Jiaxing Cloud Road: Tongxiang Smart Education and the 6 Major Projects Behind It

When the thousand-year-old ancient town Wuzhen was transformed by the Internet, Tongxiang, where it is located, is also evolving from a Jiangnan water town with classical beauty to a modern smart city. As a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Jiaxing, Tongxiang is one of the pilot counties and cities for Jiaxing's government cloud. After the completion of the cloud data center infrastructure in July 2016, departments including the mayor's hotline, land, health, finance, and education have begun to go online one after another, trying to innovate smart government affairs.

The current achievements are: vigorously promoting "Internet + Government Services", breaking down data barriers, promoting "one-stop acceptance", and making people's affairs more efficient; at the same time, breaking through data sharing, promoting service extension, and making people's affairs more convenient; intensive construction, accelerating data integration, and promoting "one-stop service", making people more satisfied with their affairs.

Among them, education is the department that has been most thoroughly cloud-based in Tongxiang, with all its businesses shifting to the cloud. It is not only the first industry pilot of Jiaxing's government cloud, but also the first county-level city in the country to try 100% cloud computing-based education innovation.

"Our slogan is to create the best APP for Zhejiang education." Talking about Tongxiang's education cloud, relevant personnel from Tongxiang City said that Tongxiang has been a cultural center since ancient times, and cloud education will be its new business card.

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Different wisdom education

An important indicator of educational modernization is educational informatization. In the past decade or so, most schools in cities have begun to use electronic teaching equipment, but teachers' lesson preparation, homework, exercises, exams, parent communication, and the management and office of schools and education departments are still unable to get rid of "paper education". Moreover, the level of informatization of each school and the application ability of teachers are also uneven. It can be said that education work is still very traditional.

We need to reform, but how to do it specifically? There is no precedent to learn from, so we can only start from practice.

Tongxiang has two inherent advantages: economic strength and Internet effect.

On the one hand, Zhejiang Province is a relatively economically developed region, and Tongxiang ranks 55th among the country's economically developed counties. On the other hand, Wuzhen, under the jurisdiction of Tongxiang, has hosted the World Internet Conference for three consecutive years and has an excellent platform and influence. It is natural that it can radiate education and let the next generation enjoy the benefits brought by informatization. The Internet platform based on cloud computing is the best direction.

Since being designated as a pilot county (city) for educational informatization in Zhejiang Province in early 2016, Tongxiang Education has, based on the development trend of "Internet + Education" and with the help of cloud computing technology, taken the lead in trial and error, combined points and surfaces, and made every effort to build a "smart education" highland and launched the "123456" smart education construction project.

"One Network" - Tongxiang Smart Education Portal. In early 2017, Tongxiang's "Smart Education" cloud service platform and Tongxiang Internet School were put into trial operation. At the application level, the "Tongxiang Education" network is used as a unified portal carrier to provide a one-stop education and teaching management platform for managers, teachers, students and parents. It not only provides a platform for excellent teachers to display courses, but also promotes the sharing of high-quality educational resources and urban and rural education equity. At the same time, parents can also keep abreast of their children's learning situation at any time.

"Two centers" - data center and resource center. One is the data center, which uses cloud computing to provide basic support for Tongxiang's "smart education" and realize the effective integration and interconnection and sharing of basic education data; the other is the resource center, which brings together the teaching resources of more than 100 schools in Tongxiang. Based on these two centers, Tongxiang's Internet schools have now achieved online live broadcasts. Every weekend and holiday, there are free live courses for students to choose from, covering everything from classroom education to social knowledge and safety education. Moreover, Tongxiang takes "put as much as possible on the cloud" as the general principle, and unifies all resources into the cloud data center.

"Three platforms" - smart management service platform, smart teaching application platform and smart space display platform. The three smart platforms provide different resources for different service groups. For example, smart teaching provides personalized and diversified learning support and services including online classes, interactive Q&A, excellent course channels, famous teacher studios, and Internet school resources for different groups of primary and secondary school students. Students can choose courses independently according to their needs.

"Four services" - institutions, teachers, students, and parents. Provide targeted smart services based on the needs of four levels. At the level of the Education Bureau, in order to do a good job in top-level design, a smart studio was specially opened to form a multi-party joint learning meeting with operators, technology providers, etc. to discuss smart education projects. At the same time, a brainstorming session was set up to invite "big names" in the Internet field to collide together; at the school level, Tongxiang Education Cloud first identified 10 pilot schools to carry out education network transformation. By June 2017, the network transformation of 120 teaching points had been completed. In 2017, Tongxiang will also launch campus wireless network coverage and strive to complete it within two years; at the teacher level, try a new smart education model to implement smart education in the classroom and benefit students. In addition, home and school can use the "Tongxiang Education" APP to interact. And use cloud technology and cloud storage, provide teacher version and parent version respectively, can upload pictures, videos and other content.

"Five systems" - operation and maintenance system, data sharing system, resource supply system, talent support system, and cooperation promotion system. Build a smart education cloud platform through the model of "government investment, government-enterprise cooperation, and leasing services". Use cloud computing technology to break down the information barriers of various business lines internally, promote the sharing of basic data in the education system, and help build the "Smart Tongxiang" data sharing system. Expand the total amount and coverage of high-quality educational resources, enhance the information technology and teaching integration capabilities of school technicians, education managers, and teachers, and provide talent and technical guarantees for the promotion and application of smart education. Deepen the work of co-building and sharing educational resources with various regions, expand the vision of educational informatization, and promote educational cooperation and exchanges.

"Six Projects" - Smart Education Basic Environment Improvement Project, High-quality Education Resources Co-construction and Sharing Project, Teachers and Students Information Literacy Synchronous Improvement Project, Information Technology and Education Integration Development Project, Education Informatization Open Cooperation Project, Education Service Management Informatization Project. Since April 2016, in just one year, the six projects have achieved remarkable results. Relying on the support of the cloud, Tongxiang has established the first "public" Internet school in Zhejiang Province, providing courses to students free of charge with a completely inclusive policy. The aggregated resources have also made the courses richer. There are live public welfare classes every weekend, which can be watched on demand for free on the TV side, and will soon be available on the mobile side to complete the three-screen interaction.

The most distinctive Tongxiang Education APP has 110,000 registered parents as of May 10, 2017, with an average daily visit volume of 50,000. Parents upload relevant learning pictures, videos, etc. every day, and the activity level is higher than many commercial APPs.

Going to the cloud is not just about 100%

Although cloud computing has been popular for several years, from concept hype to implementation, and has been applied by many industries and enterprises, the Tongxiang Education Cloud, and even the entire Jiaxing Government Cloud model, is rare in the domestic government cloud field. The reason for its success can be simply put, "determination."

E-government has been developed for no less than ten years. All regions and commissions have their own systems to some extent. Some regions and departments with strong capabilities also have their own data centers and IT administrators. For many cities, facing the innovation brought by cloud computing, the existing systems seem a bit "useless" - a lot of costs have been invested in construction and management, and it would be a pity to give up. However, from the perspective of future data interoperability, support for mobile applications, and cost efficiency, cloud computing is inevitable. As a result, government cloud in various places has developed slowly in entanglement, and only some marginal businesses have been tried.

The biggest difference of Jiaxing model lies in the determination to move 100% to the cloud. For example, the education cloud is the largest and most thorough department in Tongxiang that has moved to the cloud. From the very beginning, it has determined that everything that can be cloud-based will be moved to the cloud, and has established a pre-examination mechanism involving 9 commissions and bureaus such as finance and technology to evaluate the necessity, scientificity and rationality of new projects to ensure that future new systems and projects are all cloud-based.

At present, the allocation of Tongxiang Education Cloud resources accounts for 80% of the Tongxiang Branch Center's industry cloud business. Like Jiaxing, Tongxiang Education Cloud is also divided into four platforms. One is the reference bearing platform, which is mainly scattered in the small platforms of various bureaus; the second is to establish a security platform, and the government cloud security is guaranteed by the requirements of security protection; the third is the information sharing platform, which requires the city government to build a unified platform to share the information of various bureaus and commissions; the fourth is the network integration platform, including the government external network and the education special network that carry the government cloud. Through these two networks, the two cloud platforms are supported to achieve the effect of cloud-network integration.

However, 100% cloud migration is easier said than done - the business cannot be interrupted and needs to be seamlessly migrated to the cloud. Data security and privacy are of paramount importance. The extent to which data is open and shared, the user experience, and even the budget amount are all difficult to achieve.

In addition, it is even more difficult to change the current situation of insufficient understanding of the cloud. After the notice was issued, some people involved thought that it was just a transfer to a dedicated network and dedicated computer room, and some people thought that after going to the cloud, they don’t have to worry about security and hardware, and the cloud will take care of it.

In this regard, Tongxiang proposed its own solution: on the one hand, a government information technology project pre-examination mechanism should be established. For the information technology projects to be built, they must undergo information technology pre-examination, solve the problems of duplicate construction of government information technology project infrastructure, scattered resources, and extensive management, and realize intensive construction and management through cloud computing technology. On the other hand, through policy guidance, technical docking (with the help of training from Huawei and China Telecom), and security guarantees, the awareness of various departments will be improved and everyone's concerns will be dispelled. Relevant personnel said: "With the help of cloud computing technology, innovative information construction and management models are of great significance to improving modern governance capabilities and building a service-oriented government. We must further unify our thinking, strengthen our direction, and more solidly promote the work of government cloud so that e-government can better serve economic and social development.

Since the cloud model is completely different from the previous self-built model, it needs to be completed in a gradient and hierarchical manner. The first step is to achieve the intensive construction of cloud computer rooms. For departments, the original independent construction model is no longer sustainable. From the perspective of finance, energy consumption, and management human costs, intensive construction is a major trend.

In addition, safety is what Tongxiang leaders care about most. In addition to signing a security and confidentiality agreement with relevant service companies, Tongxiang also signs an information security responsibility agreement with major leaders every year to achieve controllable safety.

According to Tongxiang's plan, in the future, education will open up more applications on the cloud. For example, cloud hard drives will be provided for every teacher so that they can use them conveniently whether they are in the office, classroom, or at home. After adding mobile terminals, teachers can enter the classroom with just a PAD.

In addition to education, data backup and disaster recovery in eight units in Tongxiang, including health, finance, land, government office, provident fund, disabled persons' federation, and mayor's hotline, have adopted cloud computing, and production systems are gradually being migrated. "We conclude that government cloud can bring four benefits: saving money, saving worry, saving time, and saving labor," said relevant personnel. According to calculations in Jiaxing and Haining, if the entire system cycle adopts Yunji, the government can save 1/4-1/3 of its capital investment each year.