Dear Sir or Madam,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST

Please could you provide, in electronic format (eg comma-delimited
text, Excel or other spreadsheet/database format, zipped/compressed
if you deem it necessary), a data dump of the 3,000 Scottish
.sch.uk Domain Names created as part of the Domain Names
Rationalisation Project in 2001 (also known as "School Names on the
Net") on behalf of the Scottish Executive Education Department
(SEED) by a joint project involving BECTa, DfEE, SEED & Nominet.

I'd like to obtain as much of the following data as possible: Name
of School, unique identifying number (Scottish Office ID?), .sch.uk
domain name, and the general contact email address

According to the following
<<http://www.nominet.org.uk/registrants/sc...>>

"The project has allocated every school in Scotland a Domain Name
corresponding to the standard format: <school name>.<geographical
area>.sch.uk. This format gives all 3,000 schools a Domain Name
that is both easily identifiable and unique."

Any assistance you can provide in letting me know how you hold or
structure this data would be appreciated in order to avoid the need
to create new information to satisfy this request.

I understand that Nominet UK Ltd carried out much of the practical
work for this project, so it may be the case that they may may hold
this information on your behalf, and Section 3.2.b of the Freedom
of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 may therefore apply.

Yours faithfully,

Alex Skene

Dear Mr. Skene,

Is the spreadsheet at the following link sufficient to meet your needs?

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statis...
oolAddresses2007

Best Regards,

Raymond Sloan
Pupil and School Statistics
Scottish Government
Room 1-B (Mail Point 2)
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh EH6 6QQ
tel: 0131 244 0183
fax: 0131 244 0354
latest publications: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/schoolstats

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Dear Raymond,

Many thanks for the very useful spreadsheet - which covers all my
requirements for Names/IDs/Email.

Regarding domain names, there is about a 30% coverage rate - did
not all schools take up a .sch.uk domain as part of the 'School
Names on the Net' project?

Kind regards,

Alex Skene

Dear Alex,

Glad that spreadsheet is of use. I've been working on an update to this which I expect to be putting on our website tomorrow at the same link. This will include details of which schools have opened and closed since April. Regarding the 'School Names on the Net' project, I'm trying to get an answer for you, but it's not something I'm familiar with personally so it may not be myself who gets back to you about it. If I can help with anything else let me know.

Best Regards,

Raymond Sloan
Pupil and School Statistics
Scottish Government
Room 1-B (Mail Point 2)
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh EH6 6QQ
tel: 0131 244 0183
fax: 0131 244 0354
latest publications: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/schoolstats

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Dear Alex,

Uptake of .sch.uk is not universal, although there are more schools
using the .sch.uk domain name than are listed in our spreadsheet.

On the Scottish Schools Online website
(http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/scottishsch...) maintained by LT
Scotland there are some websites not included in our spreadsheet, but
I'm not sure about the extent of their data on this - I understand it's
a mixture of information provided by the Scottish Government based on
various statistical returns and contact information provided by the
schools themselves.

The Scottish Government worked with Nominet and the other UK education
departments to ensure that .sch.uk domain names were registered in a
consistent format on behalf of all Scottish schools. It is, however, up
to schools and local authorities to decide (a) whether to have school
websites and (b) what domain should be used. A number of schools have
continued to use .org.uk and other web addresses which they felt had
become well-established before the rationalisation of .sch.uk. Some of
the domain names in use come through the service provider - an example
of this would be the many Dumfries and Galloway schools which have
.ik.org addresses from their former provider ik Software Limited.
Others are a sub-site of a local authority website - Fife is an instance
of this approach.

Schools are not obliged to report website addresses to the Scottish
Government, so the information we hold is based on what they choose to
tell us from time to time.

I hope that's helpful. Happy to discuss further.

Regards,

Raymond Sloan
Pupil and School Statistics
Scottish Government
Room 1-B (Mail Point 2)
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh EH6 6QQ
tel: 0131 244 0183
fax: 0131 244 0354
latest publications: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/schoolstats
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