Re: [school-discuss] School Admin Software

["Casey Adams" <casey@xxxxxxxxx>]

Consider our solution openCentre, which has the ability to add any
number of customized fields to meet your needs.  With just a few
clicks, you can add additional tabs to collect required elements for
state reporting or perhaps to support a new legislative requirement.

You don't have to depend on anyone for the customization
effort, you simply do it yourself.  It is free and can be downloaded at
http://os4ed.com.  Also, we designed our solution to run on Windows or Linus knowing that Linux administration skills may not be present.  And we have included a wizard guided installer to  help do most of the work in creating the database, setting up the initial configuration and setting the initial school year and administrator user name and password.

Thanks.

Casey Adams
Founder, OS4ED

On 10/13/07, Justin <jriddiough@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Andy,

Please consider posting your testimonial as a comment on the OpenAdmin page of the SchoolForge website http://www.schoolforge.net/education-software/web-based-student-information-systems/open-admin-schools

On 10/12/07, Andy Figueroa < figueroa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Matt Oquiest wrote, in part:

> Now some general rambling commentary:
> This space seems to me to be most desperately in need of a kick-ax Free
> Software solution. I know Les has been active for many years on
> OpenAdmin, ...


That sparked my interest!  What follows might be considered a user's
OpenAdmin testimonial.  I hope you don't mind.

Last winter I undertook a several months-long search for a new SIS for our
small school after our business manager's frustrations with our then current
system boiled over.  He had found and been courted by the developers of a
slick, commercial system that would have cost us about $10,000 US to
implement and committed us long-term to Winblows servers and clients.  I
found a wide-variety of alternatives and approaches, both commercial and
open source and engaged in discussions with the sellers/developers of what
looked like good alternatives for us.  $10,000 would have more than wiped
out our cash reserves and compromised our ability to pay teachers on the
first September pay-day so cost was important.  NOTHING in the marketplace
really met all of our quite humble, but somewhat exotic needs.  One of our
most important requirements was FLEXIBILITY.  Unfortunately, most software
is developed to meet the needs of a particular model school.

Then I found, downloaded, unpacked, and examined OpenAdmin.  I read through
the documentation.  I was cautiously optimistic.  So, I wrote to Les with
some questions not really expecting his very thoughtful reply.  So, I
installed a working model alongside the others I'd found, played and tested,
and ultimately made a presentation to the school board giving the pros and
cons of three commercial,  two open source, and one not quite open source
alternatives.  I recommended and the board approved going with OpenAdmin.
We had our OpenAdmin activation (IOC - Initial Operational Capability) last
month, and our teachers and staff are very fond of it.

The MAJOR detractor of all of the open source possibilities is that the
school must have at least a wannabe Linux system administrator willing to
make a long-term commitment to setting up and supporting the system, and
this isn't something most small schools could afford if they had to buy it.
In our case, my school has me, and I'm happy to do it.

OpenAdmin meets our needs, is flexible by design, and is very actively under
development to specifically meet the needs of its users.  (Now, Les says
paying customers come first, but that just proves he's not crazy!)  I'll be
happy to share details of our experience with others off-line, or on-line
with prodding.

Andy Figueroa
Treasurer, Dominion Academy of Dayton, Ohio
(the wannabe system administrator)

-- 
Casey Adams
205.612.5489