Since it’s introduction over six years ago, FITS has established a strong reputation for providing useful processes and tools for improving the delivery of Technical Support within Education. It is widely used within Primary, Secondary, Further and Higher Education.
The FITS Foundation was established in September 2009 as an independent body responsible for the professionalisation of ICT staff within education both in the UK and Internationally. It is a not for profit company which uses the examination fees to fund the future development of new FITS materials.
SWGfL is the FITS training partner in the South West of England, delivering approved courses on behalf of the FITS Foundation. For local course details, please click on the Dates and venues link.
The current version of FITS introduces:
- Two new professional qualifications for ICT staff covering support and management of an ICT service
- Information about the benefits that can be achieved by implementing FITS (this is non technical)
- Information for Heads and Senior Management teams in Schools and Educational Establishments to help them understand why they should implement FITS
- New subject areas such as Workforce Management and Security.
Benefits of FITS training
Here are just a few.
- It gives you the benefit of hindsight over many years of the development of ICT support techniques
- It contains tried and tested processes that have been adapted with the school environment in mind
- It provides simplified and ready to use processes that can be used immediately
- It contains templates, check-lists and downloads that can be used as they are or personalised
- It has a quick-start approach to help you make the best use of time and resources in order to see quick results
- It separates administrative tasks and technical tasks to help you assign the most appropriate resources.
- It helps you keep costs to a minimum
- It helps you protect teachers from having to get too involved in technical support issues
- It helps you measure technical support as shown in our example service report.
FITS training
FITS aims to provide a complete structure so that we know that all aspects of technical support will be addressed. It is a collection of best practice processes from IT support providers all over the UK and represents their learning curve over many years which has been taken and tailored specifically for schools. This has resulted in a set of processes and tools for you to use ‘off the shelf’.
The emphasis of FITS is on pro-active tasks rather than just reactive. It views technical support not just as a function responsible for resolving incidents, but as a service provider whose main objective is to prevent incidents from occurring in the first place. We see this as the ultimate goal of technical support and we aim to help you make it happen.
Useful links and resources: