DISCUSSIONS ON LM_NET & GAMEDIA REGARDING READING COUNTS CHANGES
Below is my original post on LM_NET & GAMEDIA on August 29, 2008. However, I have
edited
some things that I had to look up and change, etc. I have also included a copy of
all posts I received
in regard to my posting (or others that posted on the same issue). I have edited
names from the
e-mails and have instead placed the state the e-mail came from in all capital
letters. I have retained
a list of people who e-mailed me and their e-mail addresses for my use….
From these e-mails, I received 13 replies. Responses I’ve received are from the
following states:
5 -- from Georgia (not including the 3 others besides myself in my system who are
scrambling
trying to figure out what to do),
2 -- from Oklahoma
1 – from California
2 – from South Carolina
1 – from Missouri
2 – that were from Accelerated Reader schools commenting on their similar
situation
From the 14 schools sounding off on this issue (this includes the other RC users in
my system),
there was only one school who responded with a favorable comment about the change.
The primary concern is the cost…how are we going to come up with the funding each
year AND
just the cost of conversion this year. Costs to change over are ranging from
$1000 as in my school
to over $11,000!
I had our technology person look over the specificat
ions I received from my SRC rep and he said
the only problem he sees we might currently have is that some of the machines in
our rooms run
on a WIN 98 platform. Those computers will not run Enterprise.
Someone states in one of their responses that they were told by their SRC rep that
these changes
were “what customers were asking for.” I’d like to know where those
customers are at? The only
positive response I’ve received is the “one.” I know it’s about the
money, but this is a big way to lose
customers. Someone also stated, but don’t think I’ve included their e-mail,
that they (their school or
system) are opting to do their own reading program…not involving computers or
test-taking…but
sustained silent reading time. It may be too late for Scholastic to change
anything, but I believe
they are going to lose customers and have many unhappy ones at the least who are
going to have
to retain older versions.
While we don’t have many who have responded, I think it shows that 99% of those
who I’ve
communicated via one of the list_serv’s or through our local system, have
responded with
unfavorable comments about this forced change. Also, the majority of those who
have responded
that are using Enterprise, have experience problems…problems that are supposedly
continuously
being fixed or in the process of being fixed. Except for the recent problem I
had, I haven9
9t had
an RC tek problem in about 3 years.
Below is the revised “original” e-mail…TP
Susan Eppley posted last week looking for comparisons between Reading Counts (RC)
and
Accelerated Reader (AR) after finding out about Scholastic's upcoming changes in
Reading Counts. Some of what I'm posting below may have been covered by Susan,
but I wanted to find out if any RC people have already converted to Enterprise and
if you have any problems.
One of my cohorts in the school system (Beth) had called our rep. at SRC
today asking about Enterprise. Beth called me to tell me what she had
learned and not long after, the rep. contacted me.
As Susan had mentioned, beginning in November, purchasing of individual tests will
no longer be available.
As of July 2008, the SRC's technical support no longer maintains support for
Reading Counts versions older than 3.061(?). I had to talk to Tek Support about
an issue we've had in the past couple of days. When I told the support person my
version number, he told me that the version I had was no longer supported...though
he still tried to help me. My currently used version is 3.0.060008...and he
called it 3.161 or a shorter number that didn't exactly match the long number I
gave him. He said he "thought" I might be able to download an updated version of
3.03 free from the Scholastic website...but he didn't sound like he was so sure.
I was a little ticked
on this because we paid for 2 years of Tek Support and it is not up until April
2009...and my version isn't even supported by Tek Support!
All people who are current users of RC and wish to upgrade, are going to be offered
the opportunity to upgrade to Enterprise with some "discounted" savings. While
this was not stated, basically, if you don't upgrade, you are going to be stuck
with an unsupported version and unable to purchase tests after November 2008.
I think someone in our system tried to upgrade to Enterprise about two years ago
and had so many problems she just went back to her old version. I asked our rep.
(not the tek person) what if our system was not compatible with Enterprise. She
e-mailed me a list of specifications for what we would need to run Scholastic
Reading Counts Enterprise, but if it turned out it was not be compatible, we would
need to pay $1/student for those that use RC and beginning in January students
would be able to access RC on-line from Scholastic's server...meaning the tests and
data would be saved wherever Scholastic's server would be housed...and not in our
school or district. I was not sure if this was a one-time fee of $1/student...but
think it was $1/student EACH year on top of the other fees.
For current RC users wishing to upgrade, a ONE TIME fee of $3.50/student would need
to be paid to "reserve" a slot per student for using RC. So if I anticipate 175
kids in our school being ab
le to take an RC test, I would need to pay $3.50 x 175 to reserve the slots. We
would need to also go ahead and build in any possible future slots because if we
have to come back later and get more "slots," we would have to buy them in
increments of 50 at $5.50/student (?).
As I mentioned earlier, we will no longer be able to purchase individual tests.
Instead, RC users will pay a YEARLY fee of $2/student in order to access their
entire bank of quizzes. I'm in a primary school and utilize RC only with our 2nd
- 3rd graders...yet we will have access to tests for middle & high school books
(though I'm sure there will be some way to block them). Supposedly monthly
updates on quizzes (I was told approximately 300/month) will be added and sent. I
also asked what would happen one year if my budget did not allow me to pay
$2/student. My rep. said I would have the tests I currently had loaded on my
server, but NOT be sent the new ones. Maybe it's just me, but I don't like having
access to all these tests that I don't have books on the shelves to match. That's
where 98% of our kids get their books from...and the kids are going to be asking us
where all these books are at that we don't have.
We will also have to update our Tek Support fee each year at $225/year.
For my small school and estimating needing about 175 slots/students, I'm looking at
my first bill to be close to $1000. Next year,
unless I have to purchase more slots, my fee would be close to $600...and think
that both of those prices take into account the $225 tek support and
shipping/handling.
Another RC user in my system had checked with pricing on AR thinking about just
converting...but cost-wise and time-wise (changing from RC to AR, etc.) it was
actually going to cost more to change and AR pricing was more anyway. Most in our
system are AR, but four of us are RC and prefer it highly over AR. The four of us
are in the same feeling about the current changes.
This is something Scholastic has decided to do and I wouldn't believe any user-wide
campaign would stop it. I hate that we are now going to have to find a way
to come up with the money in an already dwindling budget to pay a yearly fee.
Just paying tek support is hard enough. I can go ahead and speak from my personal
situation; we will not be able to pay the $2/student fee for up-to-date tests every
year. We are going to have to pick and choose…books or tests.
Thanks…
Tony Pope
Library Media Specialist
McHenry Primary School
100 McHenry Dr.
Rome, GA 30161
Pope1966@aol.com
As I explained to my RC sales rep yesterday, there is simply no way I can devote
approximately
20% of my budget to the quiz program. All 930 students in my school are
encouraged to use RC
in order to meet the 25 book GPS. That would mean I would ha
ve to pay nearly $2,000 per year
to access new quizzes. I used the MyLibrary program last year and my principal
used general
fund money to purchase every quiz we were lacking. In doing so, my "staying
current" was only
ging to cost me about $350 per year. Now, NO WAY!
I argued (vehemently) with the sales rep about the idea of having access to the
whole database.
I, too, don't see that as an advantage Nevertheless, after 2 lengthy phone calls
and a carefully
worded email, I will no longer be purchasing RC quizzes. What a shame!
We are not a Title I school. We have no PTO. And our superintendent would baulk
at the idea
of asking parents to donate the $2 access fee. These were Scholastic's
suggestions for coming
up with the "nominal" fee of $2 per student.
Incidentally, even if you pay the $2 per student yearly fee, you will still have to
pay the tech support.
For RC and SRI, I will have to pay $450 this year. That's ridiculous seeing that
I only call them if
something is wrong. And they usually blame my network.
Anyway, I've been waiting to see a posting regarding this issue. Even though I
didn't want this
response to go out to the listserve, I did want to echo your sentiments. Now,
I've vented but I still
feel sick about this.
GEORGIA
*********************
Hello all…Scholastic Reading Counts/Scholastic Reading Inventory is moving to a
subscription service in December 2008. An online versio
n - hosted by Scholastic to save server costs and storage issues – is coming in
Jan or Feb of 2009. Both versions will have an annual subscription/user/access
fee. The rep that I have spoken with assured me that even though Scholastic is
just now telling us about the implementation date, the new features are exactly
what customers have been asking for and that customers are very pleased that
Scholastic is now offering this product version.
With the new program, all quizzes will be mailed or downloaded (depending on your
version) during the year and users will have access to all 42,000(?) quizzes. The
thinking behind this is that it will save “us countless time searching and
ordering tests” to match our collection. Never mind that hours could be spent
deactivating quizzes from the database should one not want her students to have
access to those quizzes. However, there might be a separate download available for
elementary, middle and high school, so if you want to load quizzes for grades
5-12, for example, you will be able to do just that. The “dinosaur” Legacy
version that my district now uses will be technically supported until 2010, though
new quizzes will not be available for purchase after Nov 15, 2008. Currently, SRC
is offering all quizzes at half price until the November 15thdate when quizzes will
no longer be available for purchase as a per test item.
I have Reading Counts and 650SRI licenses. Scholastic will charge my school
a20one-time fee of $2,275 to convert to the new RC program, a one-time fee of $1300
to switch to the new SRI, and then charge me $2.00 per student, every year, for
access to quizzes.
This is a serious amount of money in my district and it takes at least a year’s
notice to request money to cover such cost. However Scholastic will not sell me
quizzes after November 15thof this year for the RC/SRI program that I own. At
this time, we are finding that scholastic has just about priced us out of the
program.
I'm interested in your feedback. Is your district planning to move to the new
version? If not, what are your plans for continuing or not continuing using SRC/SRI
program? Or…am I over reacting watching–what I view as a valuable part of our
curriculum–possibly go down the drain? Your thoughts, please,,,
OKLAHOMA
*********************
Hi Tony, ahhh...great minds and all...lol...great post, by the way...I am so
frustrated w/ RC, their lack of allowing us time to plan, the way this conversion
has been handled, and the fact that we seem to get different answers to questions
depending on who in the district makes a phone call. My district's actual total
cost to convert is more than Follett charged for us to change to Destiny...how
can that be? I, too, would like to meet the customers who asked for this change.
When I said to the rep "wow...well...I wonder what response I'll get from LM_NET"
she paused and said "well, everything on LM_NET is not true".
..hmmmm...
OKLAHOMA
*********************
Our school uses Enterprise and loves it. In the long run it is cheaper than
buying all those individual quizzes. My biggest issue is keeping up with labeling
the books that have quizzes.
Students and teachers want the labels on the books, but I am trying to encourage
them to check for themselves online to see if the quiz is available. My second
issue is with updating my Marc records and including the quizzes and lexile.
I must say though in the nine years at this school, Reading Counts has never seen
the use that it has as in the past year.
CALIFORNIA
*********************
Upgraded to Enterprise last year - good and bad points:
We have on a central server and my schools do not have to pay anything - it is paid
for at the district level.
Cons – a lot of the features we were used to are not currently available. I was
assured they would be back - but I have not received any indication of when.
Since a new crowd is running RC -- I don't see a lot of positive change... There
is yet another bug which prevents more than 100 students being displayed at one
time -- I was able to work around it...
SAM also has the uncanny ability to shut itself down -
For technical support to the schools having it on one server is great -- being able
to have all quizzes available is also a plus..
One warning - if you go to Enterprise and have teacher made quizzes - be sure they
are not duplicated at different s
chools -- you will have duplicate quizzes and that was a mess to cleanup.
I was good friends with Rosalie Carter, the developer of the original program
Electronic Bookshelf. If Rosalie was still living she would not like the changes
that have been made.
But I guess as with all other software packages, someone without a clue made
decisions about what they were going to do I would strongly suggest that anyone who
is not happy - email customer service
I am told that they meet weekily to go over customer suggestions..
SOUTH CAROLINA
They used to know the power of LM_NET but they have a bunch of new people running
the RC program, They got rid of all of the folks who cared and understood.
They even took out alot of the feature in the Enterprise version. I have been
complaining about that.
And feel free to use my name -- I don't care.
Rosalie Carter who developed the program became a good friend of mine.
I miss her deeply since she died but I am glad in a way that she is not around to
see what Scholastic has done to the program with this Enterprise version
SOUTH CAROLINA
*********************
Scholastic has obviously made drastic decisions without worrying about the people
who support them --
in fact for those of you who have gone to the enterprise version --it does a lousy
job of supporting a school wide program --
it looks like they are trying to make this a "clone" of another product...
Many of the features that we have had for years are no longer available in the
Enterprise version -- but Scholastic said they would be back -- and I as yet - have
not seen them..
Every time a new release is sent out - there is another problem -- we found another
one -- and then discovered the patch to fix that problem created another problem.
Since there is a new team handling RC/SRI -- quality appears to be gone....
I have voiced these opinions to Scholastic over and over again....to no avail...
SOUTH CAROLINA
*********************
Tony, we are big users of RC. Our PTO already purchased Enterprise Edition for
our school back in May, but it could not operate on our current server (I think
it's something to do with Novell or Linux or something like that). We are going to
have to purchase a new server for about $6000. That figure seems high to me, but
that's what our tech told us. I'm waiting for her to get me some accurate numbers,
and I can only hope she's not correct. We are putting in a request with our PTO,
but their budget is already set for this year. We are hoping they will purchase it
at the beginning of next year. If not, my principal is already talking about using
some (all?) of my book fair proceeds to help pay for it. I'm not exactly thrilled
with that, but it's out of my hands. I do like the idea of having access to all of
the RC quizzes that are available, but I'm very nervous about the amount of money
this is going to require. What if it does not work well??? Please be sure to post
any replies you get about EE.
I'm very eager to hear what about everyone else's experiences.
GEORGIA
*********************
I upgraded our school's SRC to Enterprise Edition last spring. Though the interface
is very different from the old management, I am working through the differences and
finding myself able to use Enterprise. There are more reports offered (I think).
Enterprise is not the issue that's scaring me when it comes to SRC. We used
Scholastic's My Library service last year and bought 850 quizzes which we didn't
own previously. I need to make a very fast order for more quizzes for recently
purchased books. I don't know what I will do when Scholastic no longer sells
individual quizzes. I cannot afford to put almost 20% of my annual budget toward a
quiz subscription. With the economy problems I expect our allotment to decrease
rather than increase.
Any ideas on that front?
GEORGIA
I upgraded last spring because I want to use SRI along with SRC. I had heard that
the old version would no longer be supported. I even warned the middle school
because he converted then reverted back to the familiar management in the past. He
came by here and looked at Enterprise, looked at how to enter students, etc. and
felt better. You’re welcome to run by if it will help!
The new pricing has hit me hard. Anissa mentioned it last year as an option. I
remember thinking, “Why would I pay so much for quizzes on books I don’t have?
After all, I just bought 850 quizzes.” We upgraded SRI from=2
0the original 200 student licenses to 1100 students. She threw in the quiz disk for
this year as part of the package. I don’t know what I will do next year.
GEORGIA
*********************
I've been looking at the issue for my system, and to complicate things further, we
run off of Novell servers. I have used RC and AR and don't really have a
preference, both systems work well to assess pleasure reading, but NEITHER AR
Renaissance Place nor RC Enterprise will play with Novell. The solution is to pay
for remote hosting, but in GA our county at least hasn't been given enough
bandwidth to make that a possibility. So if you have a solution, please share.
AR has the advantage of MANY more nonfiction quizzes, but RC is a lower per year
fee after the higher first time fee. AR has somewhere over 100.000 quizzes when I
left my old job two years ago and RC has 40,000. But after the initial buy in RC
is something like $2.00 a student and AR is something like $5 or $6 every year (or
at least it was 2 years ago).
The long and the short of it is, as of Nov 17 we cannot buy quizzes for RC anymore,
and both platforms are going to the subscription based services. Since neither
plays with Novell and we don't have the resources for remote hosting, I'm not at
all sure what kind of option I'll have for my teachers.
GEORGIA
*********************
I called Reading Counts at the beginning of the summer because I had heard 2 years
ago that the o
lder versions were not going to be supported after the 07-08 school year. They
assured me that they WERE still going to be supported. I based budget decisions
on that information and did NOT purchase Enterprise. I had missed the first post
about RC, but when I saw Pete's and Paula's posts yesterday, I called RC. First I
called the tech support. They didn't seem to know what I was talking about (and
couldn't find our records for 10 minutes) and referred me to customer service. I
called customer service and they confirmed that my version would no longer be
supported. They also said it was a very recent decision. When I told them about
calling during the summer and I said I was basically scr**ed, they said they were
sorry I felt that way and referred me to a sales associate. I have a call into
that person who seems to leave her office every afternoon at 3:00 p.m. After I
talk to her, I'll let everyone know what she says about it.
MISSOURI
*********************
I did not get any satisfaction from the Scholastic sales rep. She told me that
the "end of life" of Reading Counts had been announced at the beginning of
August. She just wanted to quote me prices on Enterprise and tell me how
wonderful it is and how lucky I am that Reading Counts has been supported since
1999. She said that all Reading Counts quizzes are half price until the
changeover in November.
I read her some quotes about problems people (no
names!) had with Enterprise and she said she really did not know what they were
talking about. We are not sure what we're going to do, but are definitely NOT
HAPPY!
MISSOURI
*********************
It is very disappointing to see this trend within school businesses. First we
have dealt with circulation company mergers and takeovers, then there is that whole
"Scholastic Book Fair" is the only game in town. Now we are seeing the software
that we now depend upon working this angle. Sadly, I believe this trend will only
continue. We feel it is education, but the practice is pervasive within
business. The customer is too often a victim of "bottom line" mentality.
I was thrilled when my district moved to web-based products, but now we depend upon
those. I expect all too soon we will see changes that put us in similar
positions. We will have to play it their way or be left out in the cold.
I certainly think we should complain and voice our angry disappointments, but I
just don't think we will see changes that benefit schools and students in the long
run. Wow, my tone is pessimistic today!
OKLAHOMA
*********************
Dear Librarians,
As a follow-up to the letter you sent me regarding Reading Counts' proposed
platform change, I wanted to let you know that after I spoke with a manager in
customer service, I was contacted by the corporate office in NY yesterday. They are
going to have a teleconference with me next Wednesday and I'm wonderi
ng if I can have your permission to use your email reply to me as examples of our
various concerns.
I'd like to provide a Web link to SRC during the meeting that would look like this:
http://sites.google.com/site/lmnetsrcconcerns/
It would also list excerpts (non-inflammatory/professional only) that show your
concern along with your name and title.
If you are not comfortable with this, just let me know and I will only paraphrase
your concern and leave you and your school anonymous.
I am hopeful that this meeting will bring us a resolution. I am going to ask that
those of us using RC 3.0 be allowed to purchase quizzes via the e-catalog site
(very easy to do if you haven't used this option) thus eliminating the need for a
sales rep and that we would have this option until tech support for 3.0 ends in
2010.
OREGON
*********************
We upgraded last year and have found this program to be extremely cumbersome.
Here are some of the problems I have encountered, and I would encourage all of
you who deal with RC to call your sales rep and ask when these problems will be
addressed. Apparently the people who design the system do not often talk to the
customer support technicians, who in turn do not communicate with the sales reps.
Although Scholastic has great instructions for importing from your district student
database using a csv file, if the student already exists in RC, a duplicate account
is created. Unfortunately the dupe account is the one assigned to
the class. In my old RC system, you could skip duplicate students with one click.
This is not an option in the new version. So for each class I have to check each
student to see if they are the inactive accounts, move them to the proper class,
and then add new students. VERY time consuming and irritating. I spent hours on
the phone with Customer Service, and finally got a technician who understood what I
was talking about. He agreed this function should be added, but to my knowledge, it
has not been as of this time.
The system times out very quickly, and does not tell you it has timed out until you
try to do something. For instance, when entering teacher made quizzes, it lets you
type in the whole question and four answers before it tells you that “your
session has expired”. When using the Book Search function, you must often
search by author, as some of the titles in RC are not standard.
When using the Manage Inactive Account Function, you can not search for the student
by name, as you could in older versions. You must scroll down the list to check the
students to reactivate. Also, only 250 students are listed per page. You can not
check students on one page, move to another and check more, and then enroll them in
a class all at once. You must do the students on each page separately.
I can not remember other problems off the top of my head, but suffice it to say I
miss my old version every time I use the new on
e!
SOUTH CAROLINA
*********************
NOTE: This reply is in regard to similar situation going on with AR
Sounds like RC is doing the same thing to you that AR is trying to do to us. We
still use AR version 6.0 which AR is supporting but apparently wants to make it
clear that their AR Enterprise edition is their preferred product. This is being
done by doubling the cost of tech support and their constant reminder that their
Enterprise edition is much better. It was explained to me by a tech that the reason
the upgrade is so much better is the "engine", if you will. It appears they are
moving away from "indexes" to manage the data to a true database.
Our database (indexes) are so large that we have nearly daily errors with AR 6 that
tech support assures me will end if we upgrade. My only questions are how can I
afford to upgrade and how can I afford not to upgrade?
Let me know if you find a solution.
GEORGIA
*********************
NOTE: This reply is from a school that uses AR and not RC
Tony, You wrote: we would need to pay $1/student for those that use RC and
beginning in January students would be able to access RC on-line from Scholastic's
server...meaning the tests and data would be saved wherever Scholastic's server
would be housed...and not in our school or district.
My 2 cents :O)
We though about doing the "online" version of AR, but were told that student
information should not be on server
that is not in the district. You might want to check on this. Good Luck!
Thanks,
Tony L. Pope
McHenry Primary School
100 McHenry Dr.
Rome, GA 30161
(706) 236-1833
Pope1966@aol.com
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