The Cambridgeshire Education Portal 2013

Information is like water We have so much of it that we don't value it - until it's cut off or becomes polluted. It flows everywhere throughout our lives. It's hard to confine and control. Directing it and using it to power and empower our lives requires a lot of work. But it's worth it.

Information is like water To make use of it we do need to channel it along the most efficient route.

Dont let it swamp you!

No more folders Once, we organised information into folders and filing cabinets. Now, digital information requires different systems because … – there's more of it – it easily multiplies – shared and repurposed it can spread out of control ….

Key Principles There should only be one, definitive, version of a document. All information needs meta tags – information about information

Tagging Tagging links information to preferred audience. People, places and resources have tags LA Services need to tag resources, The School audience needs to tag itself The Portal Team tags the schools Good tags mean searching is more effective, Services match resources to audience … … so the schools audience gets what it wants - and what we know it wants to see.

How it works in practice - 1 The Portal Team provide the Portal structure and the topics list, plus meta data about every school – what type it is and where it is.

How it works in practice - 2 Each LA Service provides information, files and resources. They publish these and add tags to them showing the topics covered by the content, how important it is and the likely audience (roles and schools).

How it works in practice - 3 Schools administrators match staff names to roles and give accounts to all staff Staff also add information about their roles and interests. Now the system can go to work, matching content to audience, showing you what is useful for you.

Searching The search engine looks through content and tags, then shows the results in a window. That window can be set to search [eg show everything published by the PSHE Service] or set up by the user [eg show me curriculum materials for PE in primary schools] Windows can be placed on the web pages and results will be automatically updated

Why a window instead of a list? Because the contents of the window are dynamic - updated as the resources are updated. No more lists for you to update manually. A user can save the search on an LA Services page or on their My Site page to show the results that they want to see.

Where is the wonderful new Portal? It's at Now! Developments and uploading of content will continue throughout the spring

And Finally … The old Portal is no longer in use. School administrators are now responsible for school accounts Please use the Portal as an information hub. If there is material you think should be there but is not please contact the ICT Helpline: