GREED

We all have to remember that doing census will be disappearing in 3 years anyway when the DfE Data Exchange comes online and is sucking our data directly and more regularly... [Awaits screams from 27000 head teachers] Census is not really that hard, the validations are a bit of a bugger, the issue is communication of change of requirements from DfE has been know to be only 24 hours in advance of census day (giving suppliers no chance to make changes!). To answer the other point, there is only 1 schools census 3 times a year. Depending on the phase and type of school you have to return different information, but the structure is the same. There are about 6 different types of standard return for schools (excluding financial ones) and about 30 overall across the sector, a lot at LA level. PS: I know this because I directed the construction and structure of the census' for Aspen... although take no responsibility for it's rollout!

The need to eat, sleep in a warm bed, pay the 'lecy bills to run the laptop I would build it on... If I had some sort of backing then sure away we go! On a serious note I have always considered a kickstarter project to raise such funds.

Now there is a thought... a community built MIS... Mozilla MIS...

tehehe

Is the mod stick akin to the ugly stick and the sh!tty stick?

Possibly, probably! Edit It is School Leaders TV - So yes... lol

Anyone interested in another MIS offering? Lets hope they have more luck than the previous foreign entrant to the UK market! (Those that know me know the irony there!) Time to Overhaul MIS? | UKEdChat.com - Supporting the #UKEdChat Education Community

Yes, that is EXACTLY what they should do Don't encourage and antagonise... you are a mod! Oi, read my rather well thought-out post and you'll see most are mentioned there!!

MIS suppliers? Not sure. I know we do!

Partly because I quite rightly agreed with Chris and Shaun that I would not (personally) over-promote this (in return for allowing me to a) stay and b) keep going with the MIS Challenge;)). It's the base for the results for the MIS Challenge for the most part but I'm also collecting useful resources for schools and such and creating a hub of information free to use.

Resource Hub | Eduware Consulting

Nice one. FYI I have added this to the Resource Hub on the Eduware website for future reference.

These are available on the DFE website. Search CTF. When I get back to my PC ill dig them out for you

Do you mean the IM chat services you get these day? I really like them!

Don't you know? People love that feature!

You will definitely need to go through a process of data checking and cleansing, if nothing else it is a good opportunity. Generally though my point in whether and automated process or a semi manual one, unless you are going to do it yourself no tool or supplier will check every field for every record when data is migrated. Checks on data structure and validation will be automatic and then random spot checks will occur, but it should be down to you as the school to check the conceptual and operational information. In the example you use, a validation rule in the new system might not allow you to enter that even if you were adding a new phone number. Is there an appropriate place to store that? Things like that. Only you as the school know what that sort of information means to you so only you can manage it. This doesn't mean however that a tool ot process is not suitable to use, just needs to work in conjunction with yourselves!

I'm not saying that it can be made perfect but a working knowledge of the legacy and new system is critical in mapping correctly.

Hummmm well unless you are going to port the data yourself and not have the new supplier do it, your insinuation that a school would be using a standard data field or set of data fields for anything but their intended use would have me worried. The CTF for the most part contains the standard mission critical data components for students, this should be perfectly portable from one system to another if mapped correctly at both ends. I think this is where I meant, that the mapping is the key item that an expertise is required with. There are some items that are impossible to generically map and require a helping hand, such as assessment fields. But for example in Sims you have only a limited set of places you can record attendance, that would port to the corresponding locations in the new system. Same with just about every data item that is available in both (a key term there!). Of course the CTF is no where near comprehensive enough to support this, and I tire of hearing MIS suppliers saying they do a full migration just by using the CTF... It shows me that they have no real idea what the CTF is, does and contains! Sorry, appear to have wandered into a rant there!

Only where the architects of such tools are ignorant or inexperienced in the MIS space and/or with suppliers... The change management particularly with your staff is where I would suggest significant planning is placed...

Because emerge was a Groupcall product. It was white labelled for Capita. Aspen was gonna have one too... looks like Capita have their eyes on that prize now too ;-)

Well I'd be keen to see it or something like it all the same

Do you believe it would be worthwhile to have a basic template for scoring and or weighting to guide schools. Not to say that it is binding but suggestive based on expertise and experience in this market. I'd be happy to chat to you in more detail about your ideas and would be as interested in your perspective to guide my own efforts. PM if interested! That aside you are tight that technology alone is not the only consideration however it along with service and support should be the top three considerations.

I would not call @matt40k rude. He like many others knows his subject matter and so should be considered an expert in (certain ) fields, therefore he speaks with authority... he just doesn't know when to pipe down sometimes! The question is valid because of some recent tactical posting by a certain MIS supplier that is trying to subvert forum advertising rules, and while a coincidence I am sure, your instant praise for said company just lends itself to speculation. It is our wish to promote impartiality both here and to those reading this thread that trepidation has wandered into our approaches.

Very kind of you @elsiegee40 to invite me to respond specifically here (despite the fact it seems to be veering off topic!). @elsiegee40 has nailed it really already. You have a range of systems on offer that are often specific to one sector (Primary, Secondary, Independent) while a few serve all equally well. Love it, love to hate it, SIMS is the dominant player because it does what it says on the tin. If it didn't 18000+ schools would not be using it and have been for years (See the mentioned stats at: Market Statistics | Eduware Consulting) If you want cloud, as in true cloud, then most of the other players enter this arena, but SIMS will be there in 2-3 years with SIMS 8. If you have a sector you are procuring for, then look specifically at that. Primary you have Scholarpack, Wauton Samuel and SchoolPod I believe. Secondary you can view the rest that include Progresso, Bromcom, Arbor, iSAMS, Integris. The big players are Capita with SIMS, Facility from Advanced Learning and Integris from RM. There are some new boys entering the market soon too, most interestingly from Ireland VSWare. There are also newer but established players like Arbor who are really going well with their adaptive analysis driven MIS offering. Very soon I hope to be able to publish the results of the MIS Challenge which has surveyed every supplier out there to respond with detailed pieces on their product's capability, and this should allow you to see what the capabilities are. Obviously this does not give an impression on usability nor customer experiences (that comes later!) but is a starting point and is an objective study. The statistics (linked above) also shows trends across suppliers, across LAs around the country (So check out Leeds!) and even between individual schools so you can see who has changed within the last 4 years. All of this is designed to give you a flavour of what is on offer. You need to carefully think about your requirements and pose these to the suppliers who initially look to fit your requirements, get them in, see and play with the software. Talk to their existing happy and also not so happy customers (important that, the statistics spreadsheet should help you there) and then make up your mind. Do not be swayed by pushy beliefs that one system or one technology is better than the other, such as cloud (ie just because a system is cloud means it is instantly better than non-cloud), but your own requirements are what is most important. The difficulty in what you have asked is very few people, let alone users on here, have enough experience of the multiple currently available systems to be able to give an honest opinion (ie I love SIMS or I hate SIMS because...), so you need to take many opinions and viewpoints into consideration and ensure your requirements are being adequately met.