The trouble with computers by Thomas Landuar.

Despite enormous investments in computers over the last twenty years, productivity in the very service industries at which they were aimed virtually stagnated everywhere in the world.

If computers are not making businesses, organizations, or countries more productive, then why are we spending so much time and money on them? Cutting through a raft of technical data, Thomas Landauer explains and illustrates why computers are in trouble and why massive outlays for computing since 1973 have not resulted in comparable productivity payoffs. Citing some of his own successful research programs, as well as many others, Landauer offers solutions to the problems he describes.

While acknowledging that mismanagement, organizational barriers, learning curves, and hardware and software incompatibilities can play a part in the productivity paradox, Landauer targets individual utility and usability as the main culprits. He marshals overwhelming evidence that computers rarely improve the efficiency of the information work they are designed for because they are too hard to use and do too little that is sufficiently useful. Their many features, designed to make them more marketable, merely increase cost and complexity. Landauer proposes that emerging techniques for user-centered development can turn the situation around. Through task analysis, iterative design, trial use, and evaluation, computer systems can be made into powerful tools for the service economy.

Landauer estimates that the application of these methods would make computers have the same enormous impact on productivity and standard of living that were the historical results of technological advances in energy use (the steam engine, electric motors), automation in textiles and other manufacture, and in agriculture. He presents solid evidence for this claim, and for a huge benefit-to-cost ratio for user-centered design activities backed by descriptions of how to do these necessary things, of promising applications for better computer software designs in business, and of the relation of user-centered design to business process reengineering, quality, and management.

This weblog looks into some of the reasons we cannot do the things we would like to do with computers in schools.I also think that the book above should be essential reading for anyone making strategic decisions.

Permission has been granted by Alan Cruikshank to publish his e-mails.

Alan Cruikshank writes:

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the file servers in primary schools are designed for file and print serving. In simple terms they enable network printers to be used in your school and users to store and access files in a central filing system. They were not designed to host networked applications such as Pelican, Superspell etc.

IT have recently received a number of requests from primary schools to install network based applications on their server. These applications have been purchased by either the schools themselves or by central Education staff without consultation or advice from IT and at considerable cost. By attempting to use these servers to host and run applications you are running the very real risk that systems such as Phoenix will not work properly, staff and pupils will not be able to access their home directories and your printers may behave inconsistently or simply stop working all together. Additionally the backup of the server may be compromised and loss of important data could result.

To date we have tried to assist by installing the software and attempting to get it to run properly. However this is now absorbing so much support time that could have been avoided had the software been purchased through ourselves in the first place. As a consequence of this we are going to start taking a hard line with requests to install server software not purchased through ourselves.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that all IT hardware and software should be purchased through ourselves. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. We will ensure that the hardware and software will work within your schools environment

2. We will handle any issues or problems with the suppliers

3. We will ensure that any software will work on the versions of the PC and Mac operating systems on your computers. This is especially important with the new version of the Apple Mac OS X.

4. In most cases we can achieve better purchase prices and in all cases a lower total cost of ownership

5. We ensure that the Council fulfils its obligations regarding software licensing

If you require further advice or clarification please don't hesitate to contact Alistair Campbell or myself (Thank you for your cooperation)

Alan Cruikshsank

My reply to Alan:

Dear Alan

A great deal of software was obtained by schools through the TESCO scheme and I think this has been at the core of the recent requests. Are you saying that schools should not obtain software from the TESCO scheme or that if they are they should run it by the IT department?

The wider issue for many schools appears to be the constraints imposed on schools to promote ICT as a learning tool with the latest software and technology available to pupils in school that at least will mirror the technology available to students at home.

At Innerwick I am endeavouring to bring pupils (and Staff) from a very low base. (As will be many schools.) I am promoting the use of in all curricular areas. The main constraints to Learning and Teaching I have encountered have been:

· The connectivity and speed of the schools wireless network

· The recent unreliability of the email and Internet System

· The slow response time to faults. Especially when there is a rolling programme of upgrades/refreshments

· Very little pro-active work on computers to ensure reliability

· The inability to load software for evaluation purposes

· A LTS (Masterclass) computer that was paid for with public money that I cannot connect to the school network. (I am baffled by this one)

· A cache box Installed 6 months ago) in the school that is non-operational

· OS10 machines with incorrect builds which had to be later rectified

· A file server that is only designed for file and print services (Which was 6 months in school, switched on, and rapidly moving into obsolesce, before we could use it.)

· Machines away for repairs for up to 5 weeks

Whilst I do agree with you on some points raised in your e-mail I think that the service that we provide to our students in school in terms of IT should be so much better than currently on offer. We are being constrained by the technology and services to schools. We can only achieve better results in schools if there is better (and constructive) dialog between IT services, students and education providers.

Angus J MacRury

Alan replied with a very comprehensive and honest assessment of the situation to date, and I thank him for this:

Dear Angus,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my email and highlight the difficulties that you face. I sympathise with your sentiments regarding the service East Lothian provides and the constraints you feel you suffer from. East Lothian Council has invested heavily in ICT within schools over the last 6 years and now has a large IT literate base of teachers in its schools keen to push on and use the technology at their disposal. However this brings with it new challenges which the Council now needs to address. You touch on two of the main ones in your email. Firstly support - the staffing both from Education and IT required to support and assist with the ICT use in teaching the curriculum is no longer adequate to meet the demands placed upon it. Secondly infrastructure - as you have noted the performance of the wireless network within the school and the wide area connection to the Internet and other services such as email are both creaking under the strain they are under. I can only assure you that both ourselves in IT and our colleagues in Education are aware of these challenges and are looking at ways of addressing them.

I am concerned however that you perhaps see the problems your school faces as being either directly of the IT Division's making or as our responsibility to fix. I've gone through the points you have raised individually and will do my best to explain either how they have come about and/or what is being done about them or in some cases the limitations of the technology.

First and foremost I should point out that we work very closely with the Education and Children's Services department and that the support service we provide for curricular IT is largely funded by them. Workload and priorities are agreed in conjunction with their ICT Team which was headed up by Jim Elder until he left in early September.

Now to address your points:

Wireless Network Performance

East Lothian Council was among the first in the UK to install widespread wireless networks in primary schools. The networks are using the original 802.11b standard which runs at 11Mb. The base stations will be upgraded to the 802.11g standard which runs up to 5 times faster as and when money is allocated to their replacement or in the case of leased ones, the lease is up. It is important to realise however that wireless networks are slower than their hard wired counterparts as every computer is sharing the available bandwidth.

Email and Internet Service

The wide area network that connects the schools to its schools Internet connection is very limited and is now a major bottleneck for the majority of schools. This is especially true in Primary Schools. At the outset of the TIC project the decision was taken that the Council must meet the Scottish Exec targets for Pupil/Computer ratios and heavy investment was made in putting computers into schools. Unfortunately this limited the funding available for the network infrastructure and we are now paying the price for this. Good news is on the horizon though and a project to upgrade all primary schools to 2Mb network connections is underway and (funding permitting) these should be in place by the start of the 2006/07 school year.

The Slow Response Time To Faults

We are doing our best to respond to faults as quickly as we can. However as primary schools especially have started making more and better use of their ICT provision the number of calls has increased dramatically over the last 18 months. This has not been matched with an increase in the number of support staff and consequently the time taken to fix faults has increased. I have made the Education department aware of this for many months, initially in discussion with Jim Elder and since Easter in the form of a report to the then TIC and Education ICT Strategy groups. I can inform you that this is being looked into at the moment.

Very Little Pro-Active Work on Computers

Again you are correct to state this. We have been unable to carry out anything like the housekeeping work on computers in schools over the last three years that we would like. Our main opportunity for carrying out housekeeping is during the summer holidays. The three main reasons for us not doing as much as we would like have been the impact of PPP work in the secondary schools, the need to replace leased equipment and the lack of access to Primary schools.

The Inability to Load Software For Evaluation Purposes

There are a number of reasons for this. These are a) one of the methods we use to minimise the amount of support required is to maintain a set of standards to ensure availability is maximised. This both prevents inadvertent mis-configuration and ensures that when a fault occurs the machine is in as standard a setup as possible for our support staff. b) The Council has a statutory obligation to ensure that it is compliant with the software licences for the software it uses. How often can you truthfully say that you are aware of the terms and conditions of any particular piece of software you use? For example does it allow its installation for "evaluation" purposes? IT have this responsibility for the Council. The experience we gained before we secured PCs and Macs was that teaching staff were at best lax in their attitude to installing software. c) Virus control, the risk of introducing a virus to the schools is huge, especially when staff install "evaluation" versions of software that have not been obtained from bone fide suppliers, ie. from their mate who uses it in their school or from the cover of magazines etc.

LTS Masterclass Computers

Your LTS Masterclass computer can be connected to the school network. All we insist upon is that it is rebuilt to our standards in order for it to be configured to work on the school network.

Caching Engines

I presume you are referring to the Content Delivery Engine that was provided by the Scottish Executive. The project to roll them out had fixed timescales and had we not taken them when we did, before we were ready for them, we would have lost out. Jim Elder subsequently attended the training in how to use them to preposition content into schools and decided that the software on the boxes was not user friendly and training would not be provided to the schools in its use. We will however be setting the boxes up to be used as cache engines and this work has already commenced. However it requires a visit to every Apple Mac computer to amend its configuration and work priorities have so far meant this hasn't happened very quickly.

OS10 machines with Incorrect Builds

There were problems with the initial OS10 builds which had to be redone. This was in part a problem with ourselves in that we didn't fully understand the Mac OS, partly with Education/IT's testing procedures and partly because we attempted to get them out too quickly to coincide with the new machines being provided by the TIC project. We think we have learned from these mistakes and have rectified our QA in conjunction with Education and can report that the latest builds are currently being tested in Gullane and East Linton Primary schools before roll out in the new year.

File Server Issues

The main priority at the time for servers in Primary schools was to enable printers to be shared and for staff and pupils to save their work in a central place to get round the problem of work being saved on individual iBooks and laptops which would then always have to be used by the same person. You are correct to state that there was a delay in the time taken between IT installing the equipment and Education staff providing the training to enable you to use it. This was a source of frustration to ourselves as well. Some schools requirements have now changed and we are happy to talk to schools about how they can meet them.

Machines Away for Repair For Up to 5 Weeks

Unfortunately the use of laptops and iBooks, whilst offering great benefits in terms of flexibility in the school environment, has a price. This price is that a) they are more expensive to purchase, b) they are less robust and more prone to faults than desktop computers, c) they are more difficult and expensive to repair. The warranty arrangements are such that they have to be returned to base for repair. Even if the school was willing to pay for an engineer to attend the school to fix them, the vast number of faults would still require the machine to be sent back to base.

I hope I've addressed your concerns, if not in providing a solution, at least by explaining why things are as they are. If you wish to discuss any of these points further please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Alan Cruikshank

I believe that I now have a better understanding of the isues we face in the future and I can only have sympathy with the problems Alan and the team are facing trying to meet the needs of schools especially if SSDN http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/ssdn/ becomes a reality.

a reality.