New Network Service For Students At Sandwell College

Sandwell College, in the West Midlands, can now offer its 10,000 students a brand new IT service to support their learning.

The college, which employs 600 staff and delivers further education at three campuses in Oldham, Smethwick and West Bromwich, worked with Business Computing and Network Services (BCNS) to launch the scheme.

“A groundbreaking project for us, it provides each individual student with a log-in, email account and file storage wherever they happen to be working,” explains Sandwell Network Manager Amir Kanwar.

“Having Rodney Freeland from BCNS to design and implement it was crucial and ensured it was delivered on time.

“This new service allows us to monitor the system better and make sure that students have access to what they need.”

As well as providing a consultancy service and project management, BCNS also looks after all the college’s Novell licensing.

“I would recommend them absolutely for their breadth of experience and knowledge and their technical know-how,” says Amir.

“BCNS has been in education for a long time and understands what we need and knows what is useful – whether something is a good idea and what is needed to make it happen. I have learned a great deal from their experience and expertise.”

BCNS is running a pilot project for the college this year involving Zenworks desktop management system. It enables the six-strong IT department to centrally manage all personal computers in the college, deploy relevant software to individual devices and deliver applications where they are needed.

Concludes Amir: “It will also help us with fault diagnosis, to monitor usage and to replace software files when students lose them – which often happens!”