Author: D. McKay

ICT deal with around 3000 support calls per month and endeavour to deal with all calls as quickly as possible. To help ICT prioritise the calls there is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which is applied as part of the Service desk software. This SLA has been agreed with Education and is applied across all Education sites.

Call resolution and service levels

The Service Desk team will: record the call details in our Service Desk system, prioritise and assign your call based on service level agreements, Provide you with a reference number, which you should use in all correspondence about your call.

Some calls are resolved instantly, but others will need more time. Where a call cannot be resolved by the Duty ICT Officer, it will be passed to relevant staff members with expertise in desktop, server, network and application support. In some instances, ICT staff may need to arrange a visit to your school to resolve the problem.

Priority levels:

Priority 1

Outage or failure affecting the whole School

Acknowledge Time: 30 minutes

Call to Fix Time: 6 hours

Priority 2

Outage not affecting the entire School but no alternative service is available

Acknowledge Time: 1 hour

Call to Fix Time: 8 hours

Priority 3

Outage not affecting total School but alternative equivalent equipment available

Acknowledge Time: 2 hours

Call to Fix Time: 12 hours

Priority 4

Advice and Guidance only

Acknowledge Time: As soon as possible

Priority 5

Request for Change e.g. Order for new equipment

Acknowledge Time: As soon as possible

Q.   What should you do if I receive an email which I wasn’t expecting?

A.   Be very careful or you could find that you have just released Ransomware onto your schools network.

What is Ransomware?:-

Ransomware is a type of malware that prevents or limits users from accessing their system, either by locking the system’s screen or by locking the users’ files.

Recently this has come in the form of unsolicited emails which had an attachment. Unfortunately these attachments were opened which led to several TMC schools being infected.and has been traced back to unsolicited emails with attachments that release the damaging files onto the schools network. This then starts to infect any files which are opened by that user / from that computer on the network and then can start to spread across the schools network as other users become involved. This has led to large quantities of schools data becoming inaccessible and having to be restored from backup.

How can I prevent this happening?:-

When you receive an email ask yourself the following 2 simple questions.

1 Do you know who has sent you the email?                                      

If you do not, do not open the attachment and delete the email.

2 Are you expecting an email from the person with an attachment?  

If not do not open the attachment and either check with the user (do not forward the attachment) or delete the email.

What will happen if I do open an email and it infects the school?:-

This will depend on the pay load delivered by the Ransomware. However the recent outbreaks have led to entire drives having to be restored within schools. This can take up to 5 days to clean all traces of the infection. During this period your school will experience large amounts of disruption to learning and teaching. Depending on the payload it may be necessary to disconnect the school from the Education network entirely for the duration of the clean up to protect other schools.

It should also be remembered that if your school has a NAS drive and this becomes infected there will be no way of recovering the data unless your school has an offline backup of the data. This could lead to large amounts of data being lost permanently.

In short: Please be vigilant when reading emails and delete any unsolicited emails without opening. It is easier for a genuine user to resend an email than it is to clean up an infected school.

Currently excel files are blocked to protect schools. However ICT are in consultation with Education with regards to lifting the current restrictions.

Please follow the steps below to clean your new Interactive Panel:

1. Switch off the ActivPanel Touch and disconnect the power cable.
2. Shut down the attached computer and disconnect its power cable.
3. Do not use any liquid or spray cleaner when wiping the device. Do not use volatile solvents (such as alcohol, rosin, and toluene) to clean the ActivPanel Touch. These types of chemicals might damage the housing. Do not use abrasive cleaners.
4. Wipe the surface gently with a slightly damp 100% cotton or micro-fibre cloth but do not apply pressure to the screen.

Please follow the steps below when cleaning the bezel and remote control:

1. Use a 100% cotton cloth or micro-fibre cloth for cleaning.
2. If the remote control or bezel is dirty to the point where you cannot simply dry wipe it, please lightly dampen the cleaning fabric with clean water and wipe it. Use only lightly dampened fabric to avoid malfunction and possible permanent damage to electronic parts.
3. Finally, wipe the ActivPanel Touch dry with a dry micro-fibre cloth or 100% cotton cloth.

Please ensure that those with access to the ActivPanel Touch are aware of the cleaning procedure.

If you have any concerns about cleaning your Interactive Panel you can easily raise a call via the online form and arrange for ICT to attend.

Many schools report that they are having issues logging classes in and out on netbooks. The following is a guide to some of the reasons this may happen and what a school can do to help improve the speed of their netbooks.

Why are the oldest netbooks the slowest?

This is to be expected. The original NB200 models are now up to 5 years old. Netbooks do not have the same life span as a laptop and speed issues will be noticed earlier when using older netbooks. e.g. The NB200 model only has 1Gb of RAM.

Solution: 

Use the some of the schools replacement allocation to replace the old netbooks with new devices. (Laptops will be faster and last longer than netbooks)

When I log a class on it takes forever?

Cause1:  Are you close to a WiFi aerial?  

The WiFi signal which is closest will be shared between all of the devices which are trying to log in. If you are on the edge of the signal, speed will be reduced significantly.

Solution:     

There is a project to provide all schools with full classroom coverage in the meantime please ensure that any aerials that you do have are located where the heaviest netbook traffic is likely to be encountered.

Cause2:  When were the devices last logged in?

When devices have been in a trolley or cupboard and have not been used for several weeks they will have updates, e.g. Anti Virus, that need to be installed before they connect to the network. The longer they have been offline the larger these updates will be and the slower your netbooks will be.

Solution:   

Rotate the use of your netbooks so that none are unused for an extended period of time. A report run this week shows that of the 5811 Education Devices on the network 1400 Devices (24%) have not connected to the network for over 2 months. When these devices are eventually used they will have updates to do and will cause speed issues.

or/ If you are aware that the devices have been off the network for some time connect them via a cable before logging in for the first time.

ICT are heavily involved in the rollout of the new Xerox print solution.  This began during the summer holidays and will be ongoing for the next 2-3 months and will completely refresh the printing solutions for both Education and Corporate users.

The rollout of Interactive Panels to 29 schools has been completed. Most of these were undertaken prior to the summer break however some installations have taken place during the holidays.

Phase 2 of the Interactive Panel project will take place in the Autumn term.  If your school has not already completed the form outlining your requirements please do so as soon as possible to ensure you receive your free allocation.  If you require the form to be resent or require further information contact mary.joyce@moray.gov.uk

64Bit Windows 7 installation for Autodesk 2016 migration – Secondary Schools 

Around 280 computers were re-imaged with 64Bit Windows 7 to allow the installation of Autodesk 2016 for TMC Schools Technical departments.

Secondary School Computer Refresh

 All the equipment for the Secondary school refresh has been configured and rolled out over the summer holiday period.  This totalled around 370 devices.

Primary School Computer Refresh

 A large number of primary schools supplied details of their requirements (in excess of 200 devices).  These have been ordered from the supplier and the equipment will be rolled out as early as possible in the new term.

Ideally the balance of the Primary School Computer refresh will take place in the Autumn term.  If your school has not already completed the form outlining your requirements please do so as soon as possible to ensure you receive your free computer allocation.  If you require the form to be resent or require further information contact mary.joyce@moray.gov.uk

What can schools look forward to in the following year when it comes to ICT improvements?

Interactive panels:- Every school will receive the offer of two 65″ Interactive Panels. One will be wall mounted and one will be on a mobile stand. There will however be upgrade options available for each school so that they can tailor the equipment to their local needs. Paperwork will be sent to all schools in the coming weeks.

PC Replacement:- Schools will once again benefit from new computer equipment to replace the oldest units within your school. Schools will receive paperwork in the coming weeks to allow then to select the equipment most suitable for their school. e.g. Small Form Factor PC, Ultra Small Form Factor PC, Netbook or Laptop etc. Schools should return the paperwork as soon as possible to ensure the installation work can be scheduled.

WiFi:- It is planned to roll out WiFi across all Schools. Initially it is planned to ensure that all classrooms are covered in the next 12 months. In future years the coverage will be extended to shared areas within the school and eventually campus wide coverage. ICT will be in contact with schools to arrange site surveys, if they have not been completed already, to organise any network point installations and to arrange for the installation of the wireless access points. ICT will rely heavily on the school to work along with this process to ensure that all schools can be completed in the short timescale available.

Broadband:- Currently the Pathfinder network which schools are using is being replaced with the SWAN (Scotland Wide Area Network) network. Every school will swap over to the new network over the coming months. ICT will again inform schools as this is scheduled by the providers.

Xerox Printing Solution:- All schools will receive new Xerox machines to provide a whole of school printing solution. This work will be scheduled over the coming months.

All of the above work,as well as normal support and project work,is carried out by the same ICT Teams. To ensure that your school benefits from all of the above improvements ICT asks that any paperwork is returned as quickly as possible to ensure that your work can be scheduled.

Now that the Central link has been upgraded several schools are finding that their own connection is being fully utilised which leads to the school running slowly.

Many schools are unsure how all of the bandwidth is being used and aren’t aware of which sites could be using the bandwidth. ICT have checked the logs and the following sites are the top bandwidth users for Education.

SUMDOG    COOL MATHS    APPLE DOWNLOADS    BBC

If multiple users within your school are using the sites above, or any steaming media sites (Youtube, iPlayer, Video Sites, Radio Stations etc.), at the same time then the bandwidth within the school can become saturated.

One way of checking if this is the cause of slow speeds in your school is to check if the internet is still slow over lunch time when the pupils are not on the PCs.

Unfortunately until the Pathfinder Network is upgraded to SWAN later this year there is no way of increasing your schools bandwidth. Schools could try scheduling the use of sites like the ones above to help until the bandwidth is increased.