If you don’t have an online Student Information System in place, get ready for another year of the same administrative headaches that paperwork and legacy systems come with. That will happen, regardless of how many students you’ll be enrolling in your school this time around. Unnecessary administrative workload will, undoubtedly, be a big part of your daily routine.
In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that lacking an online Student Information System, schools, academies and educational institutions look as if they’re operating with snail mail. Put another way, if you’re sticking to methods and processes that are still labor-intensive, you’re probably chasing your own tail. There are new ones that can do the job, way better than that.
Drawing a parallel between using snail mail and lacking a software system helps us get an idea
of the difficulties this stagnation causes to administrators, teachers and students, as well. Schools that are not taking steps to develop their digital competency and change with the times, will inevitably have to deal with the shortcomings we’ll describe below.
Managing student information with outdated methods
Although our society has long entered the digital era, many are the schools that have not yet modernized the way they manage student information. Actually, sooner or later, we’ll be entering the post-digital era, where using digital methods will be the old standard.
But, even so, managing student information is still a pain point for some schools. As a matter of fact, student-related information does not only apply to schools in the strict name of the word. All educational institutions that enroll students need to manage and monitor students’ personal data, attendance, grades and all the complementary information, in some way.
Does your school fall under one of the three categories we’re describing below? If so, make sure you don’t stop reading; find out the pros of an online student information system’s pros. It’ll give you an idea how to make quick work of student information management in your school.
Dealing with the shortcomings of paperwork
Schools that have not yet gone digital and still depend on written documents to manage information, put an unneeded strain on their personnel. School administrators are usually the ones that get a mountain of paperwork to do, on a daily basis. Teachers are equally burdened with dealing with the unneeded workload too. Student records, gradebooks, attendance data, payments and anything else needed to run the school, are all managed using written documents. To put it another way, there is no central system that will help them store and process information in an efficient way. Needless to say, most processes are error-prone and time-consuming; and the frequent mistakes incurred affect all interested parties. In short, administrators and teachers spend much more time managing information than focusing on educational tasks that affect students’ progress and the school’s competency.
Using a legacy system
A host of schools may no longer rely on paperwork to manage their school information, since they’ve — by now — adopted an on-site student information system. That means, a locally maintained system, in-house. At first glance, such a decision seems to be worth the hassle of storing all of your school data in; especially if you’ve invested an important portion of your budget on it. Nevertheless, all that glitters is not gold; and that choice raises the following questions:
- The cost of such a purchase may be relatively high; would such a decision be an option for your case too? A tight school budget probably does not give you the leeway to follow such a path; albeit, an outdated path.
- Even if you can afford such a solution, maintenance costs may further increase your school’s expenditure. Is this something you can cope with?
- Another aspect, worth-taking into account, is the fact that such solutions are rarely portable. The need to have the option of running your school from a distance became more obvious during the pandemic. How comfortable do you feel choosing a solution that does not offer your choice?
- You decided to make a purchase based on your school’s today needs, right? Let’s say you only needed an efficient way to manage gradebooks and student payments and that’s what directed your choice. How can you be sure that your needs won’t change over time?
- Isn’t it difficult — although inevitable — to give access to other members of your community using such a legacy system? Don’t you wish you could give parents and teachers access to your student information system and make your workflows faster and much more efficient?
Using a combination of multiple software solutions and tools based on your needs
Does this sound familiar to you? Well, if you’re not an advocate of the all-or-nothing mentality and try to adapt to what comes your way, you’ve probably gone down that path. To explain, you probably decided to use Excel Sheets to register your students, then found an attendance management tool that made your routine smoother and so forth. In brief, you use a series of tools and solutions, based on your needs. And now, the questions that come with such a choice:
- Did you eventually manage to cover all of your administrative needs?
- Is this decision cost-effective and less labor-intensive?
- Is it feasible for teachers and students to get value from the combination of solutions you’re using?
Still here? Great! Let’s get to the meat of our topic and see how all of these issues can become a thing of the past, with an online student information system.
The benefits of using online student information system
- You don’t need to be physically at your school office to access your student management system. All you have to do is login to your account; simply by using your favorite browser.
- You get to have all the functionality you need in one system. You don’t have to puzzle yourself as to which combination of solutions to choose, to make your school management work smoothly. Neither do you have to juggle different tools in your daily routine. Student management, timetable management, attendance management, gradebook management, financial management and many more are available to you; and you can make the most out of your system, using only what you need.
- There are no maintenance costs. Since you don’t have to install and maintain an on-premise system, you’ll save yourself these types of headaches. Your online student information system will always be available to you at full capacity. All maintenance processes will always take place in the background and you always get the latest version to work with.
- You can give your teachers access to their own user account, to run their own classes much more efficiently. To elaborate, they’ll be able to take attendance, work on their online gradebooks, access student information and make the best out of a system that is made for them, too.
- You may offer students and/or parents a tool that helps keep up with the educational process of your school. More specifically, they’ll be able to view their timetables, attendance data and gradebooks, with ease. In a similar fashion, they’ll also be able to inspect and proceed with tuition fee payments; helping you collect these payments on time.
It can work for you, too!
These are only a subset of the advantages you’ll enjoy by using an online Student Information System in your school. Undoubtedly, each school, academy or educational institution has its own special characteristics and needs. But, even so, getting access to a system that offers so many different options to use in your work routine, can surely make the difference in your case, too.
Gear up for the new school year, with DreamClass
Want to save yourself the administrative headache and hassle of obsolete paperwork and outdated legacy systems? If so, try DreamClass for free and reap all the benefits with a single solution that helps you pay as you grow; and still get everything you need, from day one.
