Re: [seul-edu] Consolidated gradebook effort

[Eric Sandeen <sandeen@jump.net>]

"David C. Moore" wrote:

> For example, if a school has a network of machines, a teacher should be
> able to open a gradebook application on any machine, and work with his/her
> grade data.  Suppose the registrar deletes a student from the school's
> roster.  This change should be reflected immediately in the school's
> web-based environment and in the gradebook application.  Thus, the
> gradebook needs to do more than just open an XML file and parse it into
> internal data structures using libxml.  Multiple applications need to be
> able to work with the same database simultaneously, and changes needed to
> applied consistently.
> 
> I've looked around on the web, searching for work already done in this
> area, and it seems like there is progress.

The School Interoperability Framework (SIF - www.schoolsinterop.org)
addresses this pretty well, I think.  (See my posts from a month or so
ago...)  A SIF client on the front of a gradebook would be a really good
way to go.  Someone just needs to port the Zone Integration Server to
Linux...  the source is available, and the license is liberal.
( http://www.microsoft.com/education/partneropp/download.asp )

Using this framework has the advantage of integrating with commercial
applications, as well.

-Eric