ubuntu-ngo team mailing list archive

[Tom Hoffman <tom.hoffman@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ubuntu-NGO-ers,

Below is my first pass at a grant opportunity we're putting together
for governments, NGO's, etc. interested in piloting and deploying
SchoolTool as an open source system for school administration.  Some
of you may be interested in this directly, but also, I suspect this is
a good group to give me feedback on the design of the grant RFP and
process itself.

Let me know what you think!

Tom Hoffman
SchoolTool Project Manager

Background
==========

What is SchoolTool?
-------------------

SchoolTool is a project to create free and administrative software for
schools around the world, particularly in the developing countries.
SchoolTool was conceived by South African entrepreneur Mark
Shuttleworth, who remains the primary funder of the project.  Much
more information about SchoolTool is available at
http://schooltool.org

SchoolTool is also a testbed for using free and open source software
as a vehicle for philanthropy which empowers it users and leverages
the combined investments of donors, local government and businesses,
open source hackers, and NGO's.

SchoolTool was originally a project of the Shuttleworth Foundation but
is now independently managed with a separate budget.

Current Situation
-----------------

SchoolTool 1.0 was released in April of 2009, as a school-level
student information system.  That is, each instance of SchoolTool
tracks the school and class enrolment, attendance, grading, various
report generation and calendaring for one school.  See schooltool.org
for a much more detailed description of SchoolTool's current
functionality.

As of January 2010, the primary deployments of SchoolTool have been in
the US, the largest being an installation of SchoolTool and a
competency tracking module called CanDo in several career and
technical centers supported by the state of Virginia.

This work has established a solid base for SchoolTool's next phase --
deployments in the developing world.

While SchoolTool has no costs associated with licensing, school
administration is a complicated task, and even mature systems often
require substantial customization, particularly if being adapted to
the requirements of a new country or school design.  At this stage in
SchoolTool's development, any substantial deployment in a new context
will require some up front costs to ensure SchoolTool meets local
requirements.

SchoolTool Development Grants
=============================

Goal of the Grant Program
-------------------------

The purpose of this grant program is to provide in-kind developer
support to defray the cost of additional development necessary to
deploy SchoolTool in target markets.

What are the target markets?
----------------------------

Anyplace outside the US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan and Australia.

Grant Value
-----------

Up to EUR 50,000 for the 2010 calendar year, probably divided between
two sites, but the number of sites may vary depending on the scope of
accepted proposals.

The majority of the award will be in the form of in-kind development
by experienced SchoolTool contractors.  We currently have three full
time developers working on SchoolTool.  From May 2010 through the end
of the year, the project's top priority will be supporting the grant
sites.

Grant proposals can include funds to be used locally to support
requirements gathering, testing, feedback and focus groups with local
teachers, administrators, parents, students and other stakeholders.
Also some funds can be allocated for training local developers to
create and maintain further work and maintenance to SchoolTool.

Additionally, SchoolTool will fund an independent review of both the
development and deployment at each grant site.

Scope of "Development"
----------------------

With a few exceptions noted below applicants may propose any type of
additions or modifications to SchoolTool's programming to make it
suitable for local use.  One of the reasons for this grant program is
to get a clear idea of what actual users require, so we don't want to
pre-emptively limit the scope.  Typically, however, this would include
import and export scripts to work with existing data systems, reports,
both printed and electronics and routines for delivering them to
higher authorities, and custom data fields for local requirements.

In particular, we expect governments to require more data tracking
about the school as a whole, for example, more detailed tracking of
information about a school's physical plant, and perhaps more detailed
information about staff such as level of training, years of
experience, etc.  But again, we would rather have potential users tell
us their specific requirements than try to guess.

What this Grant Does NOT Cover
------------------------------

This program is for software development and some closely related
expenses.  It is not for hardware, translation, user training, or the
ongoing cost of deployment.  These are the responsibility of the grant
recipient.

The purpose of the grant is to defray startup and customization costs.
 Once that is done the site will handle ongoing costs and requirements
in the same way they would any other deployment of open source
software.

Three Facets of a Proposal
--------------------------

There are three facets of an proposal for this grant:

 - scope of user sites;
 - scope of functionality;
 - breadth and depth of support.

Proposals will be evaluated on a holistic rubric that emphasizes a
balance between the scope of sites and functionality, and support
resources.  Bigger is not better if the necessary supports are not in
place.  A smaller, successful deployment that can serve as the
foundation for further growth is more desirable than a big deployment
with mixed results.

Scope of Sites
++++++++++++++

The one hard requirement is that the grant should include a pilot
deployment of more than one site.  Bigger is not necessarily better,
if size outstrips local support capacity.  If we select one large
scale project, we might keep the second one smaller to avoid swamping
our own resources.  In many cases a first year pilot will proceed
plans for a wider deployment.  Whether or not this is necessary
depends on local circumstances.

Sites should serve primary and/or secondary aged students.  They do
not have to be schools per se.  Other educational programs such as
enrichment programs are acceptable.

Scope of Functionality
++++++++++++++++++++++

SchoolTool has a range of functionality across several modules,
including grading, attendance, competency tracking, and calendaring.
It is expected that most deployments will focus on a relatively narrow
scope.  This might include an entirely new, if fairly simple, module.

In most cases, unless the capacity of local support is very high, the
scope of sites and functionality should be inversely proportional.
That is, a small number of sites using a relatively wide scope of
functionality, or a deployment aiming at an eventually large
deployment focusing on relatively few tasks.

Depth and Breadth of Support
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The amount of local support the applicant has at its disposal must be
congruent with the scope of sites and functionality.  Do not, for
example, propose a deployment with a broad geographic span if all your
support staff is in a central city.

"Support" encompasses the experience and expertise of the primary
applicant for the grant, local training and technical capacity,
including potential developers, and local government commitment to ICT
in general and FOSS in particular.

Timeline
--------

 - February 5: Final version of RFP and application.

 - March 5: Recommended date for preliminary proposal.  This will be a
short form to help us and the applicant determine an feasible scope of
development for their proposal; e.g., we need to track education and
years of employment for teachers, import from this spreadsheet, track
this demographic data for students and generate these 12 reports,
what's the estimated cost of that work?

 - April 1: Final proposal deadline.

 - Mid-April: Winners announced.

 - May 1: Development work begins.