Organizations: school, home, environment

School registration systems Used to record attendance. Used for health and safety – who is in the building and who isn’t. Used to discourage truancy. Used to provide statistics to be used in comparisons with other schools.

Old paper-based system Used paper registers. Teachers record marks next to students. Recorded twice a day (i.e., morning and afternoon). Marks added up manually by form teacher.

Disadvantages of manual method for registration Registers were often left unattended, which meant students could easily alter the register. Mistakes in register entries meant registers were hard to understand. Statistics for attendance tended only to be produced each term. Teachers were responsible for the accuracy of the registers. Students could register themselves and then play truant by not attending the lessons.

Computer-based methods of registration Features include: Capturing student attendance automatically. Very fast recording of attendance details. Avoiding the misuse of the system as far as possible. Enabling not only morning and afternoon attendance to be recorded but also attendance at each lesson. Relatively inexpensive. Ability to work with other ICT systems used in the school, such as the system for recording student details.

ICT methods available OMR (optical mark recognition) Works by teachers shading in boxes on forms. Forms are batched together. Sent for reading by an optical mark reader. Reports can be produced from the system.

ICT methods available Smart cards: use a chip chip is read by a reader to record attendance are open to abuse by students (you can give your card to someone else).

ICT methods available Swipe cards: plastic cards like a credit card contain a magnetic strip with data on it students swipe card through a reader their attendance is recorded.

Biometric methods Biometric – a property of the human body, such as fingerprints or pattern on the retina, that can be used to identify a person. Biometric methods include: fingerprinting retinal scanning.

Advantages of biometric methods There is nothing, such as a card, for a student to forget. You have to be there to register so no-one else can do it for you and it cannot be altered by students. Performed in real time so the system knows exactly who has registered and when.

Disadvantages of biometric methods Biometric systems are expensive. There are privacy issues. Some people object to fingerprinting systems. Total reliance on the ICT system.

Management information systems in schools Supply information to managers and other staff to enable them to make effective decisions.

Examples of uses for MIS in schools To work out how many students will be in the new Year 7 and to allocate them into forms. To decide whether a new teacher should be employed. To work out the best way of allocating teachers and classrooms. To decide on how best to spend the training budget to keep teachers up-to-date.

Advantages of management information systems in schools They reduce the workload for teachers in the classroom and in the school office. They can provide up-to-date information for parents. They can support decision making for school managers. They can tackle truancy effectively. They can be used to plan timetables.

Disadvantages of management information systems in schools The software is expensive to buy. Student data is personal, so there must be no unauthorized access. The software is complex, so all staff need training.