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Project Overview
Reggie® is one of the world's first mobile applications that allows teachers to take the student register, anytime and anywhere. Reggie® is quick, easy to use and affordable, saving time and money.
"What we have achieved with Reggie® is to free registration from the traditional confines of the classroom, making it more flexible and immediate, without the administrative issues. Registration can now take place anytime and anywhere - not only in the classroom, but during outdoor activities or school trips, proving an invaluable tool in support of safeguarding, keeping children safe at school." Graham Shapiro-GSD® CEO & Founder
Organisation
Contact Group and GSD (Graham Shapiro Design Ltd)
Team
Contact Group and GSD (Graham Shapiro Design Ltd) are working in partnership to develop and promote Reggie(R)
Project Brief
Reggie® provides busy teachers with the ability to take the student register, anytime, anywhere from their mobile phone or tablet. Perfect for PE teachers or field trips, Reggie® ensures that teachers can keep track of students when they are away from the classroom. Importantly, students who are not turning up for attendance are quickly identified as being absent. Reggie® allows attendance data to be securely uploaded to the school’s management information system, meaning that staff can see who is in school and who is not. Students who are absent can be checked to see if a valid reason has already been provided and where it hasn’t, then steps can be taken to check where that student is. Previously, PE staff may have taken a paper-based register which they would hand in at the end of the lesson or even the day, or some may have taken the register on a laptop before taking the class outside, thereby wasting valuable lesson time. Now with Reggie® they can take the register anywhere, quickly and securely, then start the lesson straight away. "In our profession, time is a very valuable commodity; Thanks to Reggie® being so efficient and easy to use, it will allow us to focus on maximising quality teaching time, and not on taking registers. The undeniable benefits of Reggie®, which will seamlessly work with our current software, is clear to all our staff. Reggie® will revolutionise the way we take our registers forever.” – Assistant Headteacher
Project Need
Reggie® encourages the use of technology in schools, and is available for both Android and Apple devices. It also integrates with Capita SIMS (School’s Management Information System) and Lesson Monitor, which means that not only is it tailored to schools, it saves them time.
As an existing Reggie® customer, an Assistant Headteacher said: "In our profession, time is a very valuable commodity; Thanks to Reggie® being so efficient and easy to use, it will allow us to focus on maximising quality teaching time, and not on taking registers.
Reggie® has student picture capture so that teachers can be sure of who they are marking as ‘present’. They simply scroll through the class list and match the picture to the student, to confirm attendance. This can help teachers who are often duped by students.
If a student is late, this can also be recorded. Teachers can select how late the student is with the option to add notes, for example ‘second time this week’. This helps teachers get an attendance summary easily and quickly.
Teachers do not have to be online when they take the register – data can be held in the device and transmitted to SIMS when a connection becomes available. This makes it ideal for PE teachers out in the field.
User Experience
School users have been involved with Reggie® since the beginning. From identifying the market need, to continuous feedback on its iterative development, users are key to its success.
GSD engaged with a local school to identify the key issues they were facing with taking registration.
“It’s not that long ago that school admin staff would spend hours each week reconciling manually recorded register data – work that wasn’t just time-consuming, but expensive too. Although swipe cards have improved things in recent years, Reggie® offers a fresh take on school registration to deliver huge benefits in terms of simplicity, speed, security, full integration with Capita SIMS and – crucially – cost.” – Headteacher
Feedback from teachers using the product, literally ‘in the field’ meant that it could be improved after its first release.
Partnering with Contact Group, meant that additional expertise in the schools’ market could be gained. This led to developing tighter integration with the school’s MIS, as well as adding new features such as the number of minutes late or adding notes to a student’s record.
New users are shown wireframes and designs, to gain feedback on how features can be improved or how important they are to the end user. Schools enjoy seeing the product as it develops and can contribute their suggestions to making it even better.
Project Marketing
Reggie® is marketed through various channels, including email, web, press and tradeshows.
Contact Group markets Reggie® to their existing customer base, and prospects, through marketing emails, which describe the product features and link back to the website. One email will be targeted at headteachers/deputy heads and the other at PE teachers.
Reggie® forms part of Contact Group’s product suite on the website, where the brochure is available for download. It has also featured in news articles and social media sites.
Contact Group works closely with Livewire PR agency to ensure maximum coverage of products. Reggie® has so far featured in ICT for Education, Silo breaker, IT Analysis and TMCNet. Contact Group are working with Innovate My School to feature Reggie® in the next issue.
Reggie® has been demonstrated at Capita and Forum Business Media Conferences. The main delegates here consisted of headteachers, business managers and attendance officers. Reggie® was successfully demonstrated at BETT – the UK’s largest education technology event - in January 2014.
Going forward, Contact Group will be gathering product feedback and developing Reggie® based on this. A case study will be written from an existing customer, which we will use to attract new prospective customers. Promotional materials will also be developed to encourage brand awareness.
Project Privacy
Data is encrypted within the App and all data is transferred over HTTPS.
The App requires a 2 factor authentication, consisting of a unique number, an email address and a password combination.
The app only uses the data that it requires to enable it to work, therefore no redundant data is extracted from any school.
. Contact Group takes database and password security very seriously; using enterprise standard encryption techniques and proven industry best practice which includes:
• Never storing passwords in clear text inside the database which means that no one apart from the user knows what their password is.
• Penetration testing of our systems and regular reviews of security procedures.
• Server, firewalls and other infrastructure hardened against intrusion attempts.
• Databases are protected at rest with strong encryption.
We provide schools with details of the data that is being used and how it is stored, so they are fully aware what happens with their data.
All traffic relating to the Data Extraction from schools sent to Reggie is encrypted using 256-bit AES secure socket layer technology and HTTPS protocols which provide authentication of the web site and associated web server that one is communicating with.
It provides bidirectional encryption of communications between a client and server, which protects against eavesdropping and tampering with and or forging the contents of the communication.
When a storage device has reached the end of its useful life, procedures include a decommissioning process that is designed to prevent customer data from being exposed to unauthorized individuals.
Our staff are all kept up-to-date and understand the importance of data protection, plus they are all CRB checked.
Education
This category recognises education themed apps across all education sectors.
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