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Survey reveals why schools need SaaS
mindmeld > why schools need saas
March 2, 2009 — Chattanooga, TN — According to a recent survey of school IT departments, learning innovation is suffering under the burden of older technologies. “We need more time to explore new technologies. We spend all our time fixing the old [equipment],” said one survey respondent. “I want to get out on the cutting edge of educational technology and impact student learning and train students and staff. Instead, I'm troubleshooting network, hardware, and software problems.”
The data from the survey, conducted by eSchool News and SchoolDude.com Inc. in partnership with the Consortium for School Networking, polled more than 600 school district leaders and technology administrators. The results reveal some staggeringly sober realities impacting U.S. schools, including:
55% spend more than half their time reacting to technical problems instead of working proactively on long-range planning and projects.
68% said the number of technology devices in their schools has increased in the last year, while only 2 percent said they’ve added enough staff to keep pace.
The ratio of people responsible for fixing machines and keeping them running is 1,021 to 1. (The ratio recommended by Gartner and other IT research firms is 150 to 1.)
Only 35% of schools have a full-time help desk technician.
Only 31 percent of respondents said their districts have enough IT staff to satisfy their needs.
84 percent of respondents said they need more technicians in their schools.
According to Betsy Graham of SchoolDude, these kinds of statistics are “a recipe for disaster.”
Gary Kohl is technology coordinator for a 989-student district in Wisconsin. “I wear the hats of technology coordinator, network engineer, long-range planner, hardware repair, software support, electrician, phone systems [support], fire alarm [support], … et cetera,” said Kohl. “This is a typical arrangement in the smaller K-12 districts,” Kohl added. “We have over 700 computers with 19 servers in three remote buildings. I have to stay very creative and work long days to keep our equipment in a usable state.”
The survey also pointed out some of the steps districts are taking to overcome these challenges. According to eSchool News, “To make software easier to deploy, freeing up valuable IT staff time for other tasks, 47 percent of respondents said they’ve implemented at least some of their software using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, in which applications are hosted by the service provider and delivered to users over the internet. Concerns about the security of information delivered through SaaS seem to have exploded, with more than 72% indicating data-security concerns related to the SaaS solutions deployed. This statistic seems to point to a market opportunity for SaaS providers who can deliver the same security to education applications as comparable business SaaS providers, such as Salesforce.com. Despite security concerns, “district leaders credited SaaS with saving time and improving their IT efficiency,” according to eSchool News.
“System uptime is higher [with SaaS], allowing staff to trust the technology more—[which means they] use it more,” said David Palme, technology director for Michigan's Portland Public Schools. “We believe these applications help the staff save time that can be devoted to more instruction.”
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