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Layers and layers
As background, we are part of a system of 130ish schools, with only a handful being full P-12 colleges like ours. Therefore solutions provided by central office don't always scale up well to provide for us, although advances are being made every year. My comment relates to the difficulties of managing information systems in this environment.

One type of layering is that mentioned in the article, and my local example is that while central office slowly develops, trials, pilots and finally deploys a Sharepoint solution, we are working with Google Apps to provide an immediate free solution. We may then switch to Live@edu to integrate better with Sharepoint, although years of experience makes me cautious about centrally provided solutions.

Another type of layering for us is that of governance, ownership, management and support. For example we run a mix of centrally and locally owned servers and network infrastructure, with full management rights for all devices. Support arrangements are difficult to manage due to the usual lack of resources, both locally and centrally. We have always relied on warranty agreements to provide another layer of support from suppliers, but with movement towards 1:1 for students we are now looking at adding more layers of support through external providers. Just hope the boss stays with me as we build our layers!
Posted by: phegarty   Posted on: 10/19/09 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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Layers and layers  phegarty | 10/19/09
Lure and Lock In  RealNonZealot | 10/19/09

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