Anyone out there using Scholaris ?

[mattysmith80]

Just wondered if anyone out there is using Scholaris and wondered what the feedback was on it

 

Thanks

[mattysmith80]

Nudge anyone out there

[LoyalHeretic]

Yes! I was about to post a similar thread asking if anyone else was using Scholaris.

 

We implemented the system last summer having moved away from the LEA and BSF, which was apparently also running on a Sharepoint platform. I started here in January and so haven't seen the VLE first being installed and have been through minimal training, so am just now starting to get to grips with it.

 

Having previously been in a school that ran Moodle I can see that it is a far more restrictive system in terms of design elements, i've not had a lot of experience with Sharepoint and so haven't really delved into the deeper elements. However, the integration with SIMS is quite thorough, attendance and timetables are well represented, although staff here have noticed that it's not as easy as putting keystrokes straight into SIMS, I can, however see a big advantage if you're using tablets or mobile technologies (an iOS app has just been released, not sure on Android, but most of it is accessible in mobile form, although i've not tested it).

 

Being based on Sharepoint you have excellent representation from current Office applications and also access to shared resources on network drives, this seems to be quite quick and i've not yet seen any issues relating to it. With Salamander running on the network we have no issues with user generation and i've not had any reported issues there, either.

 

It has to be said, it is very early days with the system in the school, there doesn't appear to be a community to tap into for advice, from what I can tell the company is mainly based in Australia and are still growing their user base over here, but I have been informed they are overhauling their website and branding and introducing a lot of tweaks and new features in the near future, although i've not been given many specifics, our data manager seems to be quite impressed and is very enthusiastic about what they're doing.

 

The above has to be taken with a pinch of salt, i've not been using the system very long and it is still in it's infancy, I would like to see a reference site and have been told there are quite a few schools about that have implemented Scholaris and are enjoying it, and hopefully a few will post in this thread.

 

Hope this helps in some way, although it does seem like an awful lot of waffle.. If you've got any further questions feel free to ask or PM me.

[LoundsZ]

The last school I worked at used Scholaris which was supplied by Ergo UK and it was terrible, the cost was 15k, they gave us a really powerful server which was had scholaris virtualised, the thing was, that it was incredibly slow and everytime we had more than 30 students or staff connected it would crawl, this info was passed onto Ergo UK who failed countless times to resolve it. Also I found it very hard to design virtual classrooms and subjects to look appealing for users, in the end nobody used it and that school has now scrapped it.

[Speculator]

Yup, been using it for a year now.

 

It's okay. Better student data integration than Moodle, they even managed to integrate it with our custom Filemaker-based student information system. The interface feels a little tired, but apparently that's being addressed with a new SP2013 based version.

 

L8r.