The Government of Northern Ireland has a vision of the way education in the Province will develop in the 21st century and this has led to an ambitious ET (Educational Technology) strategy for the Province that has been in development since 1997.
Following on from the UK Government's National Grid for Learning, the ET strategy has four main components. They include revised curricula, improved teacher training and interaction with other partners outside Northern Ireland, but the principal and most vital is Classroom 2000. Known as C2K, it aims to ensure that both pupils and teachers in Northern Ireland can benefit from the introduction of world-class technology.
Affecting over 350,000 pupils and 20,000 teachers in the Province's 1,224 primary and secondary schools, C2K is a ground breaking initiative and one of the world's largest e-learning programmes.
Internet for all
It means that every teacher, student, and administrator will be connected to the Internet from school and from their first days in primary school, all pupils will have their own secure e-mail address. Pupils and teachers will have access to a wider range of digital materials from such sources as the BBC, Channel 4 and Granada as well as on-line libraries of curriculum content and they will also be able to collaborate through e-mail, text, and video conferencing.
Educators will be able to share best practices and monitor pupils' progress more easily while pupils can work on joint projects across schools. Children will have easier access to learning resources both inside and outside school, and the move will leave teachers free for more classroom teaching and to personalise the educational experience of every child.
Partner of vision
Facing such a complex undertaking, the C2K organisation needed a partner who could share the vision as well as deliver the managed infrastructure and technology solutions, and following a rigorous procurement process, the $100 million, five-year contract was awarded to HP Services.
While other contracts were raised to cope with the infrastructure within schools, HP Services' job is to provide the vital infrastructure that will join everything together including Wide Area Networking, Internet filtering, e-mail hosting and the managed datacentre that holds the central e-learning resources and content for all pupils in Northern Ireland. Apart from some datacentre technology, this is a true service provision package. HP is key to evolving the project and moving it forwards and as part of its commitment, sits alongside C2K on the Service Improvement Forum. The forum looks at new technologies and innovation and will help HP to keep its solutions at the forefront of educational technology.
Co-location
An important contributor to the success of the project is the co-location of C2K and HP staff. There are120 C2K staff employed within the Public Sector and of these, 25 work alongside an HP Managed Services team of 35 in the Belfast Datacentre.
"This project is not just something you put in and leave," said Integration Director for C2K, Roy Beattie. "We have an ambition to provide a world leading service for education and we can only do that if we continually work at developing and enhancing the service. That is why we are co-locating with HP. We moved in together six months ago and we are already seeing the benefits of closer teamwork and greater efficiency."
Since winning the contract, the HP implementation team has been split into various work streams, and one of the most important involves the Wide Area Network (WAN) which provides a mixture of fibre, copper, and radio lines in a huge spider's web between schools throughout the 14,000 sq km of the Province and the datacentre situated in downtown Belfast. For this, HP has awarded a significant sub-contract to British Telecom.
Knowledge share
Another key enabler of the project is its e-learning platform hosted by HP at the datacentre. It is a set of collaborative tools that allow pupils and teachers from different schools to share project information and take part in discussion forums. Two HP partners are helping in this arena - Hyperwave, a leading supplier of collaborative knowledge management and e-learning software and Amaze, an Internet technology services company specialising in the delivery of e-learning services.
Internet filtering is another important element covered by HP Services so that there can be no on-line bullying and access to questionable sites is restricted.
Already, the importance of the Northern Ireland project is being recognised throughout Europe and beyond. It has also created some world firsts - one being the very size of its Enterprise Active Directory that can handle 400,000 users and is believed to be the largest implementation of a country's education system in the world. Also impressive is the Microsoft Exchange 2000 e-mail and messaging service, which in one single implementation caters for 375,000 names.
Parental involvement
With plans to extend the service into homes, C2K also has important significance for parents.
"This will open the door wider for parents to share in the education of their children," added Beattie. "The solution we are developing with HP enables remote access from the home, from a local library, from a youth centre, or from anywhere that has a network connection.
"So parents can help with homework by remotely connecting to the datacentre and by involving parents in this manner they are not only seeing what the child's homework is but also what resources there are that might be able to help the child. They can access those resources on line and will also have the ability to see how their child is progressing at school by looking at on-line assessments. That's very exciting and by involving parents like this, I believe that it will increase the uptake of Broadband in the Province.
Content rich
"We see communication and collaboration as integral to education in today's world and when a child connects to the datacentre, he or she will have access to electronic mail, text conferencing, video conferencing, and video streaming. We will have a rich range of multimedia content available to them and teachers will also be able to search for appropriate content to develop lessons which will be delivered on-line to the child.
"Not only will pupils be able to collaborate with their peers but they will also have access to experts, such as authors in a particular field."
A telling factor in the success of the C2K project has been the size of Northern Ireland which is big enough to make the project worthwhile and attract the technology industry, but small enough for such a complex operation to be managed. That is why its success is being closely watched by such countries as Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Italy.
Trust vital
Another requirement for such an ambitious project is that the schools must trust that C2K and its partners will deliver what is promised and that has underlined the importance of HP's involvement.
"HP people have had a very professional approach, not only throughout the procurement stage but also through the delivery stage," added Beattie. "There have been a number of milestones they have had to achieve and they have all been successfully met. As prime integrator, HP has had a lot of work in aligning supplier contracts which has to do with trust and good relationships and that has also been a success story. HP's interpersonal and man management skills have been important to the success of this project.
"The C2K project is a fairly unique requirement and there are elements of the solution for which there are no standards in today's world. We are dependent upon a lot of emerging technology and we felt that HP, particularly with its global presence and its strategic partnerships, was best placed to help us succeed."
"The major educational benefits for Northern Ireland's education service will be achieved by extending the partnership to embrace a broad range of public and private sector stakeholders under the leadership of HP and C2K. The initial focus of C2K has been on the delivery of a richly resourced reliable and sustainable service that gives the province's educators the confidence to embed the use of the technology in their educational practices. Future benefits will only be reaped for all stakeholders if the partnering arrangements are effective in keeping Northern Ireland at the forefront of education technology development."
Customer at a glance
- Industry sector - Education
- Name - Northern Ireland Department of Education - C2K initiative
- Headquarters - Belfast, Northern Ireland
- Founded - 2001
- Telephone - +44 (0) 2890 652727
- Number of employees - 120
- URL - www.c2kni.org.uk
Challenge
- Northern Ireland's ambitious C2K initiative will allow 350,000 pupils and 20,000 teachers throughout the Province's 1245 schools to take a giant step into the information age.
- With e-mail addresses and Internet access for all pupils, access to virtual classrooms and much more, an efficient infrastructure was vital to the success of the groundbreaking project.
- C2K needed a partner that could share the vision but also provide the leading edge technology.
Solution
- Following a stringent selection process, the five-year contract went to HP Services.
- Working with partners, it is providing the necessary managed services including: network design & bandwidth, messaging/e-mail and Internet access & filtering, and the Managed Learning Environment.
- It has also provided a dedicated datacentre for delivery of on-line resources.
Results
- The project will put Northern Ireland to the forefront of the world for e-learning.
- Delivery of world-class technology services will enhance both teaching and learning in the Province.
- Standards being set in Northern Ireland will almost certainly be replicated by other countries.
Why HP?
- HP already had a solid track record of supplying equipment to the education authority.
- To fulfill this unique contract, C2K needed a company with vision, leading technology, strategic partnerships, and global reach.
- HP Services fitted the bill extremely well.
- Strategic partnerships, global reach, and dedicated people.
- The HP procurement team created an immediate impression of an organisation with which you would want to do business.
HP Datacentre Technology highlights
Hardware
- 450 various ProLiant servers
- 2 x 400 automated tape libraries each with 300Gb of data and storage for the equivalent of 5 billion A4 pages
Software
- Third party software from Oracle, Hyperware, Clearswift, and Microsoft
HP Services
- Services as Prime Integrator for the whole C2K project
© 2004 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
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