AiTLE & HKEdCity Project : WaaSchool Project (WiFi as a Service School Partnership Project)

Dates: 08/03/2013

2013-12-24 - WaaSchool Project School Banner

Participating Schools :

  • Primary Schools
    • ALLIANCE PRIMARY SCHOOL, WHAMPOA (黃埔宣道小學)
    • Baptist Rainbow Primary School (浸信會天虹小學)
    • CCC HEEP WOH PRIMARY SCHOOL (中華基督教會協和小學)
    • HHCKLA BUDDHIST CHAN SHI WAN PRI SCHOOL (香海正覺蓮社佛教陳式宏學校)
    • HK & Macau Lutheran Church Primary School (港澳信義會小學)
    • Jordan Valley St.Joseph’s Catholic Primary School (佐敦谷聖若瑟天主教小學)
    • Kwok Man School (國民學校)
    • Ping Shek Estate Catholic Primary School (坪石天主教小學)
    • PLK Wong Wing Shu Primary School (保良局黃永樹小學)
    • PUI TAK CANOSSIAN PRIMARY SCHOOL (嘉諾撒培德學校)
    • Salesian School (慈幼學校)
    • Tin Shui Wai Methodist Primary School (天水圍循衞理小學)
    • TWGHs Ko Ho Ning Memorial Primary School (東華三院高可寧紀念小學)
  • Secondary Schools
    • Carmel Secondary School (迦密中學)
    • Christian Alliance SW Chan Memorial College (宣道會陳朱素華紀念中學)
    • HKBUAS WKF secondary school (浸會大學附屬王錦輝中學)
    • HKFYG Lee Shau Kee College (香港青年協會李兆基書院)
    • Hong Kong Taoist Association The Yuen Yuen Institute No.1 Secondary School (香港道教聯合會圓玄學院第一中學)
    • Kwun Tong Kung Lok Government Secondary School (觀塘功樂官立中學)
    • Lam Tai Fai College (林大輝中學)
    • Lee Kau Yan Memorial School (李求恩紀念中學)
    • Man Kiu College (閩僑中學)
    • Sha Tin Methodist College (沙田循道衞理中學)
    • SKH Bishop Mok Sau Tseng Secondary School (聖公會莫壽增會督中學)
    • SKH Tang Shiu Kin Secondary School (聖公會鄧肇堅中學)
    • St. Paul’s Secondary School (聖保祿中學)
    • St. Stephen’s College (聖士提反書院)
    • Stewards Pooi Tun Secondary School (香港神託會培敦中學)
    • TWGHs Lui Yun Choy Memorial College (東華三院呂潤財紀念中學)
    • Yuen Long Catholic Secondary School (元朗天主教中學)
  • Through-Trained Schools
    • Ho Yu College and Primary School Sponsored by Sik Sik Yuen (嗇色園主辦可譽中學暨可譽小學)
    • Pui Kiu College (培僑書院)
    • St. Margaret’s Co-educational English Secondary and Primary School (聖瑪加利男女英文中小學)

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Background

  • Schools in Hong Kong have been designing and implementing WiFi and broadband network for carrying out eLearning for a few years now. The network is becoming a core part of the infrastructure in schools. There are various exchange of views among some schools representatives, network service providers, AiTLE and HKEdCity regarding how to provide a scalable, reliable, easy to operate and low cost network environment for schools in the future.
  • This project aims at forming a partnership between the network service providers, Hong Kong Education City, AiTLE and participating schools through AiTLE to explore a network service model for providing WiFi service for classrooms (the “Network Service”). If successful, such a model will be recommended to both the school sector and the IT industry.
  • Schools are invited to join the project so as to provide expert advice with AiTLE on the needs and requirement of the schools, and to advice the eLearning activities to be conducted under this partnership so that a more systematic conclusion can be drawn after the project, and also to test for the technical and administrative requirements and capability.

Objectives

  • The Network Service model developed in this partnership shall serve the following design objectives:
    • Simple to Use – the network environment should not require school teachers to design and manage the network with strong technical knowledge. Instead, the network environment should be provided as a utility and users can just use the network and do not need strong technical knowledge or additional manpower to manage it.
    • Classroom based – the network bandwidth and coverage should be defined in simple terms based on classroom teaching and learning needs, i.e. the service would be delivered on per classroom basis independent of the physical design of the entire school. This can allow a standard service provision to be established which can be applicable for most schools, and thus make the service to be easily implemented and upgraded, and different providers can provide the needed basic services.
    • Good support – The network service providers should provide good operational support for schools with defined service levels so that schools can base on the service level to design their future eLearning activities.
    • User based authentication according to industry standards – the Network Service should be based on user credentials for network authentication and does not require schools to manage the device registration and updating. Hong Kong Education City can support the authentication of HKEdCity membership accounts for such purpose so that schools do not need to separately manage the student accounts. The authentication will be based on 802.1X standards
    • Network suitable for education and for juniors – The Network Service should be able to provide certain network control to support providing a safe and healthy network for education use, especially for junior students.
    • Low and flexible cost model – the future charging model for the Network Service is preferably to be based on monthly charges per classroom for ease of budget estimation by schools. School can thus choose to implement at different pace, and pay only when they use the service. This project provides an opportunity for service providers to evaluate and demonstrate if this is a lower cost solution compare with the total cost of ownership of traditional model.

Scope of Service

  • Partnership Schools – about 15 to 20, including secondary schools and primary schools. Each school will have at least 5 classrooms to have the network service.
  • Partnership Service Providers – service providers who are interested and has the capacity and commitment are welcome to participate in this project on a non-exclusive basis. We estimated that the number of service providers to participate should be more than one but less than five in order to have a suitable sample size within reasonable resources.
  • Period of Trial – The tentative period for the trial is from 1 Jan 2014 to 31 Aug 2015. However, service providers are encouraged to provide the Network Service as soon as available in order to fit the eLearning activities if necessary, actual starting time can also be adjusted when the partnership schools have been identified.

Roles and Responsibilities

  • Network Service Providers
    • To provide the following services to schools at no cost.
    • To provide WiFi Intenet access using IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n protocol in a standard classroom with a minimum of 5 classrooms per school. The choice of classroom may not be on the same floor and is subject to the decision of the participating school. Each provider should support at least 4 schools.
    • To support at least 40 concurrent connections in each classroom (exact bandwidth figures to be confirmed).
    • To authenticate users to the WiFi network.
    • To provide content filtering service (based on url) for the internet service.
    • Not to rely on any existing network facilities and cabling of the schools, nor interfere with the existing WiFi network of the schools.
    • To operate the WiFi using managed service model, providing end-to-end service include provision, monitoring and maintenance service.
    • To ensure availability of the WiFi service to be at least 99.99%.
    • To support four-hour service recovery and active monitoring in school days.
  • Participating Schools
    • To provide mobile devices to students and teachers for using the WiFi provided for Learning & Teaching activities.
    • To carry out planned Learning and Teaching activities with reasonable usage and a number of sound pedagogical scenarios to fully test whether the Network Service can meet the eLearning needs of the schools.
    • To provide feedback to AiTLE & HKEdCity re the project implementation, operation and vendor supports, and cost-benefit analysis in using this network service model.
    • To provide comments and suggestions for the project if this network services model is to be implemented in large scale in the future.
    • To do sharing in public seminar and forum on the experience in project implementation.
    • To complete questionnaire / forms on the experience in project implementation.

Schedule

  • 2013-11-03 to 2013-11-17 : Application through AiTLE Web
  • 2013-11-18 to 2013-11-30 : Selection of Application for Project Implementation
  • Around 2013-12-01 : Application result notification

 

If interested, please fill in the embedded google form below or click here to fill in the google form directly :

P.S. Applicants after completed and submitted the form below, will receive an email with a form in soft-copy format, containing data submitted and also spaces for Principal signature and school chop. Please return the Principal signed and school chop added form back to complete the registration procedure.