IT Survey at Primary and Secondary Schools

Challenge

The National Institute for Educational Measurements needed to survey more than 3,500 primary and secondary schools — counting their computers and recording each machine’s configuration — to assess how usable they would be for the planned e-Test project. For every computer, we had to capture its hardware configuration: CPU type and model, its real-world performance, GPU model, RAM size, the number and capacity of hard drives and how much of that capacity was in use, and the actual internet connection speed (download, upload, ping time). We also had to record the state of the software — operating system version and architecture, Microsoft Office version, DirectX version and more than 40 parameters in total. All of this data then had to be analyzed so the institute could determine exactly which schools needed new computers suitable for the e-Test project.

Analysis

Because we had to determine the hardware and software configuration of an enormous number of very different PCs, it was clear that we needed an automated solution — one that asked as little as possible of the schools’ IT staff. We knew the school computers ran Microsoft Windows in versions ranging from Windows 98 to what was then the latest release, Windows 8, and that diversity meant the solution had to be highly flexible.

Solution

The solution we designed and built consisted of two parts: a Windows thick client that automatically gathered each computer’s hardware and software configuration, and a backend to which the measurement results were uploaded automatically. The backend exposed a REST API for communication with the thick clients and a web application for working with the uploaded results.

Benefits for the client

Within two months of delivery, the institute had collected data on more than 150,000 computers across over 3,500 schools — with minimal effort from school IT staff. The results let them pinpoint exactly which schools needed new computers so they could take part in the e-Test project.