I'm not sure that 'free' is a good way to go here.
Administration is a mission critical area of school function. As such it
can't possibly rely
on goodwill of volunteers to find bugs and solve them - or to test new
versions rigorously.
I am disappointed that the market is so dominated by a single supplier -
SIMS (which we
don't use - we use Phoenix).
In fact considering the high cost of SIMS I am surprised that there are not
more competitors
out there - but the reality is that users once familiar with SIMS (and
having heared of SIMS)
are not ready to migrate to anything else whether technically better,
cheaper - or free.
(A rather similar argument as to why Microsoft continues to dominate).
I would be much in favour of some industry standard SQL based database to
drive these
systems with suppliers providing mix and match module capability- but that
would require
specifications laid down by Department of Education and such a scheme would
end up being
more expensive than giving all schools SIMS, run years over due and not work
properly as users required at the end.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Duncan"
Hi all,
I have read messages on this list with interest over the last few months.
topic, which is of interest to me, has been raised on several occasions, namely, the question of a free school administration software package.
A project has now been started to produce such a package. It is at the
stage and has need of volunteers to help define the requirements of the system and assist with the construction of it. I am posting to this list because I am convinced that the most effective way to produce a free software application of this nature is to engage the education community in it's development from
A planning the
outset.
If you would like to become involved please visit this site:
http://schooltool.sourceforge.net
and subscribe to the mailing list.
Regards
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