Excellence Gateway
Published: 24 September 2009
This case study was produced by JISC RSC (Regional Support Centres) Northwest on behalf of the Excellence Gateway.
Sector relevance: Further education and Sixth Form colleges
Keywords: Improving responsiveness to learners, improving institutional effectiveness, management, project management, partnership/collaborative working, collaborative projects, management of ICT infrastructure, mobile technology and learning, wireless internet connection, wireless network, secure access
Blackpool and The Fylde College has implemented a campus-wide wireless network that allows secure connectivity to College systems and services for learners and staff using their own laptops. The development has won a Cisco 'Secure Campus' award. Via a future development, the College hopes to provide learners with access to the College systems and services when out and about in Blackpool town centre.
Blackpool and The Fylde College is one of the largest general further education colleges in the North West of England providing further and higher education learning opportunities for local, regional and, in some cases, national client groups stating a commitment to “providing high quality, flexible and easily accessible learning opportunities for individuals, organisations and the local community”. It operates from four major campuses and other learning centres located along a 17-mile stretch of the Fylde coastline.
The College is an Associate College of Lancaster University and was designated a national Beacon of Excellence and FEFC Accredited College in 1999. It gained national Beacon Awards in 2003, 2005 and 2006, and has Charter Mark and Investor In People status.
Blackpool and The Fylde College is committed to the development of remote access to services for its learners and staff, to offer flexibility to suit current and future educational requirements. The challenge for IT Manager Steve Musgrave was to ensure that they could provide secure access, without compromising the level or quality of the services.
Blackpool and The Fylde College was an early adopter of wireless technology; these early wireless networks were localised on each campus, and were developed to complement hard-wired PC access, offering the freedom to use a laptop within the classroom, and providing access in classrooms which had no PC.
The new secure wireless network has been implemented (in-house) across the four main College sites. Steve's view is that the Cisco system is not too difficult to install and implement but, as a fairly sophisticated and powerful wireless service module, he says that a certain level of expertise is necessary to get the best out of the system.
Cisco's ‘clean access' service – known as Cisco NAC (Network Admission Control) Appliance – which, coupled with Firewall Service Modules (FWSM) dovetailed with the College's remote services plans, has been implemented as a vital element in the secure wireless network development; the College was already a Cisco ‘user'.
Through the service, users can use their College login to get consistent access from any of these sites. A secure wireless service module checks for updates on the operating system and, crucially, for viruses and/or hacking before granting access to the user.
The only downside is the time (around 15-20 minutes) needed to download and configure the secure service on a user's laptop. Although this is a one-off requirement, it has deterred some users from using the secure service in favour of immediate access to an unsecured wi-fi service.
Steve's team does not have the capacity to do the secure access installations and configurations on learner and staff laptops. However, to overcome this issue, and to make it easier and more likely for users to take up the secure service:
Within the first nine months of availability, the secure service has liberated over 300 users in being able to connect their own laptops securely to the College network and services. Steve and his team have the reassurance that, as well as providing security for their users, the system also minimises security risks to the College.
The secure wireless network has won a 'Secure Campus' award from Cisco, who state that the development reflects “outstanding achievement in the deployment of secure wireless and firewall technology”.
The wireless network and secure access service provides one element (alongside thin client technology and virtual desktop developments) of a wider College initiative to develop and improve remote access to College services. The initiative aims to provide learners and staff with as close to like-for-like access to the network and services as those available in the College's standard hard-wired classrooms, computer labs and open-access areas.
The virtual desktop element of the initiative provides the same look and feel as the standard desktop PC windows environment, improving on earlier primitive, ‘clunky', web-based network storage areas.
Recent student forums and a staff survey have generated positive feedback from users who have taken up the secure access service.
Steve sees this service, and the overall remote access initiative, as key factors in the future of how, where, and when their learners choose to learn. He wants to ensure that the learners are not restricted to ‘traditional' classroom environments, or simply to desktop PCs when in the classroom.
He acknowledges that it would be easy to be seduced by the idea that wireless will meet all their connectivity needs, but he is clear that this initiative is not currently seen as a first step to a wireless-only College. Steve says:
“There is a place for wireless but there is certainly still a place for a wired connection too. The College approach to IT service delivery is wired for speed, and wireless for flexibility.”
As advice to anyone considering tackling a similar development, Steve recommends that they should “start small”. He says that his team has achieved success in this and other IT developments by taking it one step at a time, thus being able to learn comprehensively from each step they have taken. He also says they have tried to be “sure-footed” in how they have progressed developments, recognising that appropriate resources, skills, and staff development need to be in place for such developments to succeed.
As an innovative next step, the College is working with Blackpool Borough Council, which is developing a wireless access facility throughout the town centre. In partnership with the Council, the College is seeking to use this facility as a ‘Learning Network' to not only extend access to the College network and services in the town centre, but also to federate access to a wider set of services for its users.
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