Report on the outcomes of the Secondary GLOW Lead Meeting 8th September 2015

1. 20#20 Strategy Overview

The principles of the 20#20 strategy were highlighted and re-affirmed;  Education Service’s commitment to the five National Objectives for the development of ICT in education are:

  • To change the culture of the use of ICT
  • To improve confidence in the use of ICT for learners, teachers, school leaders and parents
  • To promote new behaviours for teaching
  • To deepen parental engagement
  • To strengthen position on hardware and associated infrastructure

In order to achieve the above, the need to ‘go mobile’ and move into ‘the cloud’ is crucial:

  • The various solutions offered by the Glow environment were seen to provide the fundamental architecture for an online education cloud solution for Stirling & Clacks schools that is robust and safe.
  • There was recognition that the OneDrive product had matured sufficiently to offer import and export options from other educational software and mobile apps.
  • There was recognition that Groupwise was becoming increasingly limiting as a modern communication tool, and that the virtually unlimited scope of the Glow Outlook email offered significant benefits for learners and educators.

Planned migration from Groupwise to Glow Email

The consensus view was that such a migration was long overdue. An early migration was therefore greatly welcomed. Stirling High School and St. Modans High School expressed a desire to move as early as possible.

2. Migration issues and challenges

Glow Account Usernames

Naming conventions – still to decide

  • to be agreed sooner than later – before October holidays.
  • simplest approach may be the most successful, building on Clacks experience.
  • Input to be sought from the Glow national team and from RM.

Data Protection and Improving email practice

There is a need, and an opportunity, to address some existing email practices which do not meet with data protection guidelines, eg the direct sharing of personal sensitive data within email content. The consequences of data leakage from such practices put user, authority and young people at risk.

  • There is an opportunity to enforce new practices that meet data protection guidelines, eg putting personal sensitive data into SEEMiS and emailing to alert that such data now exists.
  • There is an opportunity to emphasise the DP role and responsibilities of establishments and users.

Distribution Lists, Staff Groups, Pupil Groups

Concern was raised about the management of groups of users in the new email system and the need for creation of address books/distribution lists for pupils/staff etc at all levels.

  • Current situation within Groupwise webmail is very limited distribution options, and there are no pupils within Groupwise.
  • There is currently the functionality to produce lists and groups within the O365 environment, both as distribution lists and as group users.
  • Need to clarify the scope and lifespan of O365 distribution lists. Information to be sought from the O365 tenacy product owner at Scottish Government.
  • Need for training for school admins on how to setup groups and lists
  • *discussion around Gavin Hunter (Lornshill) providing training on this.

Calendar(s)

Groupwise calendars, and group appointments are extensively used in the ‘centre’ but not widely used within schools and nurseries.

  • There was optimism that the calendar options within Outlook O365 will offer scope for team, staff and school calendars.
  • The ability to make a meeting appointment, an “online meeting” and use video-conferencing tools (Lync/Skype/Glow Meet) instead offers significant scope for improving network meeting attendance, developing professional learning communities, and improved communication links with the centre.
  • Need for to advertise, promote and support the use of online meetings
  • Need to setup distribution groups for intra/inter-authority subject networks
  • Need to provide a tech spec sheet for hardware to access online video meetings

Existing Contacts

There was some discussion about existing contacts (outwith the organisation) and how they can be notified of change of email etc

  • Need for a period of redirection or forwarding, after the migration
  • Options may include a closed mailbox rule, with a return message alerting any senders of the new address and failure of the initial message.

Pupil Email and Pupil Usernames

There was discussion about the most appropriate time to issue pupils with their own email addresses.

  • priority has to be to get all staff migrated, and staff confidence using Outlook O365
  • each establishment to be decide when is the right time for their pupils
  • There was discussion about the format of pupil usernames, especially within the context of finding pupils in yeargroups/classes.
  • similar to staff, but taking advantage of existing data; suggest possible use of an ST prefix followed by Glow year number, then surname and first name, eg ST15smithjohn, where 15 indicates a current Primary 1 pupil (2015 being the year of entry to school and Glow), 14 =P2, 13=P3, 12=P4, 11=P5, 10=P6, 09=P7, 08=S1, 07=S2, 06=S3, 05=S4, 04=S5, 03=S6 * Use of existing @glow.sch.uk
  • Accept the original numbering of “smithjohn3” if already provisioned.
  • Clearly retrospective modifications would have to be applied to all secondary pupil usernames, but would have the benefit of needing minimal modification of primary pupil names and also provides a consistent naming convention for future years.
  • Input to be sought from the Glow national team and from RM.
  • Need for training for school admins to be aware of the convention and how to modify individual usernames post-migration
  • Consider the possibility of developing/amending network logins to replicate Glow username conventions.

Glow Admin Support

  • need to ensure centre admin to support the Stirling Email Migration – propose the use of stirlingglowhq@glowmail.org.uk as a central point of communication for the Stirling Email migration.
  • need to ensure joined up thinking with Clacks Glow Email > propose the use of clacksglowhq@glowmail.org.uk as a central point of communication for Clacks staff? Or as a single address at stirlingclacks@glowmail.org.uk ?
  • need to ensure centre admin has full access to SEEMiS in Clacks and Stirling, and full GLOW admin rights across Clacks and Stirling

Technical and hardware issues

Browser setup in schools is the most likely source of poor user experience

  • need to ensure that all establishments are able to use Chrome or Firefox as the default browser.

New Users and Temporary Users

  • Need to consider how new (permanent) users will be managed within establishments – SEEMiS work record, network login and GLOW username, email address etc
  • Need to consider how supply and temp staff are given SEEMiS work records, network login and GLOW username, email address etc

Proxy access to diary and emails

Need to consider best method for replacing proxy access to Groupwise accounts. eg for school admins, secretaries etc sending email on behalf of, or checking and sending school email

  • Cluster Based Approach to rollout
  • Need to consider rollout order of email migration
  • Consider all secondaries first, followed by cluster sessions for primarys and early years
  • Consider piloting in Stirling HS and St Modan’s as both are very keen to move quickly