Hi. I'm the project admin for FreeMIS - the blurb says:
FreeMIS - the free web-based MIS for schools - has made it's second public release, which greatly improves the functionality of the reporting module, and provides a full set of dummy data to play with. If you are looking for an open source alternative then download FreeMIS here
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freemis/freemis_0.85.tar.gz?download
and get involved.
FreeMIS development seems to be taking off, with lots of offers of help. As there is clearly a gap in the market for a quality, comprehensive FLOSS alternative to the commercial MIS's, I want to make sure that FreeMIS gets it right. So I'm looking for advice. I'm a humble maths/computing teacher who saw a need at school for a decent web-based electronic reporting system, and made it happen. Now I'm beginning to realise that there's a whole world of issues that will need to be seen to be covered if FreeMIS is going to stand up in the big bad, lucrative world of school MIS's, and I'm not quite sure where to start. Is there anyone out there who's got experience in the UK MIS field and would be willing to help me with this? I'm thinking about compliance with Government standards, security of data, exporting/importing to/from Edexcel/ ScotXed etc. If we can get it right, we will be plugging one the the big remaining gaps in the package for schools to move entirely to FLOSS. Thanks, -- Robert Jones
On Thu, 2005-05-12 at 18:58 +0100, Robert Jones wrote:
there is clearly a gap in the market for a quality, comprehensive FLOSS alternative to the commercial MIS's, I want to make sure that FreeMIS gets it right.
I've been having a similar off-list exchange this past week with Miles Berry (a regular contributor around here, I think). It is astounding that the proprietary IMS solutions so consistently miss the mark. But then I remind myself, by reading something like Democratizing Innovation by Eric von Hippel [1], that the reasons why are no mystery. They are why a Free solution should be able to do this better, and not just cheaper.
Is there anyone out there who's got experience in the UK MIS field and would be willing to help me with this? I'm thinking about compliance with Government standards, security of data, exporting/importing to/from Edexcel/ ScotXed etc.
I think the government compliance issue is the real big brick wall when it comes to implementing one of the Free solutions in a UK state school. Which is why I've chosen to take my own project, ClaSS [2], to International English Curriculum schools first. Management have none of the outside demands from LEA or DfES to worry about, and so are completely grateful for the improvements ClaSS can offer without worrying 'But will it generate x, y, and z reports exactly like our current solution?'. A fully functioning IMS that drops in to place to take over the job in a UK state school isn't going to happen over night. It needs a testing ground to grow first. As Robert points out, it also needs the knowledge and input of those who deal with the details of IMS, and these are (in my experience) the least likely in schools to be getting there hands dirty contributing to a software project. If there are such people on this list then please do prove me wrong.
If we can get it right, we will be plugging one the the big remaining gaps in the package for schools to move entirely to FLOSS.
I just read that BECTA report [3] and they state this clearly: "Senior staff and administrators were less receptive to the use of OSS for administration and management purposes, due to lack of compatibility and interoperability with existing packages." A FLOSS IMS solution is needed and those like Robert and myself could do with some input to make it happen sooner rather than later. My idea right now is perhaps to find a space or a forum for IMS on the soon to be revamped schoolforge site? Somewhere for potential users and innnovators to focus. Thanks, stuart [1]http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ.htm [2]http://www.laex.org/class/ [3]http://www.becta.org.uk/corporate/publications/documents/BEC5606_Information... -- S T Johnson stj@laex.org http://www.laex.org/stuart/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I've done some academic reading on MISs in schools, but I can't claim any experience or involvement with the commercial offerings - we still use Excel & Access (awaits notification that list membership is to be terminated...). There remains a feeling that the expensive MIS have not actually had a huge amount of impact in the classroom, in part because it's been quite unusual for actual teachers to have been involved in their design, development or impementation (I can find the references here if anyone's interested). It has often struck me, but it seems precious few others, that the open source, community involvement, approach is just what is needed to harness the technology so that schools can become knowledge-based rather than merely information-rich organizations. My own feeling is that it's the VLE area which is going to have more impact in the classroom, and I'd be very eager to explore ways of adding MIS functionality on to Moodle, one of the particular strengths of which has been the involvement of educators and educationalists in its development. As we're an independent school, we're spared the worst of the DfES and LEA data requirements, and we don't educate anyone older than 11, so I'm afraid I'm not the best one to help out with specific data exchange stuff. Nevertheless wearing my deputy head hat (mortar board?), I can give some insights on school administration if that's of some help. One big plus though is that at least at government level, the existing standards are open ones - a good place to start finding out more is http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/tools/ims/ particularly in regard to 'common transfer files' and 'common basic data sets'. Robert Jones wrote: | Hi. | | I'm the project admin for FreeMIS - the blurb says: | | |>FreeMIS - the free web-based MIS for schools - has made it's second public |>release, which greatly improves the functionality of the reporting module, |>and provides a full set of dummy data to play with. If you are looking for |>an open source alternative then download FreeMIS here |> |>http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freemis/freemis_0.85.tar.gz?download |> |>and get involved. | | | FreeMIS development seems to be taking off, with lots of offers of help. As | there is clearly a gap in the market for a quality, comprehensive FLOSS | alternative to the commercial MIS's, I want to make sure that FreeMIS gets it | right. | | So I'm looking for advice. I'm a humble maths/computing teacher who saw a | need at school for a decent web-based electronic reporting system, and made | it happen. Now I'm beginning to realise that there's a whole world of | issues that will need to be seen to be covered if FreeMIS is going to stand | up in the big bad, lucrative world of school MIS's, and I'm not quite sure | where to start. | | Is there anyone out there who's got experience in the UK MIS field and would | be willing to help me with this? I'm thinking about compliance with | Government standards, security of data, exporting/importing to/from Edexcel/ | ScotXed etc. | | If we can get it right, we will be plugging one the the big remaining gaps in | the package for schools to move entirely to FLOSS. | | Thanks, | | -- Robert Jones | | - -- Miles Berry Deputy Head St Ives School Haslemere www.stiveshaslemere.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD4DBQFChQLqr4l0LSzscoQRAjBlAJdcs58dtDVf4h4ALIt084yYYA4tAJ0Z480a 3xHRiajOWt+2kywO4jMSuQ== =RxAe -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
jonesieboy@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
FreeMIS - the free web-based MIS for schools - has made it's second public release, which greatly improves the functionality of the reporting module, and provides a full set of dummy data to play with. If you are looking for an open source alternative then download FreeMIS here
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freemis/freemis_0.85.tar.gz?download
Hi Robert, I've just installed freemis to play with. If anyone else want to try: www.softmode.net/freemis username: teach password: password Apologies if you already have a live demo somewhere, I couldn't see one. regards Richard
Thanks Richard! I was "between demos", so I'm delighted that you've set one up. It was on my list of things to do, honest :) - in fact [...several hours later...] I've gone ahead and put my own demo up with the latest code (note to me: must do another release) and admin and user logins. The data resets every day. I've used the account a pupil gave me on his co-located server!!! The URL is the rather ungainly: http://neon.rossmc.co.uk/~jonesieboy/freemis Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. In order to appreciate the flexibility of FreeMIS, you'll need to be logged in as admin. The pupils look a little wierd don't they! I simply mashed up the names of the pupils at my school. If anyone knows how I can easily replace the garbage with a list of 900 fictitious pupil names please let me know. If anyone's on a Mac, I know that the drop-downs won't work properly on Richard's demo site (0.85 release). I switched to a new menu system (Tigra) and it seems to work on just about everything. Please let me know if there are any problems on my demo site. Cheers, Robert On Friday 13 May 2005 23:11, richard@tortoise.demon.co.uk wrote:
jonesieboy@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
FreeMIS - the free web-based MIS for schools - has made it's second public release, which greatly improves the functionality of the reporting module, and provides a full set of dummy data to play with. If you are looking for an open source alternative then download FreeMIS here
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freemis/freemis_0.85.tar.gz?download
Hi Robert,
I've just installed freemis to play with. If anyone else want to try:
www.softmode.net/freemis
username: teach password: password
Apologies if you already have a live demo somewhere, I couldn't see one.
regards Richard
Robert do you what that new front end I did?!
Jo
On 5/14/05, Robert Jones
Thanks Richard! I was "between demos", so I'm delighted that you've set one
up.
It was on my list of things to do, honest :) - in fact [...several hours later...] I've gone ahead and put my own demo up with the latest code (note
to me: must do another release) and admin and user logins. The data resets
every day. I've used the account a pupil gave me on his co-located server!!!
The URL is the rather ungainly:
http://neon.rossmc.co.uk/~jonesieboy/freemis
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. In order to appreciate the flexibility of FreeMIS, you'll need to be logged in as admin.
The pupils look a little wierd don't they! I simply mashed up the names of
the pupils at my school. If anyone knows how I can easily replace the garbage with a list of 900 fictitious pupil names please let me know.
If anyone's on a Mac, I know that the drop-downs won't work properly on Richard's demo site (0.85 release). I switched to a new menu system (Tigra)
and it seems to work on just about everything. Please let me know if there are any problems on my demo site.
Cheers,
Robert
On Friday 13 May 2005 23:11, richard@tortoise.demon.co.uk wrote:
jonesieboy@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
FreeMIS - the free web-based MIS for schools - has made it's second public release, which greatly improves the functionality of the reporting module, and provides a full set of dummy data to play with. If you are looking for an open source alternative then download FreeMIS here
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/freemis/freemis_0.85.tar.gz?download
Hi Robert,
I've just installed freemis to play with. If anyone else want to try:
www.softmode.net/freemis
username: teach password: password
Apologies if you already have a live demo somewhere, I couldn't see one.
regards Richard
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participants (5)
-
linuxgirlie
-
Miles Berry
-
richard@tortoise.demon.co.uk
-
Robert Jones
-
Stuart Johnson