Education ERP
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Enterprise Resource Planning "ERP" for Education
There are three core package types a school needs for administration:
- SIS (student information system) example: openSIS
- CMS (course management system) example: Moodle
- LAS (library automation system) example: OpenBibilio, library management systems are usefull for a lot more than books, a great example is "media resource management" (TVs, films, online subscriptions and music)
These packages have a couple of things in common:
- AMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack
- a complicated installation process
- not configured for shared user demographics/authentication
Why do we need this?
The moment we think about school automation we think of a software for fee management, course management, food service for library management and so on. This ultimately leads us into dealing with multiple applications and multiple vendors and a situation where we have basically "manualized" our school system with computers. Stand alone systems for different units in our school can not only be very difficult to manage but also can add a lot of redundancy in data entry and ambiguity of information within the same organization.
A properly planned single point integrated system (commonly known as ERP) can facilitate zero redundancy, inter module information exchange and thereby a lot of savings.
| Single piece software vs ERP
| |
| Redundancy of data entry. | No redundancy |
| Ambiguity of information as different software may show different values for the same thing. | No ambiguity as the data is served from central location. Same logic of processing removes any such ambiguity of information. |
| No inter module communication. For example there will be no way for the library software to know if the late fees for library books are collected at the fee counter for a particular student. | ERP systems are specially designed for inter module information sharing. Since all modules use the same database and business logic all the modules can interact with each other seamlessly. |
| Data security is generally an issue with stand alone software as the data base is directly accessible by the users. There are always chances for accidental or deliberate loss of data. | Generally the data is only accessible through the software interface in a controlled manner. The server is not in direct access of the users. So critical information is always intact. |
| Central backup for the entire system is not possible. | Backup can be managed centrally with a great ease. |
| Different approaches and interfacing for different modules. | Generally similar interfacing approach for all modules. Makes it easy for the top level management to interact. |
| Physical movement of data is required for reporting. | Multiple access point can eliminate physical movement of reports and other data. |
| The dependency level even for routine information is higher in stand alone applications. | Routine information queries are generally available for users without dependency. |
| Easy to implement | The implementation period is a bit lengthy |
| Low initial investment but higher recurring expenditure in terms of man hrs and usage of stationary for sharing routine information. | Comparatively high initial investment but low recurring expenditure in man hrs and information sharing throughout the institution. |
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This page was last modified 12:04, 22 April 2008. This page has been accessed 2,063 times.
