C A S E S T U D Y: Southwest Grid for Learning, England: Enabling Identity Management
Overview of Problem
The South West Grid for Learning Trust (SWGfL) provides schools in the South West of England with safe
and reliable broadband internet connections, educational applications and services including SWGfL Merlin,
the foundation for school's learning platforms, which provides:
Highlights
Challenge
Integrate multiple applications
for over 2,500 establishments
Key Benefits
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A simplified sign-on service
Personal online learning space
Virtual desktop
Regional online collaborative tools - blogs, wikis, forums and shared spaces
Interoperability and integration services
A key driver for SWGfL Merlin is to enable school choice, to meet their specific requirements, allowing
schools to plug in their specific tools of choice. SIF is a key element for achieving interoperability, in
allowing schools to build on what already exists, offering choice to local authorities and to schools;
simplifying login; enabling collaboration between schools; and meeting government objectives.
• Available data
• Time savings
Demographic Information of Implementation
The Southwest Grid for Learning is located in Southwest England. The region encompasses:
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15 Local Authorities
2,505 schools
706,000 learners
100,000 staff
Technical Solution and Applications
From the beginning, SWGfL Merlin wanted to enable identity management with a simplified sign-on;
integrate a range of virtual learning environments; third party content; and MIS systems as chosen by the
schools. It wanted to enable collaboration using personal online spaces, shared areas, Web 2.0 tools,
parental engagement tools, safe chat and instant messenger.
SWGfL Merlin started to implement SIF in November 2009 using GroupCall’s SIF Agent for automatic
provisioning and reconciliation of teacher and learner accounts from Capita SIMS. SWGfL initially worked
with 55 early adopter schools, they put in place a data agreement with each school to ensure that the school
remained the data controller and SWGfL the data processor. This agreement identified all the data to be
transferred, and data items that were not to be transferred. In order to accomplish this, a virtual zone was
created for each establishment using Pearson’s SIFWorks Zone Integration Server.
where innovation and interoperability are standard
Benefits Achieved and Results
Working with so many learning establishments, South West Grid for Learning soon became aware that, for
Merlin to be realised, it was necessary to use SIF to integrate various needs and numerous applications in a
standard way. This has resulted in great time savings.
Lessons Learnt
SWGfL has learnt numerous lessons in the first phase of their SIF Implementation. One of the most
C A S E S T U D Y: Name of Study
important, from a policy and operational perspective, includes the need to engage with all stakeholders.
One of the key requirements for
the Southwest Grid for Learning in designing SWGfL Merlin
is to provide schools with
choice in the services and
systems they use. The use of
the SIF Specifications has been
critical in achieving this
requirement.
- Ian White
Senior Technical Consultant
Southwest Grid for Learning
This encompasses having a clear vision and common understanding. When working with schools and local
authorities it is necessary to ensure that school agreements are in place and that discussions involve many
different groups.
Another key stakeholder group to involve in the SIF Implementation are suppliers – you need to work with
them as true partners in developing and implementing SIF.
Finally, in the actual SIF Implementation, guarantee a solid deployment plan. This plan should include
built-in communications, clear, realistic timescales and quality control. When an establishment comes to the
development portion of the plan; test and validate the SIF Implementation to assure data security.
Next Steps
South West Grid for Learning is continuing with their phased SIF Implementation, adding schools, local
authorities and SIF Agents from RM G2Integris and Serco CMIS when they are ready. The next specific
functionality development phase is a safe chat/instant messaging service using SIF to provision accounts
which will be available later in the autumn term.
In addition, parental engagement continues to be a goal for Merlin and work has begun generating parental
accounts directly from the MIS with the appropriate relationships to their children. This functionality, which
will be available later in the autumn term, will use SIF to transfer information on behaviour, attendance,
special educational needs (SEN), progress and attainment.
Finally, additional third party applications will be added including virtual learning environments, Perspective
CLM (14-19) and WebBased eILP.
About the SIF Association
The SIF Association is a unique, non-profit collaboration composed of over 3,200 schools, districts, states,
U.S. Department of Education, International Ministries of Education, software vendors and consultants who
collectively define the rules and regulations for educational software data interoperability. The SIF
Implementation Specification enables diverse applications to interact and share data and information
efficiently, reliably, and securely regardless of the platform hosting those applications. The SIF Association
has united these education technology end users and providers in an unprecedented effort to give teachers
more time to do what they do best: teach. For further information, visit http://www.sifassociation.org.
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