July 2005 Newsletter

Volume 9 Issue 6  July 2005

Q. The integration of Student & Learning Management Systems: where to go?

A. Its the web or nothing . . .

Increasingly schools are considering leasing the major administrative software packages and have them hosted on the Internet via third party.  This enables the school to access these software packages via the Internet rather than directly purchasing it and storing it on their own servers within the school.  This paper discusses the advantages and the disadvantages of this proposal both from a financial and a school management point of view.  These services are usually referred to add as Application Service Provided (ASP) software packages.  Via this process the school outsources some of their software application delivery services and by doing this reduces the overhead costs of managing those services within the school.

The two questions which sits in almost all schools minds in regard to ASP services is whether or not it is a financially beneficial option and whether or not the benefits of such services outweigh the disadvantages, management perspective.  In the first part of this paper will look at the advantages and disadvantages from a management perspective.

The Managerial Considerations: The scenario is all too common: Kim is required to complete his reports for a class of students and because the reporting software sits on the school server Kim is required to stay in school after hours and complete his reports.  The reports then have to be printed and distributed to students who take them home to their parents/care givers.  Some schools have bypassed the second half of this process by posting the reports out to parents/caregivers directly.  In the same school Paula is setting some work for heard class tomorrow on the school intranet and once again for security reasons and the fact that the intranet sits on the school server Paula must do this work from within the school.  If Kim wanted the parents to see the reports of his students by going online, the school would have to open up a software gateway and install considerable firewall and security software in order for this to happen.  For smaller schools be cost of this would be prohibitive as would the capability of managing the system once it was put in place.  The same applies to Paula; if Paula wanted to add content to the school intranet from home the school would be required to install the same firewall and security software management system in order for her to do this.

Some schools have actually set up such firewall and security systems as described above and in general these schools tend to be very large and they have either outsourced the technology process to an external company or they have hired network engineers/technicians onto their staff in order to carry out this task and manage the ongoing processors.  In terms of management, one of the often stated desires of teachers is to be able to create and edit resources for students who can then access then via the school intranet.  To do this within the school only and only have students being able to access the resource within the school may not necessarily be convenient.  Hence parents cannot access reports unless they are converted into a paper format and sent home and students can access school intranet resources, assignments, extension work, school calendars or newsletters unless they are at school or the school has put in place firewall and security systems as discussed earlier.

With increasing pressure on teachers to create or use existing rich multimedia resources to better explain concepts and ideas as well as provide a much better process for assessing and reporting of students there is considerable pressure on schools to provide 24/7access to student management and learning management software.  Banking services, the local library, government agencies, the travel industry, bookshops, the music industry, insurance agents, power companies, software manufacturers . . . . .  have all realised that consumers want the choice of either purchasing online or choosing the social experience of visiting the mall, local town or city to make their purchases or access services.  Surprisingly education has been very slow in picking up the same trend.

Schools are increasingly being given the option by suppliers of outsourcing their student management system, school intranet, school web site, truancy system and a wide variety of other software packages to third party providers via an ASP service.  At first glance there are quite a few good reasons why schools would want to consider this opportunity.  The first good reason is that highly capable technicians who are required to manage sophisticated firewalls and security software for large networks generally want quite a lot of money to do so and schools (generally speaking) don't have lots of money. 

By outsourcing your software requirements which schools require access 24/7 you can save yourself the drama of the setting up and the management of secure access to your server and an also reduce the technical capability requirements of your technician(s) and hence their overall cost.  You also have the added security that someone else is in charge of backing up your most secure data.  A significant number of schools who think they are backing up their data on a regular basis are very disappointed when, following a power outage, theft or hard disk failure, they discover that the backup system was stolen also, the person in charge of backing up the school data left the school six months ago and the job was not passed on, that you were backing up the trash can instead of your data, that the backup data was corrupted . . . .  No doubt you have heard plenty of stories regarding situations such as these.

The advantages of having your applications hosted by a third party hosted in a web based environment include the capability of anyone being able to access your applications from any Internet enabled computer anywhere, any time in the world by using their appropriate password and the user authorisation process.  This is probably the largest benefit to any school and those working within it of using web based application software. This benefit applies to teachers and students wishing to access the school intranet, as well as parents/care givers wishing to access school notices, school calendars, student reports, homework schedules, fund-raising information . . . . 

Increasingly the cost of purchasing web based appliances which can access the Internet is plummeting and the new Sony, Nintendo and other branded game stations and built into them internet access (for multi-user gaming). Internet access is becoming pervasive and assumed to the same level that phone connectivity is assumed today.

With the development of WYSIWYG editors, content can be added to the internet environment with very little technical knowledge.  The explosive use of blogging software highlights how simple WYSIWYG software applications can allow people to publish information to the internet for everyone to see, comment on and reference to and almost no training or reference to a manual is required.

We mentioned in last month's newsletter than the use of “office” applications has had its heyday and we expect this will soon start to decline as WYSIWYG editors provide a universal tool for sharing information and communicating with each other using the Internet as common ground in standard. This is good news for schools and allows them to "get over" courses which are based around learning Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access and start focusing on using the technology infrastructure, Internet access and peripherals to improve teaching-learning practices in general for all classes. 

The other issue that confronts many schools is that once you purchase software and loaded it onto the school server the software company then sends you updates on a regular basis.  Updating software then becomes a major challenge especially if your software provider updates software once every 2-3 months.  The software provider will have to send out a CD with instructions so that you can upgrade your program without compromising your very precious data.  The advantage to the application service provider option is that when the developers want to upgrade the software they only have to do it once, they do it, and everyone benefits immediately from the improvement.  This keeps the overall cost of the software and updates much lower and theoretically these savings should be passed on to their customers.

Essentially when we go online and purchase accommodation, books, CDs, software, tickets to the Symphony Orchestra for travel to Alaska we are using an ASP service.  What educators are now confronted with is the choice of using the same online services to deliver assessment, reporting, truancy notification, access to class materials, school calendars, discussions, chat, school management resources . . . .  So why are schools not embracing this opportunity with open arms?

The answer here is quite complex and it is a combination of school culture and technological reticence.  The school has been an enclosed, safe, castle of learning surrounded by a technological moat stopping bad things getting into the school.  Learning takes place within the school.  Teaching of things happens within the school; not outside.  The school contains the teaching and learning experience.  It is not that teachers are people who inherently fear technology, or are incompetent technology users, or feel threatened by the technology replacing their teaching capability; it is simply that the culture surrounding school has been so deeply embedded for centuries that it is hard for teachers as well as the community to think that teaching and learning might actually happen outside of school.  It is time to lower the drawbridge and allow learning and teaching to cross the moat and enter the community in general.  Eventually we will drain the moat and then kill off the dragons or crocodiles which inhabited the moat, but for now, being a conservative society we will just consider lowering the drawbridge.

Now the downside to ASP services:

1. One thing you give away when you take up Application Service Provider is control over the software which you use.  If you have created the software yourself then your technician will be able to modify, edit and improve the software according to your specifications.  This is time-consuming and possibly quite expensive but this is an important aspect to your use of a software package then you need to this into account.  Application service provision is based around a single program common to all users so that updating and improving the program is simple and straightforward but this also means that these services tend to be based on templates. It is important that you application service provider allows you to configure your program to suit your particular school, especially in this is a program which will be seen and used outside of school environment.

2. The other aspect is that you trust your Application Service Provider to manage, keep secure and back up your critical data professionally and ethically. If you decide to use an application service provider you need to spend time ensuring that the company is technically qualified to carry out the task they are offering and there are systems in place which will ensure both the integrity of your data along with the servers capability to release the data and the accompanying web pages quickly from the server.  In general an application service provider will show at the bottom of the page how long the page took to be delivered from server and this should, in general, be less than one second.

3. If you are going to host applications on somebody else's server and the application is to be delivered over the Internet then it is imperative that you have a highly specified and certified network within your school.  If your network is not efficient and managed well then the end user is going to get very frustrated when they cannot access the Internet or the delivery of the pages is painfully slow.

4.  Your Application Service Provider may be providing an excellent service and your network may be well specified and certified but if you do not have a high-speed Internet gateway into your school which can cope with one-third of all students being online at any given time then this bottleneck will frustrate everybody. This is also an added cost which must be entered into the equation.  In most countries high-speed Internet is increasingly becoming affordable and faster but there are some exceptions and it is important that before your school starts relying on application service providers they should have an excellent ISP who can deliver these resources into every classroom efficiently and effectively with a 99.9 percent uptime.  If your service provider cannot or does not provide this service then you should investigate other options from other providers.  Please also note here that if you pay for a service which is not designed to meet the requirements of one-third of your students being online at any one time then you cannot complain to your ISP.  Please note that this is a significant cost and must be budgeted into the overall the equation when considering application service provider software.

The Financial Considerations:

Schools can either have their technical staff set up their security and firewall systems, the web server and TCP/IP (protocols) internally or buy in technical help on a one-off basis. Either way it is an expensive option, but for a very large school of 1500 students or more the cost is amortised over a large number of students so that the cost per student is relatively low.  If, for example the cost of the implementation of the server, security and firewall system cost $20,000 then the cost per student is $13.33 cents.  However if the school has only 200 students then the cost is suddenly $100 per student as the small school requires almost the same security resources as the large school to put in this type of system.

An application service provider (ASP) usually charges a reasonable sum (usually between$500-$5000) depending on the number of students at the school), for setting up the software and then changes you a monthly fee (usually between $80-400/mnth depending on the number of students at the school), for hosting that software, providing you with hard drive space, a helpdesk (phone and e-mail), data backup services and upgrades and improvements to the software.  If we take the high end of both of these figures the cost for the first year is $9800 and the subsequent years the cost is $4800/year.  $4800 is approximately 1/10 of the salary of one technician.  If your technician (remember we took the example of a very large school) spends any more than 1/10 of his time on managing these applications and security services they require then financially you are much better off purchasing an ASP service for those applications.

Quite often business people refer to Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) which refers to the fact that the actual cost of an employee (in our case a technician), in a school is made up not only of his salary but also of services he makes use of, and hardware and furniture requirements and his overall management.  Generally speaking in business the salary is multiplied by two in order to get the total cost of an employee.  It this is taken into account then if the technician's uses anything more than 1/20th of his time on managing these applications and security services then you are better off financially purchasing an ASP service for those applications.

The other cost which you are going to incur by using application service providers is the amount of traffic which will be accessed via the Internet. In a school of 1500 students, if you have your student management system, your school intranet, your truancy system and a range of other web based services, you can expect the amount of traffic to exceed 100 gigabytes per month.  Smaller schools can scale this now accordingly as generally speaking traffic is on a per user basis (proportionately more students = proportionately more traffic).

The cost of Internet traffic and hard drive this space is dropping dramatically at a wholesale level, however many providers is still charging far too much and are not passing on the savings they are making.  Schools in general are large users of data and should be able to negotiate a very reasonable $ rate per Gb of traffic.

In Summary

For small-medium sized schools less than 1500 students the advantages in general outweigh the disadvantages but this does depend on the cost and reliability of your high-speed Internet connection.  Frustrations over the amount of time it takes for data to appear on screen can eliminate all the other positive aspects which an application service provider may be able to offer.  The reliability and the professionality of your application service provider is critical and should be investigated at some considerable length before making a choice to host your most sensitive data with a third party.  Expect some teething problems, these are almost inevitable whenever a new technology is introduced, however the WYSIWYG and hosted application service technologies have stabilised dramatically over the last two years and providers should now be guaranteeing the delivery and security of your data.

For schools larger than 1500 students the decision is more complex and revolves particularly around the capabilities of your technical staff.  We would make one comment here (and we do not do this lightly): your technical staff may be highly proficient, keep up with the latest technologies and provide you with a service second to none but as novice technology persons, school administrators would find it very hard to judge the technical capability of their technical staff.  Our experiences in general are that technical staff are not as capable as most administrators think they are. This does not mean that the service they offer is poor but rather it is recognises the fact that school technicians are often overworked and simply are not given time to upskill and keep up with the huge advances that are happening on a daily basis within the technology realm.  To give you an anecdotal feel for this simply ask yourself a question "when was the last time your technician attended good quality training or upskilling paid for by the school?"  Too often the answer is neither never or extremely rarely.  The upskilling required by technical staff should be planned, ongoing and seen as an investment in your capability to supply the essential infrastructure your school requires.

Application Service Providers can save you considerable amounts of heartache and money but only if they are run professionally, they have the technical capability, they are ethical in their dealings with both you and data which they are storing for you and you are able to trust them implicitly with possibly the most essential services your school offers your staff, students and the community.  The other issue is that your school requires a high-quality network and you need to be prepared to pay for a high level of internet traffic.

Comments and suggestions to

Mark Treadwell

Teachers@work.co.nz

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