Implementing SharePoint - Part 2

The best place to start when attempting to understand SharePoint is your favorite internet browser. And we could easily get sidetracked into a discussion about browsers, but I’ll pass on that. SharePoint plays well with all Internet Browsers, but as you may have already guessed, it works optimally with Internet Explorer…. no surprise there!

So let’s browse right on over to the Office 365 for Education Portal. And if you don’t remember or write down anything else in this series of articles, remember this: https://portal.microsoftonline.com. This is the portal or gateway into all of the services offered in the Office 365 for Education solution. Once you log into the portal, you will have access to all of the services. And if you are an administrator, this is where you will also manage services for your organization.

Upon logging into the portal, you will see a link at the top for Team Site. This is your default SharePoint site. Once you are comfortable with accessing your SharePoint site, you can browse directly to it, rather than from within the Office 365 for Education Portal.

During signup or trial, your domain name will be assigned a default domain name similar to myschool.onmicrosoft.com. You will want to add your own domain name to the service as soon a possible, otherwise the URLs in this article might be confusing. Ultimately, the URL you you use to access SharePoint you will be something like myschool.sharepoint.com and that will also be the shortcut I referred to earlier.

Note: The “myschool” part of the domain name represents a third level name that belongs to your organization, names are available on a first come first served basis, and once accepted by the Office 365 for Education system, is registered with Microsoft as belonging to your Office 365 for Education subscription.

So now that we have got through all of the preliminaries of getting access to your Team Site, lets focus on what you can do there.

Your first experience with SharePoint may be similar to my first experience with a Personal Computer back in 1982. I anxiously hooked it up, powered it on, and was presented with a black screen and a blinking cursor. Hmmm, reality is such a harsh companion. SharePoint is not really like that, but the analogy is fair.

If you are expecting a default SharePoint site to be automatically customized to your organizational structure, filing system, internal process and work flows, you will be disappointed. In fact, the first takeaway from this article is that SharePoint requires you to become an information architect. You really need to think about your organization, how you manage documents and information, then begin the process of configuring SharePoint accordingly.

And since this is a team effort, it is essential that you engage your team. Doing so will accomplish two things. First it will improve your design and configuration experience, but perhaps as important it will engage your users so they will take ownership of SharePoint project and participate. Adoption among team members is always a challenge when rolling out SharePoint in your organization.

Admittedly it is unfair to be tasked with designing an information system for your organization when you do not know the capabilities of the information system at hand (SharePoint); hence my attempts at education in this series of articles. But as counterintuitive as it may seem, I would suggest that you start not with SharePoint, but with your own organization.

Take inventory of the types of documents you create, share, and file. Consider how you schedule events, meetings, and appointments. Evaluate how you create, update, and share lists and directories. And look closely at important relationships between organizations and groups and the projects they manage. Only after you have done this homework assignment, will you be capable of bringing your ideas and SharePoint’s efficiency into your organization.

Of course you will need to understand the basic capabilities of SharePoint in order to complete your design project, so let’s summarize the major SharePoint features and see if the workflows and processes you’ve dreamed up are possible.

Here are my top 10 favorite capabilities of SharePoint as it would apply to a charter school. Think about these ideas as you consider your SharePoint design project. SharePoint is:

A cloud based centralized filing system for all of your school documents

SharePoint is like a hard drive on the internet or a cloud based network share that gives access to authorized users and denies access to those unauthorized.  It stores documents of all types and formats, including forms, manuals, letters, reports, lesson plans, policy manuals, tests, assessments, lunch menus, etc. If you create, modify, or store information on a PC, it generally can exist in SharePoint.

A centralized store of lists, directories, and databases

Consider all of the lists you have in a busy school, everything from addresses, to school supplies, to vendors.  SharePoint can serve as the single repository of these lists and other data sets, that is both search and filter enabled. Consolidating all of your lists, directories, and databases, to the extend possible will greatly improve the efficiency of referencing information for all of your staff.

A centralized calendar of events for the school

Do you have challenges managing your calendar? SharePoint can serve as the one authorized and consistently updated calendar for all school activities. This calendar can be managed by one or several individuals and can provide automatic notifications for changes or pending approvals. This calendar can also be published to your public facing website eliminating the never ending process of updating the schools calendar on the website.

A discussion board, forum, or online meeting place

Amazing things happen when creativity and collaboration collide. SharePoint can serve as an internal meeting place where questions and documents can be posted and then discussed, without formal meeting times. The byproduct of this dialogue is a very useful knowledge base.

A Wiki

An intersting phenomena called Wikipdia, exists on the same platform as SharePoint. A SharePoint wiki can be a free flowing digital asset where all team members can contribute ideas, thoughts, insights or resources and links to resources.

A school wide issue resolution & tracking system

Technology and facilities management can be greatly improved when all interested parties have the latest information on issues and problems. SharePoint can serve as an issue tracking system that is continuously updated and available to all users. It can be created with complex work rules, time stamps, escalations, and automated communications or be as simple as a system a tod do list, with a status indication and user identification.

An image library

An important legal requirement for using photos at school includes protecting the identity of students and others. SharePoint is an excellent centralized storage facility for all approved imagery for use in school publications, communication, and presentations.

A video library

Yes, there is You Tube and other video sharing sites, but carte blanche access to these resources can put you at odds with CIPA requirements.  SharePoint can serve as a centralized storage facility for instructional videos. This can include both actual videos or links to approved videos for use in the classroom or for administrative purposes. And you can keep these organized by groups or simply lump them all together and allow the built in search features of SharePoint to provide you the access needed.

A social media system

Many schools prohibit the use of Facebook at school, which may be wise; but in doing so they limit students ability to learn important behavioral skills in the social arena. SharePoint, in the default Office 365 for Education configuration, provides a robust social media system that is restricted to the school, yet enjoys many Facebook like features. And the entire system can be managed by school administrators.

A Learning Management System

Some of the worlds most well know universities run on SharePoint LMS, a learning management system built on SharePoint. While this may not be appropriate for your school, SharePoint is a great way to share lesson plans with precise groups of students, discussion forums for each teacher/grade, resource listings, links, and social connections within classes.

All of these features listed above can be configured for your organization with SharePoint. And all of these systems would be present to you when you login as an authorized user at myschool.sharepoint.com or at the Office 365 for Education portal.

Next week we will discuss ways in which the management of SharePoint documents can be improved.

Learning Management Systems - Are you missing the obvious?

OK, its POP Quiz time: What percentage of Charter Schools has a LMS in place?
Hint: This is not a FaceBook (Like My Status) related question!
Answer: I have not a clue, but my guess is not many.

I don’t know entirely what seems to be driving the LMS conversation lately, but over the past few months we’ve heard a great deal of discussion regarding it. This past week I spent significant time trying to understand the concepts, the key players, and the benefits.

If you are a Charter School administrator, you really ought to know about Learning Management Systems. It is something that will improve the quality of instruction and make life better for our front line teaching staff. It will also provide benefits to administrators as well.

A Learning Management Systems (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content. I suppose you could (and maybe have) used a collection of three ring binders for this purpose, but as we continue to digitize things, a computer based version of this process will probably be in your future.

A slight variation of this definition would include content, as in a system that helps create the content upon which all of the management described above depends. A content concentric system would be labeled a Learning Content Management System (LCMS). For purposes of this article, I refer to both.
Are you considering a Learning Management System? It’s a great idea and here are some suggestions that might help.

But before we get started, there is the obvious. Is your learning environment driving the requirement for an LMS or is it the other way around? If you are considering an LMS for the sake of the LMS technology, you have it all backwards.

The overriding consideration in your LMS evaluation should be the curriculim. If your curriculim is elearning oriented, your staff technically inclined, and your coursework primarily digital, then this could be a very good idea.

If not this could be interesting, to say the least.

Start with a candid evaluation of your ecosystem

Why are you evaluating a LMS?  Where do you start? Are your teachers clamoring for it, or is the conversation being driven by an ambitious sales rep? Do you see the vision of a successful implementation or is this just the latest “Hot” idea brought to you by your IT providers?

Your schools mission and curriculum emphasis will be one of the core considerations. While possible, it is a little more challenging to manage the performing arts in a digital world. But technology driven schools will benefit greatly.

One criterion would seem obvious, but may not be. You might first want to evaluate how much of your course content is eLearning capable, or at least presentable in a digital format, versus traditional learning. In other words, if you conduct most of your instructional hours with chalk boards, or whiteboards, paper, pencils, and other traditional education tools, the relative value of a LMS is diminished.

Start with a candid evaluation of your faculties approach to their teaching profession. Are they young and tech savvy teachers, or more mature and technology resistant teachers? Do they embrace the existing Information Systems with great enthusiasm, or do they reluctantly check their email because they are required to do so.

If you want a sure fired rebellion on your hands, try to implement a highly automated LMS system into an environment where technology is chaotic, unreliable, and underutilized.

Think clearly about the investment of time and resources you are about to make

In the world of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, a close relative to LRM, there is a 70% failure rate for project implementations. The reasons are varied but boil down to steep learning challenges, lack of training, and failing to plan. And there is a universal tendency to underestimate the volume of keystrokes required to input all of the data points needed to make the system operational.

Here is a short list of data sets you will need to create:

·         Student Records

·         Faculty Records

·         Course Materials (the largest set)

·         Calendars and schedules

·         Grading Criteria

Additionally, you will need to create a secure connection to your states Student Information System to synchronize grades, attendance, and state mandated reporting. If your LMS is incapable of doing this, it will require a significant duplication of effort.

Course materials are by far the largest data set that needs to be created and it is an ongoing creation cycle, so think not only about what you already have (and in what format it exists), but also consider what authoring tools are available for content creation.  I would recommend biasing your LMS selection to one that utilizes common authoring tools used already by your staff, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

Furthermore, most multimedia content is delivered by an internet browser and you will need to accommodate all types of users. For example, Apple devices (like iPads ) have great difficulty with media created using Adobe Flash and you may need to provide accommodations.

Choose the LMS that integrates best with your existing infrastructure

The most common network security model in a Charter School, especially those with older students is an Active Directory environment. Active Directory provides access control, user management, and group policy modeling. An LMS based upon Microsoft technologies (such as SharePoint) will use the active directory information to automatically propagate your student and faculty listings. This elimination of re-entering hundreds of records is significant and recurring.

There are other significant Microsoft solutions that will interact with your LMS. Three common programs are your Outlook based email, Lync 2010 messaging systems, and SharePoint.

A robust email system used both by the staff and students is extremely important and will serve as the transport medium for much of the learning outcomes. Please review previous posts about Microsoft Exchange email, it is very relevant to your LMS.

Because we communicate differently with  each other based upon our presence (or availability), if you are using Lync 2010 for internal messaging, you will also find it very helpful to have a LMS that incorporates the advanced messaging features found in Lync 2010, including Live Meeting services which can be used to actually record lectures for replay.

And SharePoint is the technology or framework which several of the most popular LMS systems use.

If your school operates with an Open Source architecture, an Apple environment, or other  non-Microsoft  technologies, there are fewer automated ways of connecting student and faculty records into your LMS. And this may influence your decision one way or another.

Consider using a pilot program to work out bugs and implementation issues

All of the LMS vendors I spoke with recommend identifying a core group of “early technology adopters” to serve as a catalyst for and trainers of other staff members. While this is a good idea, I recommend one addition step.

Don’t try to roll this solution out school wide, unless you have high confidence in your implementation team and a good track record in large technology projects. Instead create a pilot program led by your “early adopters” and go through an entire grading cycle with a small highly motivated and well trained group.

This pilot program will assist in identifying software design shortcomings, configuration challenges, and other deficiencies that will otherwise be multiplied many times over. Worst case scenario, the program gets scrapped with only minor expense and inconvenience.

By leveraging your pilot program experience you will improve the odds of success in a school wide rollout.

Evaluate the total costs associated when comparing LMS vendors

There are generally two models used to buy LMS Software. The more common method is based upon a yearly per user cost or subscription. The other model is a perpetual software license, with a required annual maintenance contract.

Evaluating those two options is not particularly difficult, but evaluating the total implementation costs can be. Put a pencil to the following costs to come up with a total figure:

·         Data conversion, entry, or import into the LMS

·         Course material creation, conversion, and licensing

·         Hardware and software required to support the LMS and content management

·         Initial setup, configuration, and training

My experience with decisions based entirely upon financial reasons is that they are not thoroughly vetted. After considering all the suggestions listed above, finances will likely become less crucial to the decision.

Summary

A Learning Management System might be a huge improvement for your school. And I hope nothing in this article would discourage you from considering it. But unlike some of the banks on Wall Street, your school is probably not too big to fail.

Evaluate objectively, think clearly about goals and outcomes, be realistic about the investment of time and resources it will require, and then choose the system most closely aligned with your existing infrastructure. Be conservative about the rollout by doing a solid pilot program and be sure to evaluate the total cost, if the choice between systems is down to financial considerations.

If you would like some help sorting out the issues, please contact us.