WOCO

Western Ohio Computer Organization

The Western Ohio Computer Organization is one of the 23 Information Technology Center’s (ITC) in the state of Ohio, that were formed in the late 70’s, early 80’s. These “ITC’s” were originally charged to provide computer services to the member school district’s fiscal offices, forming what is known today as the OECN, The Ohio Educational Computer Network. WOCO began its operations in 1980 providing computer services to 29 members school districts located in the five county area of Shelby, Auglaize, Hardin, Logan and Champaign. Today WOCO provides technical services to 34 public school districts, 5 public charter schools and 4 non-public districts.

Our Mission Statement

“To provide school districts with information systems and resources that exceed expectations through a customer focused attitude, anticipating needs, and supplying technologies that support district goals.”

The services WOCO provides to its customer/owners are as follows:

Fiscal Services Department

School Accounting Systems

• Data archival and retrieval support.
• Help desk support during normal business hours.
• Knowledgeable staff and resources to support business process.
• Upgrade software and hardware to latest version promptly.
• Documentation for software procedures and guidelines.
• Software support for data-entry, data processing, and data import/export.
• Training for systems and software procedures.
• Support for required applications, data management, and reporting.
• Periodic and timely in-service for end-of-year processing and closing of records.
• Secure web access of financial reports and data.

Staff Payroll Systems

• Data archival and retrieval support.
• Help desk support during normal business hours.
• Knowledgeable staff and resources to support business process.
• Upgrade software and hardware to latest version promptly.
• Documentation for software procedures and guidelines.
• Software support for data-entry, data processing, and data import/export.
• Training for systems and software procedures.
• Support for applications and data management defined by the Ohio Department of Education and the State Auditor’s Office.
• Periodic and timely in-service for end-of-year processing and closing of records.

Equipment Inventory System

Additional Services Offered by the Fiscal Services Department

• Assist school personnel with installation and configuration of the Safari ODBC driver and data sources.
• Train school personnel in the use of the Safari software.
• Assist school personnel in writing reports using the UDMS report-writing tool.
• Submit data on the behalf of customers to OBES, STRS, SERS, and various taxing entities.
• Coordinate group purchase of various forms and envelopes.
• Print W2 forms continuous feed and/or laser forms for customers.
• Provide online access to several years of archived financial data.
• Provide online access to web reports via a secure web site.
• Provide online access/support to Web enabling subsystem.
• Provide online access/support to GAAP/GASB34 Web subsystem.
• Provide training to school personnel at the schools facilities as needed.
• Help districts design and create custom salary notices.
• Provide CD archival data of USAS and USPS reports desired by the district.
• Assist in correcting problems, or mistakes, in district data files.
• WOCO provides data conversion services and intensive training to schools converting from another software package to State Software.

Student Administration Systems Department

SIS Services

• Data archival and retrieval support.
• Help desk support during normal business hours.
• Knowledgeable staff and resources to support business process.
• Documentation for software procedures and guidelines.
• Software support for data-entry, data processing, and data import/export.
• Training for systems and software procedures.
• Support for third-party applications (i.e. PC grade book software, bus routing, attendance dialing).
• Periodic and timely in-service for end-of-year processing and opening or closing of records.
• Student Scheduling, grade reporting, attendance reporting, registration.
• Student demographics and student discipline tracking.
• EMIS compliance procedures.
• Provide leadership and investigate new products and procedures to benefit users including enhancements.
• New and continuing user training.

EMIS System and Services

• Data archival and retrieval support.
• Help desk support during normal business hours.
• Knowledgeable staff and resources to support business process.
• Training and timely implementation and documentation for software procedures and guidelines including new users and new applications.
• Software support for data-entry, data processing, and data import/export.
• Provide and support software enabling schools to report on time.
• Creation and use of additional user defined reports.
• Distribution of and assisting in interpreting district reports as they are received from ODE.
• District report card assistance.
• Adequate and timely forums for user feedback.

Additional Services Offered by the Student Services Department

• Assist school personnel in writing reports using the DASL report-writing tool.
• Create requested custom reports for school districts.
• Coordinate group purchase of various forms.
• Submit EMIS data on behalf of schools to the Ohio Department of Education.
• Provide on-line access to several years of EMIS data.
• Provide an on-line archive of student graduates for the past five years.
• Provide training of school personnel at the schools facilities as needed.
• Assist school personnel with the transfer of files between the Alpha Server and their workstation using FTP.
• Design custom forms such as scan sheets, report cards, schedules, and transcripts.
• WOCO provides data conversion services and intensive training to schools converting from another software package to DASL.
• Provide EMIS in-services for non-member sites, such as ‘B’ sites.
• Provide web-based products for the inputting of daily and period attendance and interim and report card grades.

Educational Services Department

INFOhio Electronic Resources, Media Center/Library Automation and Services

• Help desk support during normal business hours.
• Knowledgeable staff and resources to support various INFOhio services.
• Offer the most recent automation software release as established by INFOhio.
• Support state provided documentation as well as providing DA-Site specific documentation for software procedures and guidelines.
• Training for new users and new applications, systems and software procedures as they become available.
• Conduct INFOhio User’s Group meetings and maintain other communication channels with users.
• Periodic and timely training for start- and end-of-year procedures.

Additional Services Offered by the Student Services Department

• Help desk support is available from the Educational Services department between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, exclusive of holidays. The department provides support during regular business hours in compliance with service level agreements with WOCO’s customers.
• Documentation is provided at regularly scheduled Liaison to WOCO for INFOhio Services (LLIS) meetings, on-line, via-e-mail correspondence, and at all training sessions. In addition, customers can request additional copies of complete vendor-created manuals as needed.
• System and software procedure training is provided during the regularly scheduled LLIS meetings, regularly scheduled training sessions, onsite, and as needed based on customer requests.
• WOCO offers regularly scheduled advisory meetings for user feedback, with Agendas and Minutes posted on its website.
• The INFOhio Liaison staff member provides training for start-of-year and end-of-year procedures.

Technical Services Department

WAN Implementation and Maintenance

• Provide support and resources regarding established connectivity standards.
• Network Monitoring.
• Design and Implementation of Network Upgrades.
• Eight by five Support for the Network.
• Maintain helpdesk support for a designated district representative.

Internet Connectivity and Support – Core Requirements

• Internet Connectivity.
• Content Filtering.
• Firewall Protection.
• Distribution of IP Addresses.
• DNS Service.
• Web Hosting Services.

Electronic Mail Delivery Systems

• Management and support for user mailboxes on supported servers.
• Systems management and monitoring of mail channels on supported servers.
• Support for access to mail system from standard POP3/IMAP clients.
• Help-desk support.
• Installation of new features and software upgrades for server software.
• Training for supported mail clients.
• Provide the ability for school districts’ servers to receive email.
• The Technical Services department consists of two full-time and two part-time staff members with expertise in wide area and local area networks, system security, hardware support, operating system support, software development, and Internet.
• Network monitoring is provided through various system utilities, hardware solutions and third party agreements.
• Help desk support is available from the Technical Services department between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, exclusive of holidays.
• Design and implementation of Network upgrades are completed as needed and requested by WOCO’s customers.
• Internet Connectivity is provided to schools as requested.
• WOCO provides the option of Internet filtering to all of its customers. Currently WOCO utilizes N2H2 filtering to provide this service.
• Firewall protection is provided as a standard service to al WOCO customers.
• The Technical Services department coordinates the distribution of IP addresses for all WOCO customers.
• WOCO provides DNS services to those customers that request this service.
• WOCO provides Web Hosting services to all Internet customers.
• The Technical Services department provides for management and support of all e-mail accounts hosted by WOCO.
• The Technical Services department manages and monitors all aspects of WOCO’s e-mail system.
• The Technical Services department provides support for standard POP3/IMAP clients.
• The staff of the Technical Services department completes for all installations of new features and software upgrades for server software.
• Members of WOCO’s staff provide any necessary training for the supported mail clients including PMDF and WEBmail.
• WOCO’s Internet customers have the option of a district based e-mail server. The Technical Services department supports this.
• WOCO supports and gets directly involved as needed with numerous IDVL and other distance learning activities in the districts served.

Additional Services Offered by the Technical Services Department

• Assist school personnel with installation and configuration of various hardware products.
• Assist school personnel with installation and configuration of various software products.
• Assist school personnel with the transfer of files between various servers and their workstation using FTP or Kermit.
• WOCO’s staff provides custom software development services when existing software cannot reasonably meet the needs of the school.
• The Technical Services department has installed an in-line security device which will aid in the battle to prevent servers both at WOCO and at connected school districts from being attacked from the Internet. The department monitors reports generated from this device and downloads security updates from the vendor as they become available to insure that the network is protected from the most recent known attacks.
• The Technical Services department continues to scan e-mail for viruses and is in the planning stage of implementing a new server which will provide better performance of this task. The department has also taken steps to reduce the amount of SPAM delivered to users’ mailboxes. However, the previously mentioned server will provide even better protection against SPAM.