Criteria for Evaluating your Current School Information System

In the past several decades, we have seen an unprecedented rise in technology all around us, and that also true in the case of the educational environment. It is totally evident from different surveys carried out by various agencies around the world that integration of technology with any conventional system or processes gives much better results. That is why more and more conventional business avenues are moving towards process automation.  

Moving forward, let us discuss terminology that has garnered a lot of traction in recent times i.e., Knowledge Economics. So, what is knowledge Economics?  Well, when talking about any business then apart from Profit or Return on Investment (ROI) the single most essential factor for any successful business is client satisfaction. When it comes to schools or colleges, their clients are the student and the parents. To serve one’s clients, it is important to find out the client's view and opinions about the product and services and one must have an efficient system in place to take care of that. For any K12 school or college, this can be done with help of a brilliant School Information System.  

Wefivesoft understands this and that is why we came up with our premium and sophisticated product, MarkersPro. It is a cloud-based Student Information System (SIS) for processing Information for School Management. This Student Information System, or school administration software, is an information system that supports virtual and traditional schools to manage student records and other operational areas. It can also record student-specific data, such as registering students into courses, scoring or grading Exams or Assessments, generating Transcripts and Report Cards, building student schedules, and tracking student attendance & immunization records.  

We at Wefivesoft carried out rounds of discussions with all the stakeholders like Teachers, School Administrators, Student, and Parents of a school, college, or academic fraternity to understand different criteria for evaluating any School Information System (SIS). So, let us, deep-dive, into these criteria. 

Demand Responsive  

When we say a School Information System is demand-responsive then it means that it serves the needs of the clients i.e., students and parents, and the users of information i.e., teachers. For this, the system must be highly intuitive, user-friendly, and customizable. The system must have a capable database management system where data collection and processing can happen seamlessly to meet all the feasible demands by students and parents. It is also important that the school information system must have an effective communication system using either SMS or EMAILS or simply have an interactive dashboard for all the stakeholders. 

Student Database 

This is the most vital feature for any school information system. With hundreds of thousands of students enrolling each year, it is necessary for a school to have a dynamic database system to store and manage the student data with ease. When we talk about student data, it not just means only the basic information about a student rather the emphasis is mainly on the more crucial data such as student medical history, student academic growth, student participation in extracurricular activities, and many more. Most importantly this data must be easily available to teachers, parents, and students and must be easy enough for all of them to comprehend.  

Admission Management 

Having a smooth and effortless admission process can be beneficial for both school administration and parents. An effective School Information System (SIS) like MarkersPro, can empower schools to build a concrete connection between the prospects right from their interest in school to the actual enrolment. An SIS with Online Student Enrolment System can earn good graces for the school from parents. With this online enrolment, there is no need to maintain stacks of files for student records instead everything can be managed in a cloud-based database management system. 

Smart Attendance System 

With a smart attendance system of an SIS, it is very easy to record the attendance of students instead of using traditional attendance registers. As we all know student attendance has always been an intense topic when it comes to a school system. A smart attendance system allows teachers to maintain student attendance with ease because with MarkersPro you get an efficient student data management system which also helps parents to track their child’s daily attendance as well previous attendance records. For any School Information System to be effective, it should be highly accurate, enhance the overall productivity among the staff, keep parents in a loop regarding student attendance, and have smart student tracking to ensure student safety and security.  

Faculty Management  

It is important for any school administration to make sure that the faculty members are not overloaded with work as it impacts the performances drastically. In such scenarios, a sophisticated SIS or Student Management System is quite useful. SIS with good faculty management involves modules for curriculum building, course planning, assignment, and assessment management, etc. This eventually leads to faculties having more time in their hand and can focus on having better student engagement with various creative activities. 

Finance Management 

Finance Management for a school involves different aspects like fees management, payroll management, etc. The fee management consists of various elements like tuition fees, admission fees, cafeteria fees, transportation fees, library fees, and many more. In the case of MarkersPro where it provides an unprecedented dashboard to both school administration and parents to track all the matters related to billing, it becomes easy for every stakeholder to have a better experience in terms of financial management. So, a School Information System with all these features can act as a great finance management platform among many other benefits. Also, it is an added advantage if an SIS can be integrated with the existing payroll system.  

Exam Management 

Assessment is a crucial stage in a student’s academic life cycle and an exam is an integral part of it. For a faculty who works with different subjects and classes, it is very useful to have a School Information System (SIS) which takes this load off the faculty and makes the whole exam conduction process completely seamless. It is also expected from the SIS to help the faculties with Grading, Preparing Results, and maintaining records of the same.  

Transportation Management 

In today’s time, child safety is of utmost importance for any parent. With numerous cases of missing children while traveling from or to the school, the responsibility of every child’s safety lies greatly upon the educational institutions they belong to. With the help of an Online Student Management System like MarkersPro, we can assure the children's safety. It gives assurance to the parents about their child’s safety during the daily commute between home and school and generates the school’s goodwill in the market. 

So, in conclusion, we can say that a School Information System which can satisfy all the above criteria is the best option for all the schools out there in the market. MarkersPro fulfills all these criteria with flying colors and ensures collaboration among students, teachers, and parents to enhance student engagement, and keeps parents in the loop all the time. 

Frequently Asked Questions 

Q: How do I get started? 

A: You can visit MarkersPro Help center and go through the Getting Started Module to get started. 

Q: How does a SIS work? 

A: MarkersPro can record biographical data for students and staff, handling admissions, discharges, and transfers to other schools. It can also record student-specific data, such as registering students into courses, scoring or grading Exams or Assessments, generating Transcripts and Report Cards, building student schedules, and tracking student attendance & immunization records. 

Q: I am a parent; can I get SIS? 

A: MarkersPro is a cloud-based School Information System and is provided to Schools as a SaaS, so for parents to have access to SIS their children should be enrolled in a school with MarkersPro as SIS. 

Q: How can I access my data? 

A: MarkersPro allows administrators to create user profiles in the system like Admin, Staff, Teacher, Student, Parent, etc. and the user with any one of these profiles can access their data on the system. 

Q Is this system secure and functional on all browsers and electronics?   

A: Yes. MarkersPro is SOC2 Certified and compliant with FERPA and HIPAA. It supports all the HTML 5 compatible browsers.