Links
School Website Helpsheets School Website Support
Contact
School Website Support Please contact via email in the first instance. Email: alison.bellerby @hertscc.gov.uk Tel: 01438 844777, (Option 1 and then Option 5)
Internet & Connectivity Help
HICS - Hertfordshire Internet and Connectivity Service The HICS Service Desk is operated by SITSS (School IT Systems Support) on behalf of Updata for all connected schools and other sites. 01438 844777 (Option 1 and then Option 2) sitss.internet@lea. herts.sch.uk
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School Website Hosting

Webhosting for school sites was previously provided through a County contract with RM which officially ended on the 1st April 2011. This service continues to be offered to schools but on a pay-as-you-go basis. Schools can renew their web hosting with RM or move their school website to an alternative web hosting provider.

RM offer website hosting to schools for £170 per year. Please contact RM on 0845 404 0000 for more information.

PHP/MySQL

PHP and MySQL are available for schools hosting their websites with RM. If you have your website hosted by another provider you will need to contact them for this information.

If you are interested in using databases on your school website the server is running MySQL version 5.1.52-log is running and PHP version 5.3.6.

RM hosting is supplied with a cPanel interface which gives website developers access to phpMyAdmin for managing your database. Please refer to your hosting information for details about how to log into the cPanel.

Contact Alison Bellerby on the Schools Website helpline on 01438 844811 or email on alison.bellerby@hertscc.gov.uk for more information.

FAQs about Transferring your Web Hosting to a New Provider

1. How do I backup my website?

If you are using Dreamweaver to manage your site, you need to go to Site > Manage Sites > Edit and change the Local Root Folder to point to a new folder. To download the whole site, highlight the 'Site' folder at the top of the Local Files panel and click the green (down) arrow. For more detailed instructions please refer to the 'Using Dreamweaver' section of the School Websites helpsheets.

For sites using CMS or other programs, please contact your website developer for instructions.

2. How do I upload my website to my new web space?

First you will need to contact the service desk at sitss.internet@lea.herts.sch.uk to arrange for FTP access to be allowed for uploading your site to the new server. Please send the following message to the service desk:

School Name:                                        School No.:

We have a new web host.

Please allow FTP between our school and our new host located at IP address........
(Your new hosting company will be able to tell you the IP address)

This needs to be done before you change the DNS (see question 3) otherwise your website will disappear. Your new provider will have sent you an FTP login and password for uploading the site to the new web space. If you are using Dreamweaver, please refer to the instructions on the helpsheets page for "Updating your FTP settings with new username and password details" to change the site settings so that Dreamweaver uploads files to the new server. You need to change the Login and Password fields to be the values supplied, and the FTP Host field needs to be changed to the IP address or domain name of the new web space.

For sites using CMS or other programs, please contact your website developer for instructions.

3. How do I make my current website address point to the new web space?

A DNS (Domain Name Service) change is required to do this. Your new provider will send you instructions about what information you need to supply for this change to be made. This will either be the IP address or a domain name for the new web space. Please send the following message to the service desk at sitss.internet@lea.herts.sch.uk.

School Name:                                        School No.:

We have a new web host.

Please edit DNS for our domain as follows........
(Your new hosting company will be able to tell you the details)

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Problems accessing your School Website

First check that you are using the correct login details, particularly the password, which is case sensitive. If you have lost the details or think they may be incorrect please contact your web hosting provider.

If your website is hosted with RM, their Technical Help Desk can be contacted on 0845 404 0000.

If your website is not hosted with RM, you may need to allow FTP access between your school and your new provider. Please see FAQs above for details on how to do this.

Contact Alison Bellerby on the Schools Website helpline on 01438 844811 or email on alison.bellerby@hertscc.gov.uk for any other problems.

Using FTP packages to Upload Files to your Website

We generally advise people to use Dreamweaver to upload their files to the server but you can use WS FTP or a similar FTP package. You can use either active or passive FTP in your settings.

See the helpsheet in the Building and Developing your Website section for further advice on uploading files to your school website.

Changing your FTP Details

Details of how to update your FTP settings with new username and password details can be found in the School Website Section:

• Building and Developing your Website

Password Protected Areas

If your website is hosted by RM, you can set up password protected folders via the cPanel. Please refer to your hosting information for details about how to log into the cPanel.

Please contact Alison Bellerby on 01438 844811 or email alison.bellerby@hertscc.gov.uk for more information.

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School Website Statistics

The RM hosting servers have a web statistics package 'Awstats' available which enables schools to view web statistics for their site. Schools can access these statistics by logging in to the cPanel. Log in details for the cPanel were sent by RM by email to all schools using their hosting services along with the website FTP username and password. Please contact RM on 0845 404 0000 if you have mislaid this information.

If your website is not hosted by RM, please contact your web hosting provider for details about how to access statistics for your website.

Glossary for the Awstats statistics package

Unique Visitor
A unique visitor is a host that has made at least 1 hit on 1 page of your website during the current period shown by the report. If this host makes several visits during this period, it is counted only once.
The period shown by AWStats reports is by default the current month.

Visits
Number of visits made by all visitors.
Think "session" here, say a unique IP accesses a page, and then requests three others without an hour between any of the requests, all of the "pages" are included in the visit, therefore you should expect multiple pages per visit and multiple visits per unique visitor (assuming that some of the unique IPs are logged with more than an hour between requests)

Pages

The number of "pages" logged. Usually pages are reserved for HTML files or CGI files, not images nor other files requested as a result of loading a "Page" (like js,css... files).

Hits
Any files requested from the server (including files that are "Pages") except those that match the SkipFiles config parameter.

Bandwidth
Total number of bytes for pages, images and files downloaded by web browsing.
Note 1: Of course, this number includes only traffic for web only (or mail only, or ftp only depending on value of LogType).
Note 2: This number does not include technical header data size used inside the HTTP or HTTPS protocol or by protocols at a lower level (TCP, IP...).
Because of two previous notes, this number is often lower than bandwith reported by your provider (your provider counts in most cases bandwitdh at a lower level and includes all IP and UDP traffic).

Entry Page
First page viewed by a visitor during its visit.
Note: When a visit started at end of month to end at beginning of next month, you might have an Entry page for the month report and no Exit pages. That's why Entry pages can be different than Exit pages.

Exit Page
Last page viewed by a visitor during its visit.
Note: When a visit started at end of month to end at beginning of next month, you might have an Entry page for the month report and no Exit pages. That's why Entry pages can be different than Exit pages.

Session Duration
The time a visitor spent on your site for each visit.
Some Visits durations are 'unknown' because they can't always be calculated. This is the major reason for this:
- Visit was not finished when 'update' occured.
- Visit started the last hour (after 23:00) of the last day of a month

Direct access / Bookmark
This number represent the number of hits or ratio of hits when a visit to your site comes from a direct access. This means the first page of your website was called:
- By typing your URL on the web browser address bar
- By clicking on your URL stored by a visitor inside its favorites
- By clicking on your URL found everywhere but not another internet web pages (a link in a document, an application, etc...)
- Clicking an URL of your site inside a mail is often counted here.

Add To Favourites
This value, available in the "miscellanous chart", reports an estimated indicator that can be used to have an idea of the number of times a visitor has added your website into its favourite bookmarks.

Help

If you have problems with your school website please contact Alison Bellerby on the Schools Website helpline on 01438 844811 or email on alison.bellerby@hertscc.gov.uk.

For further information on school visits and support for school websites in Hertfordshire.

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