Educational Technology

District Model FAQ

Just what is the District Model I keep hearing about?

Single Sign On"

All students and staff within a school site have an account and password that will take them to their documents and settings from any computer.   This is the result of the school being connected to one of two centralized Directory Services, either Active Directory or Open Directory.   These directory services are updated with student and staff information on a regular basis, and an account follows a student or staff person in the district.

Active Directory is being used at High Schools, and is the same system that contains all employee email accounts.   Schools who have a need to manage Windows computers will benefit from Active Directory, but it requires more site-based technical knowledge for management.   Open Directory is being used at Elementary and Middle schools and is best suited for primarily Macintosh environments.

Centralized Data Storage

All document data at a given site is presumed to be stored on a central file server.   Each person, including staff and students in a building has a "home directory" on the file server, to which only they and a site administrator have access.   This allows for a user to move from computer to computer, of either operating system (for Active Directory schools), and access their documents by logging in.

Client Management

All computers within the district model are capable of being managed with the server tools available for both platforms.   Currently IT is only supporting dual platform client management at High Schools through Active Directory.   All other schools are utilizing Open Directory.

For students this may be quite restrictive, allowing them to only run certain applications, have access to only certain network resources (i.e. printers), and to use only certain computers.   For staff this may involve different degrees of access to the local computer, varying by site.   The level of restriction, customization, and management is set up by each building site administrator.

Support Framework

Last updated: Friday, August 24, 2007 1:55 PM