System Associates, a provider of innovative high-end web solutions, has been awarded a two-year managed hosting contract for the National College for School Leadership's (NCSL) award-winning Talk2Learn web application.

White Waltham, Maidenhead, UK, April 14, 2008 (XTVWorld.Com) -- The NCSL develops and delivers numerous school leadership development programmes, conferences, workshops and online forums across England. Talk2Learn is a central part of NCSL's offering to school leaders in England and provides online collaboration tools to support leadership development.

The Hosting will be required to support up to 100,000 registered users paying an average of 5,000 visits per day.

System Associates, already has a strong track-record with the National College for School Leadership, having provided a content management system, user registration system and also a single sign-on solution which allows users to browse between a number of applications without having to re-login. It has also developed a bespoke application to provide an online networking forum for school leaders through a subsidiary of NCSL, the Networked Learning Group (NLG), which helps like-minded school leaders share information and learn from each other.

This track-record, combined with the company's credentials in the hosting and security sector with high-profile clients such as HM Treasury and the British Library were key to securing this contract.

Services provided by System Associates will include, built-in scaleability, 24x7 support, regular incident monitoring and management, integration with other college applications, including software updates and a business continuity and disaster recovery service. Hosting will be provided as a mirrored solution, comprising a production server, stage server and database server.

About System Associates:
System Associates operates within the public sector and other highly regulated industries, to provide enterprise-wide web solutions including portal technology, joined-up services, content management, single sign-on, digital asset management and search engine technology, as well as hosting, security and ongoing consultancy and project-management.

The company has strong expertise in e-GIF and government-related specifications, accessibility, technical architecture, project management, databases and integration. System Associates has developed a number of high profile e-Government solutions including Local Directgov, Your London, the Learning Gateway, Collect Britain, London eAdmissions, Choice and the Childcare Portal for London.

The privately held company is ISO9001:2000, BS7799, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 accredited, has achieved Investor in People status and is Windsor & Maidenhead's Small Business of the Year 2005 and Technology Company of the Year 2007. For more information visit www.systemassociates.co.uk.

About NCSL:
The National College for School Leadership offers opportunities to develop the potential of school leaders at every level and to enable their schools to work collaboratively with other schools.

87% of school leaders surveyed believe the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) is helping raise standards in schools – an increase on 2006. [Source: survey of 640 heads, deputies and other school leaders in 2007 by independent research agency, EdComs.]

NCSL programmes fit around school leaders' busy schedules, with much of the studying done in free time or in school, often via the Internet. Participants can also communicate with each other via the college's popular online communities, talk2learn, which now has over 120,000 members and is open to all school leaders including headteachers, deputy heads and middle leaders, as well as all teachers, teaching assistants and school bursars.

For more information on NCSL visit its web site at www.ncsl.org.uk or phone 0845 609 0009.

Contact:
Kimberley Gray – Freelance PR Consultant
Tel: 0118 969 4904/07884 405 835
Email: kim @ kimberleygray.com
www.kimberleygray.com

System Associates
Claire Simpson – Director
Tel: 01628 511662

Nicky Davis
Tel: +44 7747 017654
nicky[at]neondrum[dot]com
NeonDrum – specialist online news release distribution

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