ICT Advice: Management Information Systems

Written by ICT Strategy Group

Management information systems are helping schools reduce administrative burdens and helping managers make informed decisions.

What you need to know
School Management Information Systems (MIS) should:
- reduce bureaucratic burdens by reducing time spent on administration;
- raise standards through enabling collaborative working to provide the knowledge needed for assessment and self evaluation;
- provide more time and information to support teachers and parents so that they can take an active role in the child’s education;
- create better informed management.

MIS can now be used as an essential business tool for day-to-day school management and accountability.
- Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) linked with a school’s MIS can provide opportunities to develop the school’s analytical and reporting functions.
- The Government’s e-Strategy will make heavy demands on the use of information to inform the public, support learners, transform teaching, learning and assessment, and assure the effectiveness of the education system itself.

What you might like to discuss
- Does your MIS system help you with the above
- Are you able to use your electronic data to improve how you teach, learn and assess?
- Is the information you get from data transfer with other schools what you need?

Checklist – is your MIS:
- Future proof?
- Low profile – integrated (functionally and at a database level) with seamless upgrades?
- Easy to maintain?
- Intuitive and easy to use. Does it use skills staff have learnt elsewhere?
- Expandable in the future?
- Resilient – up and running without failure on a regular basis?

What you might consisider doing next
- Ask key staff to use a self evaluation tool and compare the responses.
www.new-media-learning.com/data_confident_print.htm
- Consider the use of analytical tools that work with your MIS to enable you to explore achievement issues.
http://4matrix.org/4Matrix_example_reports.pdf

Further reading:
- Government website – www.teachernet.gov.uk/ims
- Becta Expert Seminar on MIS http://www.becta.org.uk/etseminars/presentations/index.cfm?seminar_id=14&section=7_1

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 12:22 pm by ICT Strategy Group and is filed under Briefings from ISC's ICT Strategy Group. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.