For Public Administration and the Education Sector Digital sovereignty with open-source software

Bremen Senator for Children and Education

The Bremen Senator for Children and Education takes care of the IT for 142 schools in the city state with approx. 80,000 IT users (pupils, teachers and school staff) and 10,500 client systems.

Requirements

• Centralised administration of educational IT infrastructures of the schools in the city.
• Cross-school, centralised provision of IT services such as e-mail, Internet, Intranet and the integration of different end devices such as the pupils’ smartphones and tablets.
• Easy-to-use software solution for teachers for controlling IT and the pupils’ computers in the classrooms.

Solution

Univention Corporate Server (UCS) with Samba 4 and UCS@school 4.3 (August 2018)

City Basel

Educational center PZ.BS, ICT Medien
Maintaining 60 school sites with 25,000 pupils and 2,500 teachers and about 3,000 PCs and notebooks.

Solution

Since 2010 UCS@school is used on 13 servers and 13 further, connected virtualized UCS servers as the central identity and access management system for the provision of file sharing, groupware services and virtual desktops based on Citrix.

Requirements

• Central solution for the about 60 school sites with minimal overhead for the schools themselves
• Connection to Windows Active Directory via Univention AD Connection
• Extensive interface for the complete and automatic import of accounts from pupils and teachers
• Single sign-on and site-independent access to services via the Internet
• Integration of further services such as LDAP, mail and web mail, eduBS-Cloud (ownCloud), Plone (eduBS-education server), school websites), eduBS-ILIAS, SoLe
• Connection of Windows Active Directory via Univention AD Connection for the provision of virtual desktops based on Citrix.

City Hanover

The objective of a pilot project of the city of Hanover, encompassing six schools and 5,500 users, is to create modernized IT groundworks and infrastructure for the digitization of Hanover’s education system. The pilot project, which is scheduled to run until 2018, works on implementing a centralized IT infrastructure management, among other things.

Requirements

• Centralization of IT administration for the school authority
• A central access, role, and authorization management for the digital identities of students and teachers (user administration) adapted to the requirements of schools
• Import mechanism for users for automatic administration of users, schools, and classes
• Integration of the Webweaver learning platform and the Apple School Manager to the central user administration
• Integration of Microsoft Active Directory into the user administration system
• Central web portal for access to web services
• Self-service functions (e.g., password reset) via the web portal

Solution

Univention Corporate Server (UCS) with UCS@school provides central access and authorization management for the affiliated schools and web services. Since March 2020, 50 schools in the city with approximately 50,000 users have been in the system. Automatic import mechanisms ensure that the data of users, schools, and classes are synchronized so that all services connected to UCS@school always have the latest user information available. Users can log in to the services themselves with the same access data. The Active Directory connection is made by the AD Connector contained in UCS@school.

In addition, with UCS@school, Hannover provides a web portal with password self-service, through which all users can easily access digital education services.

City of Beckum

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 (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.

City of Cologne

The School and Pre-Kindergarten IT Services department at the Data Processing Office in Cologne provides services for 261 schools with around 10,000 faculty members and 135,000 students in total with the support of NetCologne.

Solution

A UCS-based identity management system managed centrally by the education authority with integration of the groupware Open-Xchange, the mobile device management software Jamf, the learning platform Moodle, and Office 365 via single sign-on

Requirements

• Consultancy services, supply and strategic further development of the IT infrastructure in schools
• Commissioning, responsible operation, and support of the IT infrastructure
• Standardization and quality optimization
• User maintenance from the school administration software SchiLDZentral via LDAP
• Automated software distribution
• (Centralized) administration of entire IT infrastructure, for example:
• Different server environments in the schools
• Centrally provided services
• Support of bring-your-own-device models
• Operation of around 5,500 tablets financed by the education authority
• Provision of a student and teacher mail solution
• Learning management system, web spaces, and cloud services

City of Fulda

The council of the city of Fulda is responsible for the support and operation of IT for 23 schools with 13,000 students and 1,000 teachers.

Requirements

• Uniform identity management for the centrally organized school IT of the schools in Fulda, to which the existing Active Directory can be connected.
• Controlling access rights for all students, teachers and school administrators of around 1,500 Windows PCs and notebooks and 850 thin clients
• Automatic and encrypted data import including a user life cycle management from the school administration (LUSD)
• Connection of further services to the central IDM such as Active Directory, fileservices, Self Service and Office 365.

Solution

• UCS as the basis of identity management
• UCS Active Directory connection for synchronization to the cross-school Active Directory.
• UCS Active Directory compatible domain controller for file services on all clients.
• UCS@school for central identity management and automated import.
• UCS Microsoft Office 365 Connector for the connection to Office 365.
• UCS Self-Service which enables students and teachers to reset their passwords independently.

City of Neumünster

The IT department of Neumünster’s city administration is responsible for the IT infrastructure and IT services for 22 general education schools and three vocational schools in that city. These schools include around 1,100 teachers and 15,000 students.

Requirements

• Discharge of schools through central provision of school IT by the school authorities
• Operation in the data center of the municipal IT department
• Provision of uniform IT services that are easy to maintain and support via the municipal intranet
• Preferred use of Open Source solutions

Solution

• UCS@school as identity management with digital identities for all students and teachers
• RADIUS server for authentication of all users of the school WLAN
• Use of web content filters, including parental controls
• Online school portal for centralized provision of all IT services and easy access to those
• Connection of IT services such as Nextcloud, ONLYOFFICE and Moodle to UCS@school and single sign-on access

City of Wolfsburg

District-free city with 18,800 pupils at 37 schools

Requirements

• The City of Wolfsburg intends to use the Wobila.de project to create a virtual learning space for the educational landscape in Wolfsburg. Within the framework of a pilot project at 6 schools, initially the central provision of WLAN and web services is to be tested.

Solution

• Univention Corporate Server (UCS) and UCS@school as Identity Management and Portal Solution for Student and Teacher Identities
• Connection of the school WLAN to UCS for Internet access at the schools
• Connection of the learning management system itslearning to UCS for the central administration of users in UCS

Kassel District

The media center maintains 72 schools in the district of Kassel with about 25,000 pupils. It also manages the use of around 6,000 end devices.

Requirements

• Central administration of the school IT in spite of the wide-spread area structure
• Functional IT despite partially poor Internet connection at schools in rural areas
• Centralized provision of services from the data center Hofgeismar, combined with local school servers

Solution

Full extension of UCS@school with central services and school servers.
Partial use of UCS@school administration servers in networks which are separated from the educational network.

Landesmedienzentrum Baden-Württemberg

Over 550 Baden-Württemberg schools, whose school networks and IT services for lessons are supported by the LMZ.

Solution

The new version of paedML Linux 6.0, which is based on UCS@school and the Open Source server operating system Univention Corporate Server.

Requirements

• Flexible firewall solution for expanded network infrastructures
• Multi-server operation and multi-school capability
• Support of current Windows desktops in the schools
• Control options for teachers such as screen monitoring and transfer or automatic distribution and collection of student data
• Integration of student smartphones

Landkreis Rotenburg

The district of Rotenburg (Wümme) has nine schools, including three vocational schools, three academic high schools and three special schools. Currently, about 5,750 students and 370 teachers at the vocational schools use UCS@school. A team of four IT employees is responsible for maintaining the approximately 1,200 PCs and 350 notebooks.

Requirements

• Interface between school management system and school server with semi-automatic user transfer
• Easy connection to external pedagogical systems
• Integration of various school management services
• Networked work for all users
• Reliable and intuitive class work mode for teachers

Solution

• UCS@school as central school platform with directory service for Identity Management System (IDM), AD functionalities and school portal
• Introduction of various pedagogical functions (e.g. class work mode, collection and distribution of files, access to files at school and at home)
• Direct connection to Nextcloud
• Perspective: Single sign-on for external services such as learning management systems (LMS)