If you are in the education sector then, Student Information System or SIS must have been something that came up lately, especially with the EdTech revolution. Even before online learning became a forced mandate in the past year, EdTech had been increasingly growing as a sector and more and more schools, colleges and universities were seeing the need and advantages of having tech-based systems in place to reduce the cost of running and maintaining an administration.
WHAT IS A STUDENT INFORMATION SYSTEM (SIS)?
An SIS is a centralized directory of data about students that they can access with their educators. These data metrics include basics like name, age, address, etc to course information, subjects undertaken, marks scored, timetables, tests due, and also attendance. By simply logging in, a student can access all these records and keep track of their progress. On the other hand, teachers & professors also access all this data and help them set benchmarks, identify students for awards, register attendance, etc.
HOW DOES HAVING AN SIS BENEFIT, ESPECIALLY, IN A HIGHER EDUCATION SETUP?
The higher the degree, the more grit and determination one needs to excel in the course. This also means more time dedicated to one’s academics and lesser time for other activities. This especially includes activities that can be avoided entirely. For example, visits to the administrative block to check your student records like marks and attendance. Emailing back and forth to access the same also takes up time and mind space which in turn leaves lesser time and energy for academics. An SIS helps avoid a large chunk of these efforts by having all this information readily made available to the student and also avoids a huge hassle on the part of the institution where they do not have to work on individual records repeatedly. They key in the information once and only need to look it up to access the specific data required.
WHAT IS THE CURRENT AND FUTURE SCOPE OF HAVING AN SIS?
The data above from 2019 shows how the market has grown since 2016 and was projected to grow from 2020 onwards. However, what no one saw coming was the pandemic that pushed all classes online worldwide. It was something nobody had ever seen or experienced before but we were lucky enough to have the internet with us which still kept our education systems going despite students and professors being continents away. Many educational institutions were forced to change the way they recorded, stored & accessed information. Many of them switched to SIS over the course of the pandemic and now the need for more sophisticated SIS platforms is growing rapidly. And this applies to not just higher education but even from kindergartens to high schools since parents have more ready access to their ward’s data.
FEATURES & BENEFITS OF A STUDENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
An SIS can include many features but the most crucial and game-changing ones are as follows:
- Student Information Apps (student/teacher availability, course selection, etc)
- ● Student Attendance Monitoring Tools
- Student Disciplinary Tracking (reports of incidents, detention attendance)
- Student Financial Services (billing, planning & tracking course payments, etc)
- Student Enrollment & Onboarding
- SIS Student Services (Jobs, internships, co-curricular, etc)
- SIS Documents Management (document management and imaging solutions for assignments, etc)
- SIS Integration (with Learning software tools and more)
The biggest benefit of having an SIS in place is that it helps reduce the burden on the institution and the students to keep track of a lot of data that gets automated once fed into the SIS backend. Administrative efforts and costs lower drastically and processes become faster and paperless.
This also allows for remote access from anywhere in the world at any time. So whether a student suddenly remembers to check something at 3 am or a professor is in a different time zone, office hours do not matter and they can readily keep the workflow going.
An SIS has a whole host of potential in giving a great and seamless experience to the educators and students involved. It can change not only help them stay focused on the key tasks at hand but also help better manage their studies. With a customized SIS app by an expert like Valere you can also get this experience to your institution. Alternately, you can upgrade the current one you have to be even better. If the budget for one is on your mind then you can use our App Development Cost Calculator to get your estimate and start building the mobile app of your dreams at the earliest!
Valere is an award-winning software development agency that has built over 300 top-rated applications for startups and Fortune 500 companies in all verticals like healthcare, finance, sports, fitness, education, and more. Their apps have been featured by the New York Times, and have been consistently recognized as Apple App Store’s top featured apps, TechRadar, and Google Play Store’s top featured apps! Schedule a call with us today to learn how we can help your team create the perfect software or application that can Accelerate Your Business Goals!
