Experts have warned about the risks of paying ransoms after Instructure bowed to cyber criminal demands to avoid having stolen data published online.

The move comes after Canvas, a popular academic learning platform developed by Instructure, was breached by the ShinyHunters threat group last week.

More than 9,000 academic institutions across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia were impacted by the breach, which saw roughly 3.5 terabytes of data stolen by the ransomware group.

The move by Instructure marks the latest in a string of examples where organizations have chosen to play ball with hackers in the wake of a ransomware attack.

It’s a contentious topic for many in the security industry, and a tactic that is surprisingly common. Research from Absolute Security, published today, shows that more than half (57%) of CISOs would consider bowing to hacker demands to end a ransomware attack.

A key factor behind paying up, the study noted, lies in shortening potential downtime due to ransomware attacks. Nearly half (46%) ranked operational downtime as the most significant aspect of an attack.

To pay, or not to pay

The question of whether to pay up or not is a catch-22 for enterprises. Jeff Watkins of Leeds-based consultancy, NorthStar Intelligence, told ITPro that paying may appear to make sense for many given the potentially disastrous effects of data leaks.

“Paying cyber criminals may seem like a rational choice to avoid future data leaks, and in ransomware cases, where restoring from backups is not simple/feasible, it is often seen as necessary for business continuity,” he said.

Watkins pointed to the British Library attack in late 2023, which saw the institution refuse to pay a ransom. Hackers behind the attack subsequently released 500,000 files and recovery took several months – and at great cost.

Put simply, paying up often represents a small financial hit compared to the broader costs associated with recovery. Research last year, for example, found the average recovery cost for ransomware victims stood at $4.5 million.

But this tactic rests on trusting that the cyber criminals in question honor their side of the bargain, according to Watkins.

“There are risks involved in paying up, though,” he told ITPro. “There is that old adage, ‘there’s no honor amongst thieves’, and there is a risk that you simply lose your money, or they come back for more before deleting the data, providing a decryptor, or suppressing publication."

The Change Healthcare attack is a prime example of the risks involved with paying up, Watkins noted. The healthcare firm paid a $22 million ransom to the ALPHV/BlackCat group after a devastating 2024 attack, and they simply made off with the money.

RansomHub, an affiliate of ALPHV/BlackCat, still held data stolen in the breach and re-extorted the company.

Legal and moral ramifications

In addition to the operational considerations at play for enterprises, there are legal and moral ramifications.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has been vocal in advising victims against paying up, while the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) takes a similar stance.

In 2025, the UK government unveiled proposals aimed at banning ransom payments by public sector and critical national infrastructure (CNI) operators.

At the time, the government said the ban would “target the business model that fuels cyber criminals’ activities”.

Gary Barlet, public sector CTO at Illumio, said paying a ransom is often viewed as an “incentive for bad behavior” and simply places a bigger target on the back of those already affected by an attack.

“Cybersecurity professionals caution against this, because it signals to other threat actors that an organization is willing to pay if they can manage to steal data,” he told ITPro.

“Professionals worry that threat actors will then attempt to gain access to the same systems and demand even more in payments.”

Watkins echoed Barlet’s comments on threat actor incentivization, adding that choosing to pay effectively funds organized crime.

“This isn’t intended to be a criticism of the victims, as organizations pay because the choices are often ugly, not because they trust the criminals,” he said.

“They often face operational paralysis, patient/student/client harm, contractual penalties, regulatory exposure, reputational damage, and recovery costs far exceeding the ransom demand,” Watkins added.

“However, for as long as we allow organizations to pay ransom, the problems will escalate.”

Light on the horizon

There are positive signs that enterprise policies on ransomware attacks are changing, with many now refusing to play ball. As ITPro reported in August last year, research from Databarracks found just 17% of UK businesses paid ransoms in the wake of a breach.

This marked a steep decline compared to the year prior, in which more than a quarter (27%) opted to pay to recover stolen data. In 2023, nearly half (47%) chose to pay.

Enterprise backup strategies have helped on this front, the study noted, with victims choosing to recover instead of paying. More than half (57%) recovered data through backups after an attack across 2025.

Notably, Databarracks found enterprises are now three-times more likely to recover from backups than paying hackers, highlighting an increasingly tough approach.

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A cybersecurity expert has warned that an uptick in cyber attacks conducted by youths should be a “wake-up call” after two teens were charged following an attack on TfL last year.

Thalha Jubair, 19, and Owen Flowers, 18, were arrested following raids by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and City of London Police earlier this week.

The duo appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday and were charged under the Computer Misuse Act for their alleged targeting of the rail operator..

TfL fell victim to a cyber attack last year which severely disrupted systems and cost the rail operator upwards of £31 million in damages. In a statement coinciding with the arrests this week, the NCA said it believes the attack was carried out by the notorious cyber crime group, Scattered Spider.

“Today’s charges are a key step in what has been a lengthy and complex investigation,” said Paul Foster, deputy director and head of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit.

“This attack caused significant disruption and millions in losses to TfL, part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure. Earlier this year, the NCA warned of an increase in the threat from cyber criminals based in the UK and other English-speaking countries, of which Scattered Spider is a clear example.”

Jubair and Flowers have both been remanded in custody and are set to appear at Southwark Crown Court at a later date.

Tech-savvy teens need a positive outlet

Anna Chung, principal researcher for EMEA at Palo Alto Networks, said the arrests should serve as a “wake-up call” for authorities and highlights a failure to “properly engage a generation growing up in a digital-first world”.

“Young people don’t usually turn to online mischief out of malice - it’s often down to a mixture of boredom, technical skills, and a lack of boundaries,” she said.

“They’re driven by a desire for challenge, recognition, and control. And if no one offers them a positive outlet, the internet becomes their playground—and eventually, their battlefield. So, how do we break the cycle?”

Chung said a concerted effort toward teaching young people digital ethics and making it a “part of core education” will be crucial to preventing future incidents.

“Give them a mission,” she said. “Channel their curiosity into something meaningful: ethical hacking challenges, capture-the-flag competitions, and open source contributions. Let them see that their skills have real value.”

Schools are dealing with a wave of kid hackers

Gupta’s call to action comes just weeks after a report from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) warned tech-savvy kids have caused havoc at schools across the country.

A report by the data protection watchdog highlighted security failings across the education sector, but emphasized that many incidents were caused by kids themselves.

The ICO found students were using techniques to bypass security and network controls. In one incident, three Year 11 students accessed a secondary school’s information management system which held personal information on around 1,400 students.

Another saw a student access a college’s information management system then viewed, amended and deleted personal information. The system stored details on more than 9,000 staff, students, and applicants.

Echoing Gupta’s comments, Heather Toomey, principal cyber specialist at the ICO, warned the trend ultimately has the potential to snowball into more nefarious activities further down the line.

“What starts out as a dare, a challenge, a bit of fun in a school setting can ultimately lead to children taking part in damaging attacks on organizations or critical infrastructure."

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The biggest cybersecurity risk faced by schools comes from the pupils themselves, according to new research from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

In what it described as a 'worrying trend', more than half of cyber incidents at schools were caused by students. More than a third of incidents involved pupils guessing weak passwords or finding them jotted down on bits of paper.

These teen hackers are most commonly English-speaking males, although around 5% of all 14-year-old boys and girls admit to ‘hacking’ in some capacity. The reasons given include dares, notoriety, financial gain, revenge, and rivalries.

Heather Toomey, principle cyber specialist at the watchdog, warned the trend has the potential to snowball into more nefarious activities.

“What starts out as a dare, a challenge, a bit of fun in a school setting can ultimately lead to children taking part in damaging attacks on organizations or critical infrastructure."

Nearly a quarter (23%) of incidents were caused by poor data protection practices, including staff accessing or using data without a legitimate need, devices being left unattended, or students being allowed to use staff devices.

One-in-five were caused by staff sending data to personal devices, and 17% by incorrect set up or access rights to systems such as SharePoint. 

Students are playing with fire

One-in-twenty incidents, however, came from insiders using sophisticated techniques to bypass security and network controls.

In one example, a student accessed a college’s information management system via a staff login, then viewed, amended, or deleted personal information belonging to more than 9,000 staff, students, and applicants.

The system stored personal information such as name and home address, school records, health data, safeguarding and pastoral logs, as well as emergency contacts.

In another, three Year 11 students unlawfully accessed a secondary school’s information management system, which held personal information belonging to more than 1,400 students. When they were caught, they said they'd just been trying to test their cybersecurity skills and knowledge.

Pete Luban, field CISO at AttackIQ, said the ICO research shows the education sector needs to strengthen its cybersecurity practices.

"There are a couple of takeaways from this news. The most important is that educational institutions must do a better job of protecting sensitive information," he said.

"Proper cyber hygiene protocols, such as strengthening passwords and removing student access to them, would solve a large portion of the problems,” he said.

"For the smaller portion of incidents that required more advanced technical skills, schools need to evaluate their cyber defense systems and implement proactive measures that are able to close the gaps that students were exploiting," Luban added.

Luban said it’s critical for schools to make it clear to pupils that hacking isn't just a prank, and that there can be significant consequences.

"Reinforcing data protection principles and individual data rights not only makes students aware of the potential punishments for conducting cyberattacks, but also decreases the chances that they themselves are breached as a result of cyber malpractice,” he said.

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IBM has teamed up with the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) for a cyber skills program for girls.

The company confirmed it will provide the online platform for this year's CyberFirst Girls competition, a UK-wide program open to girls between the ages of 12 and 13.

Run by the NCSC, the competition is the UK’s flagship cybersecurity program for schools, with more than 85,000 students across the country having taken part since its launch in 2017.

Students participate in a series of cyber challenges ranging from cryptography and networking to AI.

"IBM is delighted to build upon our partnership with the National Cyber Security Centre by supporting the CyberFirst Girls competition with DSIT," said Mark Hughes, IBM global managing partner for cybersecurity.

"This new collaboration is a significant step towards nurturing the next generation of cyber leaders, ensuring a more inclusive and robust industry. We are confident that this partnership will make a substantial impact in encouraging more young girls to pursue rewarding careers in cybersecurity."

While average salaries in the sector top £56,000 – with the top 20% earning between £73,000 and £350,000 - almost half of UK businesses report having cybersecurity skills gaps.

More than four-in-ten have a basic skills gap, research shows, while 27% have gaps in advanced skills such as penetration testing.

But while broadening the talent pool clearly helps, official figures show that women currently make up just 17% of the UK's cyber workforce.

Diversity in cyber still lacking

Last year, the government's annual cybersecurity skills report found that, despite a significant skills gap, a lack of diversity is a persistent challenge in the workforce.

While there's been a general upward trend in the number of women from ethnic minority backgrounds in the UK cybersecurity workforce, this improvement appears to have tailed off.

"If we’re going to keep the UK safe from the threats we face online, then we need to build a diverse workforce which is reflective of every community in the country," said minister for cybersecurity Feryal Clark.

“By partnering with IBM to deliver the next edition of the CyberFirst Girls Competition, we’re driving forward our plans to do exactly that – building up the skills of young girls across the country and nurturing the next generation of UK cyber leaders."

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In its 2020 report, the Institute for Ethical AI in Education noted that despite the risks posed by artificial intelligence, it also held many benefits that could help remove obstacles and challenges faced by learners around the world. Fast forward to 2024 and AI is ubiquitous, with generative AI in particular enabling students to complete their work in rapid time.

Generative AI is widely used across the education sector and even comes as a standard feature on most new Chromebooks. Here students and teachers have access to powerful new tools that are changing the way they work and learn. Copilots and AI-infused apps are automating tasks, providing more insights into subjects, and, also, preparing students for the future of work.

It’s all generative

There is a wealth of AI-based tools available to students today, such as NPU-enabled laptops and on-device assistance, often dubbed ‘copilots’. The latter is particularly noteworthy as it is being used as an aid to both learners and teachers in the classroom.

For students, copilots and on-device generative AI programs can help automate research tasks and even create content. This is largely why generative AI has captured such media attention, and why it encourages such intense public discourse. The ability to instantly create content is driving dramatic change within seemingly all industries – for good and bad. While there are concerns about academic integrity or lack of engagement from students who might offload tasks to AI tools, there is a great deal of untapped potential.

For educators, generative AI can be a powerful tool to aid teaching. From generating bespoke learning resources to offering more personalized tutoring, it’s believed that the technology can create more engagement and help students in their studies.

For starters, generative AI offers more opportunities for personalization, particularly when it comes to feedback. With AI algorithms able to adapt to the learning patterns and performance of students, tutors can customize assessments with more accurate reflections of the individual’s work. This can be a more fair and inclusive way to assess students as it caters to more diverse learning needs. The data gleaned from such personalized assessments might also provide insights into the learning process and go on to inform future curriculum development and teaching strategies.

AI teaching assistants

The adoption of generative AI in the classroom is not to usurp educators, but rather aid them – like digital teaching assistants. However, the onset of generative AI has brought the importance of academic integrity into focus. Now that students have access to software and programs that can generate essays and instantly solve equations, it may mean the traditional methods of assessment are no longer up to scratch. Here, educators will need to harness the same technology to find new ways to assess work, with the need to distinguish between genuine and AI-generated work.

It may mean a shift towards assessments that prioritize the process by which students achieve their finished work – which will need to be documented as they go – rather than the actual work itself. These process-orientated outputs will force students to engage more deeply with their subject matter – potentially offsetting the lack of engagement that is believed to come as a result of greater automation.

Here, generative AI can also help build soft skills, like communication and ethical reasoning, or create studies that encourage teamwork, such as simulations and role-playing exercises. AI-driven assessments can also mimic interactions more akin to the working world, and help students develop their negotiation, and decision-making skills. It’s worth pointing out that AI competencies are not only vital for personal development, but are also highly sought-after skills for modern employers.

AI for learning and learning AI

While the purpose of school is not solely to prepare you for the workplace, it’s largely where your understanding of jobs and careers starts to take shape. Here, generative AI is becoming not just a tool for learning, but it is also an important subject to learn about.

By the time today’s students reach the workplace, generative AI software could be as commonplace as the laptop. The ability to command and prompt could be more crucial than coding. Digital assistants might even be your most valuable colleagues. These feel like fairly easy predictions to make, especially as they are backed by most leading think tanks and institutions.

By 2025, 50% of the boards of directors of the world’s largest 500 companies will use gen AI-enabled software for idea creation, planning, and decision-making, according to Gartner’s Emerging Tech Report 2023. At the other end of the work spectrum, the report also suggests that gen AI will augment 30% of all knowledge workers' tasks by 2027.

Gartner’s report suggests that gen AI will start to have a profound impact on enterprise operations and the workplace in the next two to three years, with the technology becoming “pervasive” by the end of this decade.

Our educational practitioners will be key to ensuring that all learners can benefit from Al. Digital exclusion was acutely highlighted during the pandemic with a critical loss of learning time for many disadvantaged young people. The hope is that the same mistakes won’t be repeated with generative AI as it becomes more widely available.

The Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec) has announced funding for the continuation of its CyberEPQ program, which seeks to offer cyber training opportunities for disadvantaged groups. 

CyberEPQ is the UK’s first and only extended project qualification (EPQ) for cyber security, and gives students the opportunity to pursue training without formal entry requirements.

In the 2023-24 tranche, CIISec aims to enroll a minimum of 400 students across the UK, around three times that of the previous year.

CIISec and the government have committed to enrolling students from state schools in areas of social deprivation, and the number of state schools enrolled in the program has already increased by 56% year-on-year. 

The course comprises ten compulsory modules on topics such as the history of cryptography from Bletchley Park to quantum computing, how security teams use vulnerability assessment to quantify risk, the use cases of identity and access management, and how the Data Protection Act 2018 fits in with GDPR .

It also includes three specialist modules, of which at least one must be completed, which cover the human aspects of cyber crime like social engineering and poor security hygiene, what penetration testing is and how it works, and security architecture.

"In our first year of running the CyberEPQ, we have already seen how beneficial the course has been to our students,” said Andy Pape, Head of Computer Science at Thomas Tallis School.

“Students chose a wide variety of essay topics that truly engaged their inquisitiveness. Some of their presentations felt like we were sat in training sessions with cyber security experts. Many are now planning a future in cyber security. I can't wait to see how our next cohort develops over the course."

This year, the course also helps educate students about machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), and CIISec has plans to update the modules to keep the program up-to-date with recent advances such as generative AI.

Improving class, gender, and racial diversity in cyber security has long been identified as a goal for the industry. In July, a government report found only 17% of the cyber workforce is female, a 22% decrease from 2022.

Experts have identified classroom intervention as a tool for fixing the gender bias within STEM, and although the number of girls choosing to study computing at GCSE level was up 10.4% in 2023 it is clear there are still major gaps to address.

University education can also be a barrier depending on the class of applicants, according to research. Coding bootcamps and programs such as CyberEPQ can open doors for those who do not choose the university path to employment.

The government’s July study found that “hiring through non-degree routes” would improve diversity throughout the workforce, with education programs and simulations acting as opportunities for individuals with raw cyber talent and the enthusiasm needed to succeed.

CIISec secured funding from the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT), as a part of the UK government’s £2.6 billion National Cyber Strategy.

“We’re excited to embark on this next phase of the CyberEPQ program, which promises to play a pivotal role in attracting and nurturing diverse talent in the cyber security industry,” said Amanda Finch, CEO of CIISec.

“The continued support from DSIT and the dedication of our partners and members will be instrumental in achieving these goals.”

The University of Manchester has revealed it has fallen victim to a “cyber incident” but has denied links to the recent breach at payroll provider Zellis.

In a statement today, the university said it had suffered a security breach and confirmed that some systems had been accessed by an unauthorized third party. 

University data had “likely been copied” during the breach, it said, and at this stage, exact details on what data has been compromised is yet to be revealed. 

Staff have also been advised to refrain from downloading files from university systems in an attempt to back them up.

“Our in-house experts and established expert external support are working around the clock to resolve this incident,” said Patrick Hackett, COO at the University of Manchester. 

“We are working to understand what data has been accessed and will update you as more information becomes available.”

The university is working with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), and National Crime Agency (NCA) as part of its investigation into the breach. 

Incident not linked to MOVEit, Zellis breaches

Asked about potential links to the developing attacks involving UK payroll provider Zellis, of which the University of Manchester is a customer, it confirmed to ITPro that “there is no known link to other incidents involving MOVEit”.

The university’s website lists Zellis as its people and payroll provider but denies links to the ongoing attacks after Zellis was breached via exploits of the zero-day vulnerability in MOVEit Transfer.

A vulnerability in MOVEit’s file transfer software exposed thousands of organizations globally, including Zellis, and has been leveraged by Russian-linked cyber criminal group Cl0p to compromise systems at a host of companies. 

So far, major organizations such as British Airways, Boots, and BBC News are all confirmed to have been affected by Zellis’ breach.

The university previously told Manchester Evening News that it had not been affected by the attack before today’s announcement of a “cyber incident”.

Data security is a top priority across industries. For the education sector in particular, this touches on both the need to protect devices as well as sensitive information and user privacy (student, staff, and family personal information).

With the current landscape in which schools are operating, where they are enabling learning in-person, virtually, and through personal devices, what are the top cybersecurity risks impacting this sector? More importantly, what strategies can decision-makers adopt to deliver secure learning across platforms?

This eBook discusses ransomware, the greatest vulnerability in the education sector - as well as other key threats - along with policies and best practices that are helping educational institutions remain secure in the classroom and online.

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The Open University (OU) is to partner with local education institutes to provide higher technical courses in a bid to combat the skills gap.

The scheme is to be backed by £10 million of government funding with the aim of supporting more varied college courses for students to find highly skilled, high wage jobs.

Under the scheme, which has been announced by the Higher and Further Education minister, Michelle Donelan, OU will specifically work with colleges to offer courses that are not currently available in their region.

These will be much shorter courses than traditional three-year degrees and offer a mix of face-to-face and online learning. The aim is to boost access to higher education and technical training and increase the number of students earning level 4 and 5 qualifications.

Levels 4 and 5 refer to specific technical qualifications, such as apprenticeships, NVQs, and foundation degrees. There is a low take-up of these types of skills in the UK, according to the government's own research, with an "acute" shortage of technician-level STEM skills attributed to an "undersupply of people" with levels 3-5 vocational qualifications over the last two decades.

Only 10% of all adults aged 18- 65 hold a level 4-5 qualification as their highest, compared to around 20% of adults in Germany or 34% in Canada. And, based on current patterns, England's position within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) rankings is likely to worsen, according to the government.

"For too long, people have had to look beyond their hometown for higher education courses," the minister for Higher and Further Education, Michelle Donelan said. "The government is backing The Open University with the funding and support to partner up with local colleges to offer high-quality higher education and training, targeting cold spots across the country, so everyone can up-skill wherever they live."

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Through a period of unprecedented disruption to the sector, education leaders, teachers and families have worked tirelessly to uphold the continuity of learning for students everywhere. The power of technology to support education wherever it must take place has been highlighted like never before during this period, but so have key challenges.

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Education authorities, higher education leaders, teachers, staff and parents have worked tirelessly to uphold the continuity of education and ensure that the prospects, dreams and ambitions of every student are not interrupted.

The experience has, however, highlighted a digital divide between those students who have access to the devices, tools and connectivity to continue education remotely and those who do not. Governments and institutions have made immediate investments to address this issue, but are mindful that a sustainable, long-term solution is now needed.

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Intel and Barclays will provide 550 laptops to teachers at schools in the UK’s most disadvantaged communities, as part of a new initiative to close the digital divide.

The supply is part of the Tech4Teachers project under the non-profit Digital Poverty Alliance, and aims to help teachers of more than 20,000 UK schoolchildren overcome inadequate online access.

As part of the project, Intel and Barclays will also launch a collaboration room for participating teachers to share best practices, ask questions, and seek guidance.

Despite numerous efforts to close the digital divide among students, CEO of the Digital Poverty Alliance and the Learning Foundation, Paul Finnis, believes that teachers have been left behind. According to the non-profit’s findings in 2021, almost one in two (47%) UK teachers lacked the adequate technology to effectively teach their pupils.

According to Finnis, equipping teachers with suitable hardware is “vital in supporting pupils and ultimately building the necessary digital skills to tackle digital poverty”.

“Teachers must not be forgotten by the Government or industry in efforts to ‘level-up’. How can we support children to learn how to use devices and develop digital skills if their teachers don’t have suitable technology to teach them?” he added.

Commenting on the announcement, Barclays chairman Nigel Higgins said that, despite the UK “starting to emerge from the most acute stage of the crisis”, many people are still impacted by the challenges of the pandemic.

Higgins announced that Barclays would be extending its 100x100 UK COVID-19 Community Relief Fund for a second time, having originally launched the programme in May 2020.

This will allow Barclays to “support 250 UK grassroots charities in their crucial work in our local communities” as well as finance Barclays’ share of the donated laptops.

The first iteration of the Tech4teachers programme in 2021 saw electrical retailer Currys provide 1,000 laptops for teachers and teaching assistants at schools across the UK.

However, not every hardware donation initiative has been successful. In January 2021, the UK government was criticised for providing vulnerable children with laptops infected with a "self-propagating network worm". The Windows-based devices were found to be infected with Gamarue.1, a worm Microsoft identified in 2012.

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Laura Dawson, CIO at the London School of Economics, has spent the past 12 months establishing a range of collaborative systems and services to help people login and carry on learning from home. It’s been a challenging 12 months, but it’s also been an intense learning period for Dawson and her team.

In just a matter of days last spring, Dawson and her IT colleagues secured remote links, sent out Windows 10 laptops, and established cloud-based services such as Zoom for the provision of online education. Twelve months on and these technologies are helping Dawson, her colleagues in the IT department and the educators and students they serve to work productively and effectively.

So how did Dawson support her organisation during its shift to online learning and what are the key issues that academic organisations will need to consider as they use digital technology to help shape the future of education? In many ways, she says LSE was in a fortunate position – while COVID-19 undoubtedly accelerated digitalisation, the process was already underway.

Internal expertise

Dawson also says LSE is lucky to be able to draw on the experience of Dilly Fung, a forward-thinking pro-director of education who is keen to explore new and engaging approaches to teaching. Fung’s research around the connected curriculum aims to find ways to foster strong relationships between students and educators.

“So that whole-of-life learning approach was very much the kind of thing we were looking at when we were exploring the future of education,” says Dawson. “We were already thinking about, ‘What does digital education look like? What does research-based education look like, how will we service that and how will that look in the longer term?’”

When lockdown came, Dawson and her senior colleagues had the opportunity to answer some of those questions. “That was all about getting the teaching going as quickly and effectively as possible,” she says, reflecting on the rapid adoption of online learning methods.

Once again, she says LSE had a number of advantages: the institution had already established VPN connections to support secure remote access. LSE had also implemented the collaboration platform Microsoft Teams. Two weeks prior to lockdown, the IT team was able to ask every department to work at home as a beta test for socially distanced working.

“We asked everybody to go and test it and come back to us and tell us what they thought: How did it work, what worked, what didn't? That gave us quite a lot of insight into the sort of things that we’d need,” she says.

“There was a weird moment days before lockdown where just about everyone in the IT department was updating Windows 10 machines and getting them sent out to staff. But we managed to work very well with our third-party partner; we managed to get the machines that we needed, and we dished them out.”

Choosing the right software

The second key element of technology provision involved the establishment of the online-learning environment. Cloud technology played a crucial role here: While the institution was already using Teams for collaboration, it decided to use Zoom as its video-conferencing platform for online lessons.

“We did that because we brought the right people into the room within the first week of the pandemic,” says Dawson. “We went with Zoom because that is the best way for us to get our students online and give them a great experience. So we'd done the due diligence, but we did it really quickly – and that just freed up the discussion.”

LSE also used the online-learning platform Moodle to help deliver assessments. Once again, the team took a similar approach – they made a decision to move the assessment process into the cloud and brought key people together to make decisions and implement systems.

“We created a small sub-team and they went off and did it,” she says. “They got the technology implemented by almost working like a start-up. There's still more work to be done around honing our approach, but they did it and we were able to deliver assessments.”

Taking the next steps

This rapid but successful digital transformation process has helped LSE and Dawson to develop a much stronger sense of what the future of higher education might look like. What she envisages is a hybrid form of teaching that’s different to before the pandemic. Yes, face-to-face learning will remain but the use of online lessons will also rise.

“What we’ve proven is that education can take place online – what we maybe need to think about now are our skills for maintaining that,” she says. “I think hybrid just needs to be really good. And a successful hybrid is where you are bringing people into the classroom with people who are not in a classroom together in a really equitable way.”

It’s also important to recognise that online learning remains a constant work in progress. During the first lockdown, Dawson’s team had to pivot to provide socially distanced IT support to people who weren’t in the same location and who were trying to deliver online learning.

As social-distancing restrictions eased, conversations turned to the hybrid teaching environment and the blend of offline and online teaching methods. There was a significant piece of work around turning physical teaching spaces into COVID-safe spaces with fewer seats. For those who were still unable to attend in-person, the IT team has continued to provide online teaching.

Dawson says it's important to recognise just how far the move to online learning during the coronavirus pandemic has helped to boost the electronic educational experience, particularly in the case of asynchronous teaching, where teaching materials are posted online and learners work through them in their own time.

The future of education, says Dawson, might involve a whole range of emerging technologies, from virtual reality through to even more advanced forms of educational engagement. She refers to an example from the Imperial College Business School, which became the first institution to deliver live lectures via hologram.

Dawson says this technology is “really cool” and provides a way to get more people together when international travel is impossible. Yet it’s also important to recognise that these technologies are at the cutting edge and are far from replacing traditional forms of learning or even video-conferencing systems.

For many institutions, such as LSE, the coronavirus pandemic has represented a burning platform for the adoption of e-learning. For Dawson, the priority now is to make the most of the technology that’s been implemented and to build on those gains.

“I don't necessarily think there's any special magic technology that we need in order to create fantastic online learning. I think confidence is the key thing; people now know that they can actually deliver education online,” she says.

This webinar discusses the effects of COVID-19 on the education sector and what challenges and opportunities have arisen as a result, following a survey undertaken by Citrix.

With expert panelists in IT services in the education sector, the discussion addresses the survey findings in relation to remote access to education, IT security measures, and new supporting technology, as well as its sustainability moving forward.

Watch this webinar now to:

• Understand the response to remote learning and the technology provided to do so
• Find out what IT security measures academic institutions have introduced
• Learn how institutions are looking to reduce their carbon footprints through tech

Fill out the form below to access the free resource.

The COVID-19 pandemic has served to shine a light on so many inequalities throughout our society – but when it comes to the growing chasm of a digital divide, could IT professionals be doing more to bridge it?

As the post-Christmas lockdown loomed, and parents or guardians readied themselves for home-schooling once more, it became clear just how many young people faced being left behind because they lacked either fixed or mobile broadband access or a suitable device to work on.

Teachers and education experts were once again exasperated at the government for not providing promised free laptops or tablets quickly enough. On January 12, it announced 300,000 further devices would be made available, taking the total offered to 1.3 million.

Mobile networks also promised to zero-rate certain educational websites to remove them from eating up the precious limited amounts of data some families had on their phone contracts while BT's "Lockdown Learning" support scheme saw BT Wi-Fi vouchers handed to schools and charity partners to pass on.

Organisations and volunteers rallied too, rushing to scoop up unused devices from the public and businesses – in 2019 the Royal Society of Chemistry estimated there were as many as 40 million unused gadgets in UK homes alone.

TechForUK even created a Lockdown Laptops Map showing close to 1,000 schools that needed donations of such technology. Stephen Way, one of its volunteers who is also a school governor and a computer professional, told the media: "I have talked to headteachers and know there is a gulf between the equipment being supplied by the Government and the needs of students in most schools.

"Getting devices to them is a big enabler so we hope to make that process easier while pushing for more broadband access."

"It is absolutely the role of business to fill the void"

Way’s sentiments – and proactive approach to resolving the issue – are shared by many in the business and IT fields. David Richards, who founded the campaign Laptops For Kids in October in his hometown of Sheffield, believes businesses and IT depts could and should do more. It has now given out more than 5,000 laptops in the city and is launching the scheme in Leeds and Newcastle.

Richards, CEO of software firm of WANdisco, which is headquartered in Sheffield and Silicon Valley, explains: "The UK government has deeply underestimated the severity of digital poverty in the UK and it is absolutely the role of business to fill the void. The shortage of laptops is a supply chain issue.

"While over a million children go without, thousands of businesses have a surplus of unused devices. Gathering dust in storerooms, they might be obsolete for the latest business purposes, but for a child in need they can make a huge difference to their education, during home learning and beyond.

“In the past, businesses claimed security concerns prevented them from donating used laptops, but our work with the WANdisco Data Academy at The Sheffield College has proved we can rapidly and securely erase devices, while offering on-hand training for students at the same time. There is no excuse for business to let equipment go to waste when it is so vitally needed."

Charity Business2Schools is another organisation doing similar work, and has 3,000 schools in the UK and Ireland registered for donations, with more than 20,000 tonnes of office equipment and furniture allocated. It’s also using its partnership with mapping software company Esri UK to make this as efficient as possible.

Lindsey Parslow, CEO of Business2Schools, highlights how passing such technology on is often cheaper than recycling it, saying: "Private technology companies should absolutely be thinking about schools when upgrading and recycling office equipment. It's nonsensical such an enormous amount still ends up in landfill.

"School replenishment of IT takes place every 10 years on average, yet businesses tend to recycle desktop computers and laptops every three to five years. Having updated IT equipment means kids aren't simply waiting for an old computer to load up, they can work faster and be more engaged in the classroom."

Is doing the right thing enough of an incentive?

With the Government allocating taxpayers money to fund its current scheme, could there be a better way to partner with businesses?

James O'Dowd, founder of the Patrick Morgan Foundation, which has a digital academy to help young people into work, suggests doing right by the community you exist in should be reason enough to help.

"To be successful in the future, all business leaders must define a social purpose that serves their local communities as well as creating a functioning CSR programme that employees can be a part of. It isn't difficult to have a significant impact irrespective of the size of your organisation or budget,” he says.

"Tech companies can better define their contribution to the communities in which they operate, keeping it in line with the interests and skills of their employees and their own business expertise,” he adds. “For example, providing access to devices for underprivileged youths or avenues into STEM jobs for students. Not only will they make a remarkable impact on their communities, but they will find themselves with a motivated workforce with a bigger goal away from their day-to-day tasks."

One company exemplifying O'Dowd's view is Bath-based full fibre broadband provider Truespeed, which gives free ultrafast broadband for life to schools passed by its network infrastructure. Currently 50 rural schools in the Bath and North East Somerset area are benefiting from this initiative, including Marksbury C of E Primary School.

Julie Player, head teacher at the school, told the media: "Before we went live with this service our broadband connectivity was so unreliable that we couldn't really rely on online learning resources. Now teachers can now make the most of cloud-based storage for lesson planning, as well as a whole host of valuable cloud-based teaching aids."

However, as the COVID pandemic rolls on and new solutions are needed, could tax incentives be one route?

Peter Ford, public sector industry principal at Pegasystems, believes this would be preferable to putting the onus on private companies.

"The cost overhead associated with the refurbishment and cleaning of data would be far too much for them to bear. A social responsibility tax would be a more viable approach,” he says.

"By introducing a new (very small) tax, levied on companies whose net profits exceed a predefined level, there will be money available to invest in charitable funding of IT across the IT education sector to help close the digital divide.

"This would not preclude companies voluntarily donating surplus kit of their own volition and, perhaps, the government may want to compensate this via some form of tax break to at least make it cost neutral."

Echoing O'Dowd's views, he adds: "Doing 'the right thing' should be incentive enough."

Organisations worldwide routinely employ both software developers and software engineers, although there may seem to be very little separating their day-to-day roles and responsibilities. These jobs may be defined in a similar way, and would even share similar requirements. Despite the clear similarities, however, there are a handful of differences that set each role apart.

This guide aims to address the most critical questions regarding the differences between software developers and software engineers, including the level of training required, the skills these individuals may need and the way their day-to-day duties might differ.

Software developer

Putting it simply, a software developer is in charge of the software development process, collaborating with a client on a design concept and then working with programmers to build something that might run across various platforms and operating systems. They’ll create applications to perform these specific pre-defined tasks, and ensure the code is functional across various platforms including desktop, mobile or web browsers.

Education

We'd expect software developers to have studied to university-level, attaining a bachelor’s or master’s degree in fields such as computer programming or computer science. These courses will provide the knowledge and expertise for building software and for programming, although many developers working across the economy are self-taught, and have accessed online resources or another form of external training.

People studying to become software developers should learn and stay up to date on different programming languages. They should also develop knowledge of the industry in which they want to work (e.g., finance for the banking industry).

Required skills

A software developer must have high-level analytical skills for comparing the users’ needs with their software’s capabilities. They must have knowledge and familiarity with several computer languages (e.g., Java, C#, C++, Python) to work with different computer programs. They must also understand the logic of code in other computer languages and know how to use open-source tools (e.g., GitHub).

A software developer requires top-level feedback and communication skills to prevent errors from causing operational or financial problems. They must have a high level of attention to detail to avoid making errors and manage multiple projects at different development stages.

They should have problem-solving skills to address issues in the software development process. It also helps to have interpersonal skills to work well with others involved in developing the software.

Typical duties

A software developer will monitor project updates and listed software defects to ensure they manage the required modifications. This typically requires changing gears and switching between projects, deadlines, and schedules.

They will also follow the development life cycle methodology or delivery framework (e.g., Scrum, Kanban, XP) and test the software in controlled and real-world situations to evaluate its quality and consistency.

A software developer must stay on top of details to direct repairs and changes to programs to ensure everything runs efficiently. They will also review and seek opportunities to improve the current system, manage deadlines and schedules, and collaborate with analysts, end users, marketing, and designers.

In some cases, they will serve as the main point of contact with clients and vendors.

A software developer will face potential challenges in the course of their duties, including:

• Interpretation of end users’ requirements
• Addressing changing needs
• Discovery of bugs or flaws near the end of or upon conclusion of project
• Poor software quality
• Difficulty maintaining or extending software
• Software that is difficult to maintain or extend

A software developer should also follow several best practices:

• Understand how the code supports the business
• Make effective use of the code on the project
• Meet coding goals
• Define approach to short-term coding task
• Begin work on the most difficult part of the project

Software engineer

A software engineer applies software engineering principles to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. They participate in the software development life cycle by systematically developing processes to provide technology solutions for a client’s specific needs.

Education

A software engineer will often have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in software engineering, computer science, mathematics or a related area. Courses will cover computer fundamentals, data structures, programming languages, software engineering, and computer architecture.

Software engineers will also study analysis, problem-solving, and mathematical concepts and learn how to work with large-scale structures within computer programming and hardware interfacing.

Required skills

A software engineer must have technical expertise and experience on a wide range of projects involving open-source tools and projects. They should demonstrate proficiency in pattern design, automated testing, and the creation of fault-tolerant systems and know how to use the tools involved in testing automation (e.g., Ansible, Gherkin, Cucumber).

A software engineer should know how to create and maintain cloud-based systems, IT architecture, and large-scale data stores. They should be familiar with building scalable data deployment pipelines and domain-specific languages.

A senior software engineer must have experience and comfort with overseeing complex systems analysis, design, and development programs. They will lead, consult, and contribute to a range of projects and advise on identifying and applying new IT methods to help clients achieve strategic goals.

A senior software engineer also manages resources, coordinates tasks, and supervises technical project plans. They will also work with other team members, including development staff, operations, and IT, at various stages of the software development life cycle, ensuring operations run smoothly and identifying opportunities for improvement.

Typical duties

A software engineer will research, design, develop, and test software and system quality. They would look for issues and patterns then develop standard operating procedures for addressing what they find. They will update existing software to address defects, adopt new hardware, or improve performance.

A software engineer will look for opportunities to improve existing applications and make recommendations to design and implement updated systems. They will also compile and distribute software over the network.

A software engineer will analyse users’ needs to determine their software requirements, using design feasibility and resource constraints, and coordinate software deployment and installation. They will collaborate with team members to apply technical designs, supervise technologists and engineers, and consult with clients on specs and design.

A software engineer will also investigate new technology use and improve existing codebases and peer review code changes.

A software engineer will face potential challenges in the course of their duties, including:

• Potential financial and human costs of software failure in critical areas (e.g., nuclear power plants)
• Growing complexity of software
• Diversity of software systems that must work together
• Increase in market demand

A software engineer should also follow a number of best practices:

• Engage in activities to benefit the client and their employer
• Ensure software and its modifications meet professional standards
• Maintain integrity and independence in professional approach
• Ethically engage in software development and maintenance
• Support their co-workers

Developer vs Engineer: Overlapping roles with distinct differences

Although there are certainly many similarities between software development and software engineering, there are also differences significant enough to distinguish the two as separate functions within IT operations.

Generally, developers will be preoccupied with small-scale projects, like building programmes that perform specific functions, while software engineers are normally put to work ensuring various programmes work together in harmony.

There’s some scope for software engineers to work in software development, but it’s much rarer to find the reverse happening. Businesses, as such, will employ individuals to fill both functions given they each add something the other doesn’t. While software developers and software engineers may seem to be performing similar functions from the outside, the reality is their core responsibilities are very different.

In June 2019, the government commissioned a report through the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to "help inform the development of evidence-based digital skills policy". It positioned this alongside another piece of research from a year earlier, with Margot James, then minister for Digital and the Creative Industries, saying: "I want the UK to have a world leading digital economy which supports business needs and promotes technological innovation."

18 months on, and with the Coronavirus pandemic putting a strain on every area of public policy and investment, can this country still meet that aim? Or will its competitiveness and knowledge base lag behind nations that are doing more to address the growing skills gap worldwide?

Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates, believes the Government is taking steps in the right direction but warns: "We should not underestimate the scale of the task. The UK has a prevailing digital skills deficit," adding, "in the short-term, the homegrown skills pool will not expand at the pace required".

Over the past nine months, COVID-19 has brought about an unexpected acceleration in digital transformation across all areas, from retail to manufacturing, forcing many into unemployment and spurring much talk from politicians about "levelling up".

The government has attempted to address this with the Lifetime Skills Guarantee, offering adults without A-levels a free, fully-funded college course. This comes alongside its free online Skills Toolkit, where it has worked with partners such as the Good Things Foundation and FutureLearn to help people train in digital and numeracy skills. It has also committed £8 million for digital skills boot camps in four new locations after two pilot schemes in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.

UK skills shortages remain extremely high

Questions remain as to whether this national plan is enough to address the issue, however, given that data from the 2020 Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey showed prior to COVID-19 skills shortages this year remained close to an all-time high.

Cyber security was the most scarce according to 35% of respondents, followed by organisational change management, enterprise architecture, technical architecture, and advanced analytics.

Closing these gaps could prove even tougher in the longer-term; education charity Engineering Development Trust (EDT) found from Ofqual data that there has been a 40% drop in British students studying for an IT qualification in the past five years, falling from 144,635 in 2015 to 87,335 in 2020.

Commenting on the findings, Julie Feest, CEO of EDT, said: "Simply put, every student that chooses a different subject instead of IT represents a missed opportunity to develop the skills that will be essential to the UK's success as a digital powerhouse. The new Computing GCSE highlights this; while brilliant for young people who may have an interest in more technical programming and coding, it does not provide a grounding knowledge of the digital world.

"Students receive their qualification without being taught about essential topics like cybersecurity, digital ethics, fake news or social media – all of which are becoming more prevalent in society."

FutureLearn's Justin Cooke believes collaboration between edtech, academia and industry – with support from government – now needs pushing up the agenda, telling IT Pro: "This will take considerable investment but in return we will see significant results in terms of widening access to digital upskilling opportunities, and positioning the UK as global pioneers in technological innovation."

Investing in underrepresented talent is key

According to Shaw, there should be a three-pronged approach. First, an effort should be made to bring diverse and currently underrepresented talent into the tech sector and provide them with the education and training that he says has "been inaccessible for many communities for far too long". Secondly he says the private sector must do more to fund programmes and provide industry expertise, adding the UK needs a fair immigration system to welcome overseas talent for knowledge transfer and to populate skills throughout the digital economy.

Finally, the government may also need to do better at winning hearts as well as growing minds. Another educational charity, The Smallpeice Trust, found nearly 40% of parents believed their child will not consider pursuing a career in engineering, with many seeing it as "too academic" for their offspring.

Pointing to the fact engineering in the UK currently has a deficit of two million people, CEO Dr Kevin P. Stenson, adds: "It is clear that the industry still has a long way to go in terms of widening accessibility for people from all backgrounds – irrespective of gender or academic ability. No child should feel they are not smart or able enough to pursue a career in engineering."

Some hope can be found in CWJobs' Turning to Tech report, which found 55% of non-tech workers contemplating a career change have considered or begun the process of moving into a tech or IT based role since the pandemic. A fifth of all workers questioned had undertaken online tech training courses in recent months to enhance their employability, showing the demand is out there for schemes like those created by the government.

However, data from upskilling platform Degreed's report State of Skills 2021 shows that three quarters of workers in eight global markets, including the UK, three predicted their current skills would die out in the next three to five years – but nearly half of businesses (46%) had reduced upskilling and reskilling opportunities.

This is perhaps why Jack Hylands, co-founder of FourthRev, suggests even greater wholesale change is needed at a national level, saying: "Government needs to encourage the establishment of career-focused, shorter credentials in high growth digital areas, which can be recognised towards formal qualifications."

Highlighting how he'd like to see greater funding for study outside of traditional degree programmes, including further tax incentives for companies to invest in staff professional development, he adds: "More broadly, the government needs to foster a culture of lifelong learning that underpins a workforce able to rapidly respond to an increasingly dynamic digital economy."

Louisiana State University (LSU) and 19 other universities worldwide have fallen victim to a spate of phishing campaigns that could be related to attacks carried out by an Iranian-based company on U.S. agencies, universities, and businesses.

According to a report by cybersecurity firm RiskIQ, the attacks took place between July and October this year and uncovered 20 unique targets in Australia, Afghanistan, the UK, and the US. The attacks “used similar tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) as Mabna Institute,” an Iranian company the FBI says was created for illegally gaining access "to non-Iranian scientific resources through computer intrusions."

Mabna, also known as "Silent Librarian,” tried to compromise university students and faculty and harvest credentials by impersonating university library resources via domain shadowing. However, RiskIQ did not find enough evidence to link the campaigns to Mabna, so it decided to name hackers identified during this research as "Shadow Academy."

The first target identified from RiskIQ crawl data was an LSU-themed student portal login page. According to researchers, it became clear that threat actors were leveraging domain shadowing, the same technique Silent Librarian used.

In addition to LSU, the attacks targeted 14 other US educational institutions. These include University of Arizona, Southeastern Louisiana University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Manhattan College, Rochester Institute of Technology, Bowling Green State University, Wright State University, Texas State University, University of North Texas, Abilene Christian University, The Evergreen State College, Western Washington University and the University of Washington.

Of the universities targeted, 37% saw phishing campaigns impersonating libraries, 63% saw campaigns dressed up as student portals, and 11% were financial aid-themed attacks.

The attacks initially focused on stealing domain account credentials. They then register unauthorized subdomains to point traffic to malicious servers or, in this case, create phishing pages.

“These subdomains are challenging to detect because they are associated with well-known domains, often don't follow any discernible pattern, and don't affect the parent domain or anything hosted on that domain,” said researchers.

Researchers suggested the hackers timed the development of malicious infrastructure to take advantage of the first few days of class, which can be a chaotic time that overwhelms IT staff.

“However, having access to the infrastructure that comprises the web helps analysts note similarities between threat campaigns are observable behavior by threat actors to track them to identify and investigate threats during heightened periods of attacker activity,” researchers said.

Whenever we encounter the term ‘automation’, it’s far too easy to fall into the trap of envisaging a bleak future in which the increasing use of machines leads to an explosion of mass unemployment. The reality is far more nuanced, however, with research suggesting an ideal situation comprises humans and machines working in harmony, bringing different qualities to the table.

This human-centric approach to automation is an ethos that Staffordshire University has embedded in its digital strategy, pro vice chancellor for digital, Andrew Proctor, tells IT Pro. The university’s goals, he explains, are geared around the idea that AI can increase the level of human-to-human contact by letting automated systems do the heavy lifting. As he puts it: “It’s just about this really nice and powerful idea that artificial intelligence and automation doesn’t necessarily have to be this nefarious technology that’s a threat to people. It’s more about actually increasing the amount of time that humans spend with each other and improving interactions as well.”

Forging a partnership

With an eye to the future, Staffordshire invested in the services of robotic process automation (RPA) firm Blue Prism last year to handle the beginnings of a massive technological shift. The automation, overhauling a handful of processes in the finance department, has recently been completed without much of a hitch, but for Proctor it was far from clear-cut, particularly given the looming shadow of COVID-19 threatening to kill the project off.

“We both had some really grown up conversations about whether we should pause, whether we should wait and see how things die down,” he says, “because we were building our partnership at the same time, and the first automation was proving the capability. It’s high stakes for both sides; we want it to work, Blue Prism wants it to work, so it was a case of ‘are we adding too much risk by doing it in a different model?’”

From the start, Staffordshire was seeking a company with which it could form a strong partnership, and this is a point that Proctor stresses repeatedly: That a 50:50 partnership approach to digital transformation is crucial for an organisation like his. “Having a small but passionate team working with private sector expertise is really powerful, and if you get that right, and if you get that balance right, and you choose the right partner then you tend to fly.”

The internal development team, although they had no experience in automation, knew the university and its existing systems inside-out, he continues, and they are also passionate about the institution. That, in combination with the right partner that’s proud of its technology, will see these two sides come to the table together in a really compelling way.

A continuous blending of knowledge expertise between these two parties has also naturally given rise to an ongoing knowledge-transfer process.

Living with COVID-19

By the time the parties were ready to pull the trigger on the finance automation, the pandemic and subsequent lockdown turned the nature of work on its head, with remote working a potentially indefinite fixture. This threatened the viability of the project before it had even got going, especially considering they had deliberately chosen a complex project to prove the viability of the technology. “The overwhelming answer was, we can do this,” however, a defiant Proctor tells IT Pro. “We both work remotely with people and customers very competently, so there’s zero reason why we can’t be doing this.”

Indeed, Staffordshire University was in the fortunate position of having already fully migrated its services to the cloud two years previously, and had been delivering services such as Microsoft Teams to its staff since then. The transition to remote working, therefore, was a much smoother experience than for many other similar organisations, although that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any room for improvement.

“How we would summarise the impact of COVID for us personally at Staffordshire is that it’s almost accelerated our existing desired cultural changes,” he adds. “So we always wanted more devolved decision-making, more risk-taking, we wanted to shift to more engagement online and provide more online, and this has just really given people even more confidence, so things have started to move more quickly.”

His experience is similar to that of many public sector organisations that were in the midst of their respective digital transformation projects when the COVID-19 crisis took shape. The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), for example, saw the pandemic as an opportunity to fast-track its alerting tool, rolling this out while the crisis was in full swing.

Building on the foundations

Rather than automating some email scraping, for example, Proctor says, Staffordshire was keen to automate a complex process to prove the viability of the technology. With automation a key building block in the university’s roadmap, too, there was no room for error. This automation project centred on processing student withdrawals and intermissions, when students take time away from their studies, with administrative staff expected to process cases based on certain information, and share documentation with relevant parties. The process was laborious because it involved logging into many different systems and gathering information from a number of sources.

“When the finance team started seeing the process that they really don’t like being performed by software robots in front of their eyes, that was quite a good moment for us,” he adds. “It just proved our future direction of travel, and there’s a difference talking to other people and reading about this technology – looking at the brochurces, in videos – and seeing it live in action in your own organisation.”

Building on this experience and wishing to be known as a forward-thinking institution, Staffordshire University indeed has other projects on the horizon as part of its 2030 roadmap. The Blue Prism integration is a core part of this, but there are branching elements that Proctor is excited about. The knowledge-transfer between Blue Prism and Staffordshire’s in-house development team has been embodied by a Centre of Excellence, which will play a much bigger role in the technical implementation of future automation across other departments.

Elsewhere, Proctor is also keen to integrate Blue Prism functionality into the university’s own AI-powered digital student coaching assistant, Beacon. This will lead to monitoring and analysing levels of student engagement, for instance, as well as having functionality that can nudge them if it detects dropping levels of attendance.

“What we can also start doing is presenting that information back to students as well, so we’re really mindful of being transparent,” he adds. “Almost if you imagine a health app; they can see their own level of engagement, and maybe even compare to the average level as well. So that they can see actually it feels as though I should possibly be doing a bit more in terms of studying et cetera, so just really trying to equip students with knowledge and information that really maximise their experience.”

The bulk of the automation has thus far been focused on improving back-office functions and giving staff more time by allowing machines to do much of the heavy lifting. Once the train of automation works its way through the university and eventually begins integrating with front-end services, though, Proctor hopes this human-centric ethos will do the same for students, giving them more time by simplifying some of the more complex and laborious processes.

This article originally appeared in Issue 8 of IT Pro 20/20, available here. To sign up to receive each new issue in your inbox, click here.

COVID-19 has had a huge impact on young people and education systems across the country. Not only were schools forced to close their doors and shift to unfamiliar e-learning platforms, but there is growing evidence that the economic consequences of the pandemic and the recession that promptly followed could be particularly negative for young people and their future prospects.

However, there could be one positive to come out of the pandemic. Research from the British Science Association (BSA) has shown that while 59% of young people (aged between 14 and 18) are concerned about the impact of coronavirus on their future prospects, there is a marked uplift in young people who would now consider a career in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as a result of the pandemic, with 37% saying they are now more likely to consider it.

A newfound interest

One of the main reasons for this, the BSA claims, is that many youngsters are starting to realise how vital science and technology are to the health of the human race. The looming reality of future pandemics is also providing motivation for them to pursue STEM-related careers.

Paul Kostek, a senior member of the IEEE and advisory systems engineer for Base2 Solutions, tells IT Pro: “For students, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced them to terms such as epidemiologist, health metrics and the use of percentages to determine the spread of the virus. It has shown them how vaccines are designed, tested and fielded, and introduced technologies such as thermal imaging cameras, skin sensor patches to monitor temperature and apps to ensure social distancing.

“From this, the likely result will be an increase in the number of students pursuing the sciences, including medical research, and engineering. Whether creating medical devices such as ventilators, designing vaccines or designing apps to track a person’s physical characteristics and feed them to a smartphone, STEM will be an attractive career path that allows students to develop technical skills and help people at the same time.”

Not only are children becoming more interested in STEM subjects as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, they’re also becoming more familiar and adept with technology. The sudden shift to e-learning has forced children of all ages to quickly adopt new technologies, be it video conferencing tools, screen-sharing services or online cloud-based platforms. This, claims Elizabeth Tweedale, CEO of Cypher, will also encourage more children to study STEM, and better equip them for doing so.

"Kids have significantly increased their creative and communicative screen time through regularly connecting with friends and family via video calls and navigating homework assignments and conversations online,” she tells IT Pro. "At Cypher, we’ve seen children as young as six years old engaging with new computing skills in the past few months, which will undoubtedly result in significant advances in their capabilities through these new opportunities.

"This familiarity will lead to more children studying STEM subjects and/or incorporating technology into all other curriculum subjects through this newly found confidence. From this, the younger generation will grasp the benefits and advantages of computational thinking and reasoning, two elements key in the fields of coding and computing.”

Job security

Young people may also consider a scientific career due to the increased notion of having greater job security than other sectors. While many industries – notably hospitality, retail and leisure – have been hit devastatingly hard by the pandemic and the disruption it created, the technology industry has been somewhat resilient thanks to a shift to a ‘new normal’ underpinned by remote and online technologies.

Figures from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), the trade association for the professional recruitment sector, showed that the IT sector remains stronger than most during the pandemic; the industry accounted for 35% of all job vacancies in London during the peak of the crisis, a figure that typically sits around 15%.

This demand is likely to continue, too. The COVID-19 pandemic is fast-tracking digital transformations in companies that are looking to technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to help them become more resilient to future disruptions, so those that can help businesses to exploit these technologies could be in a hardy position.

Anthony Tattersall, Head of EMEA at Coursera, comments: “The Corona class of 2020 and beyond will have it tougher than ever to develop the right skills to become employable in the job market ahead. However, according to our latest 2020 Global Skills Index, based on 65 million learners globally, Physical Sciences (STEM) students are those who bring the most versatile skills set into the workforce. In fact, data storytelling, a methodology present in all STEM courses, was in demand in all top ten industries that informed the report.

“Students in disciplines like physics, chemistry, meteorology, as well as maths and statics, could make the most desirable employees as they are trained to use data to inform decision-making and measure uncertainty. These fields best prepare people to easily acquire other new skills and navigate the ever-evolving technological landscape that’s impacting all businesses today.”

Not just children

It might not just be young people who are more likely to consider a future STEM career as a result of the pandemic. Nerys Mutlow, chief innovation officer at ServiceNow, claims the newly-adopted way of working, which has changed the 9-to-5 as we know it, could also encourage more women to pursue a new role thanks to their newfound flexibility.

“In a previous role, I frequently had calls put in my diary at 8 am while I had to do the school run,” Mutlow says. “Not only have our hours changed, but COVID-19 has increased workplace openness and it’s easier to reschedule inconvenient diary invites.

“With both parents able to work flexibly, the burden of childcare can be better shared, levelling the playing field for women. This newfound flexibility will encourage young girls too, particularly if they know they don’t have to sacrifice career progression to start a family.”

Microsoft is adding a bunch of helpful new features to digital Teams meetings to support its Microsoft for Education products.

Remote learning isn’t going anywhere. When schools open up again this fall, most educators expect the 2020-21 school year to be a hybrid of traditional in-classroom instruction mixed with more remote learning.

Microsoft says 150 million students and teachers have been using Teams, its video conference software, for remote learning. Based on the feedback from these users, Microsoft is adding new features.

Of course, Microsoft Teams is also making improvements to compete with its main rival Zoom, which has seen enormous growth during the coronavirus quarantine era.

Among the changes to Teams: The number of on-screen participants you can see during a Teams meeting will grow to 49, the company announced Monday. The Teams grid view will expand to 7-by-7, matching Zoom. Teams will debut its new 49-person view as a preview this month. It will roll the new view out to all users this fall.

Here are the other new features announced for Teams:

• Virtual breakout rooms where students will be able to meet and collaborate in smaller groups.
• A “raise your hand” tool that students can use to ask and answer questions during class.
• Teachers can see attendance reports and “class insights,” a data analytics breakdown showing how students engage with the class, including assignments turned in, activity metrics and grades.
• New controls for teachers. They can prevent students from starting meetings unattended, and they can determine who can present in a meeting.
• Educators can also create a “meeting lobby” to ensure only assigned students can join a meeting.

“Over the past several months, how we teach and how we learn has been flipped upside down,” wrote Barbara Holzapfel, Microsoft’s general manager of education. “Many teachers and faculty have been incorporating new tools into their lessons, often for the first time… It’s more important than ever to help educators find ways to connect with students and keep them engaged, motivated, and safe in a digital world.”

All of this comes on the heels of Microsoft adding a host of other new features to Teams in an attempt to better compete with rival Zoom.

Microsoft has also enabled Teams users to enjoy new custom background effects and live captions to make meetings more inclusive. Users can upload a background of their own or choose from one of Microsoft’s pre-made background collections. They can also schedule meetings and send out invitations in advance.

Hackers are turning their attention to the education sector during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Cyware.

The coronavirus has created a virtual playground for malicious hackers. From those leveraging contract-tracing to dupe their victims to the reappearance of Zloader malware in coronavirus-related phishing campaigns, hackers have stopped at nothing to use the pandemic to their advantage.

While governments have urged them to stop their actions, particularly those targeting the health care industry, these malicious actors remain committed to their nefarious ways. Unfortunately for the education sector, this has led to a barrage of unfortunate cyber attacks.

The education sector has become an attractive target for threat actors, according to Cyware. In a time when schools are cutting budgets nationwide, many districts have had difficulty investing in cyber security tools to prevent ransomware attacks.

Plus, students are no stranger to risky online behavior, giving hackers another means to infiltrate a school’s network. Throw in a pandemic and remote schooling, and the education sector becomes even easier to target.

Ransomware has gained quite the foothold in the education sector too, as it’s responsible for 80% of malware-related incidents in the education sector, per Verizon’s analysis.

A number of schools worldwide have already fallen prey to these attacks. In March, Wichita State University notified its students of a security incident that led to “unauthorized access to a computer server that WSU used to operate various student and employee web portals.” At the time, the university estimated up to 1,762 individuals were impacted by the incident.

In May, the University of Corsica notified its students of a similar incident. In this event, hackers gained access to the school’s network, paralyzing it in exchange for a ransom.

While these attacks could be combated, doing so is easier said than done. Most schools lack team members dedicated to cybersecurity, according to Keith R. Krueger, chief executive of the Consortium for School Networking.

Additionally, many schools can’t keep up to date on the latest hacking techniques and trends. Unfortunately, until the education sector invests in proper cybersecurity measures, hackers will continue to wreak havoc on their systems.

This April, nearly 100 UK schools will receive ‘ground-breaking technologies’ designed to support pupils with educational and learning disabilities.

That’s according to a statement from the UK government, which has earmarked £300,000 to fund the designing and developing a technology-backed educational trial.

Funding for this research is part of the Department for Education’s £10 million EdTech Strategy, which is aiming to implement innovative technologies across schools nationwide in order to optimise student learning and performance.

The study’s primary objective is to identify the most efficient and practical technologies for everyday classroom use. Software is expected to take centre stage, including ‘text-to-speech’ and ‘speech recognition’ programs, which may be particularly helpful to students suffering from dyslexia. According to the NHS, one in ten people in the UK are thought to be affected, to some degree, by dyslexia.

The technology could also “level the playing field” for students with more complicated, limiting disabilities, the government said, particularly students afflicted with severe motor impairments. Eye-gazing technologies, which track eye movement across a monitor, allowing individuals to communicate without physically producing speech, are set to be rolled out in the pilot trial.

The CEO of the British Dyslexia Association, Helen Boden, welcomed the news of the initiative, but tole IT Pro technology “is not a replacement for the early diagnosis of dyslexia and specialist support”, adding that “government cuts to education funding mean that availability of these vital services is poorer than at any time in recent memory”.

The trial will run for the duration of the 2020-21 school year.

In a speech at BETT announcing the initiative, Minister of Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Chris Skidmore, told delegates: “Harnessing the power of modern technology can help us change lives and unlock the potential of every child.

“With technological advances happening at increasingly breakneck speed, it is only right that we ride the wave so pupils in our classrooms with special educational needs are given all the support they need.”

On a purely cosmetic level, the school classroom has changed little since education became compulsory in the 19th century. Tables and chairs sit neatly to face a whiteboard, with the teacher at the heart of every lesson. However, look closely at a modern-day classroom and you may notice a subtle difference from those of yesterday: technology.

Teachers and students now have digital tools at their disposal that have completely changed the learning possibilities in and out of the classroom. According to a recent survey from BESA (British Educational Suppliers Association), 71% of UK primary and 76% of secondary schools are now making use of tablets in the classroom. Furthermore, by the end of 2016, there were close to 1 million tablets available to students in classrooms across UK schools and academies.

With children becoming more digital savvy, the onus is on teachers to be able to keep up and communicate in a way their students understand. One piece of technology instrumental to this is the interactive whiteboard. The ability to create games, tests and bring students up to collaborate on the board, as well as traditional whiteboard duties, make interactive whiteboards a valuable classroom addition.

A leader in this field is Canada-based SMART Technologies. Founded in 1987 by David Martin and Nancy Knowlton, SMART introduced its first SMART Board interactive display in 1991. Its pioneering touch control allows teachers and students to work with applications and leave annotations using pens or their fingertips. Today, SMART has a range of three boards to fit various educational needs and budgets: the SMART Board 7000 series, 6000 and 2000. But it isn't just the hardware that's important SMART's software powers learning and, in the hands of the right teacher, can unlock the board's true potential.

The SMART Learning Suite combines all the tools and software needed to deliver lessons, assess students, create and execute game-based activities and foster collaboration in the classroom. SMART Notebook, for instance, allows teachers to create multimedia lessons from their work or home computer and run them through the board. SMART lab offers teachers the chance to make custom games for their students, while SMART amp is a collaborative workspace allowing multiple users to create content together.

Of course, cutting edge hardware and software alone isn't going to revolutionise education. A 2015 report from OECD stated that educational technology needs to work in tandem with good teaching in order to improve learning results. When Pinders Primary School in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, needed to upgrade its ICT offering, it teamed up with consultancy Elementary Technology and landed on SMART as a partner. As a school where 80% of students speak English as an additional language (EAL), Pinders sought a solution that could engage children through visuals.

"You need a lot of visuals, a lot of high stimulus to get them locked into reading, writing and maths," said Lorna Kemplay, head teacher of Pinders. "As an EAL school visual aspects are really important, they can't always understand what we're saying but if they can see it, they can understand it." Kemplay also stressed the importance of supporting the hardware with robust software. "If you only invest in the hardware it's a waste of money because you can't use it," she explained. "The reason we invested in SMART, in the hardware and the software, is because it was something they (the teachers) were all familiar with. With the new technology that we've bought into we've got a package that includes continuous professional development, so we get new information and get shown how to use it."

Kemplay added that training for the teachers was an important piece of the puzzle: "That's really essential and that's what we've had from Elementary Technology. Staff were really enthused about what they've been shown, how the iPads could link into the interactive whiteboards, how that means the whole class is going to be engaged at the same time, other than just a couple of children coming up and doing it."

It's a similar success story at Sharlston Community School in West Yorkshire. Head teacher Julie Dunderdale-Smith knew the school required a major technology upgrade, but was concerned about the cost. Like Pinders, Sharlston worked with Elementary Technology to conduct a health check and establish what equipment the school required. The solution came through SMART's ClaaS subscription, which allowed Sharlston to spread the cost over several years while upgrading the entire school at once.

See more SMART Technologies customer stories here

"Elementary Technology gave us several options and one of the options was the SMART ClaaS where we're able to pay annually," said Dunderdale-Smith. "Financially it's meant we can plan ahead and have all of the SMART Boards installed in all of the classrooms.

"That meant that all the classes were having access to the latest technology. More importantly, the teachers were given all the new equipment they need to teach dynamic, engaging lessons. I'm confident that in every classroom the teachers and the children have got what they need."

Dunderdale-Smith added that SMART has made a monumental difference at Sharlston, with the technology leading to greater productivity in lessons. "I think the biggest thing for me is every single child that comes through that door now seems to be engaged with our lessons. Every single subject, every single child will want to be involved," she said. "Teachers have found it much easier to use than they thought they would. Some of the activities you'll see, they'll look really, really impressive but they're not that difficult to make."

SMART's influence spans beyond the UK, too. Around 3 million classroom worldwide are equipped with SMART hardware, while 5 million software downloads are registered annually. Budgets can often be stretched, but SMART's solutions have proved time and again that they're a strong fit for any forward-thinking educator.

SMART Technologies is transforming education discover more here.

Mark Hartwright teaches at Stafford's Castlechurch Primary School using the SMART Board 6000 from SMART Technologies. With SMART interactive displays, teachers and pupils can use pens and even their fingertips to work on the board simultaneously, creating an extension of the traditional whiteboard with quizzes, game-based activities and tests to help learning. Here, Mark takes us through a typical working day and explains how he uses SMART to inspire his pupils.

by Mark Hartwright

For the first five years of teaching this mainly involved playing films, displaying images and writing on top of the interactive display boards. It wasn't until I joined Pheasey Park Farm school in Walsall that I began to see the full potential of SMART. There they rolled out training and I soon discovered how the technology could significantly benefit both teaching and learning.

Now I teach 5 and 6 year olds in Year 1 at Castlechurch Primary School in Stafford, and SMART is integral to my working day (my classroom has a SMART 6000 with Notebook 17.1 software). I teach all subjects, so in the morning we focus on Maths and English, then in the afternoon we are topic-based around a theme. When I arrive in the morning I load up the board with an early start' task. Today it was practising spelling, so I set up a picture clue on the board telling the children which books they need to get out. They can get on with this task straight away, which is particularly helpful as I can spend some time talking to parents. I've also used the board to create a visual timetable of all the events happening at school today. We can come back to this throughout the day so the children know what they'll be doing next.

Finding the answers together

I start today's lessons off with Maths and have already devised a lab activity on the SMART Board. I want the entire class to have input so I bring students up in groups to interact with the board. It's them driving the learning rather than me, and it's a case of them discovering the right answer rather than me just telling them. If they end up getting a few answers wrong we can pause the game and look for the solution together. In Year 1 they are still at a very young age and are making the transition from learning through play with a SMART Board I'm helping to bridge that gap by giving them a game that's fun and exciting to do. For English the SMART Board really comes into its own when I'm teaching spelling or handwriting. Before the lesson I use the page recorder, which allows me to capture my own handwriting. In the lesson I just hit play on the screen and the children can see how letters and words are being formed. If a particular child is struggling with their handwriting task they can just walk up to the board and press play themselves.

In the afternoons we have continuous provision, which is more an early years style of teaching with activities set up around the classroom. I'll sit in my focus group where I'll teach approximately six children while the rest of the class will do activities based on a particular theme. Today we're continuing our look at the Owl Babies story, so running alongside the focus group there's a table with Lego to build woodland creatures, a writing group, a laptop with Notebook files and prompts, and a lab activity running on the SMART Board for children to play. The latter is useful for consolidating learning and giving students the chance to revisit something from earlier in the day. For example, today in Maths we continued to improve our speed when recalling number bonds to 10 - lab activity gives the children another chance to look at it in the afternoon.

Splitting the children up into smaller groups is a great way for me to get some high-quality teaching in with my focus group. If I'm trying to get an entire class to do a task at the same time it can become complicated. SMART has enabled me to split up the classroom and do some focused teaching for 20 minutes, then let the students do another activity that is more learning through play. The children tend to love technology, and it's a great way into learning. It never feels like a chore to them, particular if it involves something interactive like playing a game. I've got a student at the moment who doesn't speak English, but she's more than happy to come and play. The games are straightforward and she can see what to do, so it's a universal way to learn.

The indispensable SMART Notebook

In terms of the SMART tools I use the most, I'd pretty much refuse to teach if I don't have SMART Notebook! I use the input system of the iQ feature to run my laptop screen through the board. I've taught on competitors' boards before and it all comes down to software. I actually downloaded SMART Notebook to use on other boards, primarily because it's so much better than anything else on offer. Although many teachers like to use pens to interact with the board, I prefer interacting through touch it's tactile learning and you immediately feel part of it. I never felt like I had to learn to use the board because it's very intuitive. That's exactly the same for students; it's fluid and they can quickly get on with their learning rather than be bogged down by clunky pieces of tech. It helps to build that relationship you have with the children and if you're using a fun stimulus, like the SMART Board, then you can build that relationship better and have fun. If you're giving them something fun and exciting to do they're going to like what they're doing and in a roundabout way they'll like you as well and that relationship gets better.

One thing I'd say to any schools or teachers looking to adopt SMART: go out and try it. Until you've seen how easy it is to use, you can't see its full potential. If you can see the key features, particularly the lab activity games for primary schools, you'll see how easy it is to make them. SMART has changed my teaching completely. Now it's a lot more organised, a lot more structured, a lot more fun and a lot more interactive. Once you see a child use SMART software and the enjoyment they get out of it, to move, touch, manipulate, and play with their learning, you'll quickly realise that the technology sells itself.

SMART Technologies is transforming education discover more here.

Imagine a classroom. What do you see? Chairs and tables in neat rows facing the teacher's desk? Perhaps some posters on the walls? Whatever amalgamation of these things you have in place there's one key element that will be in everyone's imaginary classroom: a blackboard.

In some senses, schools have changed little since education first became compulsory. There's no corporal punishment any more, of course, and learning by rote has been replaced by more creative and thoughtful teaching methods. But the essentials are the same and the blackboard - or, more commonly now, whiteboard - sits at the very heart of this. It's the focal point for lessons.

With the world having moved so far in virtually every dimension, but especially in technology, it's perhaps surprising that a time traveller from the Victorian era would largely recognise a school room if they saw one.

While it's not necessarily a bad thing that the layout of classrooms have stayed similar from generation to generation, advances in technology can augment a tried and tested system, providing a better experience for teachers and their students.

Bringing out the best

In a 2016 study sponsored by SMART Technologies, Filigree Consulting found that while excellent teaching is still the most important thing when it comes to positive student outcomes, when it's supplemented by good software and hardware (in that order), the results can be even more impressive.

According to the research, those using teaching best practice and technology together in the classroom reported achieving outstanding successes (38%) more frequently than their peers using just best practice but with low technology input (28%) or those using a lot of technology but not following best practice (20%).

At the recent Bett education technology show, Micro:bit Foundation's chief of education and strategy, Gareth James, lent credence to these results, stating that cutting edge digital tools will only succeed if they're in the hands of amenable teachers.

"Right from the very outset you need to have the correct tools, you need to have the teacher training in place and you need to have them willing to actually teach it," he explained. "You have to think about how it's going to progress from the point at which you're introducing it, whichever year group that is, and then spread it up and down the age groups effectively and potentially across the curriculum."

A key piece of hardware that can enable this balance between teaching excellence and technology is an interactive display. This takes the place of the traditional blackboard or whiteboard and provides greater continuity of learning for example, a teacher could create a quiz that's done during class using the display with all the pupils chipping in their answers from their mobile device while at their seat.

Filigree Consulting's report also cites findings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which carried its own research into the use of technology in education in 2015. It found that while technology promotes collaboration and interaction among students and with their teacher, if it distracts from this a negative effect can be felt rather than a positive one.

Making the most of an investment

What the research from Filigree Consulting and the OECD shows is that successfully using technology in classrooms to achieve good outcomes for students isn't just about buying the shiniest piece of kit around.

Even if an institution has a lot of money to fling at bringing tech into the classroom and let's face it, most don't deciding what to buy and from whom is a delicate decision making process.

One of the priority considerations should be the fact that education is a highly specialised area, much like healthcare or finance. As such, technology for a learning environment needs to be tailored to meet this specialisation.

While some more generalist suppliers may have arms that deal with edtech, for critical classroom infrastructure whether that's an interactive whiteboard or software to support learning and teaching it's well worth turning to a specialist.

See more SMART Technologies customer stories here

One company well-versed in technology for education is SMART Technologies. For the past 30 years, it has been providing hardware, including its famous SMART Board, and software to enhance the experiences of teachers and their students.

As noted in the Filigree research, however, when it comes to technology in the classroom, software trumps hardware in terms of improving learning outcomes. SMART has wrapped up its various software offerings in what it calls the SMART Learning Suite. This comprises four pieces of specialised software: Notebook, lab, amp and response 2 - and an online solution as well, Learning Suite Online.

Notebook allows teachers to provide engaging, hands-on learning experiences from their work or home computer, with the ability to send them directly to their classroom's interactive whiteboard.

SMART lab, meanwhile, provides teachers with templates to create game-based activities, while response 2 allows them to create a quick quiz to ensure students have understood the lesson. SMART amp, on the other hand, is focused on collaboration, allowing the whole class to work together or smaller groups of children.

SMART is also sensitive to the fact schools don't have endless resources to pour into a total hardware refresh and will work on virtually any type of hardware, including Chromebooks and iPads.

One such school that has embraced SMART is Pinders Primary in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. With 80% of students speaking English as a second language, head teacher Lorna Kemplay and her deputy Craig Fraser needed to bring in technology that could facilitate visually engaging and lively lessons.

Working with consultants Elementary Technology, the school devised a five-year plan to invest in new SMART Board interactive displays, upgrade to SMART Notebook 17 software and commit to ongoing training.

"To have technology that we can see, the resolution of it is phenomenal, now we've got sound that erupts over the children, that has high definition to really capture them," Fraser said. "When you say software to support children's learning, you think of SMART. The differences from Notebook 11 to Notebook 17 is clearly a wide variety of resources through 3D images and class lab systems that allow it to be an engaging system."

Alongside the hardware and software upgrades, Pinders has implemented a third piece of the puzzle in the form of ongoing training an approach they call "triangulation". "You've got to have all three to get value for money," Kemplay explained. "Triangulation, that's really a central part of it and that's what we've had with SMART and Elementary Technology."

She added that Pinders' leadership is looking at SMART as a long-term investment, saying: "We have to get something that's going to have an impact and have longevity. It's a legacy for the future and for the children that come through Pinders Primary."

Budgets may be tight, but when it comes to making a technology investment in your school, choosing a tailored suite that's device agnostic, alongside the 21st century version of the stalwart blackboard, is one of the most sensible choices any institution can make.

SMART Technologies is transforming education discover more here.

De Montfort University in Leicester is launching a week-long programme of hands-on events designed to give students a chance to get to grips with the practical aspects of cyber security.

Beginning this Saturday, #DMUCyberWeek will include challenges, workshops and talks lead by some of the security industry's top minds, such as researchers from Check Point, BT, Deloitte and Airbus.

"We are fortunate in the Cyber Technology Institute to have such excellent relationships with industry," said the head of DMU's school of computer science and informatics, Professor Helge Janicke.

"#DMUCyberWeek represents an important knowledge exchange opportunity - our students have the chance to meet potential employers and our partners get to meet the future talent of their industry."

One of the sessions involves a digital forensics challenge that has been featured at Las Vegas' infamous Defcon security show and is co-hosted by former DMU alumnus Molly Betts, who is now part of Airbus' cyber forensics division, following a placement with the company as part of her studies.

The programme will also play host to the official start of Cyber Security Challenge UK's 2018 schedule. The government-endorsed initiative hosts an annual series of competitions designed to encourage engagement with and participation in the security community among students.

#DMUCyberWeek will host the initiative's first Capture the Flag event, which is part of the qualifying rounds to earn a place in the final Masterclass round. Teams of students must work together to solve a variety of security problems and earn points.

"I love taking part in anything run by Cyber Security Challenge UK," said Chris Hatton, second-year DMU computer security student and secretary of the university's cyber security society, DMU Hackers. "It's a great way to get experience and I'm keen to encourage other DMU Hackers to join in."

"Competitions like these are great for three reasons - they're really fun, they're the best way to learn and they're perfect for networking and getting your name out there if you want to get into cyber security. #DMUCyberWeek is definitely one of the best weeks at DMU. You just don't get another chance like it to hear from and speak to so many industry experts."

Getting more students and young people into the world of cyber security is one of the industry's top priorities, as reports have indicated that a looming skills gap could be set to leave organisations dangerously lacking in talented security personnel.

Numerous studies have shown that parental involvement in a child's education can make a huge difference between mediocrity and excellence. Parents providing educational activities over the summer months give their kids a boost, so they return to school in the autumn more prepared to learn than children who were left to their own devices (quite literally, in many cases).

The greater the involvement level of parents with their children's school activities in general, from homework to extra-curricular events, the higher the children's level of achievement. Research by the University of Exeter argues that this is more important than the overall quality of the school attended. Increasingly, technology plays a key role in this involvement.

One school that's doing it's part to embrace digital change is the Waid Academy in Fife, Scotland. Waid enrolls just under 700 pupils and sits at the heart of a close-knit community. Sabrina Ferguson, depute head teacher at Waid, joined the school in 2016 with the remit to transform it into a technology-enhanced environment. This involved integrating with Glow, Scotland's digital learning platform, Microsoft Office, and developing training on interactive displays provided by SMART Technologies.

Ferguson's three-pronged approach not only consisted of educating teachers and pupils, but parents, too. "[We ran] a session for parents on what we're doing within the school, how we're enhancing digital literacy and how we're developing different skills for digital innovation," Ferguson explained. "And also we wanted to offer them an opportunity to speak to the police about COP (Child Online Protection), and how to keep children safe online, as a result of all of this new advanced technology here, but also the fact that the pupils are much more engaged with technology at home and within school."

Thanks to technology, what goes on in the classroom no longer stays entirely in the classroom. With cloud-based online systems, parents can check what homework their offspring have been set, keep tabs on their grades and projected performance, and even gain access to assignments should the child need help completing them.

Moreover, parents no longer need to worry about filing away their child's paper progress reports or notices from the school. Again, online systems can provide a historical record of these that is just a webpage URL and login away. But online systems also allow teachers to provide more regular updates on progress, not just the term-end (or even annual) reports that used to be the norm. A study from What Works Clearinghouse shows that more frequent feedback, in the form of daily report cards, has a positive impact on the behaviour of students with ADHD.

Of course, technology isn't a panacea on its own; it needs to be allied with good teaching practice. According to a 2015 OECD report, technology will merely improve results a little without better teaching practice, whereas best practice can achieve good results without technology. In fact, from the same study, some countries with low educational technology adoption scored the highest on literacy and numeracy. However, there are clear indications that good practice and appropriate technology together are more likely to provide the best results of all, making it essential that the two are combined.

A key component of technological assistance in the classroom itself is the display and presentation technology used by the teacher. Many teaching spaces now include a projector or wall-mounted display. But without the accompanying collaboration solution, this still promotes the traditional, non-interactive mode of presentation. In contrast, according to the OECD, most teachers now see their roles as facilitating students with their own learning journey, rather than imposing rote digestion of information.

Collaboration and interaction are key components for teaching kit that can truly amplify this facilitation. The aforementioned SMART Technologies, for example, provide interactive displays and collaborative software for education. The flagship 7000 series screen combines a digital whiteboard with pre-planned interactive lessons and web browsing, without the need for an attached computer, although it can accept multiple simultaneous inputs and switch between them easily via a preview screen. The touchscreen facility and SMART ink let multiple pen users draw and write on the screen as if it were a conventional whiteboard.

Of course, a pupil's relationship with technology does not start and end in school. As they move into employment and become parents themselves, they will be confronted by an evolving, tech-driven world. At the recent Bett education technology show, Micro:bit Foundation's chief of education and strategy, Gareth James, stressed the importance of equipping young people for this change. "Increasingly we are seeing more and more of the world relying on digital tools. People using digital tools in the workplace, people creating digital products," he said. "Therefore as we look forward into the 21st century, digital skills are vitally important to our young people to take advantage of the opportunities coming their way."

According to Ferguson, Waid's ambition has been to promote a wider understanding of technology's capabilities in education both inside and out of the classroom. "We're listening to pupils, and parents and teachers about what they need to help them become a bit more digitally literate," she said. "But also within an educational context, more specifically about supporting digital learning and digital literacy."

All this can be a lot for parents to get to grips with, particularly if their only memory of the classroom is blackboards and paper notebooks. But there's no question that technology can have a positive effect on how much children get out of education. What goes on at schools like the Waid Academy is no longer hidden in mystery. From keeping tabs on attendance, academic performance, and what your money is being spent on, to helping your kids with their homework, digital technology is making education much more transparent and easy for parents to be involved in.

SMART Technologies is transforming education discover more here.

There has always been a problem with teachers being from a different generation to their pupils, particularly older educators. But the dominance of digital technology has spread that generation gap even wider, as young people become conversant with mobile digital devices, games and social media that didn't exist when their teachers were growing up. Teachers now face pupils using devices and online systems that they don't use themselves, and don't really understand either. The generation gap is more prevalent than ever, but teachers can bridge that gap if they receive the right guidance with appropriate technology.

Speaking at the Bett education technology show in London, Professor Rose Luckin of University College London's EDUCATE project predicted that global technology trends will quickly change every workplace. "Teaching has its workplace, teachers have their workplace, so we need to think very quickly about how we prepare them for this," she said. "It's not just about how to use technology, it's about how to be a lifelong learner. It's about helping teachers to have the right mindset so they don't feel a failure because they haven't yet understood how to use technology."

Some schools and teachers have particular trouble grasping the role of social media and mobile devices in teenage life. They consider Facebook a threat and warn parents against it at parent-teacher evenings, without realising that preventing teenagers from using social media like this, or messaging apps such as Snapchat and Instagram, is nearly impossible. Online social media and network gaming are now such an integral part of teenage behaviour that any attempt to prise the mobile devices out of the hands of young people is likely to widen the generation gap rather than narrow it.

Teenagers have always felt themselves under pressure to keep up with their peers. Now this means owning the latest mobile devices and having a profile on the trending social and chat networks, as much as it means wearing the latest clothes and shoes. Fighting against this will be a losing battle, so it's much more important to look at how teaching can take the shift in youth culture on board rather than deny or discount it.

One school that is doing its part to embrace technological change is the Waid Academy in Fife, Scotland. In 2017, Waid moved to a new campus after spending 130 years at its previous home. This involved a huge digital overhaul, including the integration of Microsoft Office, Scotland's digital learning platform, Glow, and interactive display boards. Deputy head teacher Sabrina Ferguson admitted that a vital part of this change involved bringing the digital experiences students had outside of school into the classroom.

"I think because the pupils are advancing considerably with their technology use, we felt it was important to harness that progression that they have out of school," she said. "[It's] how we can use it effectively in school to help with teaching and learning. So it was really about trying to merge that gap to have a kind of digital speak' between teachers and pupils."

The generation gap in education isn't just between pupils and teachers it exists within the staffroom, too. A teaching career can span more than 40 years, and those towards the end of their working life will not have grown up with digital technology, whereas teaching staff in their 20s and 30s could well be "digital natives".

According to research company Statista, the largest proportion of Facebook users (13%) are in the 25-34 age range, and over a third are 44 and under. The demographics of the mobile-centric generation of systems such as Instagram and Snapchat are even younger, with 59% of Instagram users under 29, and 79% of Snapchat users under 34.

Keeping up with the latest online trend is like a dog chasing its tail; every time you think you've caught up, kids move on. However, it's not beneficial to get fixated on how young people are using social networks that are, in the case of Snapchat, hard for the older generation to understand. The key factor to consider is that today's school students now take for granted that a lot of their communication with their peers will be online, and predominantly using smartphones and other mobile devices. Young people expect their educational experience to be similarly interactive, and partially delivered via these kinds of devices.

This is why classroom technology needs to keep pace with the expectations of the pupils that it serves. Simply installing an audio-visual display is not enough; this needs to integrate with interactive learning systems so that it is not just a passive display tool. In fact, projectors and wall-mounted large-screen TVs can actually be less interactive than the blackboards and whiteboards that teachers have used for centuries, because teachers can't necessarily share ideas that weren't pre-prepared or derived during class.

This doesn't have to be the case, however. Digital classroom technology can combine the tried and tested tools of the past, with contemporary audio-visual presentation, alongside networked interaction and collaboration. SMART Technologies produces a variety of hardware and software solutions that integrate all these functions into one easy-to-use ecosystem.

The hardware part of the equation ranges from the entry-level 2000 series displays with built-in screen sharing for student devices, to the 6000 and 7000 series with digital whiteboard functionality, interactive activities and collaborative workspaces. The company also produces a SMART Learning Suite software that combines lesson delivery, assessment, student collaboration and game-based learning in one package. Instead of passive presentations, teachers can use the template-driven SMART lab to create engaging interactive activities in just a few minutes. SMART Notebook also lets a teacher create lessons at home and send them directly to the classroom's SMART Board.

The SMART amp collaborative tools allow students in desktop-based labs or with their own notebooks or tablets to work together on projects, and these projects can be displayed on the shared screen for the teacher to provide feedback and assistance. SMART amp even allows remote collaboration on projects. With SMART Response 2 assessment built in too, activities can be graded, and the results shared immediately with students and their parents.

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However, technology will not fix the generation gap on its own. Many schools and other educational establishments install complicated new classroom systems with an amazing array of capabilities, but fail to train their staff to use them effectively. A 2015 OECD study has shown that technology must be allied with good teaching practice to be effective, and that the two together can have a significantly positive impact on educational outcomes.

Furthermore, a TALIS report from 2013 revealed that teachers pinpoint ICT skills for teaching and new technologies in the workplace as second and third most important factors in professional development after teaching students with special needs. Younger teachers, who grew up with digital technology, may find it easier to get to grips with new interactive classroom systems than older staff who are in the latter decades of their careers. But the benefits available for student engagement and achievement are clear, making bridging the technological gap in education an absolute necessity for learning excellence.

However, it's worth noting that any digital journey will not have a fixed start and end point. Teachers need to be constantly learning in order to ready their students for the technology they will encounter after education. Scott Duncan, head of social subjects and religious education at Waid, said that "digital literacy" is vital to the school's plans going forward.

"We need to prepare our young people for a world that will fully embrace technology for jobs we don't yet know will exist," he said. "Part of the work we're doing here in school is to develop those digital literacy skills. Our staff are going through a programme of training and development at the moment to develop the understanding of what we mean by digital literacy. So it includes our young people's digital identity their skills and their ability to create, and we will in turn feed that back to our young people to prepare them to leave school."

SMART Technologies is transforming education discover more here.

Over the past 30 years, there's been a dramatic shift in attitudes towards technology and its ability to enhance learning experiences. Aside from playing games or watching movies on a parent's mobile device, the classroom is now often the first place a child meets technology, whether that be through the tools they use or the systems around them designed to create interactive experiences.

Today it's common for children to have access to personal mobile devices or laptop computers for use in school, often supported by online learning tools integrated into the school's network. It's a picture that as little as 15 years ago would have still seemed unfeasible, or even unattractive.

From the beginning of the 20th century the uptake of technology in the classroom was reserved for only the occasional breakthrough, with long bouts of status quo in between. In fact, the overhead projector, first invented in the 1930s but adopted more widely in schools and businesses in the 1950s, remained a popular way of displaying text on a wall or board right up to the turn of the century. Not only was it a great alternative to a blackboard, but it was a simple and effective way of allowing a teacher to quickly create content that could be re-used by colleagues.

This was the order of business for almost 50 years, with few technological breakthroughs finding their way to the classroom right away. The blackboard, both celebrated and loathed in equal measure, remained king until it was gradually ousted by whiteboards in the early 1990s, a technology that itself was some 30 years old. The pace of change was glacially slow, and while some innovations would find their way into schools, the classroom would remain largely isolated from evolving technology until the turn of the current century.

The rise of the personal computer and the World Wide Web sparked one of the most dramatic technological breakthroughs in history. Although it would take a few years before PCs were cheap enough for mass adoption, the "classroom computer" became common by the mid-1990s, particularly as the internet started to mature.

The personal computer transformed the way learning was delivered to children, and drastically increased the pace of change. Teachers could now not only direct pupils to online content they thought was useful, but they could create their own informative web pages and share them with their faculty. The sudden rise of CD-ROMs also made it possible to deliver more sophisticated educational applications, while the development of search engines like Google and Yahoo gave access to the largest shared database of information in the world, and the move to servers rather than local memory meant school work, software and admin records could be archived.

However, despite the new opportunities that technology was providing, the use of a computer in the classroom was largely considered a supplementary tool something that made things easier. Only relatively recently devices have become considered to be a fundamental part of a student's educational career with the possibility that learning can become entirely digitised.

In fact, things have moved so quickly that school leavers are now considered to be at a severe disadvantage in society if they've been unable to access technology from a young age, and with coding classes becoming more common in the curriculum, students are expected to leave school with skills that are alien to many adults.

That new push has meant schools are increasingly turning to technology to help deliver lessons. According to a study from technology charity Tablets for Schools, it's now thought that over 70% of all primary and secondary schools in the UK use tablet computers to deliver learning material, with over 10% being able to offer one tablet per pupil. Furthermore, a 2016 survey from RM Education found that up to 29% of secondary and 9% of primary schools are adopting bring your own device' policies that allow students to use their personal devices in the classroom.

One such school that has undergone huge technological change is the Waid Academy in Fife, Scotland. In 2017, Waid moved to a new campus after spending 130 years at its previous home. The school's senior technician John Ogilvie revealed that the old building had limited tech options, including data projectors and a reliance on desktop PCs. "We've had an upgrade of all IT in the school," he says. "In terms of desktops and laptops we're predominately now using mobile technology here. The number of desktops has reduced significantly."

Waid's head of social subjects and religious education, Scott Duncan, added that extending technology beyond the classroom has helped staff get to grips with new ways of teaching. "We have access to technology in every room," he says. "That really allows staff to engage in technology to become more confident with it and also enhance learning and teaching to make it more interactive for our young people who engage with technology on a day to day basis."

However, technology isn't going to provide an out-of-the-box teaching solution by itself it has to be merged with good teaching practices to truly work. A 2015 OECD report revealed that technology won't improve results without better teaching practice, whereas best practice will lead to good results without the use of any technology. The same study also found that some countries with low educational technology adoption scored the highest on literacy and numeracy. Despite this, there are clear signs that good practice and the right technology will produce the best results of all, making it vital that the two are combined well.

There are glimmers of hope in the industry, where companies are working to create products that are designed from the ground up to be classroom aides and address these shortcomings.

One example of this is the interactive display. Historically, the iconic blackboard was replaced by the more functional and easier to use whiteboard, helping to reshape how a teacher delivers a lesson. Now, interactive displays are helping to mix meaningful learning experiences with the functionality of an internet-enabled device.

See more SMART Technologies customer stories here

Interactive displays, provided by companies such as SMART Technologies, are helping to turn the classroom board into a collaborative hub. Unlike typical touchscreens, on panels like SMART's 7000 series interactive display, students can use pens, erasers and fingertips to work on the board simultaneously, creating the same opportunities for collaboration as you'd find on a traditional whiteboard. Android, iOS and Windows devices can also be synced so that each student can make personalised annotations on their machine, which are instantly displayed on the main board.

Ultimately, interactive displays offer an elegant solution to the problem of blind digitisation of the classroom. The display is where classroom technology comes together. SMART's iQ technology lets teachers switch from SMART Notebook lessons to whiteboard to game-based activities and more right at the board. The interactive display is the classroom technology hub for learning software, lesson content and student devices, and comes with a one-year subscription to SMART Learning Suite software.

Waid Academy's head teacher, Iain Hughes, said that SMART Boards sit at the heart of the school's bid to transform digitally. "It has been a journey, though, because not everybody's skilled right from the very beginning," he says. "You get the technology, but you need to make sure the staff are upskilled for that, and that's where we've had to plan for that. It's different ways of learning. We still have the traditional learning that goes on. We still have traditional assessments, things like that, but it's about looking at ways in which you can actually inspire youngsters."

SMART Technologies is transforming education discover more here.

More should be done to encourage women into leadership roles in education technology, according to a panel discussion at the Bett show in East London.

Speaking at the discussion, Vivienne Porritt, an education and leadership consultant, said that things appear to be going backwards for women with fewer in leadership roles in education than even a few years ago.

"We need to help women move into their next leadership role," she said. "We have looked carefully at where women are not moving forward. One of these is digital leadership."

Fellow panellist Kirsty Tonks, principal designate of Shireland Technology Primary school in the West Midlands, said the education technology space is not just about looking at tech in the classroom, but looking at the use of technology in leadership roles.

"The biggest problem is finding people with technology skills, both men and women," she said.

Barbara Holzapfel, general manager of Microsoft Education, who chaired the discussion, asked panellists what the main challenges were as far as women and technology were concerned.

Tonks said that one issue was teacher training. "We need to break the cycle of learning the value of technology in education," she said. "Are we providing the right training to help teachers value the role of technology and not just passing it to certain people."

Porritt said that the data is clear that there is a real gender divide, where women made up the majority of teaching staff, but not in leadership roles.

"Because we don't have women in digital leadership roles, this effects children. You can't be what you can't see," she said.

Porritt added that there needs to be more encourage of women into "digital spaces".

"We need to increase confidence. Women need to think there is a role for them. Need to encourage women to move past their own self-doubt. Need to get rid of the imposter syndrome."

She said that at a systemic level, "we need to change expectations. We have to change things at all levels". She talked about how in government there was a domination of key education roles by men.

Tonks said that there is a fourth industrial revolution but wondered if we are fully preparing the workforce for these changes.

"The digital transformation isn't just about the classroom. How can we look at leadership courses to see how technology can support leaders," she asked. Technology can be used to "recycle" time and she cited the use of business analytics in student assessments to help surface data more easily, freeing up time to tackle other tasks.

Technology used in the classroom can often lack institutional support, according to the findings of the newly launched Innovation Index.

Speaking at the Bett Show 2018, Helen Moran, a director at educational market research agency Shift Learning, said the index was "an annual temperature check for innovation in education.

She said that educators "really can see the benefits of education technology "both as a means of saving time and improving educational outcomes".

The results of the survey found that 88 percent of teachers agree that technology in education improves education, but institutions are reluctant to fund it. It also found that the same percentage agreed that it has improved the quality of education in their sector, while 87 percent agreed that it has had a positive impact on educational outcomes. The survey found that 84 percent of educator said technology saved them time.

The survey of over 1,000 educators indicated that the majority of teachers from all over the sector agree that education technology benefits education, but that 42 percent of institutions are reluctant to invest in it. Nearly half (47 percent) stated that the IT infrastructure at their institution inhibits adoption of more education technology.

One respondent to the survey said that most schools are struggling for funding at the moment, but in their experience, the success of innovation depends on how high the driving force is.

"When there is significant management buy-in the pace of change can be exhilarating, without it, innovators can feel like Sisyphus."

The survey found that among the barriers to using technology in education was resistance from other colleagues, integration within the curriculum, and time to implement and use it.

The survey also found that 3D printing appearing to become more mainstream, with 13 percent adopting it in education and 19 percent likely to adopt it. She added that 2017 was the year of blending learning and mobile. A third of respondents have adopted mobile learning, while 28 percent have adopted BYOD.

Augmented reality and virtual reality appear to be emerging as the next big things in education as well as adaptive learning technologies, said Moran.

Education technology will be key to fostering the digital talents of the UK and help combat the problem of recruiting the right people into increasingly digital jobs.

So claims East London Apprenticeships and Skills Minister Anne Milton, who told delegates in a keynote speech at BETT 2018, that many companies in the UK have told the government that they are struggling to recruit the specialist digital talent they need.

"I want to focus on what we are doing at every stage in education to develop the digital skills we need to help us address these challenges," she said.

She said that EdTech can play a vital role as a tool for teachers in our schools, colleges and Universities and as a study in itself for students.

"Technology should reduce teacher workload. It should be another way of making education more accessible and inclusive. It should allow educators and students' access to share content through cloud-based services," she said.

But proper implementation is key, according to Milton. "As with any intervention, the most successful changes are led locally with the sector to make sure you have the information and skills you need to make the right decisions for you and your institution," she added.

Milton said that 90 percent of new jobs require digital skills, so children need to grow up as more than just digital consumers but practitioners and creators. She mentioned that the last budget had already allocated funds for 100 schools to get full fibre broadband. There would also be 84 million of new funding over the next five years to improve the teaching of computing and drive up participation in computer science qualifications, particularly amongst girls.

This includes increasing the expertise of up to 8,000 existing computer science teachers and a new National Centre for Computing Education.

"This additional investment builds on the curriculum reforms we have already made. This is a step-change from the previous approach, and includes challenging new content such as coding and algorithms, providing students with the basic building blocks they need to move on to successful further study or work," said Milton.

The minister added that the government was currently implementing major systemic reforms in vocational education with the introduction of digital degree apprenticeships which were designed by employers and universities working in partnership to "create relevant, high-quality curricula to provide the much-needed skills that industry needs".

But digital exclusion was still proving a "huge challenge". Milton confirmed that the government was to introduce full funding for basic digital training for adults from 2020.

"Adults will have the opportunity to undertake improved digital courses based on new national standards. This will set out the skills and capabilities people need to get on in life and work. We will consult on these new standards in the autumn."

She said the government wants everyone to get the digital skills they need.

"The country needs them to have those skills. Our economy depends on it. We can't do this alone so your support, your input is vital," she told delegates.

A report by MarketsandMarkets has revealed the education-based cloud computing market is accelerating at an amazing pace, with researchers predicting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.8 per cent between 2015 and 2020.

The research firm said the market will grow from $5.83bn in 2015 to $15.02bn by 2020, with the US continuing to demonstrate the biggest gains and Asia-Pacific (APAC), Europe, Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Latin America breaking out of the nascent stage.

"Cloud services in [the] education sector enable efficient management of business processes and effective knowledge delivery to students," MarketsandMarkets said. "This results in higher student engagement, better collaboration among stakeholders, and improved student performance."

The report explained that every educational establishment, from nurseries to primary schools, secondary schools, colleges and universities are using the latest IT technology to centrally manage their processes, whether admissions and registrations, student management, faculty management, course management, and/or library management.

Adoption of cloud computing technologies has brought massive benefits to the education sector, with improved collaboration between students and tutors and the establishment as a whole, a better learning experience, which in turn fosters innovation and higher levels of student success.

Using these collaborative cloud technologies across devices has also meant students and teachers can communicate more effectively, tracking performance, sharing notes, administration emails and receiving assignments.

It seems the biggest growth area for cloud computing in education is the adoption of public cloud services, although it will continue to be segmented across Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).

"There is a huge return on investment in the cloud computing market as opportunities for augmented performance are always increasing, hence educational institutes and government organizations across all the regions continue to visualize more effectively about the need for cloud-based solutions and services in [the] education sector," MarketsandMarkets continued.

The University of Oxford has turned to the cloud to provide better IT support for its 30,000 students and more than 6,000 members of staff.

The higher education establishment used to rely on three separate IT service desks comprising 350 staff who specialised either in business systems, shared services, or managed desktop computing, with another 300 IT staff supporting specific functions across the university's sprawling footprint across its city, spanning 100 departments and 38 colleges.

But students and staff phoning the various help desks were often left confused and frustrated when they tried to get help solving an IT problem.

Director of customer services, John Ireland, tells Cloud Pro: “Prior to our consolidation, those teams had got to the point where they’d say 'okay you phoned our finance systems support team, but actually the problems here are to do with your network, so you have to end this call and phone someone else'.”

But the three service desks - and other support teams - were also confused about their own roles sometimes, claiming responsibility for IT functions that were actually another team's responsibility.

They were also using different products to do their jobs, meaning each group was siloed from the others.

“We had three different tools being used to record calls and there were six identifiable areas which each thought they were the [correct] service desk,” says Ireland.

“We really knew we had to get a consistent set of processes across all those teams, and get better information about escalation routes as well as what services we were delivering.”

To achieve this, the university decided to put a single toolset in to support a unified service desk that could work together more efficiently, with the ultimate aim of serving users better.

Procurement

This led to an 11-month procurement process that started in April 2013 to find a suitable cloud tool, with the university initially inviting its incumbent provider, ITSM, to tender - along with ServiceNow, Cherwell, and SaaS vendor HEAT.

Cherwell and HEAT made it to an intensive second round in which their respective cloud offerings were rigorously tested by 40 IT employees spanning the various service desks and other support functions.

Getting this cultural buy-in was essential to picking not only the best tool, but one everyone wanted to use, says Ireland.

He tells Cloud Pro: “We knew this tool was either going to make or break our functionality. If we got it wrong we either wouldn’t get buy-in, or it would just slow everything down to the point we fell apart.

“We recognised that with 350 staff having come from very different backgrounds, it was crucial to get them very heavily involved in the selection, so they were bought into the decision when we came to roll the tool out.”

The staff helped Ireland's team judge the vendors, and ultimately led to the selection of HEAT to underpin the new integrated IT service desk.

“It started that cultural change up front, and in fact one of the big strengths in what came out that made HEAT far and away the tool we needed, was that our infrastructure teams thought it was something they could work with happily in addition to our support teams,” Ireland explains.

Supporting various devices and user identities

One of the benefits HEAT's private cloud brought to the University of Oxford was the ability to access IT service features from web browsers - a crucial advantage considering that the thousands of overseas students arriving each year to commence their studies use a huge variety of devices IT has to support.

“Students turn up here with any and every device you can imagine,” says Ireland. “We get devices that are not available on the UK market turning up.”

Another challenge has nothing to do with new students, but rather post-graduates such as PhD students and staff who also choose to embark on courses of study.

The university's systems are sophisticated enough to classify one user - say a Physics PhD student - as a student in some cases, and as a tutor in other cases, switching between the different profiles depending on what they have logged into the university's systems to do.

“They are staff on one side and students on the other,” Ireland says. “But the support systems the university has built for that means when someone phones up you can’t say 'oh they’re from that department, I know where they are and what they’re talking about'.”

HEAT picked up on this problem in the tender process, and demonstrated it had the tools to solve this issue, such as communicating with people who have multiple email addresses - only a little tinkering suited them to the university's purposes.

Next steps

With the project now complete, Ireland and his staff are already considering further developments with HEAT's cloud.

“What we have achieved with this project is enablement,” he says, adding that he now hopes to add further capabilities, such as remote desktop support and live chat to help students and lecturers experiencing IT problems.

“The student digital experience is a key thing in our minds. Students are paying more for their university education than they ever have,” he explains.

“There is a moral expectation that we respond to that and make sure they get the absolutely best support they can from the IT side because it underpins everything they do.”

Soon, he added, new arrivals will see a “mini tech bar” upon arrival, where IT staff will be on hand to help them set up their devices, getting them connected to the university's networks.

Interactive display manufacturer SMART Technologies (NASDAQ:SMT) has today launched Classroom as a Service (ClaaS), which has been designed to enable schools to purchase technology on a subscription basis.

Schools will be able to buy interactive displays, collaborative learning software, and receive professional development and support under one service agreement.

This way, says the Canadian vendor, schools can benefit from the latest technology by making monthly or quarterly payments over the length of a defined subscription term without a significant upfront investment.

“The IT industry adopted service models a long time ago, because it was cheaper and better in the long term,” Neil Gaydon, CEO of SMART Technologies tells Channel Pro.

“Schools face a very difficult time trying to keep up with the relentless pace of technology advancement coupled with the necessary training due to limited budgets and where parents are demanding the right tools for their children,” says Gaydon.

SMART says ClaaS can produce cost savings of as much as 40 percent when compared to an outright purchase. It also says that school staff can receive ongoing servicing, training and maintenance, covered by the agreement, and add more equipment and services as and when required.

Channel partners can also potentially include other equipment and services such as tablets, PCs, printers and Wi-Fi from certain “best of breed” suppliers.

“It means [partners can get new service revenues,” says Gaydon. “As long as they put in place good quality service, they can get recurring revenues from software, recurring revenues from training and recurring revenues from supporting Wi-Fi and infrastructure.”

Colin Bosher, who looks after software, solutions and services for SMART says it enables the channel to establish a more sustainable business, comparable to the managed print industry.

“It’s about helping to transition the channel from a transactional model to a service delivery model, he comments.

SMART says it is on the lookout for new partners to deliver the service. “We do want channel partners that understand software and the service model, and want to benefit from this programme,” says Gaydon, who says the firm will work alongside distributor Steljes on partner recruitment.

“We hope to have new channel apply, as I think it’s likely a lot of schools will adopt this model.”

How can cloud computing be used to transform the education process? Many schools are looking at the flexibility of the technology and the way that it can be used to support classroom learning.

One of these is the Free School Norwich, one of the first wave of Free Schools set up under the Government's education reforms. Drawing on the Free Schools initiative’s scope for community-based and flexible learning modules, the school is changing the standard model of primary education – both in terms of teaching and the role a school plays in the local community.

Tania Sidney-Roberts set up the Free School Norwich. She had the idea of changing the role of a school, creating one that caters for the needs of ordinary, working parents who cannot afford to pay for after-school care or nannies while they remain at work.

Flexible

This meant creating a school that made the most use of the time available to parents, and catered for its pupils until the end of the working day, for a full 51 weeks of the year. With the vision set, it was clear the Free School Norwich required a powerful and flexible platform that was able to take the education experience out of the school, and allow parents to take an active role in their child’s education without having to book time away from work to do so. Consequently, allowing parents to access the ICT platform remotely and monitor student activity was a must.

Alongside this flexible method of communication, the Free School Norwich aimed to change the way students learn. Sidney-Roberts wanted an interactive experience for the pupils that could truly take the learning experience outside of the classroom. The school therefore needed to be able to access their education applications through a variety of mobile devices, and with a target audience of 4-7 year olds, this process needed to be as fast and easy as possible. Finally, between the contract awarding and the first day of service, there were just six to eight weeks remaining before the school needed the cloud infrastructure up and running to be ready for the first day of term.

To meet Sidney-Roberts’ expectations, the Free School Norwich team worked with a service provider called Civica, whose educational consultation team helped install, test and sign off the CloudBase service within this tight time period, allowing the service to be implemented for the start of term, and the cloud to be working smoothly from day one.

On top of this, Civica provided teacher and staff training during the installation period to make sure they were able to fully use the platform from the beginning of the term. The Civica e-learning consultancy service provided builds upon these skills, supporting teachers and staff as they grow with the service.

CloudBase is a single, online environment that allows pupils and staff to access educational applications quickly and easily, regardless of location. The flexible service allows for collaboration, not just between staff and pupils but also with parents.

The platform provides three main areas of support for children, staff and parents. In the classroom safe internet access is provided for pupils in order to complete homework and activities outside the classroom. Staff can plan lessons, access records and monitor individuals through a shared database. Parents have access to the platform to monitor student activity.

The core components are: SharePoint, that provides the communication, collaboration and integration layer of the learning platform and ePortfolio that helps learners to recognise progression and present evidence back to their teachers. Teachers are able to track student progression, provide ongoing feedback and continually assess an individual’s learning pathway.

Email is provisioned through Microsoft Office 365 accounts, accessible through the same, single login. Through Office 365 students can access online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. These applications are available anywhere the students have an Internet connection and do not require locally installed application software.

The cloud-based service also offers free education web application allowing schools to make savings in software costs.

The school recently installed a tracker system that will allow parents to check up on their child’s attendance, their progress in lessons, and for any outstanding homework that may need completing! Finally, Civica’s managed service desk supports the CloudBase service remotely, allowing the school to call upon Civica’s expert technical support services at any time.

“Civica CloudBase offers the whole school community (parents, pupils, staff and governors) the opportunity to interact with the school at any time of day or night, from anywhere in the world,” said Sidney-Roberts. “The school is never closed, as it has a cloud.”

“We were extremely pleased with the smooth installation and running of the CloudBase system, considering the scale of the project, as well as with the level of support we have received. Staff in particular are impressed with the single sign-on capabilities of CloudBase – which allows them to access all apps/software on the cloud without having to memorise multiple login details,” she added.

Another benefit of the cloud-based educational system is that the school has been able to support a few of their pupils off school, on long-term sickness, by setting work on the cloud which the pupil can access; teacher and pupil have been able to communicate and parents have been able to review, communicate and be actively involved in their child’s learning.

The Outcome

Civica has worked with The Free School Norwich team to achieve their vision of a 21st century school within just 6-8 weeks, providing a full service and platform, as well as onsite floor walking support for the school after two weeks. The school has seen a tremendous level of support from staff, who are using the service to support academic outcomes, as well as from pupils and their parents.

The Free School Norwich is now planning to open a new secondary school and possibly a second primary school which they would want all three to access a high level trust cloud and then have an individual school cloud solution which they could communicate to each other on.