Key Takeaways
As student numbers and educational demands grow, more schools recognize the benefits of a Student Information System (SIS). Today, the success of individual students and schools depends on the school's administrative efficiency. A robust and reliable SIS helps institutes take a lot off the teachers’ plates and enable them to focus better on student outcomes.
It can ease administrative tasks, send out real-time updates, and even carry out automated calculations to speed up assessment, Beyond merely storing academic records, a Student Information System is fast becoming an invaluable tool in shaping a student’s learning journey.
In this blog, we look at the benefits of an SIS. But before that, here’s a simple definition of a Student Information System.
What is a Student Information System?
Student Information System (SIS) is a student-centric software that documents, processes, and manages student data including personal information, performance, learning styles and goals, attendance, and invoicing.
The data from an SIS is used to provide feedback and counseling to students, facilitate data-backed decision-making, and support administrative activities. An SIS gives relevant, accurate, and timely data while maintaining data privacy. As the number of students completing high school in time swells (Source), a technology platform to aid informed decisions becomes inevitable.
Benefits of Student Information System: TheSystem - The Complete A to Z
To list out all the benefits of an SIS, we have organized them alphabetically. Here you go:
Automation
Repetitive activities use your teaching resources. A centralized platform will automate tasks and let your team focus.
Consider attendance tracking. A student information system will track the attendance of every student and raise red flags when required. Based on this, your teams will be able to decide when it’s time for intervention.
Backups
Conventional backups are cumbersome and resource-heavy. Other software solutions can provide backups, but not without the challenge of broken data.
Digital Student Information Systems are fully equipped to maintain regular, scheduled backups. Your data remains safe and protected so there’s no fear of loss or corruption.
Compliance through data security
Records maintained in paper formats have serious security issues. Plus, when copies are required, it’s not easy to suppress sensitive information and extract only what’s relevant.
Digitized records in your SIS are typically stored on the cloud. And with technological advancements, the cloud has become one of the most secure ways of storing data. Anti-virus mechanisms, redundancies, firewalls, and a host of other features protect your student records better than any other system. This makes compliance a great deal easier.
Day-to-day activities managed
Running a school is more than just teaching and grading. Planning meetings, assigning tasks, and ensuring appropriate resource allocation are equally important.
Thankfully, an SIS is more than a student portal. It lets you manage your daily affairs. Need reminders to assign work? Want to see if an assignment is due today? Require a certain report? Your Student Information System will provide you with everything you need to run your day-to-day affairs.
Efficiency
Teachers need to integrate technology seamlessly into the curriculum instead of viewing it as an add-on.
-- Heidi Hayes Jacobs, well-known educationist and curriculum mapping expert
A Student Information System works on the intersection of administration and teaching, empowering teachers to deliver better.
The SIS will improve the operational efficiency of teachers by doing several time-consuming tasks. It will also generate actionable insights that the teachers can use to improve their curriculum delivery, teacher-parent interactions, or student services.
Fidelity
Legacy systems aren't reliable, especially for updating or exchange of data. What’s more, collating that data can be cumbersome and risky if you have multiple systems, each recording different data.
A SIS platform will be free from these risks. Data stored in such systems is complete, latest, and accurate. Educators can fully rely on this data when they decide which students are struggling and what kind of support will most benefit them. Or when district authorities ask for data on students with specific challenges, your SIS will be the best place to turn to.
Gaps in learning
Even the most involved students aren’t always capable of voicing their concerns. And traditional reports can’t generate enough valuable insights for the teacher to identify the gaps.
Modern-day student information management systems are capable of 360-degree analytics. That would equip the teachers with all they’d need to find the gaps that’d show if earlier interventions are working. Comprehensive student records allow teachers to optimize the resources required to help students.
Helpful student services
There are student services outside of education that are important for the students’ well-being. Simultaneously, peer pressure can sometimes force students to make poor choices.
Counseling for time management, self-discipline, financial aid, and career guidance, among others, shape the student’s future. Though all this happens outside the four walls of a traditional classroom, they are inherent to student success. A powerful information system for students is invaluable.
Interaction of departments
Schools and other educational institutions comprise various departments. While all of them work towards better student outcomes, their operations vary considerably. And each department needs unique data to operate.
The Student Information System allows role-based access to each department. This makes it incredibly easy for departments to interact with one another. The counseling team, for instance, would be able to better guide the student if they had complete data on the financial background of the student.
Joint, collaborative learning
Numerous studies like this one, for instance, have demonstrated how collaborative learning produces superior results.
From extracurricular activities to attendance records and from health records to test grades, your SIS is a rich, powerful source of all data for teachers. This helps them plan lessons and suggest groups for group assignments and collaborative learning. Besides, it paves the way for communication between parents and teachers.
Key to technology
Everyone knows how students leverage technology today. Similarly, school administration leverages technology through SIS.
There are several reasons why. The information system is robust and reliable, so the teachers or administrators don’t have to worry about data loss. Moreover, all data is student-focused. Data management, therefore, is directed towards student outcomes. Finally, the ease of use with appropriate safeguards makes SIS indispensable for operational efficiency and student success.
Learning better
Because the SIS is one comprehensive database of all student information about students, it provides convenient access to all facilitators. As a result, they can direct the learning experience so that students learn better and faster.
Mistakes and delays
Mistakes or delays in education or counseling can negatively impact student’s education and their careers.
If you have chosen a strong Student Information System, you can be sure that no relevant data will be missed or delayed. Whether it’s about sending timely updates on attendance or conducting special quizzes as corrective measures, there will be no room for errors or omissions.
Network engagement:
Students and teachers are a network that needs deep and constant engagement. Students can check their progress anytime to see whether they are meeting their learning goals. Even if students miss something, your system will push out notifications and reminders to keep students abreast of everything.
Besides, teachers can be confident that a sturdy system complements their efforts to deliver education. The SIS will store, maintain, and process all records for meaningful engagement.
Optimizing resources
Do you want your teachers to spend more time with your students or on data-entry tasks? While the answer is obvious, the reality is that administrative tasks are increasingly swamping teachers.
An automated solution with user-friendly interface will do more than just store data. Based on the attendance, grades, and improvements, the SIS will point out areas where you need to direct your resources. Low attendance? Focus on outreach and engagement. Falling grades? Students probably need extra help. Poor improvement? Change your interventions.
Parent-Teacher meetings
What makes parent-teacher meetings work? The answer is: relevant information that can be trusted.
Your SIS keeps parents updated about the student’s progress. Hence, they can arrive for meetings with relevant data. Parents will also be able to view slots to book the meetings in advance. You can schedule to send automated text messages and emails so parents do not miss meetings.
Because all insights are available with a few clicks, your teachers will be able to conduct these meetings with better outcomes. Parents who are connected with teachers empower the latter’s efforts to provide a richer, more productive learning experience.
Quick access
In a fast-moving world, information may lose its significance if it is not available when you need it. Thankfully, the SIS makes all data readily available.
Teachers can view student assignments while they plan the next quiz. Parents can seek appointments with teachers as soon as they see a deterioration in performance. Students can request help when they can't cope with their workload. All this is possible because of quick yet secured access to relevant data.
Retention of students
Attracting and retaining students is one of the principal challenges that schools and even institutions of higher education battle today. Your enrolment management strategy needs to address this.
An SIS keeps students engaged and in the loop. It provides them with the right activities, throws up challenges to help them grow, and offers timely support and intervention. By digitizing relevant information and receiving valuable insights, your Student Information System can help improve retention.
Single source of truth
Often, the challenge with data is not availability but multiple versions. The best part of a Student Information System is that it becomes a single source of truth for all your data.
This unified system will let all stakeholders access data from the same source. As a result, there is no disparity in the information everyone uses. Consequently, all efforts to improve outcomes will stem from the same information, making activities convergent and focused.
Timetable and scheduling
The paradox in modern education is that while offering more options to students will complicate your timetables, you will need to schedule teacher availability so that no teaching resources are wasted or remain unutilized.
An education management software solution can easily automate most of the scheduling activities. It ensures your teachers are meaningfully engaged while your students have all the support they need.
Unbroken, seamless data
An SIS can help educational institutions do virtually everything. Using an SIS, school administrators can carry out admissions, assign students to classes, document student progress reports, communicate with parents and students, maintain medical records, and prepare invoices.
Education management is becoming increasingly complex and demanding, so seamless data management is perhaps the best way to stay on top of things.
Versatility in administration
Although it is clear by now, this point bears repetition. An efficient SIS will ease administration and make activities efficient. But there’s more.
The data is digitized and stored in a centralized location, which means it has been validated earlier. As a result, the chances of any human error are practically eliminated. This accuracy gives confidence to the admin teams to take action and prevents mistakes.
Workload of teachers
According to a survey by RAND Corporation, a global think-tank and research institute, teachers work about 53 hours a week, which is seven hours more than an average adult. It’s high time your systems reduce this workload without impacting student outcomes.
An efficient SIS software will enable teachers to spend less time on repetitive tasks. It can, for instance, grade quizzes and generate student reports. This helps teachers focus on identifying which student needs what kind of help, thereby improving the learning experience of each student.
Expandability and scaling
Legacy systems suffer from the limitations of scaling. If the system stores only personal data, it will be incapable of adding medical information. Or if it is designed to store a certain number of fields, you cannot add custom fields after that.
Modern student management systems are comprehensive and scalable. As an example, if you would like to add new teachers, new classes, or new subjects, your class schedules will automatically make room for them. No waiting, no reprogramming.
Yield and ROI
It’s almost like we saved one of the key features for the last. Keeping things organized, allocating resources optimally, and driving all energies towards better student outcomes has a huge ROI. Student management becomes easier, teaching becomes more efficient, and administration becomes more effective.
The system doesn’t just manage student information, it shapes their careers too. Parts of this powerful solution are so huge you can’t even begin to calculate their ROI.
Gen-Z-worthy sustainability
Schools and educational institutions need to be conscious of their impact on the environment. And it’s not just governments that keep an eye on this. Even the students attending your school are mindful of what you, as an organization, do to reduce waste and embrace sustainability.
Digitizing records saves enormous amounts of paper and ink. A Student Information System is, at a subtle level, one more step of your school towards sustainability. Gen Z takes such acts seriously, and they’d certainly respect your school more for embracing green initiatives.
Closing remarks
The earlier you embrace technology tools for your educational institution, the better results you can derive. And yet, it's quite natural to feel a little unsure because there are way too many tools out there, and each claims to have a different set of capabilities.
The best approach would be to begin with a demo. That will give you a first-hand view of what a sophisticated Student Information System can do. So why not book a demo with our experts and take this most important step?
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