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openStudent. Developing a Student Information System for BC Schools, by BC Schools. Contents. Vision for openStudent. Who are we?. Similar Successful Projects. Why openStudent?. How are we building openStudent?. Vision for openStudent. Our Vision.
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openStudent Developing a Student Information System for BC Schools, by BC Schools
Contents Vision for openStudent Who are we? Similar Successful Projects Why openStudent? How are we building openStudent?
Our Vision To develop a custom Student Information System using Open Source technologies and agile methodologies to produce an application that is robust, flexible, affordable, reactive to current and future needs, and specific to BC.
Common Data We have the opportunity to preserve the advantages of a common system including common processes, consistent and high quality data & maximizing collaborative efforts. Students Marks Key processes such as Ministry reporting, standardized data, easy transfer of students within the province & cross enrollment will be maintained. Incidents Parents Transcripts
Functionality • We are building all of the functionality that we need, but only the functionality we need. • The application is being developed for BC Education and not for other unrelated jurisdictions.
The openStudent team will continue to evolve the application at high speed in sync with evolving education needs. Flexibility • The architecture of the application allows for ‘Co-versioning’ to allow for business process differences between districts and/or schools. • The design of openStudent will ensure that the application and education ‘dashboards’ can be customized down to the classroom level so that the system can inform teaching practices.
There is no vendor licensing, no Oracle licensing and no profit oriented service providers (Fujitsu, Fusepoint etc). Low Cost openStudent will be operated as a non-profit, will be totally transparent and will be developed using open source technologies and Agile methodologies. openStudent costs of development and operation will be shared amoungst all participating districts. openStudent will leverage the considerable skill & IT investments that already exist within schools and districts. This approach will remove an estimated 80% of the existing costs out of the operation and maintenance of the current provincial SIS.
Current Cost of BCeSIS = $20 per fte With openStudent Financial Highlights – Operating Costs Savings to Ministry $10 $10 Districts Pay + Savings to Districts $5 Ministry Pays $10 Cost of operating openStudent $5
Total cost of BCeSIS to date is greater than $100 million …and Districts will own the system forever….. Financial Highlights – Development Costs Total development costs could be financed within 2 years through the savings in District’s licensing fees. $167fte …and when BCeSIS goes away in 2014 we will have spent $130 million and have next to nothing to show for it! $10 Total estimated (one-time) cost to develop openStudent is $10 / fte
openStudent will be hosted regionally at numerous locations around the province ensuring speedy performance and virtually 100% uptime. Performance • Should one site go down users will be automatically and seamlessly redirected to the next closest site. • Every school will have it’s own ‘set’ of database tables to allow for flexible reporting and to ensure the highest level of performance. • Current & historical student information will be always online and therefore minimal processing and time will be required for Year End Transition.
Transportation • openStudent will interoperate with a broad range of peripheral applications and reporting systems. Interoperability Attendance Callout Fee Mgmt • A common system that is truly owned and governed by BC Education will allow us to build & operate other key applications at a fraction of current costs. These include Financial, Library, Attendance callout, Parent-Teacher appointment schedulers and other reporting systems. openStudent Career Library Parent-Teacher • openStudent and its underlying databases will allow us to build a data warehouse that is relevant to BC education & to student achievement.
OpenStudent will be owned and controlled by all participating schools and districts. Control • The control and direction of the system will always be in the hands of an equal and fair governance structure. • openStudent cannot be sold or influenced by unrelated third parties. It is the last student information system that you will ever have to implement. • The process is inclusive and collaborative ensuring that all stakeholders are actively engaged in the design & operation of the system. This includes many groups that might currently feel disenfranchised including Teachers, Parents, Administrators & Clerical staff.
Last February, we organized a meeting that was attended by 86% of Districts in the province. One of the key opportunities identified was to ‘develop and build a new system’. Provincial Support • Since Oct 2011, the team has presented the openStudent concept and business case to most districts. From these meetings, 48 districts have indicated some level of interest in the project. The openStudent team has also presented to the BCTF, the BCDL consortium, the DE consortium & the BC Common Systems consortium. We will continue to share our ideas with Parents, Teachers and other stakeholder groups.
Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Project Phases • SD63 initiated project • Created a budget for 6 – 8 months • Prove viability • Engage interested districts to finance project for next 6 – 8 months • Implement a consortium agreement between districts • Defines bylaws, governance & cost sharing Viability & Prototype Elementary Beta Remaining Functionality
The key element to an Agile approach is establishing highly communicative connections with end users & stakeholders, and maintaining them throughout the development of the application. Agile Methodologies • The application is built in small chunks and continually exposed to stakeholders so that the functionality can be incrementally modified as requirements are understood. This approach also allows for maximum responsiveness to changes in the environment and in the requirements. • The Agile approach to software development is a significant improvement over the traditional waterfall method. It has has become the standard for successful software development projects.
Linux: Kicked off the open source movement. Provides the foundation that big applications like Amazon, Facebook, eBay & Twitter are built on. Drupal: Content Management. Used in over 7.2 million websites. Is Open Source viable? OpenOffice: Ver 3.x Over 100 million downloads – just over a year after it’s release Apache: Serves over 55% of all websites and over 66% of the million busiest websites Android: By 2012, will be the 2nd most popular Smartphone Operating System in the world! Kuali: Open Source administrative software: By higher education, for higher education MySQL: Database tool that drives Wikipedia, Google & Facebook Moodle: Leading Learning Mgmt System for education. A global movement with 40 million users in 216 countries.
TheKualiProject Connection to the Internet Required The Kuali Project is an excellent example of how complex software can be built successfully by Education, for Education though collaboration and sharing resources.
We have assembled a team of the right people with the appropriate technical, business and project management expertise. We have garnered the support from subject matter experts and other stakeholders from around the province…. Can we do this? • We have broken the software requirements down to a granular level and sorted these ‘stories’ according to priority & dependency. • Every day, we are building the application in an Agile fashion, one ‘story’ at a time. We expect to have an Elementary school release by the end of the year. …Yes! And we are doing it.
Thank you The openStudent Team
