GREED

Just looking though some storm damage/after effects of my locale (which compared to the rest of the country is minimal). Don't this we have a consolidated thread to share these, so please share!

Price of living in the sticks mate

It is funny actually within the halls of the DfE building, ContactPoint is taboo and you get stares if you say it out loud! This project too was started long ago, the essence of it goes back to the BECTA report which was last government. End of the day DE (well, the data warehouse part) is a long overdue replacement for COLLECT as well as incorporating about a dozen other interfaces and databases dating back nearly 20 years. Cancelling at stage will leave the department we virtually nothing, as well as leaving the UK in the comparative dark ages compared to the likes of the US and Australia who are also moving along similar lines when it comes to data exchanging with the government and each other (schools).

I sorry... charge? And you talk about being so last gen? You might want to do a little bit of research there (I have, you see ), the charging model is becoming a dying breed within the MIS community.

Bit before my time....

Do you believe DE will? I cannot say I forsee it failing it is now so far into it would damage so much given a lot is waiting on completion. It's nice working on the inside for a little bit

With a giant jar!

I've not chuckled so much in a long time. Apparantly the point that 'The law is the law' has gone amiss. Regardless if this is good bad or in different it is the law. It is an unfortunate byproduct of a decent and useful legislation in most cases that is being abused more and more the more people get wise to it. Definitely charge for it though. Surely too that the same sorts of questions come in so just design a template and send off. Even better, put the answers in one long text line with no spaces. You are complying. Can you encrypt the responses I wonder?

Data Exchange will provide and push part of this. But not MIS migration

How do you legislate for that though Phil? The performance aspects I mean

I have been having an interesting debate with a fellow educationalist about what is important about data interoperability and the availability of tools to enable data to be easily accessable from an/any MIS. There is no question that data availability inside and importantly outside the MIS is critical (My former employment taught me some lessons there). But how should that be accessed? Should this be through an open API? Through supplier tools? Through third party managed tools? There are many interests to suppliers of third parties in particular, often the simplest solution from a schools perspective is not always the easiest, cheapest or best solution long term for software suppliers. Indeed, does the concept of supplier built tools add an air of 'lock-in', does such a premise give the MIS supplier too much control, or allow them to manage the internal data processing and other overheads to an acceptable limit? Any and all thought from all welcome. (PS this is a general interest from a debate I am having, in no way is it related to my current work, so please do not assume this is advertising nor fishing)

Shoooosh

The boss being? Aspen has an API available that is a fact. That API is available for third parties to tap into. I'm not really sure how there is confusion. Perhaps PM me with details. I'm not really sure why I'm defending them I not longer work for them. It is a mute issue anyway seeing as it is no longer available in the UK. I'm reporting the facts objectively I have no need to defend, so unless there has been a recent strategic change there, as in the last 3 months, this is still the case

Yes. The API built for their mobile platform also serves as third party API.

This is quite shocking to be honest, but when you consider they are trying to push everyone over to RM there is an interest to make it 'not easy'!

As much as I love a good start up... There are quite a lot of reasons this might not be a great idea... least of all it won't take much for Capita to add a few lines of code and completely kick the venture into touch...

Shut your face, I did!! It was in the post directly after yours

Not at all, and never meant to suggest it did. However it is one more layer of security than true SSO.

Last time I worked in a school we had it on for about 6 months, then turned it off due to security issues. This is where I pushed for SAME Sign ON (SaSO) where passwords are the same as Windows, but if you leave your PC unlocked then you still need to know the password.

Off topic but I love my introduced term of Cloudy... it is very British!

You did I was being flippant! Apologies. It is the term cloud that is so interchangeable these days when people really mean 'I can access it through a browser and it is on a server that isn't in my building'. And I'm not suggesting you are at all. It is a long standing bugbear of mine, especially when a product being in the cloud is compared to Amazon servers or the best one was 'in the same way Google is in the cloud'... right so you have circulated clustered replicated servers in disparate locations around the country/world... Awaits abuse...

You see I don't even have to try anymore!

Good use of the quotations.. Cloud? So do you think that will change when cloudy Sims comes along?

So let's assume that the fingerprint is used in a cashless catering system ergo the food costs money. Given this is not a free meal, is the school legally obliged to offer it to every or any students (do they have to have a canteen?)... Therefore tell her to have packed lunch or go to the shop... Age old bandwagon jumping, what about when she wants a bank account but refuses to give her details... fine go find a bank that will give you an account for no information. Can she refuse to have fingerprints taken by the police on the same grounds?

Well Capita do now... and have had their brand of emerge for a while too. I'm just saying that the concept had been around for a few years now and proven, there is likely to be a certain amount of saturation where a good portion of schools that want or need such a solution, because GC was the only option, took GC. Then a new entrant is faced with a somewhat limited market and then taking customers who are likely quite happy with the solution. Likely then a battle over cost, or you have us stalwarts Vik who will support Schoolcomms regardless I honestly don't know about other MIS vendors, but it is a question on my MIS survey