The city of Aachen counts 37 primary schools, which are attended by a total of around 7,500 pupils. With UCS@school, the IT infrastructure has been standardized, enabling a more efficient operation despite reduced efforts for the 1,800 employees in education and administration.
User
The city of Beckum has a total of nine schools: six primary schools and three secondary schools. Two employees take care of the network infrastructure, the telephone systems, the servers and NAS systems as well as the end devices (including mobile device management). There are about 5,200 accounts for 4,500 pupils and about 650 teachers.
Requirements
- Central identity management for the administration of around 5,200 accounts
Connection of nine schools - Externally hosted server with fast Internet connection and support from the service provider
- Modular and expandable system
- Problem-free integration of existing Apple devices (incl. MDM)
- Data protection-compliant integration of MS Office 365
- Optional integration of a learning management system and a timetable
Solution
- UCS@school operated in the NetCologne data center with central administration of all user accounts
- Connection to Nextcloud, Open-Xchange and Rocket.Chat, MS Teams for audio and video conferences
- Optional extension with an LMS and timetable management
The initial situation
Before we started the pilot project with UCS@school in 2019, we already had a very good IT structure at the schools in Beckum. Wi-Fi coverage in the schools was around 80% and there were around 900 school-owned Apple devices. Each of our schools had a computer room, and the secondary schools had two. We did not find it ideal that there were sometimes up to three passwords in circulation per person for Wi-Fi authentication.
Since 2014, we have been using iPad case solutions in the schools, managed by the Apple Configurator. However, the iPads were not used on a personal basis. Thanks to colored stickers, users could at least distinguish between the devices and identify the iPad with their data. In 2016, we therefore introduced Jamf Pro for mobile device management.
Our requirements
To unite everything under one roof and make both the maintenance and use of IT easier, we set out to find a system that was compatible with the existing devices and set-ups. In addition to central user administration, we wanted a modular system for the future that could combine groupware, chat, cloud storage and so on. And it was important to us to integrate all Apple devices and to be able to use Office 365 at a later date.
Instead of many small, individual solutions, we needed a stable identity management system that would connect the schools to a large, centrally operated server. Bandwidths of 100 Mbit/s to a maximum of 400 Mbit/s are available in the educational network, and only 250 Mbit/s in the elementary school. Initially, we had planned to set up a separate physical server at each school to serve as the school’s own cloud storage. However, we abandoned this plan because the bandwidths were not sufficient and external work would not be possible.
It was very important for us to have a modular system that could be expanded as required. With our small team of two full-time employees and one assistant, we can’t maintain 20 different solutions and provide first-level support for the schools. And with a few exceptions, the schools themselves lack the know-how to administer a more or less complex solution themselves.
The advantages of UCS@school
Of course, we looked at various approaches. For example, we discussed iServ, which colleagues at an inter-municipal comprehensive school in the neighboring municipality use. We took a critical look at the system because, although it offers a lot of functions, we didn’t need most of them or didn’t need them in this way. For example, the exam schedule from iServ is a nicely presented calendar, which in my opinion is much easier to display.
UCS@school was a better fit for our concept. On the one hand, we needed a good solution to connect the Apple devices, and on the other, the Microsoft Office 365 Connector from the Univention App Center convinced us. Microsoft’s interface is open to everyone, but only Univention has prepared it in such a way that we can work well with it.
Cooperation with NetCologne IT Services
Another decisive point for us was that we were using a system that we did not necessarily have to operate ourselves. The DSL lines in the school area do not have enough bandwidth to adequately supply over 5,000 users. Of course, security aspects (e.g. the firewall), speed and Linux know-how were also important – a UCS@school solution hosted by an external provider therefore seemed ideal.
In addition to external hosting, the outsourcing of support was also an important factor for us. It was important to us that NetCologne IT Services would also be able to cover this area and that we would get everything from a single source. Support tickets would first be sent to NetCologne IT Services in Cologne and then forwarded from there to Univention. That meant a big relief for us.
Course of the project
There are guidelines from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for equipping teaching staff with end devices. As BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is not currently planned, we had to purchase a few hundred additional iPads. There is one iPad per classroom in a media cabinet, with each classroom being permanently assigned to a teacher. This means that the whole thing is more or less personalized; the teachers take the iPad with them and of course also use it. At the moment, we are not yet able to provide pupils with their own iPads. This will certainly have to be discussed again after corona when we talk about the further development of e-learning from home.
For data protection reasons, the school management expressly does not want teachers to use their own devices for work purposes. Teachers can still connect their own devices to the WLAN, but these devices are not necessarily intended for business use.
The pilot project started in September/October 2019 at three schools. Univention employees initially set up UCS@school professionally on our own hardware. In the meantime, we took care of the tendering process to get all the necessary approvals, as we also had to commission NetCologne IT Services. We then placed the order in mid-December.
It all went really quickly and unbureaucratically, the awarding authority and everyone involved worked extremely well with us. In this case, we didn’t have to go through a tendering process in the usual sense, because no other provider was able to deliver the combination of UCS@school in the external NetCologne data center anyway.
Planning follow-up projects
Our data protection officers are currently reviewing the Apple School Manager Connector. And we would like to use the online services of MS Office 365. We currently only offer Microsoft Teams. At the Univention Summit in January 2020, we discussed this with the Cologne Education Authority, who have already drawn up a data protection package. We hope to receive information on this soon. Because of course we’ve already had several requests, especially on the cloud topic.
In addition, we recently held talks with itslearning, a learning management system for which there is also a connector in the Univention App Center, in the course of the coronavirus crisis. After the Easter vacations, there will be a demo meeting with two or three principals to check whether such a learning management system makes sense for the schools in Beckum. I believe that we can cover most of our needs with the existing Nextcloud installation, but I will be happy to be proven wrong if our schools see a need for this. If there are longer-term restrictions in school operations, we would have to find a solution anyway.
From time to time, schools have asked us whether we can integrate a timetable planner, which we could do with WebUntis, for example. I can well imagine that for the future.
The crisis is accelerating digitalization – and promoting understanding
Of course, there are always minor problems from time to time, but nothing that we can’t handle. It’s simply a matter of getting used to it. The corona crisis has certainly accelerated the process of getting used to it. In my opinion, everyone is generally pleased that the city of Beckum, as the school authority, has given the issue some thought and implemented a standardized system for all schools.
Overall, everyone is very understanding of the fact that our small team cannot administer an individual system for every school. Most of them also understand that one or two functions are not or not yet available. In this respect, we are very satisfied overall with the progress so far and the feedback from the schools.
