The UK Government and MIS Systems

[PhilNeal]

I'm surprised there is anyone on this forum (other than me) that is that old!

[matt40k]

I'm surprised there is anyone on this forum (other than me) that is that old!

The people next to me remember the days well... You remember Suffolk's SMAC system?

[PhilNeal]

Understood - I remember them all - SMAC, SCRIPT, SAMS, SCAMP etc.!

[Tonyoung]

Raven, FINN (IBM ?) and that product developed by Patrick Bird in AVON LA (as it used to be) - what was it called ?

[MattMitchell]

I think that software that can improve children's lives is *very* exciting, which is why I like this job so much! The purchase or licensing cost isn't the main issue, the support is where there will always be a cost centre - and that's the same whether you're open or closed source. Although i'm an OSS fan, I can see a strong case for keeping source closed in order to keep the vendor viable.

[GrumbleDook]

Personally I think we should go back to paper files and trusting the school secretary to know all the gossip.

[jamesb]

Personally I think we should go back to paper files and trusting the school secretary to know all the gossip.

Isn't that just what your standard MIS system relies on anyway?

[SpuffMonkey]

I would rather the Government simply publish the specifications and standards (open and freely of course) detailing how the expect a School MIS to work. Then let free market economics do the rest.

To a large degree - I agree with you on that one - as an aside - I think the NHS IT project would've been a lot closer to completion by now if they'd taken that approach- they needed interoperability, not complete uniformity.

[MattMitchell]

There are published guidelines and a fairly precise data dictionary for CTF exchange, along with an xsd schema, etc. I've not looked too closely at the SIF stuff for data interchange as the configurability of sims, serco, etc renders a lot of it moot. There are plenty of published information standards though.

[dhicks]

We don't consider applications that can change children's lives for the better, to be dull.

Oh, of course not. But I, as a programmer, find applications that I can't work with without wading through a mass of bureaucracy first to be dull. If I have to sign NDAs, argue with support people to get access to APIs or figure out undocumented utilities myself I get fed up and start thinking about alternatives to the system I'm using - programming is complex enough without adding unnecessary complications. If you want an application to be considered interesting by your average programmer, emulate the best of what you can see around today - Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and so on all making well-documented APIs available so developers can work on applications at their own pace and to their (and their users') own requirements.

--
David Hicks