Open Source ITSM strengthens digital competence in Chemnitz schools

Chemnitz, Saxony's third-largest city, has always been a pioneer in education. Today, Chemnitz schools are focusing primarily on digitalization with open-source software.

In December 2024, the SyS-C school computer center installed its final interactive whiteboard. This marked the conclusion of the five-year DigitalPakt Schule program, which promoted the digitization of educational institutions nationwide. However, Chemnitz laid the foundation for this 20 years earlier, as the school computer center has existed for that long.

To professionally administer the growing technology in municipal schools, the city of Chemnitz created a system solution in 2004. It was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the European Social Fund. In 2009, the city received the "Public-Private Partnership" Innovation Award for it.

Four points were particularly important: homogenization and networking of school IT, central administration, a uniform support culture, and relief for educational IT coordinators. However, with growing requirements and an increasing number of schools to support, the small IT team soon needed a new, supportive solution.

To better structure incoming support requests and tasks for new installations at schools, the KIX open source ITSM software was introduced as a ticket system in 2013. Employees were already familiar with OTRS, and the proximity of the provider was an added advantage. Sebastian Klost, the head of the school computer center, and his team had ambitious plans for KIX.

In addition to providing end-user support and managing infrastructure, they wanted to use KIX to plan for and manage new and replacement equipment. However, in reality, the goals were too ambitious—the team was too small, and the variety of tasks was too great. "Unfortunately, we didn't have the capacity to maintain our KIX system and take advantage of its capabilities. But we didn't want to give up on it either. We knew how valuable it was," said Michael Edler from Planitz.

Regardless of the framework conditions, the small SyS-C team expanded KIX over the years from a simple ticket system to an ITSM solution. Starting in 2022, with a larger workforce, organizational changes, and a growing number of schools, Edler von der Planitz and his colleagues decided to take a different approach. They wanted to update the ticket system and make better use of it. That's why they decided to make a change. "The new version, KIX 18, with its modified design, offered a good opportunity to reorganize support tasks."

The school computer center currently serves 83 schools in Chemnitz. Over 27,000 users belong to the network. There are over 6,000 computers, 9,500 tablets, 1,700 Apple TVs, 90 Mac Minis, 600 servers, and 350 printers that are managed. Additionally, there are several hundred switches and approximately 2,400 access points.

A detailed article on itwelt.at shows that open-source IT service management is an important driver of digitalization in school IT.

• to the IT-Welt article