School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters • Hacker News Board

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#31

Post by keithpeter » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 9:17 PM UTC

japhyr wrote: post #30

keithpeter wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I simply imagine a tool that is powerful enough that people will see it used well by experienced teachers, and want to use it themselves. " Well, good luck, and if you have thought through the detail of this I would be interested to see the specification (in the Spolsky sense) for the system you envisage. " I in no way imagine such a tool being mandated for anyone " Of course everyone will have to use it! Edit: par…

I am hoping to complete my MEd in December, and I want to complete an mvp of an os ed tool as my masters project. I wrote a bit about the tool I envision previously [1], and I recognize that the next step is writing a proper spec. That will be part of the masters work. Nice to see another teacher on here! [1] http://peak5390.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/why-do-programmers-...

Good luck with the more detailed specification. I shall read it with interest. In the UK we tend to have many small outcomes per lesson, and a second document called a scheme of work tracks the large arc of a year's work.

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#32

Post by 2arrs2ells » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 9:23 PM UTC

japhyr wrote: post #12

jmj42 wrote: post #9

I'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…

While privacy issues are important, state compliance & reporting are actually the bigger challenge.

These types of systems typically track enrollments and attendance, which get reported to the state and determine the district's funding. The calculations here can be fairly wonky (i.e. some states require schools to calculate every student's attendance down to the minute) and an error could have massive consequences.

My suggestion for a project is rather than trying to replace the core database, use an API like Clever (https://getclever.com/developers/docs) to build something cool on top of the existing database. (Disclaimer - I'm a co-founder of Clever).

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#33

Post by absconditus » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 9:26 PM UTC

japhyr wrote: post #12

jmj42 wrote: post #9

I'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…

I work on a medical information system. You are grossly overestimating the ability of enterprise software companies to provide good security.

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#34

Post by 2arrs2ells » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 9:27 PM UTC

jasonpbecker wrote: post #27

I'm pretty familiar with this problem space having worked in both a state department of education and a school district. I would not expect this to be a long term success. Virtually every district of reasonable size starts with a homegrown and maintained solution and ends up going with one of the big guys for lots of reasons. 1. Security/liability. You have to have pretty damn good systems here and definitely want to…

While all three of your points are excellent concerns, I think you may be giving off-the-shelf systems a little too much credit.

The SIS systems I know (US, K-12) do a mediocre job of updating quickly to new technologies/requirements (#2) and do a terrible job of interoperating with other systems through APIs (#3).

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#35

Post by mgkimsal » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 9:38 PM UTC

2arrs2ells wrote: post #34

jasonpbecker wrote: post #27

I'm pretty familiar with this problem space having worked in both a state department of education and a school district. I would not expect this to be a long term success. Virtually every district of reasonable size starts with a homegrown and maintained solution and ends up going with one of the big guys for lots of reasons. 1. Security/liability. You have to have pretty damn good systems here and definitely want to…

While all three of your points are excellent concerns, I think you may be giving off-the-shelf systems a little too much credit. The SIS systems I know (US, K-12) do a mediocre job of updating quickly to new technologies/requirements (#2) and do a terrible job of interoperating with other systems through APIs (#3).

Doubleplus agree. Have been working with a state department on a student registration system for the past few years, and now everything's going to be placed under one of the 'big commercial' players in this space. No interop specs have been delivered/offered, and the integration team seems wholly unaware of the complexities of the requirements laid out by the state for the types of processes we have to comply with. And talk about 'not adapting'? We have processes in our system relating to HR and the commercial team flat out said "we don't want to deal with that", but also balked at offering us any sort of integration service points (REST/SOAP/anything) to keep doing what we need to do next year.

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#36

Post by jasonpbecker » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 10:16 PM UTC

2arrs2ells wrote: post #34

jasonpbecker wrote: post #27

I'm pretty familiar with this problem space having worked in both a state department of education and a school district. I would not expect this to be a long term success. Virtually every district of reasonable size starts with a homegrown and maintained solution and ends up going with one of the big guys for lots of reasons. 1. Security/liability. You have to have pretty damn good systems here and definitely want to…

While all three of your points are excellent concerns, I think you may be giving off-the-shelf systems a little too much credit. The SIS systems I know (US, K-12) do a mediocre job of updating quickly to new technologies/requirements (#2) and do a terrible job of interoperating with other systems through APIs (#3).

I actually agree with all of that (also US K12).

That's why I think you're better off with something you can sever ties with when it falls behind on #2 and use clear RFP and contract requirements + in-house dev talent to drive #3. The hardest to deal with is always going to be #3 because everyone always is trying to get you to use their whole architecture, even thought most of the time they suck at some or all of what they sell.

I think that #3 will also get a lot better with commercial software. The reality is that most of these guys have spent the last 5-10 years buying up competitors who built other systems their customers were interested in as an attempt to get all that business under one contract. Their efforts integrating software from acquisitions has been pathetic, at least in part because they haven't had a services-oriented architecture even though that's what really is called for. So I think this is a major area where we'll see changes in the next 5-10 years.

That being said, I think pretty much all off-the-shelf systems suck, but you're better off being able to hold someone else responsible for dev and sustainably meeting requirements and use in-house talent to hack around and problem solve so that users end up getting what they need fast.

You also want to chuck systems every few years and get something a lot better without having to pay the upfront costs of a rewrite like you would with a BYO-SIS.

And while I think this goes without saying, though these days I've seen districts screw this up, no matter how hosting is taken care of you need to own that data. You need nightly backups on servers you control and full access to your own information.

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#37

Post by jasonpbecker » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 10:19 PM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #35

2arrs2ells wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While all three of your points are excellent concerns, I think you may be giving off-the-shelf systems a little too much credit. The SIS systems I know (US, K-12) do a mediocre job of updating quickly to new technologies/requirements (#2) and do a terrible job of interoperating with other systems through APIs (#3).

Doubleplus agree. Have been working with a state department on a student registration system for the past few years, and now everything's going to be placed under one of the 'big commercial' players in this space. No interop specs have been delivered/offered, and the integration team seems wholly unaware of the complexities of the requirements laid out by the state for the types of processes we have to comply with. A…

I've never met a software vendor in this space that has a freaking clue what they're getting into when they sign these contracts. They never think about interoperability despite signing on to the requirements, they assume too much when it comes to their customers defining requirements, and hate offering up the goods to work with other systems you have in place (but can usually be twisted to offer bare minimum integration).

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#38

Post by 2arrs2ells » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 10:28 PM UTC

jasonpbecker wrote: post #36

2arrs2ells wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While all three of your points are excellent concerns, I think you may be giving off-the-shelf systems a little too much credit. The SIS systems I know (US, K-12) do a mediocre job of updating quickly to new technologies/requirements (#2) and do a terrible job of interoperating with other systems through APIs (#3).

I actually agree with all of that (also US K12). That's why I think you're better off with something you can sever ties with when it falls behind on #2 and use clear RFP and contract requirements + in-house dev talent to drive #3. The hardest to deal with is always going to be #3 because everyone always is trying to get you to use their whole architecture, even thought most of the time they suck at some or all of wha…

Thoughtful points all around.

I'd add that your suggestion for #2 (migrate from one system to another every handful of years) has some pretty painful costs associated (PD/training, re-implementing customizations, data migration costs). At least when you've taken care to own your data/backups, this kind of migration is possible.

5-10 years is far too long to wait for system interoperability. My company (Clever - getclever.com) has bolted a read-only API onto a dozen of the top SIS systems today, would love to hear your thoughts (I'm dan@).

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#39

Post by codygman » Sun, Jan 20, 2013, 11:47 PM UTC

d4vlx wrote: post #5

bdunbar wrote: post #2

I hate to be Donald Downer but ... it's not done, yet. ' close to finishing the core version ' 'expects to begin testing its openStudent software in elementary schools this spring, with a full launch to follow in 2014. An advanced version for middle and high schools is slated to roll out in 2015.'

True but I have a lot more faith in a tightly integrated 8 person team than some off the shelf bloat-ware customization project.

As Do I, it sounds like they are partially doing this to prove a point, which means they'll likely find a way to go through with it.

Re: School district builds own software to handle student data, defies doubters

#40

Post by chiph » Mon, Jan 21, 2013, 12:08 AM UTC

Falling3 wrote: post #10

1.5 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 keys are that they have a limited set of requirements, they're close to the users, they have low/reasonable expectations, and are willing to accept that the system will need updating & improving in the future. Sounds like a perfect fit for one of the agile methodologies.