Blackboard Centricity2 Essentials
Centricity2 Essentials makes creating and updating a school website a snap - no technical skills required! Centricity2 Essentials is a completely integrated website solution for teachers, school personnel, and administrators. It offers district, school building, and teacher pages, to create a dynamic and robust website.
Content contributors can share homework assignments, cafeteria menus, school cancellation information, sign-up forms, athletic schedules, event calendars and much more. This browser-based solution is secure with role-based content and workflow capability. Implementation includes administrative and train-the-trainer end user training, regular user group meetings, software licensing, and email and telephone support.
- WNYRIC hosts the Centricity2 Essentials application on centralized servers
- Data recovery and restore scenarios may incur additional charges by the WNYRIC, the vendor, or both
- District LAN, WNYRIC connectivity, Internet access
- Internet domain (i.e.: district.org)
- Encryption certificates
- Name a district primary and secondary contact for service
- Promptly notify Website Service team of a change in contact
- Participate in software demo and implementation planning meeting
- Appoint district staff to plan implementation
- Identify district site director (overall site administrator), subsite directors, and turnkey district trainer staff
- Renew Internet domains
- Renew encryption certificates
- Support district staff with content editing and website use
- Populate site with content
- Monitor website and content
- Comply with all required regulations and laws in use of the website
- Request support and report issues to WNYRIC Service Desk for prompt service
- Provide access to Centricity2 Essentials website administration for Website support staff to support district
- Attend any announced user group meetings
- Communicate relevant website information within the district and to the public
- Schedule and facilitate planning as district requests
- Host the website on WNYRIC servers
- Detail project narrative, costs for licensing and training needs
- Set up staging domain for web content entry and training
- Provide training as detailed in subservices
- Unlimited access for all users to an extensive library of training materials
- Provide support by phone, email, and screen sharing
- Host user group meeting for districts who participate in the service
- Update servers with new versions of Centricity2 Essentials (WCM) as available
- Provide 25GB of storage, plus 5GB per site beyond the first
- Communicate enhancements to district contact
- Work with vendor support as needed
- Send pertinent communication to district contact regarding topics related to websites and mobile apps
- TSM Backup/Restore provides for the automated backup of selected application server data files to the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) Server in the data center at the Erie 1 BOCES Education Campus. The IBM Tivoli Storage Manager client software is installed on the servers which sends the data over the network to the backup system. An encrypted tape copy of the data is kept on-site and rotated daily to an off-site storage location for security purposes. Tests are performed monthly on the backups to insure data integrity.
The WNYRIC utilizes cost effective best practices determined by research that allows our experienced and trained technical staff to perform robust testing and support of the WNYRIC network in the areas of security, infrastructure, energy management, virtualization strategies, disaster recovery and business continuity. Therefore, we are able to be a district advocate for vendor contract issues and aggressively negotiate contract pricing and performance terms.
Staff follows best practices in order to provide necessary security as it relates to the most recent student, teacher and principal data security and privacy regulations.
Service Desk can be reached Monday–Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. by calling (716) 821-7171 or toll-free at 1-800-872-0780, by email at servicedesk@e1b.org, or via live chat. A representative will be available from 4:30 p.m. through 11:00 p.m. to assist you with calls regarding emergency situations. During all other hours and holidays, a caller will receive important information regarding coverage.