Transplant_ed!

With acknowledgements to The Oops List

Technology, failure and government produce a really heady mix. Out of that mix come truly amazing nuggets of wisdom which in turn become 'norms and standards', and in turn end up as unrecognizable outcomes masquerading as improvement. Today's Mail and Guardian online provides a wondrous gem: the (obviously carefully researched and planned, and now thoughtfully announced) impending R3 billion roll-out of laptops for all teachers. The real gems lie in the mechanism(s) for change envisaged:

1) According to a ministerial spokesperson Deputy director general Firoz Patel "The minister realises that quality education is often elusive and that the computer can catapult one over the tedious development route" - Yup, apply technology and the tedious, demanding, hard work of actually learning something and then practicing that, is obviated. Darn, why has nobody thought of that before? Why, we could just give computers to all Grade 8's, and skip teachers and schools altogether. We could close down teacher training, turn all university teaching facilities into research labs: it would save zillions (which would soon be needed to buy a loaf of bread). But wait. It gets better: (oh god, I really can't believe I am reading this c*@P from someone associated with education...)

2) "Many teachers have been inadequately trained for OBE and some do not understand the content they are expected to teach.

Patel said it could take 10 years to retrain teachers, at great cost, but through the use of computers training could be accelerated and materials made available. "They could have access to lesson plans, for example."

Sorry. I'm becoming apoplectic here. My best beloved is an ICT's in education A/P - I can feel the incandescence from here, and she is a 100m away. How in heaven's (or the Galapagos) name, can throwing laptops at teachers - dependent on very costly to use 3G cards - make up for the 10 years of training the department realizes is needed because the teachers have been inadequately trained for OBE.... <insert wailing and gnashing of teeth>. But then maybe the teachers (who may never have used any kind of a computer before) are going to receive sound training in the use of these laptops (which as we all know are hardy, uncomplicated pieces of plastic)? - BUT NO!!!!

3) The genius plan goes on..."No face-to-face training is envisaged, but the use of software to assist with training is being investigated."

<revert to behaviour of two years ago, and bang my head against the desk until the pain goes away>.

They never trained teachers in OBE, now they're not going to train them in the use of technology (except maybe some software...). Oh what fun. R550 million a year. No training. Skip the "tedious development route". Sounds like a recipe for ensuring SA is a competitive nation.

You may recall (or not) the post about GroupWhinge / Woes / Whines etc. Have a look at this (and thanks Celia for drawing my attention to the JISC Inform site)

 

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Debate: Should UK universities outsource their email?

YES

In 2007, Leeds Metropolitan University’s student email system was reviewed. This important medium at the core of the university’s communication strategy allows staff to communicate with students directly, quickly and easily. By outsourcing our email provision to Google, we now have an affordable, scalable system that meets students’ expectations.

A key driver prompted our move to outsourcing. Students have an ever-growing demand for online storage, fuelled by the use of digital media and the electronic submission of assignments. Yet their in-house system could only offer a small amount of personal disk space (10-20Mb), resulting in students not using their university email as their primary account. As many students didn’t configure their university account to forward mail on, important communications were not getting through effectively.

To provide the same email data storage ourselves would have cost around £1m over four years, not to mention the capital investment of upgrading the previous email system.

The first task was to work with students and cross-departmental staff to determine exactly what students required from a university email account. We researched the market and found that, unlike in the US, there were very few options available. The one product that met Leeds Metropolitan’s requirements was Google Apps which, in addition to email, offered many more continuously revised and improved features, from calendars and chat to collaborative working tools. The pilot service went live in February 2008. Within four weeks, over three thousand students had registered, exceeding all initial expectations.

In terms of economic benefits, we still carry out certain administrative tasks, but no longer worry about server capacity, reliability or scalability. This frees up staff to do other things that add value to the student experience. There are also fewer technological glitches, and we keep getting added features and therefore added value on an ongoing basis, for free. To provide the same email data storage ourselves would have cost around £1m over four years, not to mention the capital investment of upgrading the previous email system.

By September 2008, over 30,000 accounts had been created, ready to allocate a Google email account to every student at Leeds Metropolitan, with integration to a calendaring system to enable a single-view of calendars for students. This has been successful, with very positive feedback from existing and new students.

Whilst I understand that some people may prefer to keep their data in-house, I think that each system should be viewed on its own merits and supported by a business case. Our project was evaluated over the rest of the year and was judged a success by all stakeholders. Both logistically and legally – and our lawyers investigated this in depth – I have great confidence in Google’s infrastructure.
Hugh Lavery
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NO

When it comes to outsourcing your email and other information systems, you can take your pick of the clichés when describing the potential dangers: ‘out of sight, out of mind’; ‘one hand tied behind your back’; ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’; and ‘the thin end of the wedge’ all spring to mind.

Human nature dictates that as soon as you become distanced from something you inevitably start to pay less attention to it. Soon the default answer to any question raised regarding security, back-up, data access or any other critical management issue will be ‘our service provider takes care of that’. I’m sure the Ministry of Defence said exactly the same about data security right up until their contractor lost a disk containing the personal data relating to 100,000 members of the armed forces. The simple fact is that no one has a greater vested interest in looking after your data than you. Outsourcing your data does not outsource responsibility – but it becomes all too easy to assume that it does.

Moreover, you could soon discover that without direct access to the servers and services themselves, you are powerless to take the required corrective measures when a problem does emerge. Will your Vice Chancellor really be satisfied to hear that ‘we are waiting for our service provider to get back to us’ when demanding to know why his email doesn’t work?

It’s also worth considering the volatile times in which we live. The global economic crisis is no respecter of size or reputation and it is a near certainty that some big names within the IT industry will be amongst the eventual casualties. When a company collapses it is the role of the administrators to try to recover as much of the money owed to investors as possible. It is far less clear who would take responsibility for reuniting the data they hold with their owners, or how long such a process might take.

Finally, it is interesting that so many of the current outsourcing projects have chosen to only outsource student email accounts, apparently on the basis that this raises fewer issues and represent a lower risk to the institution than outsourcing information created by, or relating to, its staff. That may well be true but if, despite all of the above, these initial pilot projects are a success, it won’t be long before the pressure is on to do likewise with mission-critical corporate data. Only then will institutions discover that all of their record and information management solutions are based on the premise that the institution has direct management access to its own information and that they have inadvertently exposed themselves to all manner of legal, regulator and operational risks. But by then it will be too late…
Steve Bailey
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YES: Hugh Lavery is the Director of Information, Media and Technology Services at Leeds Metropolitan University.

NO: Steve Bailey is a records management professional and senior advisor at JISC infoNet. He is not anti-outsourcing but has kindly provided us with the flip-side to this debate.

 If this REALLY interests you, you may find these case studies of interest: (JISC Case Studies)

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From JISC Inform

(JISC Inform is produced by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to raise awareness of the use of information technology (ICT) to support further and higher education in the UK. )
 

GroupWise or GroupWoes? I'll take a "yes" on the latter. Right: no postbox access again today, although I suspect this is because of the "innovations" around password software.

I ignored the academic association letter to the VC because I felt that the tone was over the top, and the suggestions seemed to lack practical validity - but it was hard not to be sympathetic toward the sentiment. I've only been at OU(tm) for 2 years now, and I really can't think of a term in which GW has worked well.  If OU(tm) was going to go the route of an enterprise mail handler, why not go via MS Exchange? Was it cost related? I would guess that with the constant downtime and repairs for GW, any saving has been compromised if not lost. If it was to avoid MS software (an understandable and laudable aim), going Novell was not really a big leap in the right direction, now was it? Right now we (as users, the people who are the university) probably hate GW almost as much as the current ITS staff who spend weekends and late nights trying to keep that thing going. 

How about time for a rethink on a number of issues: ISA (good in theory, crappy in application); password updater (not too promising so far); GroupWoes? (time to delete; re-format); Communication (really letting people know through Faculty presentations etc) about the Website policy and planning (I hear that WebDav is falling over, and all sites on it will die when it does, and I admit to being a tad suspicious about how this has crept up so silently)? One size-fits all websites are all the rage - BUT, that means the webunit must be adequately staffed, Faculties and Departments will need people trained and given the time to update CMS data, and ideally, we should all actually know what;s going on - leak down's via HoD's are a leak-poor way of communicating this information to us poor sods who try and manage departmental websites because no-one else will.

But of these all, the biggest worry is GroupWoes. Do we really need it? For example: How much does the GW calender really get used (as distinct from having stuff put on it)? Even given the good reason for avoiding MS Exchange (probabaly cost and, well, the Evil Empire), the question is how much real use GW's so-called utility is providing? Does any one know (no, I don't mean management-speak, I mean really know)? 'Cos, if, as I suspect, people mostly use the calandar for their own use (i.e. largely ignore meeting notices), than why not go the much cheaper route of Mozilla + Thunderbird and its calendar - all Open Source - which permits changing of emails into calendar entries, and so permits emailed notification? Yes, admin and secretarial staff staff can't check HOD and Dean's e-calendars (at least when I last checked but that was 2 years ago), but really, how much is this used (especially when the damn thing is down so much anyway)?

I'm not sure how using Google's range of options would work - are there bandwidth implications, which I would suspect? Google is NOT innocent either, so lets not be naive about that. Certainly their calendar is a great collaboration tool, but their email is less than secure (most SA banks, for instance, won't permit a GMail account for internet banking) because of their bot search system linked to their advertising - at least in their common GMail - perhaps institutional special arrangements will omit this?

Whatever - another DVC post is looming DVC (Email communications).... Oh, and welcome and good luck to the new Director of ITS. Really. We all depend on that good luck.