GBM DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED

Digitally Transform Classrooms with Showbie

Supporting equitable learning with iPad, Showbie facilitates teaching and learning across various settings, from in-class to remote environments, on any device. It significantly reduces photocopying expenses and teacher workload by offering a seamless, flexible educational experience for teachers, parents, leaders, and students of all abilities.

Features

• Creation and distribution of assignments to students
• Real-time personalised feedback for students from their teacher
• A variety of tools for students to submit assignments
• Varied teacher tools for lesson planning, resource storage, resource sharing
• Moderated community spaces supporting collaboration/sharing among school communities
• View-only parent access for at-home support of learning
• Integrated Video Chat for class discussions, lessons, and meetings
• Open-ended gradebook to suit varied assignment types/grade levels
• Administrator Dashboard for account management and reporting
• Auditor access to active classes/assignments across a school

Benefits

• Direct Instruction: engage every student with personalised learning experiences
• Independent Practice: empower students to demonstrate learning with varied tools
• Personalised Feedback: Provide learners with actionable, meaningful, effective support
• Integrated Assessment: Detailed assessment of learning guiding data-informed interventions
• Support the entire learning journey by providing personalised support
• Provide continuous support from direct instruction to feedback and assessment

£159 a licence a year

• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tenders@wearesync.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

662832274885344

Contact

Amelia Stevens
0161 605 3838
tenders@wearesync.co.uk

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: Our iOS app cannot support devices running iOS 15 or older. Our web application supports the latest versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Support for outdated browser versions cannot be guaranteed.
• System requirements:
  • Requires internet access and is not available offline
  • Pro requires a designated account administrator for user manager
  • Pro requires each user to have a Pro licence

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: Average first response time for support tickets is 5 hours on weekdays
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: No
• Web chat support: Web chat
• Web chat support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Web chat accessibility testing: Support ticketing system (both in-app and web chat) is provided by Intercom. The parent company, go.eco, reports WCAG 2.1 compliance at an AA level, with Intercom achieving a WCAG 2.0 AA rating. ; Source: https://go.eco/policies/accessibility/ and https://www.intercom.com/blog/messenger-accessibility/
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Free customer support is available to all users from 9am-10pm UK time Monday-Friday. Priority is given to administrative users, then Pro teacher users, then free teacher users and parents. Each enterprise customer will have a dedicated Account Manager, Implementation Specialist and Learning Specialist available to them to coordinate solutions to additional needs.
• Support available to third parties: No

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: A user guide is provided to the administrator of new accounts to guide them in setting up teacher and student users, learning to navigate our user management dashboard, and directing them to further online support resources. Our Implementation Specialist team will be in touch to provide further customised technical support. Our Learning Specialist team will also be in touch to offer paid onsite or online training opportunities.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: At the end of the contract, users may download data files individually from the application or request the deletion of data under GDPR's right to erasure. user accounts not requested to be deleted will be queued for automatic deletion after a period of 2 years of inactivity.
• End-of-contract process: The Account Manager will confirm the necessary details to close the account, as well as seek to gather any feedback or insight from the customer that informed their decision to discontinue use of the service. Instructions are provided to the account administrator to deactivate and/or delete user accounts and all associated data. Any remaining user accounts will be downgraded to Showbie Basic and the limited functionality that includes.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems:
  • IOS
  • Other
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Showbie offers both an iOS application for use on iPads, a Progressive Web App, and a web application for use on all other devices. Beyond differences in page layouts between platforms, key functionality differences are available methods of file sharing to Showbie, access to native iPad accessibility features, document scanning is iOS specific, screen recording is iOS specific.
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• API: No
• Customisation available: No

Scaling

• Independence of resources: We ensure independence of resources through multi-region availability zones, auto scaling, load balancing, load prediction scaling, CDN caching with CloudFront, active monitoring of network traffic, firewalls, traffic routing, and blacklisting. Amazon Web Services (AWS) employs these tools to guarantee reliability, even under heavy user load and potential network threats. Multi-region availability zones distribute resources across geographically separated data centers, ensuring redundancy. Auto scaling adjusts compute resources dynamically based on traffic demand, preventing performance degradation. Load balancers distribute traffic across instances, optimizing resource utilization. Active monitoring and blacklisting mitigate malicious activities, ensuring uninterrupted service. These measures collectively ensure reliability for users.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Usage metrics are available within our Admin Dashboard to administrative users. See here: https://support.showbie.com/en/articles/4813432-admin-analytics; ; Additional usage metrics reports are available to enterprise customer by request to their Account Manager.
• Reporting types:
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Reseller (no extras)
• Organisation whose services are being resold: Showbie

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Staff screening not performed
• Government security clearance: None

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations:
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • Other locations
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: In-house
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Users may download data files individually from the application.
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Data import formats: CSV

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Availability is based on past performance. Similar to the previous explanation of independence of resources, the combination of redundancy, scalability, caching, proactive monitoring, and security measures made available with AWS ensures that the application remains available, responsive, and secure, delivering a seamless experience to users worldwide. We provide no guarantees or refunds regarding application availability. Past performance can be reviewed here: https://status.showbie.com/
• Approach to resilience: The application employs various features to ensure resilience and availability for customers. Services are deployed using load balancing and autoscaling to handle fluctuations in traffic and enable auto-healing from failures or breaches. Infrastructure follows a layered approach, limiting direct backend access to authorized network protocols like HTTPS, and only through proxy or bastion servers.; ; Resilience at a physical level is achieved through multiple availability zones, employing cross-zone load balancing and high availability multi AZ SQL database deployments (e.g., AWS DynamoDB, S3, or ScyllaDB). Access to backend resources adheres to the principle of least privilege, where default communication between services is restricted, allowing only necessary communication, such as access to storage databases by specific backend web servers.; ; This principle extends to access privileges for AWS or external services, minimizing access to modify services (e.g., AWS SQS access limited to queue producers and consumers). Overall, the design focuses on robustness, security, and efficient resource utilization to ensure continuous operation and protection against potential disruptions or security threats.
• Outage reporting: Outages are reported via a public dashboard (https://status.showbie.com/) which offers a subscription to email alerts.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Access to our management interface requires login from an account that is a designated administrative user. For support channels, all teacher, administrator and parent users have access to customer support via web chat. Web chat support access is not available for student account types.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least once a year
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Other
• Description of management access authentication: Management access is granted manually to individual users by support staff on request. At least one management user must be specified during the purchasing process and subsequent management users may only be requested by existing, verified management users.

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: No
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: No
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: No

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: Showbie maintains an ISO 27001 compliant Information Security Management System (ISMS). ISO 27001 is an internationally recognized standard for information security management, demonstrating our commitment to protecting sensitive data. Our ISMS provides a comprehensive framework of information security policies that we adhere to, such as data classification, access control, encryption, risk management, and incident response. We conduct regular audits, assessments, and reviews to ensure ongoing adherence to ISO 27001 requirements and other relevant standards, such as SOC 2 and the NIST CSF.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: This process involves careful assessment and application of changes to infrastructure, prioritising uninterrupted access to applications for teachers/students. We assess networking and connectivity, considering global and regional services, ensuring proper communication between services using internal Kafka and HTTPS protocols. External access is routed through a proxy service. We analyse database schema consistency across environments, assess performance impact, evaluate migration scripts for different database platforms (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redshift). Develop deployment migration plans, including rollback procedures. Changes are then executed consistently across all environments by designated personnel. The availability of snapshots for post-deployment recovery, including manual and automated snapshots, are verified.
• Vulnerability management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Showbie conducts penetration and vulnerability scans against infrastructure and applications in accordance with the risk to client data, to identify and remediate any security vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. In addition, our vulnerability reporting ("bug bounty") program is a key element of our ongoing vulnerability testing. See more information here: https://support.showbie.com/en/articles/4487768-reporting-security-vulnerabilities
• Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: Conduct regular application security testing including penetration testing, actively monitoring network traffic. Security incidents are addressed and notify impacted customers as per our Data-Breach response plan. We conduct scanning of application code via statistic analysis and dynamic analysis. Identify/test known attack methods (cross-site scripting, SQL injection and backdoors) to uncover vulnerabilities. Testing methods are external-testing of accessible endpoints, internal-testing inside company firewalls, targeted testing against known attack-methods, and responsible disclosure testing from 3rd-parties. Evaluating the whole-system - isolating privileges/services against persistent-threats. Isolating higher-risk services, adding security measures to sensitive data. Protective monitoring tools include AWS Security Hub, AWS CloudWatch etc.
• Incident management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
• Incident management approach: Maintaining a risk-management process to identify, assess, manage risks to restricted information, aswell as a data-breach response plan should a suspected/confirmed data-breach incident occur. Users may report suspected incidents via support-ticket, outreach to their Account Manager, or direct: privacy@showbie.com. Data controllers will be notified of a security breach within 72-hours of identifying a breach. This notice will provide specific details about the incident, as well as any action taken or required by Showbie, or recommended to be taken by the data controller, as a result of the incident. Regular updates will be provided to the data controller until resolved.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  As a digital learning app, Showbie provides educators with a platform to create, store, assign, mark, and assess learning resources digitally. Educators can create work on digital canvases, record feedback, and create worksheets and quizzes in the app. Showbie drastically reduces the need for paper, printing and photocopying, physical workbooks and notebooks, as well as the need for other classroom goods like pens, pencils and markers, thereby reducing the carbon impact and footprint of education.

  Covid-19 recovery

  The global Covid-19 pandemic was a significant disruption for learning with lockdowns interrupting education, shutting down schools and preventing students from engaging as deeply as they could in their learning had they been in class. Showbie’s unique approach to digital learning offered educators continuity in the learning environment by allowing them to continue to engage learners from home with online learning, digital feedback and assessment.; ; Studies have indicated that many students have struggled in the wake of Covid-19 lockdowns and may have fallen behind in core subjects and skills. Showbie’s approach to personalised learning means that educators have robust tools to provide deeper and additional supports to every learner through differentiated instruction, retrieval practice, adaptive teaching, verbal feedback and formative assessment tools. Showbie’s unique features ensure teachers can reach every learner with the extra personalised learning supports they may need to catch-up, close feedback loops, and meet learning outcomes. Showbie’s easy-to use feedback and assessment tools mean teachers can provide more precise, actionable and personalised feedback to every learner, faster ensuring no student is left behind.

  Tackling economic inequality

  Showbie is a digital learning app that personalises the learning journey for every student. By providing students with unique learning tools that meet them where they’re at, and by enabling teachers to better reach every learner with personalised supports, Showbie has the potential to raise aspirations for students that may traditionally struggle to participate fully in their learning or may not be able to receive the additional supports they need in the classroom.; ; Showbie bridges gaps by making it easier for educators to provide personalised and contextual supports. As a part of a device deployment, Showbie’s unique learning platform and capability to support a variety of creative learning apps provides learners with opportunities to develop critical digital skills that will enable them to succeed in life. Equally, in providing deeper opportunities for all students to engage in their learning, and be supported in the way they need best, means every student can realise their potential, regardless of economic background. Showbie levels up all educators and levels out the educational playing field with tools designed to increase the equity of opportunity.

  Equal opportunity

  Showbie is designed for education and optimised for use on classroom devices that prioritise accessibility and inclusion. Showbie’s unique design and features enhance equity and opportunity for all students by providing tools that allow teachers to personalise and differentiate learning resources, and allow students to share their thinking in the ways they need best.; ; At Showbie, we know that no student learns the same way or at the same pace. Showbie’s features provide for flexibility and inclusion in the learning environment so every student has the opportunity to share their learning and participate in the classroom. Showbie strives to develop and maintain a digital learning platform that meets accessibility requirements for learners with a variety of disabilities that may impact how they interact in the classroom. This includes regular audits of our platform with third-party organizations and compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA web standards and mobile accessibility best practices to guide our work towards meeting accessibility needs.

  Wellbeing

  Showbie supports teacher and student wellbeing in a variety of ways. Showbie’s easy to use platform simplifies complex and time-consuming workflows for educators, saving them time on non-instructional tasks, allowing them to more efficiently reach every learner, empowering to them to do their best work, and improving their impact on student success. Showbie supports student wellbeing by providing a discrete and timely platforms for 1:1 teacher-pupil communication, giving students confidence to share with educators in or out of the classroom. Moreover, Showbie support student well-being by providing more flexible and personalised opportunities to participate in learning, where students may otherwise not engage as deeply in the classroom environment.

Pricing

• Price: £159 a licence a year
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: Yes, users may sign up for a free account that has limited feature availability but no limit on duration. See details of the "Basic" and "Pro" editions here: https://support.showbie.com/en/articles/1715591-showbie-for-teachers-plans
• Link to free trial: https://support.showbie.com/en/articles/1715591-showbie-for-teachers-plans

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tenders@wearesync.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.