Education portal

The goal

Consolidate your systems

The education portal solution for schools from IBM and CLN is designed to provide a single, unified electronic gateway to virtually all data needed for your school district. It can connect your back-end systems, such as human resources, general ledger and purchasing, as well as student records and instructional materials.

The advantages

Put our experience to work for you

The IBM corporate commitment to education is demonstrated through:

• IBM Learning Alignment, serving students, teachers and administrators through data collection and analysis.
• Our participation in the Reinventing Education grant program.
• Our Education Industry Unit's involvement in education public policy initiatives, such as our sponsorship of the three National Education Summits.
• Our partnership with the Consortium for School Networking, Educational Testing Service and SAS for data-driven decision making systems.

The education portal solution for schools from IBM offers distinct advantages:

• Extensive industry knowledge from our education practice of former educators and school administrators.
• IBM leadership in the information technology field and continuing innovation, such as e-business on demand ¡ª so you can stay focused on your initiatives.
• Resources to give you a complete solution, from planning to software and hardware to hosting services.

The benefits

We handle the technology; you focus on your schools

The education portal solution for schools from IBM and CLN offers efficiency and convenience in managing school administration by providing easy access to information.

Our solution gives school district staff a single point ¡ª and a single sign on ¡ª to access virtually all data systems:

• Purchasing
• Accounting, general ledger
• Human resources
• Payroll and benefits
• Student records
• Plant, vehicle and other property information

The solution facilitates:

• Collaboration and data sharing.
• Improved instruction through information alignment.
• Reporting and accountability ¡ªyou can access and gather data conveniently.
• Document and content management.
• Administrative workflow management.
• Self-service human resources functions.
• Messaging and instant communication.

Our solution can also facilitate e-learning through delivery of teaching materials:

• Link into Learning Village Riverdeep or our web based curriculum software content.
• Offer teachers access to an educational data warehouse.
• Provide a teachers' desktop for accessing instructional content.

IBM offers hosting services on a "pay-for-what-you-need" basis ¡ª similar to a utility ¡ª without large up-front infrastructure costs or major technology decisions. Add computing power without buying, installing and operating the infrastructure.

The ROI

Case in point

The education portal solution for schools from IBM and CLN was developed from our extensive experience with school districts. For one large district IBM implemented a network management system linking 2,000 devices in 187 sites. The district needed a long-term plan to enable use of current and future technology, but had limited funds and IT staff.

The solution provided improved network infrastructure with enough bandwidth to offer video distance learning and faster Internet access to increase staff productivity. IBM also provides ongoing network management and monitoring services.

In anticipation of future technical applications, IBM professionals wired all of the district's classrooms and libraries for workstations, voice and video technology.

Using a third-party provider for network technology lets staff focus on their core concern: providing quality education.