thoughts for response to RFIimages.epals.com/marketing/Email_Response_470_SLv2.pdf · 2012-10-13 · This proposal responds to your eRate 470 Request for Proposal (RFP) for Email

Response to eRate 470 Application

for

Email Services

Submitted by:

Bryan Scanlon, VP Sales

ePals, Inc.

13625 Dulles Technology Drive

Herndon, VA 20171

(703) 885‐3444

[email protected].

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Confidential Information

© 2009 ePals, Inc. All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Qualifications of the Company ...................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Executive Overview ................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Relevant Experience ................................................................................................................. 7

2 Qualifications of Committed Personnel....................................................................................... 9

12

16

3 References.........................................................................................................................................

4 Implementation Plan......................................................................................................................

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1 QUALIFICATIONS OF THE COMPANY

1.1 Executive Overview

This proposal responds to your eRate 470 Request for Proposal (RFP) for Email Services.

ePals is superbly qualified to provide the District with a standalone email service or a

comprehensive, integrated Web (2.0) educational collaboration environment and email service.

ePals has been providing solutions for school‐based communications for more than 10 years.

Our services are based on thousands of successful school deployments in the United States and

abroad.

The ePals LearningSpaceTM web communications solution, which incorporates our award‐

winning SchoolM@il product and is built on our unique Distributed Learning Platform, is a

leading educational collaboration environment.

ePals LearningSpace provides access to the ePals Global Community™ (www.epals.com),

the largest online community of K‐12 learners in the world, enabling 600,000 educators and

millions of students across 200 countries and territories to safely connect, exchange ideas, and

work together.

Customers of our products and services in the United States include NYCDOE,

International Baccalaureate, the States of Kansas, Wisconsin and Maine, IBM, and over 1000

school districts and 4500 schools.

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http://www.epals.com/

ePals SchoolM@ilTM

SchoolM@il is the recognized leader in school‐safe email for students in grades K‐12.

SchoolM@il provides easy‐to‐use multilingual electronic communications solutions to schools

and districts worldwide in a protected, customized, and collaborative environment. Our award‐

winning SchoolM@il product is widely used and trusted by schools around the world. ePals

SchoolM@il is the only school / student web‐based email system and collaborative community

that is TRUSTe certified.

SchoolM@il was not adapted from email for general Internet users. It was architected and

built for the unique environment which are school‐based communities that involve children

and other stakeholders (administrators, educators, parents, etc.), and multiple locations and

applicable policies. Our SchoolM@il product serves entire school‐based communities, including

parents. Customers and users consistently tell us that the embedded instant language

translation and other capabilities embedded into our email solution (and community) support

parent/educator communication in a compelling manner. Closely aligned content and

collaborative learning opportunities offered within the ePals Global Community support mail

as a medium for educational interaction as opposed to merely communication. Perhaps most

important, policy management based on information such as relationship (e.g., student – school;

parent–student specific school) in addition to other factors such as safety and the configurability

of policies sets ePals apart from other providers.

SchoolM@il has been deployed widely, including:

KanEd Portal (550,000 users)

Queens, Brooklyn North, Staten Island/South Brooklyn, NY (45,000 users)

Newark Public Schools, NJ (45,000 users)

SchoolM@il is a web‐based, safe and secure, K‐12 student email system. All mail and

attachments are kept in the hosting environment, so movement of data through the District

network is minimized.

SchoolM@il features include those standard to email, such as customizable folders and tools

to read, compose, reply, forward, and edit messages. In addition, ePals’ SchoolM@il includes a

number of very distinctive features:

Access control specific to user roles, including student, educator, school administrator,

or parent, along with district‐wide, policy‐managed email capabilities specific to the

roles.

Teacher‐monitored student email accounts to prevent instances of cyber bullying, SPAM

and inappropriate content exchange.

Compliance with Childrenʹs Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the Children’s

Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and TRUSTe Certification.

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Instant language translation in 35 languages to facilitate communication between the

parents, students and educators.

An innovative architecture that enables integration with large‐scale email providers and

best‐of‐breed technologies.

ePals LearningSpace

ePals LearningSpace enhances and extends email into an online learning community for

creating, sharing, managing and collaborating on educational content in a safe, secure and

controlled environment. LearningSpace features district and school‐based websites (virtual

workspaces) that provide access to content via the web both internally through the local

network and externally through the Internet. Built on the ePals Distributed Learning Platform,

the service uses best‐of‐breed technology that has been enhanced for K‐12 organizational,

safety, compliance, and instructional needs. ePals LearningSpace adheres to state‐of‐the‐art

Web 2.0 standards and practices, which include common Internet content access methods: web

pages, groups, wikis, blogs, discussion forums, media galleries, and profiles. Importantly, it has

been designed by ePals from the bottom up to support the needs of administrators, educators,

students and parents.

Sample ePals LearningSpace Homepage

ePals LearningSpace incorporates several key features:

Safe and Secure: ePals has been a leader in providing secure and protected web

communications tools to school districts since 1999. ePals LearningSpace incorporates

ePals’ industry leading monitoring and filtering tools and technologies to ensure that

students connect across the community in a safe and secure manner.

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Policy and Group Management: ePals LearningSpace is unique in offering a

hierarchical structure that allows administrators and/or their delegates to create and

manage an n‐level hierarchy of groups, from single classrooms to district‐wide. Policies

can be set for entire districts or allow customization at school or classroom levels.

•Unique “Group Creation” and “Discover” Features: Only LearningSpace offers the

ability to create nested groups within groups that allow two teachers, for example, to

create a one‐step project‐based group. The LearningSpace “discover” feature allows

controls for which user can discover whom.

Wide Range of Web 2.0 Tools: LearningSpace features a robust suite of social media

tools, including email, blogs, groups, forums, content tagging, wikis, media galleries,

and RSS feeds.

Integrated Access to the ePals Global Community: Integrates access to millions of K‐12

educators and students already utilizing ePals technology to communicate and

collaborate across the globe.

Instant Translation: ePals’ SchoolM@il service supports instant translation capabilities

for 35 languages.

Open Architecture: ePals LearningSpace is built on ePals’ open distributed learning

platform architecture that allows easy re‐use of core functionality, integration of legacy

systems, and the incorporation of applications written by third parties.

Embedded Pedagogy: Designed in close consultation with leading researchers &

practitioners (www.epalscorp.com/about/advisory.html), ePals products are evidence‐

based, collecting data which can be used for assessment purposes.

Integration with SchoolM@il: Access to ePals’ award‐winning email product is

provided.

ePals LearningSpace Information Architecture

In contrast to widely used “flat” Internet communication services (such as Ning, Facebook,

and many in the education space) that were built for individuals and are inherently “non‐

hierarchical”, ePals LearningSpace was created specifically for groups and organizations in K‐12

education. Our architecture supports e‐mail and web‐based communications within an

organizational structure that are explicitly configured for districts, administrators, schools,

teachers, students, and parents. Our organization‐based architecture enable unique features

such as district‐wide deployment of policies, delegation of implementation, administration and

management to the school level, monitoring of student mail, and school based policy

management by non‐IT personnel.

ePals LearningSpace architecture applies school‐based constructs to the organization of

people, content and processes. There is an n‐level hierarchical relationship between entities that

can be used to represent a state, district, school, classroom, etc. Each entity is a full group within

the network with all of the rights and capabilities that typically apply. A teacher’s classroom is a

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http://www.epalscorp.com/about/advisory.html

group and his or her students are members. A project or course can be a group that has

members, its own forum, blog, profile, and gallery as well. An individual may belong to many

groups and their role and permissions may change from group to group.

Sample Classroom Group

ePals LearningSpace establishes a district‐wide hosted communications framework under

which all school‐based workspaces operate; a feature essential for maximizing the value of an

email and collaboration platform. We believe that allowing each school to operate its own

workspace does not mean that the workspaces must operate in a chaotic “standalone” manner,

losing all the benefits of data sharing, flexibility and coordination. Without a framework, it

becomes very difficult to execute any function or operating procedure that runs across school

workspaces, including account management, maintenance of district‐wide access control

policies, content search across schools, interschool web‐based communications, reporting that

aggregates above the school level, applying a site‐level system upgrade, and so on

In addition, such an approach lowers operating costs as tasks (such as student account

ingestion) are made less complex and more automated and, very importantly, simultaneously

gains the benefit of learning “cross fertilization” with other schools and classrooms in the city,

etc.

Reporting critical usage data and allowing administrator views into activity across the

system is a critical advantage of the LearningSpace architecture

ePals LearningSpace and the underlying Distributed Learning Platform are built with this in

mind. This allows for a very flexible structure for districts and schools, designing and

organizing in a horizontal or vertical manner, allowing for sharing and learning across

classrooms, grades, and even schools, while maintaining a structure that can be viewed and

assessed at the district level.

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Each school may have its own ePals LearningSpace Community, with its own groups, look

and feel, policies and so on. Members of that school environment may or may not be able to

participate in the district wide community, depending on roles and rules set at the district set

up and framework.

ePals LearningSpace Features

Each LearningSpace Community has a number of best‐of breed features integrated into one

package:

Wikis

Blogs

Forums

Media Galleries

Robust User Profiles

Messaging & Social Streams

Detailed Community Reporting & Analysis

Widgets

Integrated Ratings & Comments

Discoverability of Content (RSS, Tags)

Ease of Content Creation

Extensibility with Web Services

Localization of Content

Rich Security & Permissions Model

Reporting

ePals LearningSpace uses a suite of tools for tracking and reporting on user and community

behavior, including:

Harvest reporting

Google analytics

Database and storage analytics

ePals is pleased to offer ePals LearningSpace with integrated SchoolM@il as a solution that

meets, and in many instances exceeds, the requirements for a comprehensive, integrated Web

(2.0) educational collaboration environment and email service.

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1.2 Relevant Experience

Founded in 1996, ePals offers K‐12 students and teachers around the world a safe

environment for building and exchanging knowledge. ePals currently serves more than 600,000

classrooms in 200 territories around the world.

ePals has extensive experience deploying web‐based communications sites for K‐12 schools.

This includes ePals award‐winning SchoolBlogTM and SchoolM@ilTM services. SchoolBlog

currently operates approximately 8,000 school‐based hosted websites, while SchoolM@il

provides over 2 million safe and secure, policy‐managed e‐mail accounts in school settings.

Additionally, ePals has deployed a number of state‐wide and/or district‐wide implementations;

New York City Department of Education: In partnership with NYC DOE’s South

Brooklyn/Staten Island Borough (SBSI), ePals has developed an ePortfolio workspace for

the purpose of enabling collaboration and display of student.

Wisconsin Connects and Maine Connects: ePals created portals for state‐wide adoptions

of ePals SchoolM@il and the ePals Global Community in Wisconsin

(www.wisconsinconnects.net) and Maine (www.maineconnects.net).

KanEd Portal: ePals developed a custom portal for K‐12 schools in Kansas that provides direct access for over 550,000 users to ePals collaborative learning tools and the ePals

Global Community.

ePals also has direct experience related to large‐scale hosted communities, school‐based

websites, and school‐appropriate e‐mail. These communities are operational at scale, and they

leverage the same ePals services/platform that supports the LearningSpace hosted web

communication solution;

The ePals Global Community (http://www.epals.com): The ePals Global Community is

the Internet’s largest and fastest‐growing connected K‐12 classroom community reaching

millions of educators and students in 200 countries and territories. The ePals Global

Community leverages the ePals Distributed Learning Platform to deliver Web 2.0

collaboration technologies that enable 21st century learning experiences. This

community allows teachers to create profiles and connect with other classrooms around

the globe to participate in structured project based learning module, create cross cultural

exchange and reinforce literacy and foreign language skills.

IBM MentorPlace (http://mentorplace.epals.com/): MentorPlace is IBM’s corporate

volunteer program that brings adult professionals and students together in online

relationships focused on academics. Employee‐volunteers are charged with providing

students with academic assistance and career counseling, while letting them know that

adults do care about their issues and concerns. ePals and IBM jointly developed a custom

online community on top of ePals DLP that serves as the foundation of the program.

MentorPlace has over 10,000 participants on over 35 countries.

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http://www.wisconsinconnects.net/

http://www.maineconnects.net/

http://www.epals.com/

http://mentorplace.epals.com/

International Baccalaureate (IB): ePals partnered with the IB to create the International

Baccalaureate Virtual Community (IBVC). The IBVC is a core component of the IB’s new

digital strategy intended to facilitate collaborative learning amongst the IB’s over seven

hundred thousand students and hundreds of thousands of teachers, administrators,

parents, and alumni in over 130 countries. The IBVC contains a full suite of social

networking functionality (profiles, matching/search, blogs, forums, wikis, etc.) as well as

IB‐created projects and curriculum.

In2Books (http://www.in2books.com): ePals flagship literacy program is a curriculum‐

based eMentoring program that is built on top of the DLP. In2Books matches students

with pre‐screened adult mentors to reinforce literacy skills and create authentic learning

experiences.

Administrators and teachers have praised our solutions highly:

“I have discovered ePals to be an excellent tool for educators to use for email

communication and global collaboration. There are currently over 300 schools in Queens

and ePals has been most supportive and responsive to schools that have embraced this

21st century tool. I look forward to our continued collaboration.” Winnie Bracco,

Borough Instructional Technology Director –Queens, NY

“North East ISD has been a customer of ePals SchoolM@il for the past 3 years. Our

school district has approximately 63,000 students who have access to the ePals

community. I am pleased to recommend ePals as a resource for other schools districts…

Jim Baldoni, Special Projects Coordinator, North East ISD‐ TX

“I am pleased to write this letter describing our satisfaction with ePals as a collaborator

for the International Baccalaureate (IB) and its establishment of a virtual community for

its over 2,000,000 stakeholders around the world. The technical and program people

working with the company have reported to me a very high level of satisfaction in their

working relationships, the responsiveness of ePals, and the technical and programmatic

skill of the ePals staff.” Andrea Lucard, Director of Development, International

Baccalaureate

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http://www.in2books.com/

2 QUALIFICATIONS OF COMMITTED PERSONNEL

ePals, Inc is a team of over 40 highly skilled and experienced professionals dedicated to

helping students become lifelong learners and educators to seamlessly provide support for 21st

century skills. We provide tools and services to schools and school districts, teachers, parents,

and mentors that enable ambitious learning globally.

Our management and core team have extensive experience building digital businesses and

very large, scalable systems for delivering communication and collaboration capabilities to

hundreds of millions of users on a monthly basis. This includes multiple years experience in

delivering and scaling solutions for companies such as AOL, NaviSoft, InterTrust, SRA

International, Revolution LLC, and Cybertrust.

The following are the key personnel who would lead the teams responsible for

implementing this RFP and interface with the District’s staff.

Edmund Fish, President: Prior to joining ePals in 2007, Ed was Senior Vice President and

General Manager of Premium and Subscription Services at AOL, responsible for creating,

building businesses for, and launching more than a dozen subscription and free consumer

products serving nearly 100 million users on a monthly basis, including online education

products for students and parents. He also served as the Senior Vice President and General

Manager for AOL Desktop Messaging, with responsibility for AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)

and ICQ. Previously, Mr. Fish was Director and a President of InterTrust Technologies Corp.,

the leading digital rights management firm. With the founder, he took InterTrust from start‐up

phase to a market‐leading NASDAQ traded company, forging relationships with, among

others, Bertelsmann, Universal Music, Mitsubishi, and NatWest Bank.

Linda Dozier, Chief Technical Officer: Linda has over 20 years of experience in operations

management, systems integration, technology development, and building early‐stage

businesses. At ePals and In2Books since 2002, Ms. Dozier has had responsibility for both

operations and product. She has led the development and implementation of all ePals

technology. Previously, Ms. Dozier was Co‐Founder, COO and Product Architect for Navisoft,

the first Web server and Web authoring system, which AOL acquired in 1995. At AOL, she was

a senior executive responsible for the AOL Internet Services technology platform. Subsequent to

the integration of Navisoftʹs technologies into AOLʹs core service, she focused on evaluation of

technology as Vice President of Corporate Development. Prior to her work with Navisoft and

AOL, Ms Dozier led the design, development, and release of dozens of software applications at

TRW, Inc., as principal investigator for research and development, senior member of the

technical staff and project manager. She also served as Director of the Advanced Systems

division at SRA International.

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Victoria McEachern, Vice President, Customer Management & Fulfillment: Victoria has over

20 years experience and achievements in senior and executive management positions with

international technology services companies. As Vice President, Customer Management &

Fulfillment at ePals, Inc., Ms. McEachern leads the team in all aspects of customer management

including pre‐fulfillment presentations, account set up and activations, professional

development and training initiatives, tradeshow marketing and product awareness efforts. A

key player in the organization bridging departments including support, development, product

management and marketing for complete customer satisfaction, Ms McEachern has been with

ePals, Inc. since 2002. Prior to joining ePals, she worked at Metastorm, Inc., a leading provider

of business process management software, where as Director of Operations she was responsible

for the day‐to‐day management of the Canadian subsidiary.

Cris Carlin, Vice President of Business Operations: Cris has over 15 years of professional

experience in technology, project management, operations management, billing and

ecommerce, customer support management, systems integration, and networking. At ePals Mr.

Carlin has day to day responsibility for business operations which include Reporting, Quality

Assurance, Content Publishing, ecommerce and fulfillment operations as well as In2Books

Program Operations and Participant Support. Cris also served as Director of Business

Operation where he launched ePals ecommerce and fulfillment platform. Prior to joining ePals

and In2Books in 2006 , Cris was Senior Manager of Product and Billing Infrastructure for

Premium and Subscription Services at AOL, Business owner for the billing platform that served

as the foundation for the launch of a dozen premium security and educational based products

serving and billing nearly 100 million users. Before joining AOL Cris served in various project

and technology management roles at Network Solutions, Inc., a Verisign Company and InfoSys

Networks, Inc.

Shawn Traylor, Vice President, Product: Shawn is a veteran product management

professional with over 7 years’ experience delivering high impact Web and desktop consumer

software and consumer goods and services across multiple verticals from education to health

care. At ePals, he is responsible for product definition, design and delivery. Prior to joining

ePals in 2008, Shawn led the business‐to‐business product team at Revolution Health where he

launched a full product suite into the employer market, including a co‐branded Web 2.0 health

portal, a best‐in‐class health incentives program, and a telephonic service designed to help

employees navigate their employer‐sponsored benefits. Immediately before joining Revolution

Health, Shawn was product manager for the next‐generation desktop client software suite at

AOL. Shawn earned his BA in East Asian studies from The Elliot School of International Affairs

at The George Washington University and his MBA from the Kogod School of Business at

American University. Shawn speaks excellent Mandarin Chinese and is conversational in

Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Thai.

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Chris Lehnert, Vice President, Technology: Chris has been key in architecting and

implementing the ePals Platform. This has included deploying In2Books, IBM Mentor Place,

and the International Baccalaureate all running with unique user experiences yet all connected

through the ePals Platform. Prior to joining ePals, Chris co‐founded SportsFan.com LLC, an

internet startup focused on delivering news on high school sports including articles, photos and

video. He was the primary architect in creating multiple front‐ends including

DCSportsFan.com, HighSchoolSportsFan.com, and TheSportsFanNetwork.com all connected to

a single platform to showcase content created and uploaded my many end users. Chris also

spent 4 years in education assisting and teaching computers while pursuing his Masters in

Education.

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3 REFERENCES

Letter of Reference #1

I have discovered ePals to be an excellent tool for educators to use for email communication and global collaboration. ePals provides a safe environment for students to email, blog and learn about cultures within their state or as far as China. The ePals team have been most supportive and accommodating in providing quality hands-on professional development to technology liaisons and coordinators in Queens and provided participants with email admin accounts for their schools. There are currently over 300 schools in Queens and ePals has been most supportive and responsive to schools that have embraced this 21st century tool. I look forward to our continued collaboration.

Winnie Bracco

Borough Instructional Technology Director-Queens Division of Accountability and Achievement Resources New York City Department of Education 82-01 Rockaway Blvd, Queens, NY 11416 Voice: 718-642-5893 Cell: 917-873-3033 [email protected]

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mailto:[email protected]


I have actively participated in ePals for seven years. I have used SchoolM@il and SchoolBlog, and in the ePals global community with my high school Human Psychology/Sociology and English Language Arts students. My students have also participated in the ePals Student Forums, where they have posted both questions and answers.

Over the years when I have needed assistance with the ePals program the staff has been very supportive in a timely manner. Sometimes their service is exceptional. Recently I made a mistake with my SchoolBlog website, and emailed the ePal technology service department for help. I was very grateful to receive help immediately and I was able to continue my work. I really didn't expect anyone to answer my email that quickly since I was working on a Friday night, at 11:00 p.m., my time in California. The ePals Technology Director, however, was up and willing to help at that time. Later I realized his location was the East coast, and he was three hours ahead of my time. He finished helping me 2:10 a.m., his time. What dedication!

My students benefit from using ePals because it makes learning fun. Students enjoy the social connection with other students as they discuss literature and culture. This also brings out my quiet students who would normally not be involved in class discussion. They learn so much about the world because they begin caring about their epals and pay attention to world events. When my students connected to China, last year, they were glued to the news about the earthquake hoping their epals weren't hurt. They were also interested in all the preparation for the Olympics. World news became personal news.

Please visit my International Literature SchoolBlog my English students are involved in as they discuss literature with international peers: http://sites.epals.com/pauchnickc/

Please visit my ePals SchoolBlog my students have been involved with as they exchange messages with their Chinese peers: http://sites.epals.com/cpauchnick/

After I presented at the BLC Conference in Boston I was interviewed about how epals has helped my students. Here is the link to that interview: http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=025fba2d2e080cb2c25a

This link give the transcript of what I said at the Future in Review Conference about how I see the future using epals. http://www.tapsns.com/media/fire2006/transcripts/HOTSPOTSI-TimDiScipio.pdf

The ePALS program has helped me be a better teacher and certainly has opened my classroom to the world, enriching my students in ways that are critical for their future as they move on to college and career opportunities.

Candace Pauchnick English / Human Psy./Soc. Teacher Patrick Henry High School 6702 Wandermere Drive San Diego, CA 92120 Phone: (619) 286-7700, ext: 4419 e-mail: [email protected]

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http://sites.epals.com/pauchnickc/

http://sites.epals.com/cpauchnick/

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=025fba2d2e080cb2c25a

http://www.tapsns.com/media/fire2006/transcripts/HOTSPOTSI-TimDiScipio.pdf



I am pleased to write this letter describing our satisfaction with ePals as a collaborator for the International Baccalaureate (IB) and its establishment of a virtual community for its over two million stakeholders around the world.

The IB is a non-for-profit Swiss foundation, whose mission is to create a better world through education. Founded in 1968, the IB provides curriculum, teacher professional development, school authorization and assessment to over 2000 schools serving children aged 3-18 in 128 countries. Currently, over 650,000 students are enrolled in IB schools.

As an international organization, the IB is seeking, through its virtual community, to connect our many students, educators, parents, alumni and friends in a safe, educationally-focused virtual environment. In so doing, we need a private, customizable space that can be controlled by the IB and its educators. Further, as a cutting edge educational organization, the IB also needs significant functionality of such things as wikis, file sharing and classroom connections.

In our search for a provider for our community, the IB looked a number of different possible providers over the space of several months. We talked to both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Ultimately, our decision to collaborate with ePals rested on several critical factors that were evaluated by professionals across our organization. These factors included:

Platform functionality: ePals has several sophisticated and customizable features that were immediately available to the IB. Our information technology directors were particularly interested in the modular structure of ePals.

Customizable interface: ePals is able to offer a white label platform customized to meet IBs needs.

Safety: ePals has expertise in working with children under the age of 18 and is able to offer a safe space for young people, as well as experience that they have been willing to share with IB

Language: ePals is able to offer many language interfaces, critical to the many languages spoken and used in IB classrooms

Educational orientation: a platform developed specifically for students, teachers and classrooms means that IB does not have to reinvent the wheel for pedagogical purposes

IB has been working with ePals for its beta launch of the platform on a tight timescale. They have delivered on time for all major deliverables. The technical and program people working with the company have reported to me a very high level of satisfaction in their working relationships, the responsiveness of ePals, and the technical and programmatic skill of the ePals staff.

Further, we have found that the vision of ePals to connect educational projects and programs around the world is likely to lead to opportunities with other organizations that we had not previously envisioned. Although only in the early phases of our implementation, we are highly satisfied with all aspects of our collaboration.

If it would be useful for you to have further information or a phone conversation with either the program or technical people associated with this project, we would be most willing to do so.

Andrea Lucard

Director of Development International Baccalaureate 15 Route des Morillons Geneva, Switzerland 1218 [email protected] +41 22 791 7753

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Robin G. Willner

IBM Vice President, Global Community Initiatives New Orchard Road Armonk, NY 10504 (914) 499-5619 [email protected]

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4 IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

Implementation Approach

ePals has extensive experience with state‐wide, district, school and classroom account

management, and we understand that interfaces and procedures vary at different levels of the

organizational hierarchy. We propose an assisted batch account provisioning for initial school‐

based deployments. Schools will provide account data to ePals, and ePals will use our batch

account creation tool to provision the accounts. Each user will be provided one username and

password to access both ePals LearningSpace and SchoolM@il exposing tools and content based

on role or policy.

Initial definition of rights (i.e., authorization) of all users to access system

functionality. ePals requires that the role of each user in the system be defined. Roles

affect the user’s experience and access levels. Working with the customer, ePals will

provide support to develop the foundation of the setup, beginning with identifying

administrators and sub‐administrators who will have access rights needed to manage

and maintain ScholM@il and ePals LearningSpace services. The initial definition of

rights includes set up of SchoolM@il monitoring and filtering as determined by the

school.

Initial configuration of system for school use. The initial set up of ePals organization‐

based services starts with configuration of ePals SchoolM@il, and ePals LearningSpaces

with a framework that reflects the customer’s hierarchy (district – administrator – sub‐

administrator – school – teacher –student, etc.). The initial configuration of each school

will be set up before accounts are provisioned and rights are set.

Initial training and support for school‐designated system administrators. ePals will

provide a single point of contact for each school to facilitate all communications to and

from the customer. ePals will provide Tier 1 (direct) support for administrators, which

includes 365x24x7 online and email support. ePals uses a ticket tracking system to

maintain a history of all maintenance and support issues and resolutions, facilitate

prompt responses, and distribute tasks to appropriate departments for resolution. ePals

will provide administrator training needed for initial set up and account activation as

well as ongoing maintenance of basic functions. ePals offers both online and on‐site

administrator training. ePals will provide access to online training materials through a

password‐protected website.

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Training Proposal

Initial training and support for school‐designated system administrators. ePals will

provide administrator training needed for initial set up and account activation as well as

ongoing maintenance of basic functions. ePals offers both online and on‐site administrator

training. ePals will provide access to online training materials through a password‐protected

website.

Training for ePals SchoolM@il. ePals will provide SchoolM@il Administrator Training for

district technology coordinators, school technology liaisons or any other person on staff who

will be tasked with implementing SchoolM@il. This training provides in‐depth instruction on

the functions needed to implement, manage and maintain SchoolM@il. Administrators will be

trained on the management and use of SchoolM@il, including but not limited to the following

topics:

SchoolM@il functions

Set up process for school / district schools, sub‐administrators, teachers and students

Management of accounts and system including access settings

Management of file storage

Overview of how teachers use SchoolM@il and the ePals Global Community

How to engage teachers using community and communication tools

Training for ePals LearningSpace (including collaboration tools). ePals will provide

LearningSpace Administrator Training to school and district technology administrators to:

Implement, maintain and modify their web‐based communications site

Add, delete and maintain users, defining roles and access controls

Create, modify, and delete groups and overall site content

Manage file storage

Community functionality used to generate, acquire and access website content

Service Customer Support Desk

ePals Approach to Customer Support

ePals has extensive experience implementing and supporting district‐wide email and

technology solutions. ePals currently supports account services (websites, email, blogs,

etc.) for educators and students representing over 850 districts and 3,500 schools, and

Global Community accounts for millions more.

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Documentation Requirements

ePals will provide documentation at the time of installation and configuration of

SchoolM@il and LearningSpace that is required to set up the services and ensure that

users can access to the services on an on‐going basis. Documentation will be accessible

online and will be offered in a manner that makes it convenient to print a hard copy.

“How To” documentation will be maintained and updated to reflect changes as the

result of upgrades, etc.

Documents

thoughts for response to RFIimages.epals.com/marketing/Email_Response_470_SLv2.pdf · 2012-10-13 · This proposal responds to your eRate 470 Request for Proposal (RFP) for Email