Assessments

Discovery Process

 OunceIT’s team, in partnership with the school’s leadership and staff, will assess the school’s technology with a focus on the following areas, with particular focus paid to areas specific to your organization or industry:

1. Intake and onboarding: Conduct a knowledge transfer from existing IT staff or MSP, including documentation of the existing network infrastructure, mobile device management, phone, and security systems. If systems are undocumented, documentation will be provided as a deliverable.

2. Staff Support: Support and/or supplement in-house IT staff on a day-to-day basis, or be available for your staff to escalate issues that may arise that are beyond their capacity or capabilities.

3. Network infrastructure: Assess the state of your organization’s wired and wireless network, working from the outside in: Internet connection(s) to the firewall(s)/router(s), switches, logical network (VLANs), wireless access points, and connectivity.

4. Servers and services: Assess network services (Directory services, DNS, DHCP, etc…), physical and virtual servers, and on-premise file sharing or other services.

5. Cloud services: Identify and review need for existing, redundant, and extraneous cloud services. Review cloud-based file sharing, including folder structure, user access, and permissions. Address setup and/or challenges related to SSO or integration(s) between 3rd party services. We are experienced with most industry leading platforms including Google, Microsoft, Zoom, BlackBaud, and many other cloud services.

6. End user experience and devices: Asses laptop and device management, reliability, age/replacement cycle, and budget; conference room and classroom audio/video; printers and print management; phones and communications; etc… If desired, we can also assess (and plan and implement) the need to migrate from one system to another (e.g. MS 365 to Google or Zoom phones to MS Teams).

7. IT operations: Review IT process, documentation, budget management and tracking, software and service license management, vendor management, support, and warranties.

8. Risk mitigation and cyber security: Review data storage, backups, and recovery; network security, monitoring, security practices, password management, phishing, policies, user access controls and change management, acceptable use and information security plan, incident response plans.

9. Educational technology: Deliberate use of technology tools for teaching and learning; professional development, digital health and wellness, student safety, showcasing student work, learning management. We can review academic core tools and, if desired, we can help your faculty and academic leadership assess your current learning management system, and help plan and implement the migration to a a new LMS.

10. Information systems: Student information systems, data flow, data integrity, and process. If desired, we can conduct a process mapping workshop with faculty and staff to assess your current student information system, and help plan and implement the migration to a a new SIS. We have experience with most leading student information systems including BlackBaud, Veracross, Powerschool, FinalSite, and many more.

In addition to the areas of focus listed above, additional deep dives into Educational Technology and Information Systems and Process are available to schools, and Cyber Security review is available to clients in all industries.

Our considerations may also help inform appropriate IT staffing and support. OunceIT staff will work with the school to review specific tasks, projects, and pain points.