St Helens Life – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

“Life” is the name of the next generation of Learning Platform, developed by market leader Uniservity and selected by schools, the Council and Agilisys as the most suitable platform for schools in St Helens.
http://www.lifeisaboutlearning.com

Q: How much will the license cost for the parental parent and what do we get for this?
A: The price is £2 per pupil per year. This is based on the data that we need to extract from different systems for each child that is then managed internally within Life. Each child has up to 2 parent/guardian/carer logon names to allow access to that child's data. If a parent/guardian/carer has more than one child at a school they will use the same logon name to access all data for their children. If the parent/guardian/carer has more than one child at different schools, they will need multiple logons, one for each school.

Q: Once it has been set up, how often does the integration with SIMS run to update user information on Life?
A: The integration runs nightly, so any changes to user information made in SIMS should be reflected in Life the following day.

Q: How much storage space will schools get?
A: Storage space will be allocated to schools according to the number of pupils they have. There will be tools to enable schools to allocate space to individual users.

Q. Will the support for Life be different for Option A and Option B schools?
A. No - all schools, regardless of which Managed Service option is chosen will receive the same consultancy, training and support.

Q. Is there a facility for online reporting to parents through Life?
A. There is an optional Parental Engagement tool which schools can purchase. This enables parents to get a view of their child's learning activities and data through a unique, secure parent login.

Q. What will happen about email in Life?
A. Pupils will have the opportunity to have an email address through live@edu.
Staff will continue to use their existing sthelens.org email address.

Q: How will users in Life be able to communicate?
A:There are a number of methods for communication in Life: email, conversations (forums), blogs, wikis and messaging.  Availability of these tools can be determined by the school/teacher.  Comments can also be left on individual resources which have been uploaded.  The users who have editorial control will determine how secure these comments are so they may be locked down to specific users or user groups.

Q. Who are Agilisys and Uniservity?
A. Agilisys are an ICT services company who have been selected as the Managed Service provider for St Helens for 8 years, from August 1st 2011. Uniservity are the company who have developed the Life Learning Platform. Uniservity and Agilisys work in partnership to deliver a fully functional Learning Platform to St Helens.

Q. When is Life due to begin?
A. Life will not be fully available until the new 2011 /12 academic year. If schools are particularly interested, they will be able to gain access to Life from 1st August 2011.

Q. Which schools are going to get access to Life?
A. All schools that take a managed service will be given access to Life.

Q. Can we run our school website from Life?
A. Yes. This is highly recommended.
The Life platform is highly flexible and can be set up to run a fully functioning school website. Please contact Debs Ayerst on (67)5297 to discuss this further.

Q. How much will Life cost our school?
A. This is the great news: Life licenses will be free to all schools who currently take a managed service. The exception to this will be for parental access. Schools wishing to adopt the parental engagement module, will need to pay £2 per pupil, per annum for parental licenses.

Q. When will we get Life training?
A. The Council, Agilisys and Uniservity have developed a phased plan for implementation of Life into all schools. This will involve consultants working with schools in order to help create a “Life Plan” individually tailored to each school’s priorities. Training will be available to early adopters schools in June and July, and then for all schools throughout the Autumn.

Q. What sort of training will be offered?
A. There will be several different training sessions offered to schools:
• Life Administrator Training
• Technical training (for Network Managers, Technicians)
• Teacher/Student training – as part of your Life Plan.

Q. I have created lots of useful content in my existing Learning Platform. Can this be used in Life?
A. Yes. Part of our plan is to help you audit all of the current content in your Learning Platform and help you to decide what is useful and what can be deleted, then migrate any relevant and useful content to Life. You will be contacted to discuss this further if you haven’t been already.

Q. I have lots of software that I have used in my current Learning Platform. Can this be used in Life?
A. Yes. As part of the audit, we must identify this software and then test and install it as part of your Life Plan.

Q. When will Fronter be switched off?
A. The existing contract with Fronter expires on 31st August 2011 and you will no longer be able to access Fronter after this point.

Q. My existing web site is provided by the Fronter Learning Platform. Will this continue after 31st August?
A. No. If your current website is on Fronter, then we will need to migrate this to Life. You will be contacted to discuss this further if you haven’t been already.

Q. What ongoing support will I get for Life?
A. Uniservity will support the use of Life throughout the 8 years of the contract. However, there will be specific and dedicated local support for St Helens schools for the Academic Year 2011/12. In December 2011, Agilisys will write to you, to see if you have interest in ongoing, dedicated support.

If you have further questions, please email life@sthelens.org.uk

More information about Life is available on the Life web site.