The 2010 SWGfL Regional conferences are now available for booking by visiting the following link:
http://www.swgfl.org.uk/News/Regional-ICT-Conferences/Regional-ICT-Conferences-(1)
The Conferences provide an opportunity to meet some of the biggest suppliers in the educational ICT industry and, thanks to a host of keynote speakers of international renown, provide an informative insight into best practice and the future of the industry.
British Pathe Schools Licence
As you may have heard, it is now possible to view films streamed directly from the British Pathe web site without downloading the films.If you have not done this already, you can find all the details at http://www.britishpathe.com/
This is obviously a significant step forward, and means that schools now have a different way of accessing British Pathe films. Because of this development the number of schools wanting to download movie files or stills has diminished considerably, and so SWGfL has decided to end the earlier licence we had with British Pathe.
Here is the full technical detail of the changeover.
The facility for schools to download high-resolution movie files or stills without charge through the SWGfL will be withdrawn at the 30th April 2010.
Movie files or stills already downloaded before 30th April 2010 can be used in schools for a further year; i.e. until 30th April 2011. By 30th April 2011 all high-resolution files that have been downloaded from the British Pathe Archive by schools using the Schools Licence should be destroyed.
If you have any enquiries please do email me at suzie.cowley@swgfl.org.uk
Please note, schools who wish to continue to subscribe to the download licence for British Pathe should contact Alastair White at AWhite@britishpathe.com .
RM have identified a need to undertake some minor maintenance work on the SWGfL Web Server to ensure the reliability of the managed backup service that they provide to us.
This maintenance work will require a reboot of the web server, scheduled for 18:00 on Tuesday, 23rd February, which will result in the following SWGfL-hosted web sites being unavailable for a few minutes:
www.swgfl.org.uk
www.gotoourplace.com
www.360esafe.org.uk
training.swgfl.org.uk
www.swiggle.org.uk
All SWGfL-hosted learning resources at content.swgfl.org.uk
Please note that this work only affects the server that hosts the above sites; school sites will not be affected by this work.
Kind regards,
Richard Boyd
Lead Web Developer
Service Outage – SWGfL Mail – a slight change of plan
We are nearing the final stages of a 12 month
The majority of Schools in the Plymouth Area will be experiencing loss of Internet Connectivity. This is currently being worked on by the SWGfL as an urgent priority. There are 5 Hub sites and 44 Spoke sites affected. The SWGfL have informed us that they will be contacting affected sites directly with an update.
November 30th, 2009
As part of a project to Shibbolethise the SWGfL Web Server, RM will be undertaking some maintenance work on the web server on Monday, 9th November from 16:00. The work could last for several hours, during which time the server will need to be rebooted several times. During the reboots, the following web sites will be unavailable:
www.swgfl.org.uk
www.gotoourplace.com
www.360esafe.org.uk
training.swgfl.org.uk
All SWGfL-hosted learning resources at content.swgfl.org.uk
The E-Safety Live booking system will be unaffected.
Kind regards,
Richard Boyd
Lead Web Developer SWGfL
Dear all,
In preparation for delivering improvements to the SWGfL Web Site, we will be upgrading the Content Management System that powers the following sites, from 17:00 on Wednesday, 16th September:
swgfl.org.uk
360esafe.org.uk
Gotoourplace.com
During the upgrade process, each site will be unavailable for up to half an hour.
The upgrade process has been tested on our training platform and all went smoothly; however, if there any issues with the upgrades, it may be necessary to roll back to the previous version of the CMS which could lead to downtime of up to an hour per site.
Schools may not be able to use SWGfL EasyMail from 7pm on the 26th June. The SWGfL are carrying out tests, to prepare for an upgrade that will be taking place during the summer. It is anticipated that EasyMail should resume service shortly on or after 7:30pm. Whilst the web service may not be available, incoming mail will be queued for later delivery. The SWGfL apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Upgrade to Merlin: Merlin will be unavailable for a while during half-term week.
It is possible for the system administrator to know about how Merlin is being used in the school – but we are about to make this information easier to gather and easier to interpret.
After the forthcoming upgrade you
Service Announcement – Potential Breaks in Service from 4.00pm, Friday 8th May
Over the next few months SWGfL are upgrading the broadband networks in Cornwall, Devon, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. (Other areas will follow it is just that everything has to be done in an order, and these are the counties weve started the broadband upgrade on).
To make the broadband upgrades work first time, we need to get the equipment in the data centre (the behind the scenes stuff) ready beforehand. Most of the services in the data centre will be completely unaffected and you shouldnt notice anything.
However, there may be slight disruptions to all SWGfL services, no longer than 30 seconds at a time, and it is just possible that there will be one or two subsequent issues, such as your website being unavailable or a remote log-in session not working for you.
We are going to carry out this work on Friday the 8th of May, starting at 4pm and it will take much of the weekend to complete, with normal service resuming on Sunday evening.
I know that is phenomenally annoying, we are working to a tried and tested plan of work and we do have roll-back plans if things go wrong. If I could guarantee no side-effects of our upgrade and testing I would do it, but it simply isnt possible.
You shouldnt notice any issues at all on May 11th but if you have any concerns please check first if it is something that you can resolve on site, and if not please call the SWGfL Helpdesk team on 0845 307 7870.
Kind regards,
Vicki Gardner
SWGfL Managed Service Manager