Management Information System

Report

Smart School Management SystemAn application of MIS in education from perspective of

Pakistan

Submitted by:Junaid Ali KhanID: I201322177

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AbstractThis report explains the idea of an MIS system in education, which can offer same quality of education to rich and poor and improve the learning and testing methodology of traditional schools. The purpose of this concept to build a lifelong learning society in Pakistan that values lifelong learning, so that everyone enjoys learning, has the attitude and ability for lifelong learning, and has access to diverse channels and opportunities for learning. Also to construct a diverse school system: to inject diversity in education ideologies, modes of financing and focus of curriculum, so that learners have more choices and multi-faceted talents will be nurtured. To create an inspiring learning environment: to build a learning environment that is inspiring and conducive to the creative and exploratory spirit.

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Table of ContentsBackground.............................................................................................................................................3Introduction to EMIS.......................................................................................................................... 4Objectives and Functions of EMIS.................................................................................................6Emerging technologies and approaches....................................................................................7

A. CELL PHONES.............................................................................................................................. 7B. TABLET COMPUTERS...............................................................................................................7C. GOOGLE EARTH AND DIGITAL MAPPING.......................................................................7D. PLANNING SIMULATION AND BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE.....................................7E. OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE....................................................................................................8F. ACCESS TO THE WORLD WIDE WEB................................................................................8

The components of a System’s Life Cycle..................................................................................8Data Collection................................................................................................................................. 9Data Processing................................................................................................................................9Data Analysis.....................................................................................................................................9Presentation...................................................................................................................................... 9

Problems Associated with Traditional Education System In Pakistan........................9Smart School Solution.....................................................................................................................10

Interactive Video Lectures.......................................................................................................10Wide Area Network (WAN).....................................................................................................10Smart School Management System (SSMS)......................................................................10

Framework of Smart School Management System.............................................................12Future Scope and Extension of work........................................................................................13Conclusion............................................................................................................................................ 14References............................................................................................................................................ 14

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BackgroundLearning is the key to one’s future, and Education is the gateway to our society’s future. Education enables individuals to develop their potentials, construct knowledge and enhance personal quality. It empowers the individuals. Education is not only preparing qualified personnel for the society; it has a more far-reaching mission of giving everyone, regardless of social origin or family background, equitable opportunities for personal advancement. No one is deprived of such opportunities for self-development and success, if only he has the ability and determination to fully exploit the learning opportunities. Hence, education creates opportunities and facilitates social mobility.

But when we look to the education system in Pakistan we realize that with each passing year the education system becoming weaker to make the students as an asset for prosperity and development of Pakistan, and therefore parents are emphasizing to send their children to private schools. And those students who are in government school mostly remains there because of their financially instability and due to defected quality education become economic burden.We are here to provide opportunity to each and individual student to learn in their natural environment and become an asset for prosperity and development of Pakistan. For this we are proposing a solution of “smart Education” in which education system will be one and will be available online using EMIS(Education Management Information System)where same syllabus and time table will be followed in overall country and development of students can be followed on real time basis. We are proposing this solution because in Pakistan the total number of Govt. primary schools are over 100,000 according 2007-2008 report and increased in past 5 years, and due to economic condition of Pakistan it is nearly impossible to provide quality teachers in each and every education institute of Pakistan so we are proposing to “Smart School” system where with basic IT training of currently hired teachers the quality of education in government institutes of Pakistan can be increased drastically.

Introduction to EMISAn Education Management Information System (EMIS) can be defined as a comprehensive system that brings together people, practices, and technology to provide quality education statistics in a timely, cost-effective, and sustainable manner, at every administrative level, and to support selected operational functions. Although many EMIS issues remain as they were almost 10 years ago, donors’ and the world’s attention recently has refocused from access to quality in education and the advent of newer technologies. Their rapid and thorough adoption in the second and third world was hardly foreseen ten years ago and has had an impact on the direction of EMIS. The key lessons in the next section center on some fundamentals about EMIS, including: • EMIS data need to be accurate. • EMIS data need to be timely. • EMIS data need to be reliable.

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• EMIS data need to be understandable. Most existing systems are some compromise of the above four factors. Accuracy can require more time than is allowed. Timeliness may require some relaxation of complete accuracy. Reliability is affected by external factors like funding, manpower, and political events. Turning data into information— creating meaning from “facts”—is a constant challenge of making data, then information, then knowledge useful for decision making. The repeated lesson is that creating a sustainable, workable EMIS depends on three factors: 1. The right PEOPLE, motivated to perform and skilled in their work 2. The right PROCESSES that reduce duplication and reinforce accuracy and accountability 3. The right TECHNOLOGY, appropriate to the state of the country, and the reliability of its infrastructure People are frequently the slowest to change and the hardest to affect directly. Both technology and processes can be altered quicker, but people can delay reinstituting new value structures and working methods. People-related issues typically are resolved through: Modeling “good behavior” in terms of skills use, work habits, and approaches to learning new skills Making appropriate technical assistance available when needed to keep a small problem from “festering” and becoming bigger Training repeatedly and sufficiently until concepts and practices are reinforced Processes are critical for the effective flow of information in a country. Multiple layers (national, regional, district, and school) need accurate and appropriate information for the responsibilities assigned. For most emerging countries, the process around information transfer is extremely burdensome for schools; most headmasters receive 10 to 15 requests for almost the same information from multiple sources in a given term. This reduces attention to managing a school, reduces accuracy, and creates confusion at higher levels. Information practices need to follow at least the following: Processes must ensure that information is available to those who can make use of it quickly. Processes should reduce the number of times schools and districts answer the “same question in a slightly different form.” People at every level should check the data as they are developed, entered, edited, and distributed; as many eyes as possible should see the final product. With the increased focus on quality education, accurate and useful EMIS information at the school level is even more critical—since only the school, ultimately, can engender quality education. Processes need to shift as the general knowledge environment shifts. Technology is often the most noticeable aspect of EMIS, but it is only a part of the education information solution. Increasingly, laptops are replacing desktop computers. As importantly, smaller computers (netbooks/“classmates”/even tablet computers) can now be used with much lower requirements for cooling, security, and electricity. Only some of these technologies have been available over the last six years— hence their full application has not yet been tested. Cell phones have gotten much more powerful—capable of transmitting data via SMS or GPRS—in useable formats for “urgent” or high-demand information. Software

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has also improved with simpler to use software like EXCEL, ACCESS, or MySQL with enhanced features and better training, offering more options even at the school level. For larger systems, there are many more alternatives for school- based EMIS (from open source and from proprietary vendors) as well as integration of all the various technologies—computers, servers, cell-phones, and paper makes data more manageable.

Objectives and Functions of EMIS To abolish the difference between the education system for rich and poor

and ensure to have same quality of education for everyone. To build a lifelong learning society: to develop Pakistan into a society that

values lifelong learning, so that everyone enjoys learning, has the attitude and ability for lifelong learning, and has access to diverse channels and opportunities for learning.

To raise the overall quality of students: to improve the overall quality of our society through upgrading the knowledge, ability and attitude of all students.

To construct a diverse school system: to inject diversity in education ideologies, modes of financing and focus of curriculum, so that learners have more choices and multi-faceted talents will be nurtured.

To create an inspiring learning environment: to build a learning environment that is inspiring and conducive to the creative and exploratory spirit.

To acknowledge the importance of moral education: to provide students with structured learning experiences in the areas of moral, emotional and spiritual education.

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To develop an education system that is rich in tradition but cosmopolitan and culturally diverse: to help students develop an international outlook so that they can learn, work and live in different cultural environments.

Emerging technologies and approachesThe following technologies or approaches already hold great promise for developing country EMIS—they all tend to both democratize, and provide information faster and in more useable formats.

A. CELL PHONESCell phone use has increased exponentially in the developing world. There are now more cell phones in use in 2nd and 3rd world nations than in the entire “developed” world. Cell phones already reach more schools than computers have or will in the next five years—and will form an essential part of any future EMIS. Cell phones are already used to log school locations and to communicate key information such as “attendance or enrollment data” to District or national offices rapidly. They are typically more “sustainable” because people want them for multiple reasons—but mainly because they allow for relatively cheap communication. Cell phones can also provide a relatively low cost option for communicating between users and suppliers of key school necessities.

B. TABLET COMPUTERSTablet computers, and, to some extent “netbooks,” hold the promise of both lower cost and highly portable and adaptable instruments to place more information into more stakeholder’s hands than ever before. Tablets lend themselves to classroom observation and easy presentation of graphics. They can be used with minimal training and they lower the cost of moving educational information to the school and classroom level. They also support Regional and National levels need to be informed.

C. GOOGLE EARTH AND DIGITAL MAPPINGThis extremely powerful geographic presentation application, now available on almost any computing device, allows a rapid presentation of the “status” of any social sector, but particularly education for very low cost. Virtually any digital data (photos, facts, video) can be linked to its geographic locus— and allow even modestly trained personnel to understand the significance of allocating resources. It also provides, through highly visual means the opportunity to plot progress.

D. PLANNING SIMULATION AND BUSINESS INTELLIGENCESimulation/projection has been a “staple” of five-year plans for many years. The dramatic increase in the power of EXCEL spreadsheets (which now incorporate many advanced features) and other tools allows EMIS systems to routinely accommodate forward planning. Hence, while current, managerially oriented information remains at the heart of an EMIS, the ability to quickly translate accurate “base information” into projected future outcomes are increasingly important. Moreover, the use of Business Intelligence software (which can

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“assemble” data from a variety of sources—both digital and manual) can dramatically increase the speed and ease of use of information. Tools such as Business Objects, Hyperion, or advanced SAS, have all proved effective in this regard. One element of these programs is the ability to not only provide graphs and charts, but to create “dashboards” which dynamically indicate progress or decline according to established targets. This information can, in turn, be communicated either to Web sites, or sent to cell phones with “smart” capacity. However, these more sophisticated tools only make sense if they continue to answer quickly and accurately (which is dependent upon solid information from schools and teachers) the questions that policymakers or stakeholders are asking.

E. OPEN SOURCE SOFTWAREDeveloped as an alternative to proprietary software driven by specific commercial interests (and often requiring both high licensing and maintenance fees), “open source software” has become more widespread and increasingly present in many educational applications. A number of NGO lead efforts have made use of “open source” free software to create special applications. Many university and pre-university programs now train personnel in “open source” approaches. Many EMIS systems will likely become a mixture of both “open source” and proprietary software for the near-term future—open source often requires more training for the user, whereas many proprietary systems often require a large commitment and more funds “up front” in exchange for organized training and certain performance guarantees. The key is to provide points within EMIS technology where different applications can be accessed or exported so that alternatives are available over time. Examples of some recent, generally “open source” software approaches include: Android, Linux, Java, and a massive variety of open source applications available on the Web.

F. ACCESS TO THE WORLD WIDE WEBIncreased access to the Internet is the wave of the future—every nation, with rare exception, aspires to access to the information and economic benefits that the Internet provides. While it clearly has transformative effects on the culture, not all of which can be predicted, the Web is a powerful adjunct to better education systems—both administratively and academically. Its introduction in a formal system of education needs to be calibrated to enhance and not undo positive practices. The Web can dramatically increase the ability to be responsive to education need and shortages—if linked to appropriate political and administrative units. Accordingly every future EMIS system needs to plan for and incorporate it as countries increase access to the Web.The next ten years will see more technological and political progress capable of improving education than has occurred in the last ten years. This progress can empower students, teachers, parents and schools to be more competent than ever before. The EMIS challenge is to adapt to a much more decentralized, democratic and self-empowered education system whose demands for quality will drive the next wave of education for all.

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The components of a System’s Life CycleThis section defines the steps required to get the data from the field, process it, and take the result back to the user. For an efficient and reliable system an IT solution has be devised for the system, which will have the following components.

Data CollectionData collection is the most important part for designing a MIS. The success of the system depends how accurate and reliable the data you have for processing. If data is faulty the results will be inaccurate and the decisions taken on these basis will have negative effects. So to ensure the reliable collection of data in our EMIS all the data will be collected through online portal, which the school will use for delivering lectures and students will use for giving exams and doing homework.

Data Processing If you haven’t collected the data you will have nothing to process. However once the data has been collected from the schools and students, we need to plan how to organize it into different types so that it is usable for planning purpose. When data is not well organized, it cannot be properly utilized. Data processing is therefore one of the main activity in the cycle.

Data Analysis After the data has been processed, it will be analyzed to extract information useful for planning and decision-making. Data analysis should be done with the users in mind, for what purpose this data is analyzed and to whom we have to present the information.

PresentationAfter the processing and analysis we have to take the decision how to present our data so it is easy to understand and achieve result. It can either be tables, reports, charts or graphs.

Problems Associated with Traditional Education System In PakistanCurrently there are two education systems in Pakistan Government and Private education system. Private education system covers the needs of upper and upper middle class of society who wants best education for their children without worrying about the cost. The government education system is for the poor who have no money to send their children to private schools. The government education system is nearly collapsed due to lack of funding and support. Student of government schools don’t have equal opportunities to progress, as are those available to the students of private schools. The difference

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between the quality of education between private and government schools is clear and vast.Another problem, that our traditional education system face is lack of time and resources. On average a student in Pakistan has to spend 5 hours per day in school for 150 days per year. Now this time is not enough for a teacher to make every student understand everything in a class of 50 students. So what parents do is they hire a private tutor who teaches the student after school hours but again this option is only available to those who have enough money. Also the methodology of teaching and testing, which is followed in our school, is not the best one logically. In a traditional classroom, you have a couple of homework, homework, lecture, homework, lecture, and then you have a snapshot exam. And that exam, whether you get a 70 percent, an 80 percent, a 90 percent, or a 95 percent, the class moves on to the next topic. And even that 95 percent student, what was the five percent they didn't know? And keep adding these lack of 5% understanding eventually there will be a time when even the brilliant student will keep scoring less because of these Swiss cheese gaps. So the traditional testing system doesn’t aim to achieve mastery in students, it penalizes students for experimentation and failure.

Smart School SolutionWith our IT based smart school solution the problems identified in previous section can be solved accordingly.

Interactive Video LecturesThe basic problem among the different education system in Pakistan is the difference in quality of education. The main reason behind this is the resources available with private section to hire better teachers who can deliver better lectures that students can understand easily. So the first step of our solution is to hire the best teachers in each subject on part time basis and develop interactive video lectures of each topic with the help of a professional IT team. The team of coursera.com has developed such interactive lectures and edx.com, which gives the student a chance to watch lectures at their own, pace and attend in-lecture quizzes.

Wide Area Network (WAN)In order to ensure that all the school follow the same lectures at the same schedule we will install a wide area network among all the schools of countries and a hub system will be developed which will have all the lectures available for the students and teachers depending upon their credentials. Also through hub system we can make sure that all the schools of our system follow the same timetable so everyone learns the same amount of thing over a period of time.

Smart School Management System (SSMS)SSMS or smart school management system will be the brain behind our EMIS, which will be responsible for data collection, processing and presentation. It will also keep track of the progress of schools and students and ensure the availability of teacher and let us know which students have attended the which

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lectures at what time and what are their strong and weak areas. By keeping the record of the lectures and quizzes they attended. Also to achieve the mastery of a topic in our students we have designed a module, which will only let the student move to next topic once they have given 10 correct answers in a row to randomly picked questions of different difficulty levels. So the student will not be advanced to next topic with only 80 or 90% of understanding. The key points of SSMS are as follows.

1. To create visual contents of all subjects which will be taught at school, so that student will not only stick to the lecture of the given day but he have now opportunity to revise the lecture which will be given by the teacher online.

2. A central Monthly Plan will be created on the hub, which will include the details of which lecture will be given on which day and what assignment will be given in that lecture. The assignment must include logical questions so that the student can search over Internet and increase his/her knowledge.

3. The assignments and quizzes given to students will be online and the progress will be measured by our SSMS by determining how much time is spend by each student on each question and how many times he have failed before giving a right answer. The report will be presented to the teacher so if students have problem with some particular topic or question it can be addressed.

4. Also online discussion forums will be available to the students where they can discuss their problems with each other students all over the country and not just their classmates.

5. Admission procedure will be online and student can view his account, which courses he wants to study and check the schedule of classes and also the quizzes in coming month.

6. All reports regarding to the performance of the child will be online and parents will be informed according to the performance of their child using Sms caster.

7. Sms Caster will also be used to give daily report to the parents according to the performance of the child; the quizzes taken place, the assignment that had been given, and any complaint regarding the behavior of child.

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Framework of Smart School Management System

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Student Enrolled

Register a course

Student attend a lecture

Student attend a

quiz

Did studen

t achiev

ed 100%?

Yes

No

Next Lecture

Send Report to Teacher

Send Report to Parents

Send Report to Student

Generate Report

The purpose of SSMS will be to record each and every activity of the student from the registration of course to the number of time spend on each lecture and each quiz. The teacher will have a clear idea about how much time each student have spend on each topic and on each question in a quiz. So if there were most students who spend more time on one particular question as compared to other questions. The teacher can explain that question in class next time. This system will let the student watch lectures on their laptop or notepad at their home and how many times they want without worrying about others. Also the reports generated by the system will be shared with parents on their smart phone so they can have real time access to their child’s progress.

Future Scope and Extension of workTraditionally a statistics section exists in the ministry of education section of Pakistan. This section is responsible for collecting and reporting statistics on schools, teachers and students. However, this is limited in terms of the information requirement for policy planning and implementation. Also the data collection done by statistic section is not so efficient and reliable as they rely on the questionnaires and surveys conducted, which in large sample only has 30% of reliability. Hence, the idea of EMIS was born. The idea behind moving to EMIS is to look into information requirement of the ministry from wider perspective. Hence, the idea of acquiring both quantitative and qualitative information for educational policy planning and implementation can be achieved through EMIS. So the role of EMIS will be to coordinate, in an organized and systemic way, information necessary for educational planning, policy formulation, decision making and resource allocation. This includes, information on both formal and non-formal education, higher institutions, technical and vocational education, special education and educational research institutes.

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This is followed by data processing, analysis, publication, and dissemination. Dissemination includes reporting to relevant clients within or outside the ministry. This is an established working procedure with each step tied together with another so much so that the incompletion of a single step implicates the incompletion of the other and the incompletion of the whole. Hence we cannot separate them without affecting the role each one plays in order to arrive at a complete set of functions in EMIS. Some users, especially decision makers, emphasize for example on analysis without paying due attention or giving it necessary support, on data collection and processing. We can only have a good data analysis and interpretation only when we have a good data collection and data cleaning system in place. Therefore, each of the steps in the procedure has to be attended to, planned, monitored and evaluated. Therefore, the system is made of components each of which should work together to achieve our vision.

ConclusionInformation technology as in other fields of life also have a lot to offer to improve the quality of educational system and the way we perceive the learning methodologies. With better application of management information system in education sector we can make sure that everyone has access to higher quality of education and fulfill the different needs of students efficiently. In Pakistan where the society is already highly segmented and poor feels that he and his children has no future, the revolution in the field of education can surely give them hope to change their and their children future by having same education as that of a upper class citizen. Surely setting up this system will have high initial cost but once installed can be used for coming decades with little maintenance cost.

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