2-page Partner Case Study - Posted 3/18/2009
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Dutch Schools Tap Expertise to Deploy Education Portals at Reduced Cost
Schools in the Netherlands often want to deploy education portals but lack the expertise and budgets to do so on their own. Wortell, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, helps schools achieve their educational and administrative goals with portals based on the Microsoft Learning Gateway framework. With specialized templates and customizations from Wortell, schools get comprehensive, cost-effective education portals with on-site or hosted deployments.
Business Needs
Like their counterparts in other countries, Dutch primary and secondary schools need to provide enriched learning experiences and to extend learning beyond the classroom. In addition, school boards and district administrators in the Netherlands want the tools to communicate and manage their institutions more effectively. They need to demonstrate accountability to parents and the community and to communicate efficiently, especially when schools are geographically distant from each other. Schools also often seek a centralized place to share lesson plans and materials so that valuable knowledge can be shared. However, many school districts struggle with having sufficient resources and staff to integrate information and communications technology (ICT) into their operations. They frequently lack the budget to purchase the hardware and software for education portals that would support e-learning, and increased communication, collaboration, and opportunities for more parental involvement. “As technology becomes more complex, schools may also lack the expertise to perform the integrations and customizations that are required to adapt education portals for their individual needs,” says Tim Heuperman, Sales Account Manager for Wortell, a Netherlands systems integrator.
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With the Microsoft framework, our customized templates, and our expertise, schools not only get online learning, they also get one centralized place for administration and collaboration.  |
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Tim Heuperman
Sales Account Manager
Wortell |
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Solution
Many schools in the Netherlands have turned to Wortell to help them take advantage of ICT to fulfill their educational and administrative goals. As a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, Wortell specializes in the deployment of education portals based on the Microsoft Learning Gateway framework.
The foundation of the framework is Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and Microsoft SQL Server® 2008 data management software, which run on the Windows Server® 2008 operating system. Wortell also provides Microsoft Live@Edu, a suite of applications that works together with Office SharePoint Server 2007 to support communication and collaboration.
The company calls its solution, which includes the enhancements to the Microsoft framework, the Wortell Learning Gateway.
Schools that use Wortell to create their education portals also receive specialized templates developed by Wortell for a school Web site, an intranet site, and an e-learning portal, along with Web Parts to modify the content, appearance, and behavior of Web pages. Teachers can use the Microsoft SharePoint Learning Kit (SLK), as well, to create course plans and assignments and to store and manage the content in SharePoint document libraries. And with Live@Edu, teachers, administrators, and students can get a free e-mail account that is associated with their school.
Wortell provides both on-site and hosted deployments. It relies on another Microsoft partner for training in on-site deployments.
Because each school is unique, Wortell works closely with school personnel to learn about their specific needs and customize a solution for them. The customizations that Wortell has created include a map for one district’s home page that showed the location of each of its schools. For other schools, Wortell has developed a form builder, a digital portfolio for primary education, a training-and-workshop builder, and a personal competence evaluation tool.
Benefits
More than 720 schools and 100,000 users in the Netherlands now take advantage of a Learning Gateway solution from Wortell. Schools can reduce costs and gain an easy-to-use, comprehensive portal.
- Expert assistance, reduced costs. By using the Wortell Learning Gateway, schools can overcome two challenges—high implementation costs and the lack of ICT expertise to deploy and manage the education portal. With an on-site deployment provided by Wortell, schools can save time and reduce their portal expenditures. For other schools, the obvious choice is a Wortell-hosted portal. “Schools get the solution they need without having to manage it,” says Heuperman. ”They can easily add to their portal as needs change. That’s really the most cost-effective solution.”
- Quick deployment, comprehensive solution. Wortell makes deployment fast for both on-site and hosted implementations of Learning Gateway. The hosted deployments are an average of 80 percent faster than the on-site implementations, typically taking just three hours for full deployment, provided the hardware is available.
Schools get a more comprehensive offering than with other solutions. “With the Microsoft framework, our customized templates, and our expertise, schools not only get online learning, they also get one centralized place for administration and collaboration,” says Heuperman.
Administrators can use the portal to monitor teacher and student progress. Students can work together on projects, and parents become more involved because they can view their children’s achievements online. Schools also get a centralized repository for a knowledge base of lesson plans and best practices. In addition, with e-mail messaging they can improve communications throughout the school community. “Many companies offer an e-learning portal,” says Heuperman. “But to my knowledge, Microsoft is the only vendor that can deliver a comprehensive, customizable, end-to-end solution like the Microsoft Learning Gateway.”
- Fast adoption, streamlined management. Because it is based on familiar Microsoft interfaces and technology, teachers, administrators, and students quickly learn how to use the portal with only a little training. Management is simplified, too. For schools that have on-site ICT staff, the education portal can be easily managed along with the rest of the school’s Microsoft infrastructure. A hosted implementation is even easier. Wortell takes care of the management of a rich, extensible education portal so that schools can focus on their educational and administrative priorities.
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Document published March 2009
