ICT Services 4 Education

 

School ICT News Bulletin No. 170 - 03/11/2010

Published by Children’s Services


Project Roll-Out of SIMS Management Information System

The project planning has commenced for the rollout of SIMS Management Information System.

In view of the considerable response from schools so far in wanting to be part of the new contract because of the significant benefits in terms of functionality and value for money we are assuming your school will be included in the roll-out unless you email to state that you do not intend to be included.

We are planning for a series of 'roadshows' to demonstrate the benefits of SIMS during October and November. At the roadshows you will be able to see a demonstration of SIMS and talk to Capita staff. In the meantime you can view the “Welcome to SIMS” paper here which will give you an overview of the product’s functionality. You can also see the broad benefits of SIMS in this "Capita Breadth of Solution" diagram.

The terms and conditions for the new contract with Capita SIMS have been substantially updated to reflect safeguarding and Data Protection legislation.

Children’s Services have commenced working with Capita on integrating SIMS with other products to use data more efficiently. The aim is to reduce the time taken to update records in numerous places.

Services to Schools 2011/12 - Charging for MIS (e1 or SIMS)

We are aiming to migrate schools across to SIMS as quickly as possible and want to ensure a smooth transition that works well for schools.

Realistically this means we may not be able to migrate all schools by 31st March 2011.

We will look to align SIMS and e1 charges to schools from April 2011 to simplify transitional arrangements for the year.

You are licensed to use e1 until 31st March 2011 and if you want to transfer to SIMS but do not do so until after this date NCC have a limited arrangement to continue with the e1 contract with Pearson Phoenix until all schools are migrated. In other words, if you wish to use SIMS you need not do anything as you will not be without a MIS.

Communications from Pearson Phoenix

Pearson Phoenix are emailing schools directly to offer individual contracts for e1.

Please bear in mind when you read the offer from Pearson Phoenix that:

  1. e1 will no longer be supported by NCC when all the schools who wish to, have migrated to SIMS.
  2. Your support will be directly with Pearson Phoenix and not via ICT Solutions.
  3. Your training will be directly with Pearson Phoenix.
  4. The terms and conditions for the new contract with Capita SIMS have been substantially updated to reflect safeguarding and data security legislation.
  5. The licence charge for SIMS is fixed for five years.

As set out in the previous MI Sheet (MI174/10) schools have the opportunity to take a five year fixed price contract at the current prices as an alternative to an annual contract which will be subject to annual price variations.

We are aware that Pearson are contacting individual schools with an offer to stay with e1. However, the price quoted is not the same as the price offered with their Tender submission.Under procurement law we had to accept the submitted pricing offer.

Author: Jo North

Damaged Goods

Please be aware that when you are signing for equipment being delivered to your site you must check to see if the packaging has any signs of damage.

If you sign for equipment where a box is damaged, without stating this on the couriers paperwork and find that the equipment is damaged on opening the box it is more than likely the supplier that the goods have been purchased from will be unable to assist as they have no evidence that the box was damaged during transit.

Please ensure that if you feel a box has been damaged that you state "DAMAGED" on the couriers delivery note, this will enable us to pursue the case on your behalf.

Author: Rob Price

Google Mail is replacing RM Easymail – Rollout Week 7

The Google Project is on track and as of today, ICT Solutions have set up 97,000 accounts for those schools in the Week 1-7 rollout.  Reports show that 8,991 accounts have been actively used this month, this figure is increasing by c1300 a month.

Any questions?

This is an exciting development and we hope your school soon begins to enjoy the benefits of using Google Mail.

Author: Kerry Henry

Google email addresses - nsix.org.uk

We have been notified that several emails intended for school staff have been incorrectly addressed to email accounts ending in n6.org.uk. The correct domain to use is nsix.org.uk and would ask you to take care when entering these email addresses or mail will not reach the intended recipient.

 
e.g
 
username@nsix.org.uk is valid
 
username@n6.org.uk is NOT valid

Author: Mark Carway

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