontal (within a single school / establishment) combinations are vast and that's without introducing (vertical) Identity Management, the 14-19 agenda, collaboration, parental access, DCSF needs, etc., etc... The school MIS is no longer the preserve of the school office. And major or minor, the suppliers will have to radically rethink their approach to interoperability i.e. Systems (Schools) Interoperability Framework (SIF) in order to stay competitive in the market. Interested in your thoughts

The cost of a leased line depends upon your location and Enfield, London is most likely well connected with fiber! We have a few schools in Norfolk who can't get traditional symmetrical broadband at all and we're looking at alternative connection technologies to meet the Government requirements.

Very interested to hear how you get on with the SIF trial. The SIF model makes real sense in theory. My LA is a committed SIFa member and we are watching developments with a keen eye. Data cleansing is a clear problem whatever model is used and we have already fallen foul of the sorts of issues that you have described with bespoke, or non-standards based solutions. Our proposed model will see the ZIS sending datasets predefined as 'uncleansed' to a data cleansing service. This in turn will send the 'cleansed' data back to the ZIS / Sorting Office to be sent on to it's original intended destination. Ultimately, to reduce the amount of data entry replication that happens across schools and LAs, data owners or guardians must be identified for each data item. These owners or guardians are then given responsibility for the quality of the data item. Data owners or guardians will change depending, for example, on the age of the child, employee of a member of staff, etc., etc. Interested to have feedback on this methodology...

Crispin - this is interesting and useful stuff... Is the supplier representation a significant cross section?

VLEs explained: http://home.ched.coventry.ac.uk/course/vlepg2.html http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/index.php/VirtualLearningEnvironments

Ben, this is central government strategy via Becta and Partnership for Schools. Government funding for much of this stuff, including BSF as I understand it, is based upon meeting these requirements. The LA (technical) role is to ensure that the technology is 'best of breed', meets legal requirements for data and child protection, provides the best possible opportunity for our children, etc., etc. It would be good if you could raise specific concerns that you have (at Network Managers forums, etc.), so that these can be fully understood and addressed. Hope this clarifies a few things. Useful links: http://www.bsf.gov.uk/ http://www.p4s.org.uk/

Not sure that this is a solution to interoperability... Data interoperability between the school MIS and other learning services such as VLEs is, put crudely, about entering data once and the data being 'shared' across services. An example might be that I enter / update a teacher record in the MIS and the relevant parts of this dataset required by the learning service is updated without manual intervention eg CSV export / import. A Zone Integration Server (ZIS) acts as a kind of sorting office - a hub at the centre of all learning and administrative services. My understanding of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) strategy, is that services should be managed and hosted to better enable such things as anytime, anywhere learning, extended schools and collaborative teaching and learning.

Hi Ben and thanks!

Some interesting points here... Norfolk is a member of UK SIFa and the SIF standard for data interoperability is a requirement for the key MIS supplier as well as learning platform / vle suppliers. All major MIS suppliers are signed-up to UK SIFa. An Identity Provider (IDP) is already in place and will be 'Shibboleth enabled'. Again, Shibboleth Service Provider is a requirement for suppliers. SIF will replace the existing and partially manual data transfer mechanism for the IDP via the Zone Integration Server (ZIS). It is my understanding that Norfolk are ahead in the region on both fronts. Indeed, the Norfolk UK SIFa rep was part of the SIF data working sub-group for Identity Management. It is clear that SIF and Shibboleth sit well together here in this context. A few outcomes for both technologies will include: - reduced administration (including input of the same piece of data more than once across learning and administrative systems); - improved performance tracking eg assessment data captured in multiple VLEs is available via the MIS for reporting in near real-time; - improved quality of data / information; - improved security in terms of access to systems and data movement; - Single sign-on; - Schools able to collaborate effectively Finally, whilst the UK SIF data model is in its infancy, it is progressing relatively quickly and my current understanding is that Assessment, Attendance and Identity Management will be part of the next release. It is feasible to include additional 'bespoke' datasets so long as it is recognised that these will need to be 'migrated' as the UK standard matures. I believe that this is how the Birmingham pilot overcame some issues. Norfolk's technical strategy regarding secondary Learning Platforms / MLEs is on the agenda for the Network Managers Workshop early next year. Useful links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBHiASr-pwk&feature=related http://www.eficts.norfolk.gov.uk/transformation http://uk.sifinfo.org/