Tiger

Garry, I sympathise with you but you are not comparing like with like. Does Nikon operate in a market with one supplier having 80% of the market? The MIS Market is far from true open/free market - see Becta's 2005 report and recent circular to Directors of Children Services in LAs as per recent thread in: Becta's School MIS & Value for Money follow up! With such a market, no publication would want to invest resources in such review of MIS software on the market or companies to innovate or invest! Agree??

ntm1275 , Very interesting account. ntm1275, are you able to tell us which LA this relates to? Does your LA apply "top slicing" funds for support & maintenance for MIS chosen by LA (Serco in your case). Schools righly complain about "top slicing" funds. Top slicing means schools pay twice for maintenenace and support, first of all for LA chosen MIS (in your case for Serco which school does not use) and then one that the school chooses (Capita - in your example). How injustice this must be!! It would be an unfair incentive for the school to stick to LA choice for such fundemental facility running a school. To decide to pay £33,000 (before VAT) for a new MIS means the school feels strong enough for their choice to invest such amount of money!

Have you checked it out? Any good?

I did not mean to unleash any frustrations or anger here .... Just on two points: Zoom7000: "SIMS on an iPod? Why? Just why? " 1. For PE Teachers. See many postings on trying to get PE teachers to take registers on smart-phones and others. This claims 'zero client installation'! 2. Accessing SIMS.Net via web browser on laptops/PCs/iMACs for teachers: This is also discussed in many thread how browser is a 'must' for low cost of ownership and above all rolling out client side installation. It will be also intersting to see how well it will work on netbooks.

You may find what you are looking for at "www.TeachersWebFolder,com" - Teacher's Web Folder Yes? Has anyone had any experience of it??

I've just come across this entry under different thread - it is 'top slicing' in a different disguise!!!

Having seen this thread and how problems seems to be taken that it is just upgrading client stations as being the only issue as the 'cost of ownership' of THICK CLIENT SOFTWARE. Far from it! There plenty discussion on this on this under different thread, see Browser based MIS etc.. - so I won't dwell on it here. However what is interesting here is the schools choice and whether 'top slicing' is denying schools the basic decision whether to go for one MIS or other. Surely there should be a mechanism for a school to 'opt out' from top slicing and get their appropriate funds to be able to go for their choice of MIS. Some LAs seems to be giving this option - it should all LAs. Yes?

Interesting ... A matter of interest which VLE did LA go with and which VLE did you choose?

This sounds fair! Which LA is this then? It should be a model to the others!

Interesting what you said - we had the same reservation and questioned Bromcom on it. Bromcom says OFT's arrangement with Capita on Voluntary Assurance, guarantees read/write access to all Capita database and data access objects and gave us URL for OFT decision - http://www.bromcom.com/News/press/pdf/020503_Press.pdf It appears that Bromcom has done their homework here well! I will leave it to Bromcom spokeperson to fill in if I got anything wrong. Our trial is based on SIMS Data being displayed on MyChilAtSchool parent portal for lesson by lesson Attendance, Assessment Manager Data and Conduct Log for behaviour. By the way at this point we will be using Bromcom parent portal for parents viewing student data - hence writing back to SIMS does not come into it. Trial starts after half-term. I will keep the forum informed.

Have used Bromcom system yourself? How about MyChildAtSchool -are you planning to us it? I heard that it best looking piece of software of its type. I tried the demo - it appears as good as I heard. We are planning a trial soon.

It sounds as if Bromcom the only 'completely web-based' MIS - is this right? Any comment anyone?

Alumwell, Is your comment in reference to Capita or Tasc or both? Please expand on your experience - it sounds as if we should learn something here. Thanks in advance.

The problem is you still need PE Teachers with 3 hands to operate any form/size of laptop whether 9 inch screen or 14 inch. Hence an effective solution naturally is around Pocket-PC/ hand-helds - a mobile device for on-the-move / mobile applictions, so long as you get the right software to go with it too!

In case you did not read these ...

Pete, I recall you were also looking at Bromcom's one. Did you ever got to look at it? If what Bromcom2008 says stands - then it may the answer for PE Teacher registration. You seem to be leading this topic and hence your feedback will be most welcome.

Is this any help??? 28-07-2008, 01:55 PM #3 Bromcom2008 Hi there.. I understand your frustration with mobile registration, as it is a serious issue faced by many schools. A school that I have been working with in East London reported similar problems as to those you described and we resolved it very neatly. The solution is to have a solution that can work 'off-line working' with wireless (either GPRS, Wi-Fi or both) It needs to be a seamless operation from a P.E Teachers point of view. The solution that I am referring to enables attendance to be taken remotely using Smart Phones. This is ideal for P.E staff to use on the sports grounds and also for use during school field trips. Making use of GPRS technology means that registration can be taken anywhere there is mobile phone network - so even abroad. Some schools started using it to take attendance in assembly halls rather using paper! Schools can be sure that they have the latest pupil attendance in realtime at all times. I'll drop you a PM with more details - otherwise I will be accused of unauthorised promotion! If there is anyone else with the same problem or if anyone wishes to have further details, please just contact me - I am happy to help. NB: In case you're wondering - yes, the solution I have works directly with SIMS Attendance and Lesson Monitor software.[/i]

You are absolutely right! The latest information on e1 and Norfolk Secondary Schools: Apparently, 7 secondary schools who were trying to use E1, 6 had now abandoned it! Can anyone can confirm this??? Are you one of the victims - let's share your experience?

Teachers are mobile workers hence mobile device (PDA) makes real sense. There are now sensible cost devices on the market. Hence all you need is to use sensible thin client software to achieve the goal. Lesson Monitor is 'thikckest' there is - no good at all for this. Have a look at Bromcom's WinFolder which is the thinest of all avialable client software (not browser) for PDAs, Laptops. PE- teachers can run it over GPRS on smart phones. Also you will find a variant which now also runs on Linux and iMacs!

Which MIS are you running? Running OK?

I hear Bromcom core modules are all browser based - is this true? What is the true impact in practical terms for the software being all browser? No regrets going for all browser software? Is the software on school's servers or hosted elsewhere? How is the performance? Why did you ditch E1??? 3 times???

Wow - £50,000!!! How much is just SGD?

OK - so how much are we talking about??

On the contrary, I don't -hence the risks. For TS to work, Classroom PCs (on the curriculum network) must be on a flat network with Admin servers. This is bad news!! See the Computer Weekly article this week on SQL attack vulnerability from insecure PCs - page 28 & 30. Drop me a PM if you want a copy.

To me sadly you started on wrong foot - started with a badly written application and you are trying to put it right without realising that then you are exposing yourself badly another way. 1. If you look around hard enough there are online registration software that do not require the hassle of 150/200 installs. 2. Using TS to access admin from classooms: Have you considered data security risks by allowing 150/200 PCs accessing your admin domain via TS??? Good luck!