Free Software Administration Tools For Schools?

helleman asks: "I'm interested in finding out more about open source school administration tools. Elementary and high school system administrators (often working on a volunteer basis - like myself!) are just too busy fighting fires trying to keep the school systems running (like printers, tape backups and fileservers) than to really have time to step back and evaluate/test/develop administration software properly. I could really use some advice picking some open source software either to run with (something extendable so we could code our own custom modules) OR some pointers to which software our committee should start designing our own open source school administration software with! There are many closed source options - there HAS to be some open source ones! Report Cards, Membership reports, health records, transcripts, resource administration (room bookings) and finance/contributions are a few examples of things that need to be tracked. Help!"

Permanent record

[ultrabot]

Remember that open source administration software should allow the pupils to erase their permanent records when they see fit.

Requisite link...

[Spoing]

Simple End User Linux (SEUL/EDU) [seul.org] has an education focus, and many good links. Some of the links below are from this site.

I'm not sure if you're looking for general advice on how to administer a network, or for education-specific software to run on those systems.

Things like Dan's Quiz Page [seul.org] cover creating custom quizes, while there are some sites that have a specific topic like science [ubista.ubi.pt]. The general site LinuxForKids.org [linuxforkids.org] has links to most educationl titles, though the emphasis is for home-use.

If you're looking for help on how to set things up, and administer them, look here at Learnux [linux.ca].

If you're looking for School Administration (beurocratic) software, I didn't find any. That doesn't mean that there isn't any. Take a look here [linuxhelpers.org], here [ttp] or here [k12.or.us]. Ask these groups questions, there are quite a few mailing lists on this subject.

Re:More Info

[CEHT]

"like membership lists, student health records for when students go on class trips, transcripts - stuff like that. This is all being done semi-manually (spreadsheets and wordprocessing)."

I don't think anyone would actually make a student health records program which is open sources. Those features that you are looking for are so specific and not too many geek would write these programs. If you cannot find it in Freshmeat or google search, mostly you are not going to find it.

But if you cannot find these open source programs, why don't you just write the program in DBase or use MySQL or something? "student health records" program is probably like a giant text file, you can use Perl. Transcripts would be hard since they need some sort of graphics.

Bad link...

[Spoing]

this is a good replacement for the second to last 'Here' above [thestuph.com].

Re:More Info

[helleman]

I guess the only chance is that we get a couple of motivated geeks that see the problem, and start chomping off bits and pieces of it.

I've actually got some great news - because of this forum I've recieved a couple emails which have lead to the formation of a project on SourceForge - called Open Schoolhouse [sourceforge.net].

We're going to attempt to do what you call tough - the open source development of a School administration project.

We're going to start by developing a core database - then add on modules that can provide the different functions that various schools need! We're going to start with the report card generation stuff and go from there.

Check us out on SourceForge [sourceforge.net] and if you feel you can contribute -anyone can help us- than please do! I look forward to talking to you all there!

WebCT

[winterstorm]

WebCT [webct.com] isn't free but it is really really cheap for schools. If your looking for someone to host your WebCT system or want to integrate something else with it email me [mailto]. WebCT can do so much more when it is properly integrated with a current version of the Apache webserver.

check out pingoo

[JoostKooij]

pingoo [pingoo.org]

More Info

[helleman]

I'm the guy that posed the question. Ok, here's the deal. I'm running various linux based services which basically run the school. Internet, file access, printing, backups - all the goodies are powered by open source software.

Our poor admin who runs the office though is being run ragged during the school year trying to keep various lists up to date, and producing dumb documents - like membership lists, student health records for when students go on class trips, transcripts - stuff like that. This is all being done semi-manually (spreadsheets and wordprocessing).

A database powered suite which provided admin type functions for a school - something that is flexable, extendable, and most importantly OPEN - so we can fix that reportcard when the format needs to change. That's the tool I'm looking for.

Maplewood [maplewood.com] offers a nice product - but it's closed source and its price would break our budget.

I've done the grunt work searching on freshmeat to no avail. I'll check out a few of the links posted above to see if anybody is working on anything now, otherwise I just might have to get working on my own tool - perhaps based on interbase??? ;-)

Cheers,

Aaron