MIS systems - is there room?

[SSFC]

We are a sixth form college and have opted into a custom MIS system in conjunction with 3 other colleges. The core of the system is a SQL DB; from this we have integration with active directory, Moodle, Bromcom and ProMonitor. The system is entirely maintained and developed by the group and so far has been successful and has been a fraction of the cost of a bought in system. This however does not take into the man hours the system requires. I cannot comment on the other colleges in the group but i would say 70 to 80% of my time is taken up with this. I am an IT technician and to compensate for the increased workload we have taken on an apprentice (NVQ scheme) to deal with some of the more routine aspects of the work us IT techs do allowing me to devote the time to the MIS.

 

It would be interesting to see if there are any other schools/colleges in a similar boat.

[AngryTechnician]

At my last school we had a bespoke MIS developed by the Network Manager, and while it was very good, it did take up a considerable amount of his time. When School Census time came around he would literally work on nothing else for a couple of days to integrate all the changes that had been made to CTF since the the last one. I understand that a big problem for him was that the CTF format validation tool provided often did not correctly validate according to the published spec.

[spannerman2]

Hi Guys,

 

I am back in College-world and using MIS stuff in anger once again.

 

I had forgotten the difference between being a vendor, tech-supporter and user of said systems.

 

Ours is just as proprietary and just as crap as all the others on this thread.

 

The good thing is that although lock-in is complete it is simultaneously inconceivable that the same system will be in place in ten years time...why is that?

 

expensive, restrictive, of limited utility = yesterdays indulgence

[spannerman2]

zope would suit..but it's unfair to ask folk in your position to find out why..what we need is a mega rich philanthropist to market the correct free solution (maybe in Xfactor breaks) to small schools..oh gosh..they are not formimg a cue..better sign up with Capita then

[Mithona]

Dear all,

I have a book Management Information Systems 9e by Laudon, Laudon. I try to do the Problem of Application Software, but I'm not understand. I want to ask all that do you have any solution of this book?

Thanks.

[scholarpack]

What's the question?

[EdWhittaker]

Had me flummoxed too!