Customized Portal Technology Creates World-Class Learning System for 55,000 Students
Overview
Country or Region
Western Australia
Industry
Education
Customer Profile
Based in Perth, as the peak body for independent education, AISWA has a staff of 30 providing educational support and services to independent schools, their pupils and communities across the state of Western Australia.
Business Situation
AISWA sought a technology partner to create and host a learning system to better serve its member schools.
Solution
Solutions I.T. deployed the Scholaris Learning Gateway based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003 technology with Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 as its centralized database. Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003, Exchange Server 2003, Live Communications Server 2005, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004, the.NET Framework and Office 2003 were also deployed.
Benefits
§ Internet-based for easy access
§ Secure and stable system
§ Adaptable and expandable
§ Online and available 24/7 / “We liked the product and had confidence in the fact that Microsoft technology was the foundation for this system. We knew that support would be provided and that the system would be stable.”
—David Hewitt, Manager, AISWAlearningnet
When it comes to education, technology must be functional, flexible, future-proof—and affordable. With this in mind, the Association of Independent Schools in Western Australia (AISWA) searched for an online learning system for its members in metropolitan, regional and remote areas of Western Australia. AISWA found what it wanted in a customized software package called Scholaris Learning Gateway, based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal Server technology. With Scholaris, AISWA created AISWAlearningnet—a portal that provides students with curriculum related applications that meet their individual learning needs. It allows students to learn online, at their own pace, with support from teachers and parents. The portal also enhances intra-school communication. Eventually, it will be extended to give parents access to school and student-related information for more than 55,000 pupils.
Situation
Bigger than Texas, Japan and the UK combined, the state of Western Australia occupies one-third of the Australian continent. The task of serving the educational needs of independent schools, pupils and their communities scattered across this vast area is a challenge met by the state’s Association of Independent Schools (AISWA).
AISWA Executive Director, Audrey Jackson, says a significant part of its brief is to help independent schools look to the future and assist them in recognizing the benefits of embracing state-of-the-art information technologies.
This is one of the reasons AISWA applied for state government funding to research and develop a networked communications system similar to those that existed within the state and Catholic school systems.
Jackson says, “We were given a grant of $1.2 million to apply to our solution, so we examined the wide area and virtual private networks which other schools were using.
“However, since independent schools have to operate as businesses and compete with each other for students, we came up against a lot of resistance to a WAN or VPN system. Many schools have their own electronic identities which they want to maintain.”
Independent schools are as diverse in their nature as they are in size and range. They include large grammar schools, small Montessori schools, Anglican and Islamic colleges, and aboriginal schools. Because AISWA is a voluntary organization, administrators were aware they could not mandate any system that did not meet the requirements of all member schools.
The selection task was further complicated by the fact that these schools are located across Western Australia in urban, regional and remote desert areas, and range in size from 20 to 2,000 students.
“After 12 months of research and debate, we realized the answer was a portal solution that all schools, students and their parents could access via the Internet,” Jackson says. “This would allow schools to use the system according to their own requirements and abilities.”
AISWA examined the software solutions that other schools were using, such as the MyInternet Suite, Blackboard and Janison’s Toolbox. However, for a variety of reasons, none of these suited AISWA’s specific needs.
Solution
Rick Rosato, a Perth-based Microsoft account manager, suggested AISWA look at a Microsoft concept being developed by a local technology company called Solutions I.T. Established in 1998, Solutions I.T. is a specialist provider of information technology products and services for the education sector.
Solutions I.T director, Cliff Lloyd, says the company had taken a concept developed by Microsoft in Australia to create a software package called the Scholaris Learning Gateway. Based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Portal Server technology, Scholaris is a true “all-of-school” software environment.
“One of its strengths,” says Lloyd, “is that Scholaris can integrate and replace the fragmented applications that address specific areas of a school's needs and bring them into a single framework that is accessible any place, anytime by any member of the school community.”
After many demonstrations and discussions, AISWA agreed to adopt Scholaris to create AISWAlearningnet, an interactive, online learning environment that provides students with curriculum-related activities developed specifically to meet their individual learning needs.
“We liked the product and had confidence in the fact that Microsoft technology was the foundation for this system,” says manager of AISWAlearningnet, David Hewitt.
He says, “We knew support would be provided and that the system would be stable. We also knew that Microsoft would constantly be developing new versions to stand on the shoulders of current versions.”
Putting Information to Work
To develop Scholaris, Solutions I.T. used Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and other Microsoft Windows Server™ technology to create a cohesive system within a Microsoft .NET technology programming environment.
As a key component in this suite of technologies, Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 provides a single point of access to multiple systems. A portal built on this architecture provides flexible tools for deployment, development and management of the system.
The built-in scalability of Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 also enables the Scholaris portal to grow to fit the changing needs of the system.
During the last months of 2004, AISWA and Solutions I.T. conducted a “proof of concept” trial of Scholaris. In January 2005, a controlled deployment of the system began under the auspices of a trial.
A group of selected schools was invited to access the system and test its functionality. After a series of reviews and adjustments, full scale deployment of the Scholaris Learning Gateway took place in November 2005.
Scholaris now features a suite of applications that offer schools streamlined processes to address problem areas, such as attendance recording, anecdotal and outcomes assessment recording, resource and facilities booking, building maintenance, student report generation, IT help desk and timetable generation.
Benefits
The Scholaris Learning Gateway allows students to learn online, at their own pace, with support and monitoring from teachers and parents. The portal also enhances intra-school communication and provides a resource for sharing educational materials with other member schools. For individual schools, the portal can be extended to provide parents access to school and student-related information.
Says Lloyd: “Data security is very important for schools, so Scholaris features enterprise grade security and firewall capabilities through Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004. This product has demonstrated an ability to meet the risk profile of even the most cautious of education institutions.”
Scholaris applications can be implemented individually, or integrated through the portal to form part of an enterprise-wide system. The Scholaris Learning Gateway offers users a single point of access through a Web browser, either from within a school’s local network or externally from any Internet connection.
Scholaris also features an advanced Learning Resource Management and Online Curriculum delivery system based on Microsoft Class Server.
Scholaris is accessible through a wide range of devices, including laptops, desktop computers, the new generation of wireless “smart” devices such as PDAs, tablet PCs and smart phones—and even IP-enabled telephones.
According to Lloyd, the Microsoft .NET Framework has provided “the definitive standard for application development.”
“As we tell school administrators, because Scholaris is built on this interoperability framework, they are not buying a closed proprietary system from Solutions I.T.,” says Lloyd.
“They can go to other vendors who are writing to the same standard and cherry-pick pieces of software and plug those pieces into their own application as they see fit.
“We had just five people working on Scholaris and programming efficiency is all about not having to reinvent the wheel. A hundred thousand programmers working from scratch for five years couldn’t replicate what we were able to inherit through the Microsoft platform.”
A System for the Future
Solutions I.T.’s Cliff Lloyd and AISWA’s David Hewitt both agree that Scholaris is not yet finished—nor will it ever be. As rich an educational environment as it provides today, there will always be new learning modules to add and new technologies to incorporate into its Microsoft-based infrastructure.
Hewitt says, “But look what we can do with this system already.
“If I log on as a teacher, I click on my timetable and it might show period 2 Geography. I get a class list; I can click into that list and see an individual student’s record. Not just his or her home address, telephone number and medical alert, but also their pastoral care record or their community service record, sporting achievements and so on. It reveals a summary of their attendance and their academic records so we have a complete picture of an individual student.
“A principal can log on during a phone conversation with a parent who is making enquiries about their child’s behavior. In less than a minute, the principal can have the student’s entire record before them on the screen as they speak. To assemble information as comprehensive as this in the old days might have taken hours, if not longer, and probably would have involved interviewing department heads.”
Because the system is role-based, specific elements and information can be made available to specific people. Information available to principals and department heads would be different from those available to teachers. While parents would have access to information about their own children, they might not have access to their child’s counseling record.
“There are also personal benefits for students using this type of online system,” says Hewitt. “Kids who are sick and those with social problems who don’t want to attend classes don’t have to miss out on their lessons. Research has shown that boys in particular are much more willing to approach a counselor with their problem via a chat room, than sit in an office for a face-to-face conversation. This creates another method of communication for them.”
All pupils would have access to their individual e-portfolios. When they log on they can see the set assignments waiting for them—homework, revision activities and exercises. Schools with interactive whiteboards allow teachers to put work onto these whiteboards and upload the image to their students’ e-portfolios, ready for the student to review at night.
Says Hewitt: “A teacher can tell his class that he will be online between 7pm and 8pm if they need some help. He can then log on and do some demos using chat, a whiteboard, audio or video and a student at home can actually take over the electronic pen to draw on his own whiteboard and ask: ‘Is this what you meant?’
“This is not science fiction. It is a whole new world of learning that is available today, via the Microsoft-based Scholaris Learning Gateway.”
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Software and Services§ Microsoft Windows Server 2003
§ Microsoft Active Directory®
§ Microsoft Exchange Server 2003
§ Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005
§ Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004
§ Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003
§ Microsoft SQL Server 2000
§ Microsoft .NET Framework
§ Microsoft Office 2003
Hardware
§ HP Servers
Partner
§ Solutions I.T. / Microsoft Windows Server System
The Microsoft Windows Server System™ is integrated server infrastructure software from Microsoft designed to support end-to-end solutions built on Windows Server 2003. It creates an infrastructure based on integrated innovation: a whole-system design approach that helps simplify development, deployment and management. It is designed to work together and interact seamlessly with other data and applications across an IT environment to reduce the costs of operations, deliver high reliability and security, and drive valuable new capabilities for the future growth of a business.
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about the Association of Independent Schools of Western Australia, call (08) 9244 2788 or visit the Web site at:
www.ais.wa.edu.au
For information about the AISWAlearningnet project, visit the Web site at: www.aiswalearningnet.wa.edu.au
For more information about Solutions I.T. products and services, call (08) 9284 0733 or visit the Web site at:
www.solutionsit.com.au
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This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
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Document published December 2005
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