ServerAtSchool philosophy

Keep It Simple

In the same vein, the design of the software should follow from the intended function, without bells and whistles. In a way you can say that ServerAtSchool builds on the famous saying

form ever follows function

As a consequence, the web interface of say 'Janitor' (the software tool for, among other things, managing user accounts in ServerAtSchool) is not frivolous. Rather, it is strictly functional. There are no fancy colours or exotic fonts and JavaScript is not used. For the user, possibly the school's ICT coordinator, this yields a feeling of being in control of the software rather than being controlled by the software.

As an added benefit, it is easier to maintain this kind of strictly functional software than it is to maintain software with all sorts of frills.

A School Is Not A Company

It is true that the computers have their roots in the business world. It is also true that computers are a valuable tool in that field. However, the differences between schools and companies are significant.

• In a school all workers (i.e. pupils) are relocated within the organisation every year.
• In a school, a significant part of the workers is replaced every schoolyear to the effect of a completely new population after only eight years.
• Every year all workers get new applications they have to master in order to do their work for that year.
• Every year the management (teachers) get new workers.
• Various groups within the school have very different software requirements: most of the 4-year olds are not able to read whereas the 12-year olds need a multitude of software applications for the various subjects (mathematics, grammar, spelling, geography, etc.).
• The employees (pupils) are admitted because of their lack of computer skills. The same mistakes will be made over and over again, by different generations, e.g. every pupil has to find out the hard way why 'saving your work' is important. A school has duty to guide a pupil to learn whereas an employee eventually will be fired if too many documents are lost.
• In a school, in contradiction to a company, a computer is not only a tool, but it can also be a subject of research and experiments. Trial and error (Celestin Freinet's 't?tonnement experimental') implies that it should not be a disaster if an OS or an application on a workstation gets damaged. With SABRINE restoring an image is a piece cake.
• In a school a spreadsheet is not as ubiquitous as in a business; the workers first need to learn about the concept of calculating (with pencil and paper) before they can profit from advanced features a spreadsheet might offer.

• ServerAtSchool has an hourly backup of user documents. Even though the pupils have to learn the hard way to save their work, there should be a safety net to limit the level of frustration caused by losing hours of work. That is why there is a My Backups right next to My Documents, for every pupil.
• Every pupil has a personal storage space My Documents traveling along during her whole school career. Even though a pupil is relocated eight times, the older documents stay with the pupil.
• Schools can have a mutuality at a level unknown in business. The concept of storing backups remotely on another schools' server is built on this notion.

Sharing knowledge

This contradicts the mission of a school where explaining the secrets of life to the customers is the core business.

This means that the only way a school can be involved in software development is by publishing the source code of the software too. Therefore ServerAtSchool is Open Source Software (OSS), published under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Get it right the first time

Workstations

We have a number of reasons for this policy:

• Windows is an inherenly insecure operating system [2]. Making Windows more secure, or leave this task to others, does not seem a good strategy. Security issues are the order of the day. Doing something about it is what we Dutchman call: "Mopping with an open tap". This Dutch proverb illustrates the kind of Sisyphus labour involved in making Windows more secure. It's better to accept Windows insecurity as a fact and take measures on another level (see SABRINE).
• Windows 98 is, apart from it's basic insecurity, a well suitable Operating System for everything that needs to be done with computers in a primary school. A Windows 98 license can be bought for about 6 Euro. That's a big saving on, for example, 50 workstations. When also using Firefox instead of Internet Exploer and Thunderbird as a replacement for Outlook, Windows XP is basically not needed in a primary school, however, nowadays many school just use it.
• Windows' insecurity can be diminished by restoring an image with SABRINE (Semi Automatic Backup and Restore In a Network Environment); if necessary every night. In that way every morning you have a clean OS on your workstations. SABRINE is a part of ServerAtSchool available for STRICT members (Schools Together Rich with ICT, see http://strict.nu, the English section).
• Windows XP seems ready and finished. The manufacturer is busy with something completely new and different. So, sofware license prices will go down. Support for Windows 98 has stopped, so ServerAtSchool supports XP for STRICT members. Again, we are lagging behind a couple of years. And that's exactly what we wnat.
  Not the 'latest and the greatest'
  but 'the best and the safest'.

[1]
"What's new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question "What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream.
Robert Pirsig; Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; An Inquiry into Values; William Morrow Publishing Co; New York; 1979.
Online at: http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Quality/PirsigZen/

[2]
What is 'insecure'? Insecure for whom? A user? A manufacturer? It could be that users and manufacturers of operating systems have differing ideas on the nature of 'security'. The manufactureers security is not necessary the one of the user. And 'incsure' for the user might be, for the manufacturer, a blessing. Or he can just ignore it. Try reporting a bug in Windows and see what happens.
As long as an operating system is closed source, it can best be regarded as inherently insecure.

Concluding remarks