fraLine – Project Reports
On this site you will find abridged versions of our project reports documenting the project´s progress, achievments and difficulties up to the effective date. At the end of every section you can download the full version of each report (PDF-file). Please note: the full version is only available in German.
Final report (third project term)
- Only in German: full version of the final (4th) report on the third project term from September 2007 until August 2011, as of August 2011 [PDF, 10,21 MB]
Third interim report (third project term)
- Only in German: full version of the third interim report on the third project term from September 2007 until August 2011, as of August 2010 [PDF, 10,10 MB]
Second interim report (third project term)
- Only in German: full version of the second interim report on the third project term from September 2007 until August 2011, as of August 2009 [PDF, 1,99 MB]
First interim report (third project term)
Forth interim report (second project term)
Abridged version of the forth interim report
(period under review: September 2004 through December 2005)
(as of March 2006)
The project is currently in its second term ending in August 2007.
This forth interim report documents the second project term and follows on the first-term final report as of August 2004. Basic information about the project and its framework conditions can be retrieved from the final report. The following interim report focuses on the presentation and reflexion of developments and experiences within the period under review from September 2004 to December 2005.
Topics such as IT equipment, new user scenarios due to an increasing level of networking and integration of IT into the classroom and discussions on the ongoing strict separation between the funding of "pedagogical support" by the federal states and the funding of "technical support" by the local municipalities create a fairly dynamic field.[1] Already implemented and still necessary adaptations of the range of tasks and cooperative working processes are described and justified against this particular background.
Included are concrete results and organizational measures aiming to optimize the offered services, thereby contributing to the consolidation of the project. In an attachment to the full version of the report internal evaluation results and trends will be introduced and critically reviewed.
Continuity and extension of the range of tasks
The core business of fraLine is to solve IT problems in Frankfurt schools as promptly as possible in order to ensure that the necessary conditions for the use of digital media in class are in place. Due to the organizational and institutional setting, it seemed reasonable to expand the originally defined range of tasks. And so even during the first project term fraLine took on additional support-services for school administration computers.
In cooperation with the State Education Authority, an additional service had been developed that was meant to go beyond the merely problem-oriented IT support financed by the city and to cover the demand for a routine support, including administration and maintenance of the school IT-infrastructure. This so-called "Plus-Support" [PlusS], which can be booked by single schools or school associations, has proved successful. A lack of planning security due to the financing methods employed makes a comprehensive expansion of the service still questionable.
The strict distinction between "technical" and "pedagogical support" is often blurred. A successful use of digital media in school certainly requires not only technical administration but also assistance with their educational application in class. With its so-called "educational-technical classroom assistance" fraLine, in cooperation with the State Education Authority for the city of Frankfurt, has been able to offer practice-oriented help in class since 2006. This temporary service of limited volume is clearly just the beginning in meeting the teachers´ need for support in education. Schools and school authorities[2] have welcomed this cooperation with the federal state as a sign that the federal state ("Land") is assuming greater responsibility for the topics of media and IT in education. It would be desirable, however, to have a clearly defined division of tasks and responsibilities between the city as the school authority and the federal state. This would ensure a more reliable use of IT technology in all public schools, as opposed to the temporary promotion of single schools or projects, ultimately facilitating the everyday and complementary use of new digital media in class.
Organizational integration and cooperation
A sustainable and successful IT development in schools requires needs-oriented technical concepts, solutions and sustainable support structures as well as sound communication structures ensuring the information flow between all actors involved. Apart from the necessary coordination during the day-to-day work, it has proved successful to institutionalize regular working meetings in various constellations dealing with conceptual and strategic matters.
Due to its close contact to the schools and municipal institutions fraLine is predestined to accompany the long-term IT development in the municipal school landscape by offering support and advice.
Cross-regional collaboration and professional exchange is being maintained, even though to a slightly reduced extent due to growing internal differentiation.
Single Point of Contact
Similarly, the SPOC-concept has proved successful and has meanwhile established itself. Various responsibilities within school IT support such as networking or new equipment, i.e. procurement, repairs, possible warranty cases or if necessary even constructional measures, require different competencies.
fraLine has become the central contact for all requests relating to IT support for nearly all schools, thereby relieving school representatives from having to identify and coordinate changing contact persons. At the same time, fraLine assists with specifying problem descriptions which is the basis for all actions to follow and often requires advanced IT knowledge. On the other hand, other involved authorities and partners rarely have to deal with unspecific requests, since these are collected by fraLine and only after pre-sorting, filtering and specifying forwarded to the competent partners.
Student employees
Employing students as operative IT support staff (part-time) is an essential part of the project concept. Students do not only apply and expand the theoretical knowledge they acquired during their studies but do often find interesting topics for papers that can partly be supervised by fraLine supervisors.
Fortunately, employee turnover has been lower then expected. The number of core student employees including interns has remained at 21.
Improvement of internal and external knowledge transfer and workflow organization by developing and implementing web-based tools
The coordination of part-time employees implies certain requirements which are met by the introduction and internal development of a helpdesk system including a personnel-planning-tool. These tools including the fraLine Intranet are essential for supporting the internal and external workflow. Therefore, maintenance and needs-oriented development of all applied tools and content have always been given high priority.
The helpdesk has become a multi-functional platform. It supports internal and external working processes, allows a differentiated analysis of the volume and type of work and is used for documentation of job processing, as communicational platform and contact database.
The schools´ IT representatives have increasingly made use of the possibilities provided by this 24/7 helpdesk by reporting problems, viewing their processing state and exchanging information with the processor of their requests. Especially teachers consider communication via the helpdesk as efficient and convenient, since they can retrieve processing states at any time without having to sacrifice their often too short 5-minute-breaks.
For job-specific communication between the various cooperation partners this web-based tool is also very useful. This sort of largely written communication is sometimes considered to be too time-consuming. The distinct advantage of a context-related traceability resulting from written communication within a ticket system, however, outweighs the efforts it involves.
Work in progress
“The extension of technical infrastructure in schools and of the framework conditions required for learning with new media challenges local communities not only financially. Also required are new professional and organizational structures in order to design and apply sustainable concepts for media development in schools. […] On the other hand, due to the necessary interlocking of educational concepts with the corresponding equipment, the cooperation between state education authorities, schools and local school authorities has to be extended.”[3]
After almost five years there are now signs that a sustainable solution for a viable IT infrastructure in schools is about to be achieved as a result of this regional cooperation. Its project character allows and requires constant verification of its original work concept. Its conceptual flexibility and the cooperation with the competent offices allows for a high demands and practice orientation and the integration of new requirements. The employment of student technicians guarantees the continual updating of technical know-how and provides the students with the opportunity to test and expand their know-how and skills within their field of studies. The disadvantages of a high employee turnover as a result of their student status are successfully countered by various measures to encourage knowledge transfer. By now, the pilot project fraLine provides valuable hands-on support in Frankfurt schools.
Since technical equipment[4] and networking have reached a good level in the schools, the question of how to promote a more intensive and differentiated use of IT in class is gaining more importance. Experience shows that teachers are still in need of low-requirement instruction for the independent an experienced use of the possibilities offered by digital media. As we have learned from personal conversations and our customer satisfaction survey[5], the demand for suitable training courses is currently not being met by the state or the state education authorities. Since often only basic knowledge of IT and digital media use is needed, fraLine expertise could profitably be employed here.
The integration of diverging requirements such as providing new media in schools as needed, supporting teachers viably in using it and further developing the necessary standardization of school networks without limiting the essential pedagogical freedom, constitutes a long-term task. It can only be tackled successfully by working together. Therefore, close cooperation and coordination between all participating parties, schools, offices and partners as well as the establishment of suitable virtual and real communication platforms form essential parts of the concept.
We hope that our experiences, mistakes as well as successful ideas and practices may be useful to other initiatives heading in the same direction.
Footnotes
[1.] For further details of the parameters of institutional and technical environment of IT-support in schools compare page 10ff of the final report, 2004; in the 1st chap. "Continutity and adaption of the range of tasks" you will find further thoughts on the interaction of technical and educational support.
[2.] Many schools particularly approved of the increased cooperation with the already known fraLine-employees: The infrastructure of the school is familiar to them and no time for getting acquainted with it has to be invested.
[5.] cp. Appendix B.
Final report of the first three-year project term
Abridged version of the final report of the first project term (2001-2004)
(as of September 2004)
fraLine has existed as a joint project of the school maintaining body of Frankfurt am Main ("Stadtschulamt") and the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt am Main since September 1st, 2001. This model project has been testing the non-commercial, demand-oriented implementation of a central IT support service for schools within the municipal area. One of the main characteristic of the project is that its staff mainly consists of technical students. The project was initially intended for three years. Since the progress of the project has been rated as very positive, the cooperative partners decided to continue the project for another three years period, to begin with. A quite dynamic field[1] is created by topics such as IT equipment, new user scenarios due to increased networking and stronger integration of IT in the classroom as well as by discussions on the ongoing strict separation between the financing of "pedagogical support" by the federal states and the financing of "technical support" by the local municipalities. For that reason it was recommendable to maintain the status of fraLine as a project, in order to be able to adjust its range of tasks and volume and to continue the project more quickly and with greater flexibility.
The final report includes the entire project term of fraLine until end of August 2004. It reflects developments and experiences as well as the necessary customizations of the original concept giving an outlook for a continuation of the cooperation after September 2004 for another three years. It informs about the organizational development, concrete working results as well as previous means to establish the project. Against the background of the specific requirements for an IT support in schools, the necessary customizations and expansions of the range of tasks are described and justified. Briefly presented are the results of the internal and external evaluation that had been conducted as part of the agreed quality assurance measures.
Expanding the range of tasks
The core business of fraLine is to solve IT problems in Frankfurt schools as promptly as possible in order to ensure that the necessary conditions for the use of digital media in class are in place. Due to the organizational and institutional setting, it seemed reasonable to expand the originally defined range of tasks. fraLine, for example, has taken on additional support services for school administration computers. Moreover, experience in school IT support has shown that the strict distinction between technical and pedagogical support is debatable and that a successful use of digital media in schools certainly not only requires technical supported but also assistance with regard to its practical use in class. This fact has received and will receive a much larger focus in the future when accompanying and supporting selected project schools in implementing their media projects. Designing and planning a training series for over 300 IT representatives in Frankfurt schools points in the same direction. In this context it is important to brief external instructors and to synchronize course contents, since, besides the training of general technical skills, specific existing and future technical standards and regional particularities will receive a special focus. Since some single schools have joined in a school association, fraLine could offer them an additional on-site service on a regular basis and with permanent contact persons. This so-called "Plus-Service" [PlusS], financed by state funds provided for schools, is based upon the contents of the "pedagogical support" and builds upon the basic support financed by the city.
Sustainable and successful IT development in schools is not only based on technical but also on communicative processes. The growing establishment of the project within the processes of municipal school IT development testifies to that fact. Due to its close contact to the schools and municipal institutions fraLine is predestined to accompany the long-term IT development in the municipal school landscape by offering support and advice. In cooperation with the local school maintaining body ("Stadtschulamt") fraLine, for example, has designed and still designs sustainable concepts for computer equipment and configuration in school administration and computer laboratories.
Single Point of Contact
Similarly, the SPOC-concept has proved successful and has meanwhile established itself. Various responsibilities within school IT support such as new equipment, i.e. procurement, repairs, possible warranty cases or if necessary even constructional measures, require different competencies.
fraLine has become the central contact for all requests relating to IT support for nearly all schools, thereby relieving school representatives from having to identify and coordinate changing contact persons. At the same time, fraLine assists with specifying problem descriptions which is the basis for all actions to follow and often requires advanced IT knowledge. On the other hand, other involved authorities and partners rarely have to deal with unspecific requests since these are collected by fraLine and only after pre-sorting, filtering and specifying forwarded to the competent partners.
Altogether it can be observed that, apart from functioning as a troubleshooter for ad-hoc issues in schools, fraLine, thanks to its close contact with individual schools and its cooperation partners, is increasingly assuming an advisory role within the further development and planning of the school network.
Acceptance and demands-and-practice-orientation of the service in Frankfurt schools
Meanwhile over 90% of the schools in Frankfurt have concluded a service agreement with fraLine.
The external evaluation as well as the internal feedback survey show high acceptance and satisfaction with the offered school IT support. With the gradual introduction of a new and more person and time-bound support module (PlusS) an often repeated demand by the IT representatives could be fulfilled. Statistic data on the use of the service can be found in our final report.
Student employees
An essential part of the project concept is the employment of students as operative IT support staff. The initially expected high employee turnover did not occur. Reasons for this are discussed in the present report. The core of student employees including interns has increased to 16 persons.
Improvement of internal and external knowledge transfer and organization of workflow by implementing and developing web-based tools
The coordination of part-time employees implies certain requirements which are met by the introduction and internal development of a helpdesk system including a personnel-planning-tool. These tools including the fraLine Intranet are essential for supporting the internal and external workflow. The helpdesk has also established itself as a clearly-arranged communication platform for the job-related exchange of information between the various cooperation partners. Even the schools´ IT representatives are increasingly taking advantage of the opportunity to report problems via the helpdesk and to view the current processing states of their requests.
Work in progress
There are now signs that a sustainable solution for a viable IT infrastructure in schools is about to be achieved as a result of this regional cooperation.
Its project character allows and requires constant verification of its original work concept. Its conceptual flexibility and the cooperation with the competent offices allows for a high demands and practice orientation and the inclusion of new requirements. The employment of student technicians guarantees a continual updating of technical know-how and provides the students with the opportunity to test and expand their know-how and skills within their field of studies. The disadvantages of a high employee turnover as a result of their student status are successfully countered by various measures to encourage knowledge transfer. By now, the pilot project fraLine provides valuable hands-on support in Frankfurt schools.
Footnotes
[1.] for further specification of parameters regarding the institutional and technical environment for IT-support in schools please cp. p.10ff. of the present final report (full version only in German)
Second Interim Report
Abridged version of th second interim report
(as of September 2003)
fraLine has existed as a joint project between the school maintaining body of Frankfurt am Main ("Stadtschulamt") and the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt am Main since October 1st, 2001.
This model project has been testing the non-commercial, demand-oriented implementation of a central IT support service for schools within the municipal area. As a pilot project it is limited to three years to start with. After that period it will be decided, based on previous experiences, whether and how this model has been able to establish a permanent IT support solution for the schools in Frankfurt.
Due to the excellent progress of the project a premature termination as of August 31, 2003 will not be enforced as the contractual partners had reserved their right to in the project agreement.
Expanding the range of tasks
The core business of fraLine is to solve IT problems in Frankfurt schools as promptly as possible in order to ensure that the necessary conditions for the use of digital media in class are in place. With this very goal in mind, it has already become apparent that it would be reasonable and desirable to expand the range of tasks. And so, fraLine, for example, has also taken on support services for school administration computers.
Moreover, practice in school IT support has shown that the strict distinction between technical and pedagogical support is controversial and that successful media use in school should not only be accompanied by technical support but also by help with its practical implementation. This fact will receive a larger focus in the future by supporting and accompanying selected project schools in implementing their media projects. Sustainable and successful IT development in schools is not only based on technical but also on communicative processes. The growing establishment of the project within the processes of municipal school IT development testifies to that fact. Due to maintaining close contact with both the schools and the municipal offices fraLine is predestined to accompany and consult the conceptual preparations of along-term IT-development in the schools.
Single Point of Contact
Similarly, the SPOC-concept has proven to be successful and has meanwhile established itself. fraLine has become the central contact for all requests relating to school IT support. This means that the schools not have to deal with changing responsibilities or contact persons or to inquire the relevant contact persons by themselves. fraLine coordinates and mediates between the respective authorities in terms of advice, support or equipment requests. Likewise, teachers do not have to bother with presorting their problem which often requires advanced IT knowledge.
Altogether it can be observed that, apart from functioning as a troubleshooter for ad-hoc issues in schools, fraLine is increasingly assuming an advisory role within the further development and planning of the school network is concerned.
Acceptance and a demands and practice orientation of service in Frankfurt school.
Meanwhile the majority of Frankfurt schools has concluded a service agreement with fraLine. External evaluation as well as an internal feedback survey show high acceptance and satisfaction with the offered school IT support. The current state of deliberations on the introduction of new and more person- and time-bound support modules will be reported in the interim report.
Expansion of the cooperation at local and supra-regional levels
Since IT support for schools always also touches upon educational aspects, a closer cooperation with other local or supraregional operators in the field of media education, such as the Frankfurt Media Center and HeLP, is intended, particularly within the context of the "media project schools".
Being aware that in terms of school support similar problems and questions are dealt with throughout Germany, fraLine, by hosting the second "National Workshop of School-Support-Initiatives", promotes knowledge transfer and exchange between experts of various institutions and initiatives involved in that topic.
Student employees
An essential part of the project concept is the employment of students as operative IT support staff. The initially expected high employee turnover did not occur. Reasons for this are discussed in the interim report. The core of student employees including interns has increased to 15.
Optimization of internal and external knowledge transfer and organization of workflow by implementing and developing web-based tools
The coordination of part-time employees implies certain requirements which are met by the introduction and internal development of a helpdesk system including a personnel-planning-tool.
These tools including the fraLine Intranet are essential for supporting the internal and external workflow. Even the schools´ IT representatives are increasingly taking advantage of the opportunity to report problems via the helpdesk and to view the current processing states of their requests.
Work in Progress
There are now signs that a sustainable solution for a viable IT infrastructure in schools is about to be achieved as a result of this regional cooperation.
Its project character allows and requires constant verification of its original work concept.
Its conceptual flexibility and the cooperation with the competent offices allows for a high demands and practice orientation and the inclusion of new requirements. The employment of student technicians guarantees a continual updating of technical know-how and provides the students with the opportunity to test and expand their know-how and skills within their field of studies. The disadvantages of a high employee turnover as a result of their student status are successfully countered by various measures to encourage knowledge transfer. By now, the pilot project fraLine provides valuable hands-on support in Frankfurt schools.
Until the end of the project term significant experiences and data will be available to answer the following central question: How can a productive future-oriented model for IT school support and development be established that is capable of integrating diverging requirements such as providing new media in schools as needed, supporting teachers viably in using it and further developing the necessary standardization of school networks without limiting the essential pedagogical freedom?
First interim report
Abridged version of the first interim report(as of August 2002)
The fraLine project was founded in October 2001. During a three-months pilot phase at the beginning of the following year several schools could already receive fraLine service. Since the beginning of March 2002 a total of 8 student employees have been working to solve the reported IT problems. Today, our student team consists of 13 employees working a total of 838 hours per month in the service of Frankfurt’s schools.
About 200 IT representatives registered
The number of IT representatives per school is limited to two or three since problems are to be forwarded centrally via these representatives. This prevents problems from being reported to fraLine several times by different teachers of the same school. IT representatives can help themselves by using the FAQ list on our project website in order to solve smaller problems on the spot. Currently 91 schools have registered a total of 193 IT representatives (as of mid-August 2002).
fraLine as model project
The city of Frankfurt am Main and the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt am Main are seeking to increase public awareness of the project. As opposed to the expensive an often not feasible service offered by companies, the model project, relieving teachers of the burden of having to deal with IT problems, could be an interesting alternative for other university locations.
Online service now available
A webpage providing the most basic information, as for example contact details, had been set up by the end of September 2001. Currently, the graphical user interface and navigation of the webpage are being redesigned in order to be able to cope with the growing scope as well as to increase the attractiveness of the webpage and the implemented tools by enhancing their usability.
As far as operative tasks are concerned, the online tools enable a well organized knowledge transfer within the team. Employees can support each other, for example, by using the "tip feature". The tools largely automate organizational procedures such as job management, personnel planning and organization of on-site appointments.
Improving services through feedback
For internal evaluation, service optimization and continuous strategic planning fraLine uses an internal feedback system.
After successful resolution of a problem, a standardized feedback-questionnaire is sent randomly to one of the respective schools and is evaluated at regular intervals. The results are directly incorporated into our current work. Likewise, the results of the first interim report on the external evaluation conducted by the University of Bremen, Institute for Software-Ergonomics and Information Management will be gradually implemented.
One of the requests which had been identified through the feedback questionnaire will be implemented as soon as possible: Hotline hours will be expanded so that fraLine can also be contacted in the afternoon one day a week.
Additionally, the feasibility of the schools´ demand for dedicated IT representatives will be examined with a small number of Frankfurt schools in winter 2002/2003.
Goals achieved
The fraLine service is welcomed since it offers unbureaucratic assistance and due to funding through the school maintaining body ("Stadtschulamt") is free of charge for Frankfurt schools. Two thirds of Frankfurt´s schools have already registered as users of the fraLine service. Feedback inquiries show a high satisfaction of the schools having been served so far. As part of the concept, fraLine functions as "single point of contact" for schools with computer problems.
Self-Criticism
Access time for on-site services of an average of nine days is too high resulting from the little and split weekly working hours of the student employees. Since student employees work only 12 to 19 hours per week, internal information transfer becomes difficult which we try to counterbalance by employing an Intranet and through regular meetings.
Moreover, our web-based helpdesk is still inadequately used as an always accessible alternative to our hotline. Also, the lack of feedback by IT representatives has proved difficult since it prevents tickets from being closed.
fraLine understands these difficulties as tasks for the near future.
Looking into the future
Should the project not bring about considerable relief for Frankfurt schools, the working phase will be ended prematurely after a project term of two years on August 31, 2003.
If the project is continued beyond the predetermined breaking point, it will be permanently implemented in Frankfurt am Main.
