Open Source School Information Management System

[bizzel]

OpenMIS sounds good to me I think putting SIMS in the final name would be risky.

[plexer]

Open School MIS
School MIS
SchoMIS
SchMIS
School Open MIS
MISOpen

Ben

[penfold_99]

Hi,

The names not really an issue at this point as there is no product.

All your input will help it become one!

If you have any ideas about names, features, best practice etc please register on the wiki www.schoolsict.com and add your ideas and thoughts.

Ian

[penfold_99]

Originally Posted by webman

Looking at the Google Groups, OpenSIMS doesn't seem to be the final name that has been decided on.

Yep that's true, in the absence of one I used OpenSIMS until one is picked.

[Gerry]

OSMOSIS - Open Source Management Of Secure Information System

Sounds cool and catchy don't you think? How about a logo of data passing through a "membrane"?

[penfold_99]

Originally Posted by Gerry

OSMOSIS - Open Source Management Of Secure Information System

Sounds cool and catchy don't you think? How about a logo of data passing through a "membrane"?

Sounds good, any chance of you putting together a logo.

The name is also ironic as teachers will expect it to work like osmosis.

Ian

[penfold_99]

how about eOSMOSIS.org for the domain?

[openhgs]

Is there any reason that you aren't participating in The SchoolTool Project (www.schooltool.org) rather than starting a new project? Many Open Source projects fail because once the initial enthusiasm wanes, they become one or two man projects and these individuals don't have the resources to drive the project forward. The Shuttleworth Foundation are supporting SchoolTool, and I think a product will emerge at some point.

[Gerry]

Sorry, stickmen are the extent of my drawing capabilities!

Just had a quick look, osmosis.org is available, why not have that?

[penfold_99]

Originally Posted by Gerry

Sorry, stickmen are the extent of my drawing capabilities!

Just had a quick look, osmosis.org is available, why not have that?

Have you got a couple of grand spare to buy it?

[penfold_99]

Originally Posted by openhgs

Is there any reason that you aren't participating in The SchoolTool Project (The SchoolTool Project — The SchoolTool Project) rather than starting a new project? Many Open Source projects fail because once the initial enthusiasm wanes, they become one or two man projects and these individuals don't have the resources to drive the project forward. The Shuttleworth Foundation are supporting SchoolTool, and I think a product will emerge at some point.

We have thought about joining another project and push it forward. We have looked at 4/5 School MIS's and talked to the creators and they have liked the idea of a os independent web based super project that will pull together the ideas, features, best practice from their projects into a consolidated effort.

We have talked about a number of reason to start from scratch and some for not.

Ian

[Gerry]

Originally Posted by penfold_99

Have you got a couple of grand spare to buy it?

Ok eOSMOSIS.org sounds good!

[CyberNerd]

I've added some general feature categories for discussion:

Category:Features - OpenSIMS

[kesomir]

As you are at a preliminary evaluation stage, I have a working (not yet feature complete) management information system I wrote for my school over the past 18 months.

I've been debating whether or not to release the whole thing as open source, or whether to release the core system under a non OS license but provide modularity for plug ins.

Part of the problem is that the system is considerably more complex than an application such as a web-forum, with many dependencies on the core systems.

Waiting on trademarking at the moment, but features are thus:

Written in PHP with MySQL Database
Built on the Codeigniter MVC Rapid Development Framework
Uses CSS for gui
It uses absolutely no javascript - to improve cross browser compatability
valid XHTML

Current working systems:
Multi-lingual support.
Authentication.
User management.
Group management (for classes, clubs and entry years).
Calendar system (we use for assigning applicants to weekly visits and assessments).
Correspondence template system (used to generate various letters during enrol process - pulls data from calendar + user systems).
Config in database so that admin section can be used to alter settings.
Electronic Testing system.
Digital signage page
Export (currently exports year groups to ranger AD tool and moodle, but can be tooled to export to any csv)
Accounting invoice generation (operational)
Ability to modify external LDAP database passwords

Features not yet developed:
Attendance (Register)
Discipline system
Templates (not too hard to do - separate folders)
lesson plans
"my page" for vle
File management
code tidying
"delete" functionality for various parts of the system
garbage collection
Application's admin section
Active Directory integration (needs modification of existing ldap code + config to select on/off and type).


I've started running into a few instances where not using javascript (or ajax) causes a few probs with usability, but I think that flex is a better route to go than Ajax to enable a RIA experience. The beauty is that flex modules for the gui can be swapped in to place with the existing system with minimal rewrites due to the MVC setup.

It sounds from your information that my application meets all of your design requirements as a base.

I honestly think that for such a project to succeed, the open source or collaborative portions of the system have to be modular.

CORE
Authentication
User management
Groups
Calendar
Correspondence
Basic Accounting
Gradebook
Registration / Attendance system
Export
Add / Remove Modules

MODULAR
Testing
Discipline system
Accounts system
Lesson plans
VLE
etc, etc.

If I were to get the system to a point of modularity, would it be something you might be interested in contributing to? Would you be influenced by whether it were released under an OSS or other license if it were available to use for free?

[penfold_99]

I think you would get a lot of support for an OSS version. Is there a demo avaliable?