Online access services to schools
Background
In February 2010 the Minister announced several initiatives to support schools to improve student attendance and engagement. One initiative was to fund schools to implement a parent portal or a learning management system that provides parents and students access to online information that supports teaching and learning. The purpose of the initiative is to further strengthen links between school and home, by enabling parents and whānau to engage in learning conversations with teachers and their children.
Eligibility
To be eligible for funding assistance schools must:
- be state or state-integrated primary, intermediate, composite or secondary; and
- be using eTAP, MUSAC Classic, KAMAR or PC School as their SMS; and
- not previously have received financial assistance from the Ministry to implement:
- KnowledgeNET, Moodle or Ultranet; or
- SMS–LMS version 2.
Schools that the Ministry believes are eligible have received letters. Note that this may be subject to change when a school provides the Ministry with updated information.
Visit the Ministry’s MLE Reference Group to check the Ministry's records and view the Ministry’s dataset, which provides the basis of each school’s eligibility.
If a school believes that the Ministry has incorrect information about the SMS and/or LMS the school has/uses, then please email mle.project@minedu.govt.nz [no spam] or phone 04 463 7666 to discuss this.
Vendors
The following three companies have successfully tendered to be vendors of parent portals or learning management systems. The Ministry intends to work with these vendors over the next few years to support schools to take advantage of the learning opportunities this technology offers.
Dataview Ltd
ParentPORTAL, KnowledgeNET, and Moodle
Phil Giller, 09 426 9460 or 021 794 002
Email phil@dataview.co.nz [no spam]
http://www.knowledge.net.nz
Edtech Ltd
Ultranet
Phone 0508 338 324
Email ultranet@edtech.co.nz [no spam]
http://www.ultranet.net.nz
eTAP Ltd
@school eTAP Parent Portal
Phil Hardie
Phone 09 263 7135 (DDI) or 09 263 4827
Email phil@etap.co.nz [no spam]
http://www.atschool.co.nz
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Funding offer
Funding is available to assist approximately 150 eligible schools to implement a system that gives their parents and students access to online information that supports teaching and learning. Interested schools are encouraged to investigate the options sooner rather than later. Depending on the SMS used by the school (and for some schools, the learning management system) the school will be able to choose from:
- Category 1: Parent portal
- @school Parent Portal from eTAP
- Category 2: Parent and student portal
- ParentPORTAL from Dataview
- Category 3: LMS with parent access
- Ultranet from Edtech; or
- KnowledgeNET from Dataview; or
- Moodle from Dataview.
Conditions for categories
Category 1
This category is available to eligible schools using eTAP as their SMS. It may be possible to have both the eTAP Parent Portal and an LMS integrated to give the school the best of each. Please contact the LMS vendor or eTAP to learn more about this option. Schools will have to pay more for this option as there are two hosted systems involved (the eTAP Parent Portal and the LMS).
Category 2
This category is available to eligible schools that at this stage:
- do not require or are not ready for a full LMS; and
- do NOT use eTAP; and
- do NOT use KnowledgeNET, or Moodle or Ultranet.
Some schools make quite limited use of Moodle and this makes the conditions for category eligibility difficult to determine. Please refer to http://bit.ly/FundingEligibility for assistance.
Category 3
This category is available to eligible schools that:
- wish to implement one of these LMS (KnowledgeNET, or Moodle2 or Ultranet) for the first time; or
- already have one of these LMS's and now wish to implement the link to automatically transfer the SMS data to the LMS and provide parent logins and access in the LMS.
What the funding covers
The funding covers implementation costs (site set-up, initial design/reports and training) and operating costs for at least six months. This means schools have a fee-free period of at least six months in order to get the system up and going. The three vendors have been provided with a list of eligible schools and they are approaching schools directly. As part of determining the best offering, it is important that a school asks the vendors:
- What category best meets our needs today and for the foreseeable future?
- What costs will we incur that are not covered by the funding offer? Consider both the short-term and ongoing costs.
- Exactly what delivery and training support will we get, and what is the implementation timeline?
- Are there any requirements specific to our school?
- What are the vendors’ expectations of what we have to do in preparation – particularly regarding our school’s data completeness, timeliness and quality?
- What will be our cost of continuing the service after the fee-free provision?
- Does the vendor have similar sized reference schools that are successfully using the parent portal and/or the LMS?
Eligible schools are encouraged to make the most of this opportunity. The Ministry believes it will help the school to really make a difference to student engagement and learning by offering the parents of students another opportunity for meaningful engagement with the school and their child's work, learning and progress.
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LMS and parent portals FAQs
1. What is a parent portal?
A parent portal is a web-based gateway enabling parents a restricted view of their child’s data including current topics, homework, assessment, attendance and achievement.
2. What is a learning management system?
A learning management system can mean different things to different people. Most LMS enable students (and teachers) to use online resources, create and store work online, communicate and collaborate online, and experience their learning using a web-based work-flow.
3. What is the link between a parent portal and an LMS?
Students and teachers have individual logons to their (hosted) LMS. Parents can also be given a logon and see specific pages of their child’s LMS and may be able to comment online. An LMS with this facility is providing a parent portal.
4. Where does a parent portal get its information?
Information is generated from the SMS. eTap, for example, is a web-hosted SMS that allows the creation of data pages that can be viewed by parents. Parents receive a logon that takes them directly to their child’s data. In this case the SMS and parent portal are within the one system.
If the school uses an LMS, then the SMS supplies the LMS with the core student data and account information. The LMS also contains the work created by students and teachers in the LMS itself. A parent logon to the LMS (a parent portal) can enable parents to see a very rich data set belonging to their child and have opportunities to comment.
5. Is this part of a wider initiative?
Yes. It is part of a much wider attendance and engagement initiative of 12 work-streams.
For example, the Early Notification initiative (including encouraging schools to use electronic attendance) was made available to schools in June 2010 and is within a group of activities looking to build schools’ IT capability to effectively manage attendance and engagement.
This initiative is specifically related to parent portals and learning management systems.
6. Why would I want to use an LMS or portal in my school?
Parental involvement is a key factor in improving student engagement.
7. Is my school eligible?
Your school must be using one of the following SMS: eTAP, MUSAC Classic, KAMAR or PC School.
Your school must be a state or state-integrated primary, intermediate, composite or secondary school.
8. What if my school uses an LMS already?
If your school do not yet use the parent portal, you will still be eligible. Refer to the categories and examples of eligibility in the letter emailed to schools in July 2010.
9. How difficult is it to start using an LMS?
Ministry funding includes implementation and training. The selected providers’ LMS are generally viewed as intuitive and user-friendly. Be aware that individual users react quite differently to new software – a training programme is essential for most users and highly recommended for all users.
10. Who are the approved vendors?
- Dataview Limited, with the products ParentPORTAL, KnowledgeNET, and Moodle
- Edtech Limited, with the Ultranet LMS
- eTAP Limited, with the @school eTAP Parent Portal
11. Is there a form to fill out?
No.
12. What does a school do to get started?
Refer to the funding letter emailed to the school from the Ministry in July 2010.
Contact the three vendors and consider your options.
Make your decision and inform the vendor.
13. How does the vendor know if our school is eligible?
The Ministry sends all vendors a list of eligible schools at regular intervals.
14. How is it paid?
The Ministry pays the vendor directly.
15. What are the ongoing costs after the fee-free period?
The costing model for each vendor is different and ongoing costs may include:
- a per student fee, with a minimum and maximum amount
- a hosting fee, and
- a license or service fee.
It is your responsibility to check the ongoing costs for anticipated portal/LMS requirements for your school.
See also the funding letter re ongoing costs.
16. What are the variations in the vendor offerings?
eTAP offers a parent portal service as an extension to their SMS. Current eTAP clients should consider this as an option, especially if you want a parent portal and not an LMS (with parental access).
Edtech offers the LMS called Ultranet with parent access included in this service.
Dataview offers three options:
- The ParentPORTAL service for schools who want only a parent portal, or schools that already have Moodle as their LMS but want to extend access to parents.
- The LMS called KnowledgeNET with parent access included in this service.
- The LMS called Moodle with ParentPORAL alongside this service.
The implementation funding will give schools at least six months fee-free use.
17. What is the key difference between choosing a parent portal by itself and choosing an LMS that includes a parent portal? (See also question 1)
The LMS provides a new, hosted, world-wide environment for students’ learning.
The LMS can provide parents a much richer picture of their child’s learning experiences.
18. Where do I get additional information?
You can email the SMS Services team at mle.project@minedu.govt.nz [no spam]
19. What training is available?
The vendor is responsible for product training and all vendors include the necessary training as part of the implementation.
20. Are there any Ministry-provided templates available for schools to inform the community of this initiative?
Not yet. When or if available they will be posted here on the Ministry’s website. You can ask your vendor to provide some examples.