We have something like this for years in Poland and it works very well:
http://usos.edu.pl/about-usos
School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
11–20 of 60 posts
Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
#12I've actually thought of proposing such a project for our school district. I'm not sure what we pay our current software, bu my thought was to develop a summer STEM program and give HS students the opportunity to participate is a real project with real consequences, etc. Many of the school people (administrators/teachers) were very unhappy with the previous system, so I expected it to be a reasonably easy sale. Unfor…
One of the big obstacles I see with this kind of model is the need to get security rock-solid. Any system that deals with student information is subject to federal privacy laws, and the consequences of a data leak would be pretty significant.
Any thoughts on how to deal with this? I am wondering if os projects like the one you describe could partner with an experienced mentor, but I still wonder what kind of structure you'd want to use to address liability issues.
Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
#13For me, while it's absolutely no surprise, it's still quite depressing the clear lobbying that is/will occur to trample this project. As others have said, the cost seems quite realistic and I would put my money on the 8-person having a much better handle on the end-users needs over some big consulting-ware shop. But the big firms surely have great influence with those most able to appropriate the funds for whatever solution B.C. opts to implement. There's obviously maintenance, support, enhancement, etc. that must go on after initial launch, but that still should not get anywhere near the monster price from an outside vendor.
I hope their fate is not so dire. I will definitely be interested in updates on the school district's efforts.
Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
#14I've done similar when working for a non-profit.
Having the tech guys on campus helps drive the development you get access to the people who work with the data as well as updates on requirements of what is needed (there's always something people will forget in a spec... until some report is due and they mention it.) They can also bring in staff to test components as they are being developed.
My thing was child care related; student tracking is a whole new level, key things are relationships as in families, adults to children children to education, teachers to children to classes to teachers to credentials, etc. Plus whatever factors affect all that (social assistance qualifications, immunizations, gpas, etc.)
Though once you get the core data figured out and organized (which is the major bit) the rest starts falling into place.
It's not rocket science but it is a definitely a detailed data situation, which you need people dedicated to it for years to put it all together.
As far as anything like that being "done" not in the public sector... you got everything going then some new law changes and you need to adjust tracking/claims based on some new factor or add in an adjusted reimbursement calculation etc. so you have to restructure some data add some new entry methods, new reports, etc. Easier on an open system than a closed system.
Problem with "canned" software is it is usually developed out of one district with their own unique needs when it gets packaged as a one thing fits all it needs to be patched for other conditions and environments... It is usually geared for a specific administration staffing method, so buying something canned may mean you have to do administrative changes in order to work with the new system, etc.
It's good work though, and a nice challenge to sort out all the data and get it collected, properly managed, and accessible to the right people.
Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
#151.5 million, close to 2 years and a "small band" of programmers to deliver a specialized product working on-site with the end users. Call me naive, but this sounds completely reasonable to me.
I think the "doubters" are just not used to seeing that sort of thing. They probably think the approach is going to look more like this:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organiza...
You know, the case where you hire a team of contractors to build something, and then that team totally screws up, goes years past the deadline, and charges you enormous amounts of money. Meanwhile, there are ready-to-ship products out there that can be bought for a yearly fee, which carry less risk but higher costs.
Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
#16I can't even load the BCeSIS website through all of the Java security warnings: http://www.bcesis.isw-bc.ca/
Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
#17I am watching this project pretty closely, because I believe pretty strongly that there is much room in education for some high-quality os software. I also believe this software has the potential to facilitate some pretty significant change in public education. I really want to see some high-quality os solutions become prominent in the education world. The software development world has had numerous os tools for deca…
"Most teachers are still writing their lesson plans in Word or its equivalent, which is like writing your code in notepad without any coding-specific extensions."
There are plug-ins for Word that can produce quizzes, and most of the interactive white-board software packages (each dedicated to a make of interactive white-board) can import from Powerpoint or allow authoring of interactive content. What I as a teacher don't need is someone telling me to use some huge IDE like package to build my lessons!
In the future I'd like to use a cheap tablet to scribe on and have what I'm scribing (or what I have prepared earlier) just appear on the projector and on the student tablets. I'd also like to be able to invite student A to 'show' something to everyone else. Then I'd like to be able to roll the whole lesson up and pop it somewhere like a Moodle course so the students can access the stuff later for revision.
The original article addresses 'back end' student tracking and data capture type software. More of a business application.
Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
#18I've actually thought of proposing such a project for our school district. I'm not sure what we pay our current software, bu my thought was to develop a summer STEM program and give HS students the opportunity to participate is a real project with real consequences, etc. Many of the school people (administrators/teachers) were very unhappy with the previous system, so I expected it to be a reasonably easy sale. Unfor…
One of the big obstacles I see with this kind of model is the need to get security rock-solid. Any system that deals with student information is subject to federal privacy laws, and the consequences of a data leak would be pretty significant. Any thoughts on how to deal with this? I am wondering if os projects like the one you describe could partner with an experienced mentor, but I still wonder what kind of structur…
Mandatory ACLs, built right into the database and integrated with the OS that the system runs on:
https://code.google.com/p/sepgsql/
Assuming, of course, that you have some good way to connect a user's login to the app (which is probably being delivered on the web in this day and age) with an SELinux role. Luckily, we can do that too:
Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
#19Oh man, how awesome would it be if a high school CS class were able to have a lesson where they learn how to contribute to an open source project that their own school uses? So cool!
Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters
#20I am watching this project pretty closely, because I believe pretty strongly that there is much room in education for some high-quality os software. I also believe this software has the potential to facilitate some pretty significant change in public education. I really want to see some high-quality os solutions become prominent in the education world. The software development world has had numerous os tools for deca…
Hey man, I feel like your interests and mine intersect? Do you have any personal Twitter/microblogging streams I can subscribe to? :)