IT often forms important infrastructure in educational establishments, if something goes wrong with IT, planned teaching and learning can be derailed – sometimes for a prolonged period.

Given the importance of IT, schools, colleges and universities need to be prepared when a challenge occurs.

Not being able to access the internet or most used applications is a sure-fire way to derail everything from late-night planning sessions, right through to lesson delivery. The term ‘downtime’ applies any time an application or network cannot be accessed by a student or a teacher. It’s currently responsible for hundreds of thousands lost teaching hours across the country every month, and as such, has a significant impact on an education establishment’s delivery of targets.

The way we hold sensitive data is changing – and is virtually unrecognizable when compared to the data protection plans that many educational establishments have had in place over the last 20 years. An increasing number of education provisions are facing fines for the mishandling of data – so it’s vital that they protect the school – and the learners it serves. A student/learner data is just one element; staffing data, next of kin information, supplier details, agency information and much more can also constitute sensitive data.

A huge number of educational establishments leave teaching and learning entirely to chance should an unexpected issue arise that causes IT systems to fail. An increasing number of applications used by education establishments are now being run ‘as a service’ – that’s to say, they are now cloud-based applications that you access via the internet. While this approach to software has revolutionized the way schools and collages provide learning experience, it has also created a new generation of problems – and one of the most significant of those problems is speed. Many educational institutions offer remote learning where learners can sit at the comfort of home or office and virtually attend class rooms. Applications and networks inside educational institutions should be designed to scale and provide uninterrupted virtual learning experience to stay ahead in competition.

ThoughtData’s solutions helps Education IT to embrace new technologies with confidence, helps education IT to deliver virtual learning experience, improve productivity and processes in delivering services to students, teachers and school administrators.