2-page Partner Case Study - Posted 2/2/2009

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ITWorx

Services Provider Helps Speed Deployment of Rich Learning Portals by 80 Percent

ITWorx, headquartered in Egypt, is a global software services provider that specializes in education portals based on the Microsoft® Learning Gateway framework. The portals strengthen educational communities, as teaching becomes more effective, learning is enhanced, and collaboration and engagement are increased. By using the ITWorx Education Catalyst Provisioning suite, districts, schools, and ministries can shorten portal deployment by up to 80 percent.

Business Needs

Educational institutions worldwide face increasing mandates to create enriched learning environments using digital technologies. For example, in the United Kingdom in 2004, the government established the Building Schools for the Future program, which includes tapping the power of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to transform education.

The ITWorx Education Catalyst software helped Durham County schools reduce the deployment time for the Microsoft Learning Gateway by up to 80 percent compared to manual methods.  Shahira Habib Engagement Manager ITWorx

Many schools have sought to fulfill these goals by deploying Web-based education portals. But they often lack the knowledge and ICT resources to deploy an effective e-learning portal.

The Durham County Council in England is one example of a government entity that is addressing these issues. The county council provides services—including education—to nearly 500,000 residents in Northern England. Durham needed to support the government’s goal to rebuild or renew every secondary school in England by 2020. As part of this effort, the county council sought a Web-based education solution. But it lacked the staff to deploy education portals at its 300 schools.

Solution

ITWorx, a Microsoft® Gold Certified and a Strategic Education Partner, provided the solution for the Durham County Council—an e-learning portal based on the Microsoft Learning Gateway. ITWorx has worked with Microsoft since 2004 to develop enhance-ments for the Learning Gateway, which provides a framework to connect people, information, and processes through education portals based on Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. ITWorx also provides global training and support of the framework on behalf of Microsoft.

Headquartered in Egypt, ITWorx operates in North America, Europe, and the Middle East, offering its expertise in Learning Gateway solutions as well as consultancy, localization, deployment, training, and technical support. ITWorx Education Catalyst software suite accelerates the creation of the learning portal and user provisioning.

For the initial phase of the Durham County project, ITWorx provided consultancy, customizations, development, deployment and support services, focusing on 25 schools.

ITWorx deployed Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 data management software, which run on the Windows Server® 2003 operating system. Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006 was deployed as a firewall. ITWorx used the User Provisioning tool of the Catalyst suite to provide a structure for the Active Directory® service to manage user identities and access permissions, and set up mailboxes for Microsoft Exchange Server. ITWorx also provided training workshops.

The Durham County schools take advantage of the Microsoft SharePoint Learning Kit (SLK), a certified SCORM 2004 e-learning delivery and tracking application. Teachers can use the SLK to create course plans and assignments based on any document on an Office SharePoint site. They can distribute and grade assignments and work on them with students, as well as create online libraries.

Benefits

Durham County Schools enjoyed several benefits from its Microsoft Learning Gateway solution and ITWorx Education Catalyst software and services. School communities have become engaged, deployment and adoption have been fast, and learning has been enhanced. The portals are also easily managed and extended.

• Engaged communities. The rich learning environment of the portals has brought students, teachers, administrators, and parents together. Teachers interact with one another, administrators, and students. Parents can view their students’ assignments online and have become more involved. “One of the biggest benefits of a Microsoft Learning Gateway solution is how it supports communication and collaboration and strengthens communities,” says Sahira Habib, Engagement Manager for ITWorx.
• Accelerated deployment. Education Catalyst dramatically accelerates portal deployments. “The ITWorx Education Catalyst software helped Durham County schools reduce the deployment time for Microsoft Learning Gateway by up to 80 percent compared to manual methods,” says Habib. Twenty-five schools were deployed in one-and-a-quarter hours, and 1500 users were provisioned in an hour.”
• Enhanced learning. With the ITWorx training, the Durham schools quickly learned to use their portal solution. Today, 87 percent of the schools use portals extensively. The solution has opened up an entirely new learning environment where teachers post assignments and grade them online. Students have access to lessons after school hours, and they communicate with their teachers and collaborate with their peers. What’s more, parents stay informed, teachers share resources with one another, and administrators gain valuable data for assessing school performance.
• Simplified management and support. Because of the familiarity with Microsoft software and the ITWorx training, the county was able to deploy the solution to an additional 270 schools and manage it on its own. Other schools can benefit from ITWorx support contracts or from the ITWorx Education Solution Support Centers available to Microsoft partners.
• Integrated solution. Both Microsoft and third-party software can be integrated into a Microsoft Learning Gateway solution, including software from Microsoft partners. “The beauty of Microsoft Learning Gateway is that it accommodates so many needs, because you can plug nearly any solution into it,” says Habib.

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This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published January 2009