headquarters preston united kingdom founder s chris byers key people chris byers shaun garriock employees 2 slogan s the it professionals life line website edugeek.net alexa rank 2475 edugeek.net is a british based online peer support community and information portal for it professionals predominantly working in the field of education operating primarily as an internet forum . founded by chris byers and ric charlton in 2005 1 the site now has 2 full time paid employees the founder chris byers & the webmaster shaun garriock . as of june 2014 the sites member base exceeds 68 300 users . 2 contents 1 history 2 operation 2.1 membership 2.2 public face 3 in the media 4 references 5 external links history edit edugeek was founded in 2005 by chris byers 1 an it systems manager for lancashire schools in the united kingdom who has since become employed with the site full time . during research he found there was no other website or community that specifically targeted it professionals that worked in education . the website initially used dragonfly cms although this was found to be too restrictive and the site has since moved onto vbulletin . today the edugeek community boasts a member base in excess of 31 000 . in april 2010 the naht released a report looking at the spending behaviours of schools and the way suppliers were taking advantage of them . this report was in part based on posts at edugeek where some members had provided detailed accounts of how their schools had been ripped off by some suppliers . 3 following the announcement by the uk government that it was to close becta members of edugeek worked to ensure that the expertise and knowledge available from becta didn t disappear transferring it to various new homes on the internet . 4 edugeek has been a regular feature at the bett show manning the technical support help point for visitors staffed by volunteers from its membership . 5 6 7 operation edit the website currently has 3 administrators and 16 moderators 8 who volunteer personal time to contribute to the community . to help financially the site has many sponsors such as smoothwall and promethean . 8 the site also uses advertisements provided by adsense to generate income . membership edit all of edugeek services to its members are provided free of charge . member s details are never sold or passed on to third parties and it s this integrity which remains one of the sites main strong points . its members come from all areas of the it profession . originally aimed at the burgeoning field of it professionals working within the british education sector in the mid 2000s decade its membership now consists of it staff from all over the world in education health banking and private sector . while the forum remains focussed on the education sector their technical forums contain help and information covering all it sectors . its membership increases at a rate of just over 10 000 per year although this currently shows signs of increasing . public face edit edugeek spends a great deal of time and money ensuring the community aspect of the site is developed by attending educational it shows in the united kingdom and the united states as well as hosting its own annual conference to ensure the staff and moderators get to meet its members in real life as much as possible . since its first conference in 2005 edugeek has always ensured no costs will be passed onto its members for attending apart from travel and accommodation costs or catering during the event . edugeek is a regular at the uk based bett british educational training and technology show held each january at the london olympia exhibition hall where it runs the shows technical help point on behalf of show organisers emap and has exhibited at the us international society for technology in education show in denver 2010 helping to increase awareness of the community in the us . in february 2011 microsoft invited 50 members of edugeek over to their reading campus to discuss the different topics relating to microsoft software in an educational environment and members got to voice their own concerns and questions such as licensing difficulties that small primary schools have compared to secondaries . 9 in the media edit in may 2007 sophos threatened edugeek with legal action due to criticizing posts of one of its members . shortly after sophos apologised for their actions blaming it on a staff member convincing their legal team to send the threats rather than a senior management decision . 10 in july 2008 the site was put offline due to a hardware issue at their hosting provider fasthosts . this downtime lasted several days and lead to angry members emailing the company en masse to express their displeasure . 11 references edit a b edugeek arrives in usa for iste 2010 members . edugeek.net . retrieved 2013 01 06 . schools being treated like an open chequebook says naht a short sighted approach 14 oct 2010 don t miss out freebies at bett 2010 registration now open for bett 2011 q & a a b edugeek admins & moderators how many network managers technicians and edugeek members does it take ... sophos apologises for going legal on school techies fasthosts brings down edugeek and leaves it there external links edit edugeek website v t e culture and infrastructure of the city of preston transport bus station bypass dick kerr & co. fishwicks guild wheel longridge railway preston corporation tramways park & ride preston bus ribble bus ribble link ribble link trust ribble steam stagecoach tramroad transport in preston united electric car company whittingham hospital railway railway stations preston disused stations deepdale deepdale street fishergate hill grimsargh lea road maudland bridge maudlands ribbleton education university of central lancashire schools archbishop temple ashton broughton cardinal newman christ the king corpus christi fulwood academy moor park our lady s preston s college preston muslim girls closed catholic college larkhill winckley square sport deepdale dick kerr s ladies f.c. preston speedway preston city wrestling preston grasshoppers r.f.c. preston mountaineering club preston north end f.c. preston north end w.f.c. west cliff history battles of preston 1648 1715 county borough of preston fulwood urban district preston castle preston pals preston passion preston rural district preston strike of 1842 preston tithebarn redevelopment media the bee 106.5 central radio farmers guardian lancashire evening post preston fm preston is my paris red rose radio rock fm rock fm 2 companies action records bae systems military air & information booths edugeek horrockses crewdson & co. recycling lives skiddle politics council elections 1945 46 47 49 50 95 96 98 99 2000 02 03 04 06 07 08 10 11 12 14 15 wards ashton brookfield cadley college deepdale greyfriars ingol larches lea moor park preston rural east preston rural north ribbleton riversway st george s st matthew s sharoe green town centre tulketh constituencies preston by elections 1929 36 40 46 2000 preston north preston south wyre and preston north retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title edugeek & oldid 723417065 categories internet forumsinformation technology educationinternet properties established in 2005companies established in 20052005 establishments in englandcompanies based in preston navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 2 june 2016 at 22 51 . text is available under the creative commons attribution 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