Good requirements make good school days.
How to procure a learning platform.
A learning platform should hold up for twelve years. Our guide for procurement teams at municipalities and independent school authorities covers contract routes, requirements, security and rollout.
Ways to reach an agreement
How you buy a learning platform depends on the size of your organization, your existing agreements and the value of the purchase. The most common routes in Sweden:
Advertised procurement
Larger contracts are awarded through an advertised procedure under the Swedish Public Procurement Act (LOU). You describe your needs per school form, set requirements for functionality, integration, security and support, and evaluate the tenders. Vklass has taken part in these procurements for more than 20 years. We know which requirements matter in everyday school life and which ones only sound good in the tender documents.
Framework agreements and call-offs
If your organization has access to a framework agreement that covers learning platforms or school systems, a call-off can be the fastest route to a contract. Check with your purchasing function which framework agreements you are entitled to use. Contact us and we will tell you which call-off routes are currently open for Vklass.
Direct award
Below the LOU threshold for direct awards you can purchase without advertising. This route is often used by smaller school authorities, for pilot projects, or for adding Vklass schema, Vklass analys or Vklass praktik to an existing platform. Remember to document your needs analysis and price comparison even for direct awards.
Dynamic purchasing systems
A growing number of central purchasing bodies and municipalities use dynamic purchasing systems (DPS) for IT services. Suppliers qualify on an ongoing basis and call-offs are made through renewed competition within the system. Ask us which dynamic purchasing systems Vklass is qualified in.
Contact us early if you are unsure which route is open to you. We are happy to answer questions already during the needs analysis, within what the procurement rules allow.
What you should require
The requirements decide what your schools will live with for the entire contract period. Six areas belong in every tender specification:
Functional breadth per school form
Preschool, compulsory school, upper secondary school and adult education work differently. Set requirements per school form: attendance and absence, planning, assessment, progress reports, communication with the home, documentation and timetable views. Require that the platform covers all your school forms in a single solution. Split systems mean duplicate logins, duplicate integrations and duplicate support.
Integrations and SS12000
Core data (students, staff, classes, groups and timetables) should be fetched automatically from your student information system. Require support for SS12000, the Swedish standard for information exchange between school IT systems. Vklass is a member of the Swedish Institute for Standards (SIS) and takes part in developing the standard.
Digital national tests
The digital national tests from the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) place demands on provisioning of users and groups. Require that the platform provider supports this flow, so the tests run without extra manual work in the schools.
Accessibility
The public sector is covered by accessibility legislation. Set requirements against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 at level AA and the applicable requirements of EN 301 549. EN 301 549 is the standard that the Swedish Act on Accessibility to Digital Public Services (DOS-lagen) points to through the regulations of the Agency for Digital Government (Digg). The standard contains requirements that WCAG does not. One example is criterion 11.7, which requires the interface to follow the user's operating-system settings for color scheme (dark or light), contrast and text size. Also require that the interface works on desktop, tablet and mobile. Note that an app counts as a separate service in law, with its own accessibility statement, so set requirements for it separately from the website.
Protected identities and sensitive data
Schools handle students with protected personal data and sensitive documentation about support measures and student health. Require support for protected identities, role- and case-based access control, and step-up authentication for sensitive views.
Hosting and support
Require clarity on where data is stored, how hosting redundancy works and how support is organized. Swedish hosting and Swedish-speaking support are reasonable requirements for a system that carries the whole school day.
Security that stands up to scrutiny
Vklass is hosted in Sweden with redundancy. Data is stored and processed within the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA), on servers in Sweden. Processing is governed by a data processing agreement (DPA) between the school authority and Vklass. The sector-standard agreement templates from the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR) are recommended. The school authority is the data controller and Vklass is the data processor. Vklass processes data only under the agreement and on instruction, and data is never sold on.
Research collaborations are handled with the same care. Vklass takes part in the Stockholm School of Economics' study on school absence, a triple helix collaboration approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. Only anonymized data is shared in the study, and the socioeconomic analysis is carried out in collaboration with Statistics Sweden (SCB) without identifying individuals.
Read more on Security & GDPR.
From contract to go-live
A good contract is half the job, and the rollout is the other half. Vklass runs the rollout together with you, following a proven project model in four phases:
- Planning covers the project organization, a timeline towards go-live and a shared usage policy describing which features all staff will use.
- In the data sources and synchronization phase, synchronization is set up against your student registry and timetabling system so that students, staff, classes, groups and timetables are fetched automatically. All data is verified before users are let in.
- Training starts with administrators and support staff and continues with teachers and other personnel, based on the ways of working you have decided on.
- At go-live, login credentials are distributed, communication goes out to the homes and the school's support staff catch questions during the first weeks.
If you are switching from another platform, we plan the migration so that core data is in place from day one. The classrooms should notice the change as little as possible.
What you get with Vklass
Every school form on one platform
Preschool, compulsory school, upper secondary school and adult education have attendance, planning, assessment, communication and documentation in the same system.
SS12000 and open integrations
Core data is fetched automatically from your student information system. Vklass takes part in the SIS work on the standard.
Swedish hosting and support
Data is stored in Sweden with redundant hosting, and support speaks Swedish. The data processing agreement follows sector-standard templates.
Insights built on research
Vklass analys provides early warning and national benchmarks. It was developed in a triple helix collaboration with the Stockholm School of Economics and Statistics Sweden.
Proven through the contract cycle
Vklass has more than 20 years with Swedish schools, over 3,000 connected schools and more than 80 municipal and independent school authorities, across every school form and size.
A rollout that keeps its timeline
The rollout follows a project model in four phases: planning, data sources, training and go-live. Migration from your current platform is part of the plan.
Talk to us before you write the requirements
We are happy to show Vklass based on your school forms and to answer questions about integrations, security and rollout already during the needs analysis.