Evaluating+Student+Information+Systems

Evaluating my school's Student Information System gave me a new perspective on our grade book. The Student Information System comprises a large part of the district's yearly technology budget. This includes cost for yearly maintenance, updating features according to teachers and administrators needs, and access to online training videos. Further on campus training requires the district to incur additional costs, so they rely on teachers utilizing the online videos. The software's ability to track student performance on multiple assessments assists the district in making decisions regarding student class placement and whether retention within a grade is necessary, as it consolidates all the information into one location. Having such information in one place, increases efficiency and productivity. The system also tracks students' disciplinary history, which also assists the school in discerning patterns.

One of the stumbling blocks for the teachers was the lack of reports available to them at the beginning of the school year. The district was in a rush to get the new system in place, and were told that the basic reports for teachers would be ready. They were not. This makes me wonder about the companies organizational skills, and if whether there was a provision in the contract with them about meeting necessary deadlines. Did the district get some form of compensation for the system not being operational as promised when school started? This makes me think about the type of questions I need to ask when looking at adopting a new SIS. The questions I need to direct at the company, as well as their current and former clients.

I feel like I have gained a greater understanding of the process of selecting an SIS, CMS, and other large scale informational programs for use in education. I would like to observe the entire process from the beginning, even participate in it. I feel that I would learn even more from experiencing it in a committee setting, including the complexities of a large scale committee. The experience of evaluating the Student Information System we currently used allowed me experience in researching such services, learning where to look within a district to find information about the current system, and what to consider when looking at improving the system to better serve the students, teachers, and district needs.