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Management Information Systems (MIS) help schools to keep records of all the pupils in their school. At their most basic, they contain the address, date of birth, contact details and other simple data that a school would need to hand.
However, an MIS can provide extremely useful information and data for schools. Consider the possibilities posed by software that could help your school decide whether to provide extra learning support for a child, or keep detailed behaviour or attendance/ punctuality records.
I will review some common MIS functionality below, you can keep these in mind when choosing the MIS that’s right for you. You will find a list of some of the more popular MIS systems currently being used in Irish schools at the bottom of this article.
Cloud-Based
Where possible, I would always recommend a cloud-based MIS over one that has to be installed on a single computer. It is important to be able to access the information on an MIS wherever you are.
Arguments around security can be counteracted by ensuring basic rules are kept, e.g. no password-sharing, etc.
Ease of Use
MIS software tailored specifically to the Irish market tend to be best in terms of ease of use.
There are a number of big companies that attempt to localise their systems to Irish schools but, to date, this has not worked well because items that are important to Irish schools may be hidden deep within a navigation structure.
Plugs into government databases:
Both primary and post-primary schools must feed data to the government through their online databases (POD and PPOD respectively) so any MIS will have to plug into this to be worth its salt.
This information is generally basic personal information but also includes areas such as ethnicity, religion and any additional needs.
Attendence
A good MIS will allow teachers to take these records each day and then send these records to the government. It should also have the capability of analysing absence records. For example, when a child has missed 20 days of school, an MIS can send an automatic text to his/her family.
Communicating with Home
Management Information Systems have revolutionised the way schools operate. From basic administration to full analysis of pupils’ test scores and communicating with home, a good MIS will give schools another string to their bow to help their pupils academic success.
Article by Simon Lewis
Simon Lewis is a guest writer at Edanu and principal of Carlow Educate Together National School. He has been helping teachers make the best use of technology in education for over 15 years. Simon was guest speaker at the IPPN Conference in 2017.
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