College acquires Smart-Tools

By Adam Gifford

TAMAKI College is the first school in New Zealand to use network management and school administration software developed by Research Machines (RM), the largest supplier of computer hardware and services to British schools.

Viv Hall Ramsay, RM education sales manager for local distributor, Renaissance, says it is part of an ambitious plan by the college to turn Tamaki into a "magnet school," winning back some of the hundreds of potential pupils who travel out of the suburb to other schools.

Strong information technology, better links with primary schools in the area, and a sports academy, are key parts of the plan.

Tamaki will install RM Smart-Tools network management software on its Microsoft NT servers, as well as RM's new Integris school management software.

Paul Hykin, RM's international business manager, says 2000 British schools use Smart-Tools which was developed to sit on top of the Windows NT operating system and deal with the complexity of the school environment.

"In a business environment everyone has a personal computer which is their own. They do the desktop administration. In a school, a PC is used by a dozen pupils each day and each student would use a dozen different PCs in a week - so their environment needs to follow them."

He says management software developed for business would require extensive customisation. In a school environment the system also has to be robust enough to take account of reasonably unskilled network management.

Standard NT tools would also struggle with year-end administration, when students change classes, levels and subjects.

"In most businesses, people will use four or five applications. Students will use 30 or 40 in the course of a year - some up to 100 when you include 20 or 30 CD-Roms and any number of specialist applications.

"What you need to be able to do is offer students the 12 applications they need this week and, next week, the applications they need then."

Schools must also consider major security issues, Mr Hykin says: "When you put Windows 95 or NT in a classroom the students will move things round, deliberately delete stuff and put their own software on it. Then you have the teacher deleting things by accident.

"So, a major component of our system ties down the desktop."

RM supplies almost half of the PCs going into British schools and the company is moving into outsourcing by taking over management of computer networks in colleges and school districts.

That is, he says, because management costs can be significant, especially if the IT is not working well.

"People at director level are spending a third of their time fire-fighting IT problems. It can be a significant expense, but it's invariably buried."

RM's research found the total annual cost for schools was about $3600 for each PC, with the people costs 42 per cent of that and capital costs only 20 per cent.

"A lot of schools try to save money by buying cheap brands or buying from the bottom of a manufacturer's range.

"But the maximum impact of saving 10 per cent on the cost of a PC is only 2 per cent on the total cost of ownership. In practice, it is likely to be negative because of higher maintenance costs."

Mr Hykin says schools must, therefore, consider the costs incurred in the whole IT life-cycle: designing the systems, procurement, implementation, training, support, maintenance, management and use.