ISCCB

Located in Birmingham, the International School and Community College (ISCC) is a mixed school made up of 1000 students. The school prides itself on the state of the art ICT suite, owning a total of 700 computers. As a newly designated Business and Enterprise College, the school aims to embrace the challenge of unlocking the potential and raising the expectations and achievements of all the students.

Background

Challenge

In order to manage the numerous computers that we own, our ICT technicians were already making use of asset management software, however the system was proving to be highly time consuming. With so many computers we were finding it very hard to keep track of all the licences and assets that were being used in the school. We were fully aware that e-Safety regulations require the school to be aware of software installed on all PCs.

The software licence compliancy was managed through the use of an Excel spreadsheet, but this was proving to be a very monotonous, termly task for the ICT Helpdesk Support Officer. We also found it very confusing dealing with all the different licences. We were very aware of the licensing laws regarding informal disk swapping, unlicensed lending and counterfeit packages so we felt very strongly about finding a solution which would track all of these areas for us.

It was also essential that we organised and managed all hardware and software on the school premises to our utmost ability, but something was missing. The audit could take anything from several days to several weeks depending on how exhaustive the audit process was. We soon realised that the moment the audit was completed, it was out-of-date. This did not provide us with an accurate representation of our assets, which was something we were very concerned about. Keeping all our important data in an Excel spreadsheet would be useless in the event of fire or theft, so it was paramount that the asset management solution we chose was hosted off site. We soon began to realise that a more competent and up-to-date management system was desperately needed, in order for our school to maintain its efficiency and thriving status.

Solution

Our dilemma was solved when we became aware of education sector specific Software Asset Management. We investigated our options and very quickly realised that Parago from Parago Software was exactly what we were looking for. All the boxes were ticked for our requirements: Computer asset tracking, software asset management and general asset management. It addressed so many of our needs too: developed for schools, it is easy to use and teacher-friendly. The language used is specific to the education sector and makes it simple for us to understand. With daily automatic updates, we can very easily and quickly track all the software and hardware on and off the school premises. This provides us with peace of mind that our students are using correctly licensed software as well as accessing safe and appropriate software. It is the school’s intention to create and maintain a safe and happy learning environment and this Software Asset Management solution helps us to thoroughly fulfil this objective.

In the very near future, we have an FMSiS audit, where we will be demonstrating our asset management solution. We also have an Ofsted inspection, where we will be again showing the software’s benefits. We are very proud to be demonstrating this software.

Birmingham’s Policy is to Protect their Students, Schools and the Authority

All Birmingham schools have a responsibility to ensure that their ICT assets are correctly recorded and managed. This includes both hardware and software. With regard to software schools should ensure that they are fully licensed for products they use.

The developing Universal Home Access Program (based on the original Computers for Pupils grant) requires that schools have an interactive asset tool (Parago) installed and used on all devices provided under the program. This is both to track the physical asset but also to ensure that there is a real time history of any software that is installed or removed by students. This is to protect both the student, the school and the Local Authority and is part of the e-Safety policy advocated by the LA and the spirit of the original grant requirements.

Andy Jackson
Children, Young People & Families Directorate
Transforming Education