[school-discuss] ZIS Server (was: Project Proposal)

[Les Richardson <richl@mail.tfsd.sk.ca>]

Hi Steve,

What can we build this thing with? Can it be built with Perl (since I'm a
Perl Person) and some of the perl modules, etc. in conjunction with
Apache, etc.

I also assume that at least initially it will only support a subset of the
commands...(ie Zis_Ack).

What have to written your "ACK Server" in? <grin>


Les Richardson



> I think the purpose of ZIS and SIF is that all programs that can speak to
> a ZIS server can interchange data, be they proprietary or open source.  As
> an example, you might have an open source grade book program that you
> really like, but you are using Chancery's Student Information System.
> Assuming that Chancery supports ZIS, and you can modify your grade book
> program to support ZIS, you can grab student lists from your Chancery
> system for your grade book program and upload final marks and report card
> comments to Chancery from your grade book program.  Your open source
> library program (Koha) could also send lists of users with overdue books
> to Chancery so that the main office can collect fees.
> 
> So... I believe the intent of the original poster on this thread was to
> try and create an open source ZIS server so that schools don't have to pay
> through the nose for a proprietary one.  I suspect that what will happen
> is that applications like Chancery and other propietary SIF-aware
> applications will come bundled with a ZIS server.  A school or school
> district just has to set up one ZIS server to support all of their
> SIF-aware apps.  Developing an open source ZIS server might make it easier
> to add ZIS support to other applications as well.
> 
> Steve.
> 
>