scholarpack

Hi Leia Can't remember if this breaks EduGeek's marketing rules.. but we noticed you weren't getting much response on here. If you'd like, we can put you in touch directly with some schools that have recently migrated from Bromcom? Best to contact the person who was handling your sale. Cheers Rich

Most MIS suppliers either moved to the cloud years ago or are now catching up and plan to offer cloud based solutions. Older onsite products will slowly be phased out. Not immediately, but eventually. There's a reason Capita are effectively being forced to adapt to this model. They realise if they don't move SIMS to the cloud, their customer base will shrink by 3% a year over the next decade. At the primary level, there is more and more growth every year to cloud based MIS (just check the census stats). Once primaries go cloud, they don't go back. The pros and cons are more nuanced for secondaries clearly. My prediction is that schools won't even be able to buy locally hosted MIS within 3-5 years. As a company, we haven't offered local hosting since 2011 and it's been a very good decision. Rich

Sep 2017 might look interesting...

I think this MIS forum is predominantly secondary school admin/users. ScholarPack as you probably know is a primary only MIS so maybe that's why no one has piped up.

Sounds like a worthwhile project, if only to build awareness that changing MIS is possible with too much headache. If you do a series on MIS at the Primary level, please feel free to get in touch, we'd be happy to help.

Essential 1) Easy to use - increase staff engagement.. 2) Easy to deploy - hosted or not? We believe hosted is the right choice in 2015. 3) Easy to access - can teachers easily access in the classroom, from home, on a trip, etc? 4) Integrated modules - does assessment talk to MIS, is comms/SMS integrated with attendance 5) Friendly support - can you speak to someone when you need to Desirable I imagine that list is different for every customer! But primary Free Schools tend to want: 1) out-of-the-box assessment tied into the new curriculum 2) web based/cloud based 3) tablet friendly 4) lots of guidance re statutory returns in year 1 5) Open, easy to use, free to use API so they can tie in other 3rd party software where required

Anti-monopolies authorities are concerned was business malpractices and leveraging an unfair competetive advantage - for example if the large player in a market reduced their price to £0 for a contract extension, in order to shut out competitors and gain the business at full price again in future, in the hope that the small competitor will not be around by then. Anti-monopolies authorities are not at all concerned with what features are in, or not in, the various products on the market. Implementing "good ideas quickly" isn't illegal..some companies are just quicker at innovating than others.. Disclosure: I'm CEO of a cloud based Primary MIS supplier.

We are here indeed! Like Graham says there are many different options now for Primary schools aside from SIMS and CMIS. Graham's site is a really good place to start to compare your options. I think you'll find the newer providers have a lot to offer in terms of functionality compared to the traditional options. I was excited at BETT this year to see more entrants to the MIS market. Don't be fooled into thinking that you only have a limited set of options.

An experienced Linux Server Administrator / Network Manager is needed to join a young and growing business which specialises in producing software for the education sector. Histon House Ltd was founded in August 2010 and produces ScholarPack, a cloud based Management Information System (MIS) for schools. Please see here for full job description: http://goo.gl/RtCkko

I think there's about 15 suppliers now including Independents! Good to see 4 or 5 new players trying to break into UK MIS market at BETT.

No problem at all. But some might argue that it undermines the key message and advantage the government are trying to push with G Cloud.

We have two methods of interoperability with 3rd parties: 1) an XML API which requires the 3rd party to pull data via a REST web service (hourly, daily, or however often they prefer) 2) manual export and import of data via a variety of methods like CSV, XML and CTF. Please give us a call on the support desk tomorrow AM and we can advise as to the method. Thanks

In case anyone is wondering, ScholarPack didn't enter the G Cloud 5 applications due to migrating a considerable number of new customers at that time. We didn't want any distractions. We'll be going for the next round of applications when they open in Autumn this year. In theory G Cloud is a great idea, but as several posters have stated in this thread, there needs to be more clarity around what sort of applications are allowed on the Cloudstore. I don't think I'd be saying anything controversial if I said a hosted windows based application is not how most customers envisage 'cloud' software working. For example, one could host LotusNotes from 1999 via a VPN and sell access to customers, but I'm pretty sure having that as a product on the 'Cloudstore' would raise some eyebrows.

Sure, that's the risk I'm talking about. Of course there is a multitude of highly important, even fundamental, open source software on the web like Apache etc but it's an entirely different market over in MIS land. Moodle might work, but VLEs aren't considered mission critical/funding dependent, so plenty of people will take a punt on those. You're right about the market's specific requirements and that's perhaps why open source is not a great fit. Generally, if the development requirements are large, it works better in software with huge possible userbases. Interested to hear what you'd consider a big idea.

This is part of the problem open source attempts have come up against. Schools aren't willing to take the risk on a tiny, untested provider with no track record even though they usually have the same or similar legal obligations as the larger suppliers with regards to data protection, data security and so on. And open Source just isn't perceived as secure or corporate enough for the edutech sector. I don't believe there are actually any Open Source MIS packages that UK schools can actually use as of 2014. Coming through this 'entering the market' process is painstakingly slow for newer suppliers, open source or otherwise, hence why there are about 4 of us in the last decade who have actually made a dent in the state sector, and many that have come and gone in that period too!

Yes absolutely, wasn't saying you hadn't but an open source MIS has been talked about for a decade. The reason it hasn't happened is not just 'support'. It's the horrendous up front development costs and the incredibly entrenched market that mean most start ups would find lower hanging fruit elsewhere - and that's a shame!

I think there's some confusion here. Matt40k was stating that ScholarPack used to be an open source project, which it did. We tried to enter the UK MIS market with an open source business model. It didn't work for various reasons. So we raised investment, got a lot more focussed, and took the project commercial around 3 years ago. Almost overnight, people took us seriously. We supply over 250 primary schools now and have ambitious growth targets. Have a look at these statistics, or these statistics if you're interested in the shape of the market, and where SIMS schools are going to/from. 85% of our schools come from SIMS. We're not supposed to talk much on here for advertising rules but thought I'd clear that up. The discussion on whether an open source MIS can work is a pretty interesting one. I don't think the market was right for it in 2010 but that doesn't mean it won't be in the future. By the way, the task of building an MIS that competes on the private sector marketplace is a herculean one. Ask any of the smaller providers. We've been there and done it. It's a mammoth undertaking. I'm not discouraging startups - by all means, go for it. But know what you're getting into.

The Background: A junior software trainer is needed to join a young and growing business which specialises in producing software for the education sector. Histon House Ltd was founded in September 2010 and produces ScholarPack - a cloud based Management Information System (MIS) for schools. We work with a variety of customers across the education sector, including Academies and Free Schools. In the last 24 months we’ve grown from 5 schools to over 270, who now rely on us for mission critical IT services and support. In 2012, we won a place on the Information Management and Learning Services Framework, a government list of approved software suppliers for schools. Based in Lincoln you will join a small team of support, development and sales staff. It’s a great opportunity to gain valuable knowledge and experience in the software and education industries. The Details: As the company has grown, training new customers has become a large part of the service we deliver. We require a 3rd full time trainer to join the team. This is an ideal entry level job into to the educational software sector. This training role will be responsible for selling, organising and delivering the training element of the business. Having a deep understanding of the product and being able to impart that knowledge to new and existing customers is absolutely essential to this job role. Taking customer requirements and feeding that back into product development, in conjunction with the development and sales teams, is equally essential. The right candidate does not necessarily need training experience (although this may be helpful) but will be able to learn quickly, spend 2-3 nights every month away on overnight sessions and be a clear and effective communicator whilst retaining a strong technical background. The training role will also have input into a structured training plan to streamline how training is delivered, both externally (to schools) and internally (to ScholarPack staff), in conjunction with the training manager. You must have: - Excellent customer relationship and computer skills - Excellent motivation, time management and prioritisation skills - Excellent attention to detail - Excellent communication skills, both oral and written - A full UK driving licence (driving is essential to this job role and medium to long journeys are fairly common but brand new company cars, expenses and flexitime are provided) Important: This is not a 9-5 job. Some days will be longer than others, for example 6am-6pm due to travelling, but an average 40 hour week is envisaged. If you think you’re the right person for the job, we’d love to hear from you. Base salary is £15-17k depending on experience. Commission based training payments come as standard (total package in year 1 circa £22k+expenses). Quick progression for the right candidate. CVs to [email protected]. Covering letters not required. Any questions? Please email [email protected]. Closing date: Sun 25th May 2014 Interview date: TBA Google doc advert here: http://goo.gl/7EB4zA

Go through the suppliers on the IMLS Framework and shortlist 3 that fit your criteria (cloud based, not cloud based, primary, secondary and so on). Get those 3 in for a demo. Negotiate. Choose your favourite. Disclosure - we are a supplier on the IMLS Framework. Good luck.

Apologies if we sounded short on email. We simply will not fit your requirements for secondary (especially around exams) as we are heavily concentrating on primaries only for the forseeable future.

How come your stats have Capita at +553? when these stats have Capita at -138? Everything else appears to be in sync across the two.

There isn't really a right place to raise it, apart from direct with LA's themselves. I think Bromcom are just trying to draw attention to the fact several LA's are using other frameworks to procure MIS when there is a framework specifically designed to procure MIS (IMLS). I'm surprised the DfE aren't addressing this or at least issuing guidance. Since only Capita exist as a supplier on other said framework (no other MIS supplier would apply for it since it's very large in scope and not at all specific to MIS or schools), the only reason for an LA to do this would be to simplify the procurement process and reduce hassle - i.e. continue using SIMS. The downside of that is schools don't get to see other providers. Believe it or not, there are some places where schools have no idea that an actual MIS market exists - they simply think SIMS is provided by the LA and they're not allowed to move away from it. It's interesting that where LA's are not mandating which supplier their schools should use far fewer use SIMS. If anyone wants stats on that, feel free to PM..

When I say publicly available you might have to request it but in theory I believe the DfE have no problem giving access to historical census stats.

Not really, it's publicly available data. It's facts and figures that can't really be debated. As far as counting chickens goes, of course one should be conservative. So let's just wait and see !

Well, we know throughout the year how many schools we are adding so we don't have to wait until Dec to know that BUT these figures are extremely interesting to us to see the movement of the other suppliers. We have already done our own internal analysis of the previous 3 years data but we don't have time to sort anything out public facing.