Open Solutions for Education (OS4Ed) has released their new open source SIS, openSIS. This release abandons the inclusion of Centre in the name and marks the end of their relationship with the Miller Group, who was an original partner in OS4Ed.
This release brings AJAX into the interface with sliding menus and fast page load times. Other important features include field level validation and the removal of HTMLDoc, which required specific settings for different OS's. openSIS also includes an automated installer for Windows, which is very nice and helps the beginning user to get up and running quickly.
You can check it out at http://os4ed.com/opensis
5 comments:
We're in the process of setting up OpenSIS from OS4Ed. We have been looking for a truly Open Source SIS project that we can use and contribute back to, and share our experience to benefit other schools. Have you use it yet?
PS. Your Moodle link on the right is misspelled!
OpenSIS isn't really open at all. You have to register to download? That's just plain wrong.
Justin,
Everybody has an opinion and I am glad you voiced yours. At the bottom of it all, openSIS is absolutely open in the sense that it is released under the GPL, we pay homage to the Centre creators for their early contributions, the application is built on entirely 100% open source SW and we have no requirements of the people who use the SW. I am often amazed at the people who complain about registering an email address in return for something that can literally save them thousands of dollars. A small price to pay and one can easily set up a disposable email address in a few minutes. So enough of my personal soap box on people who complain about the unimportant things.
In reality, we have kept openSIS in a registration mode for a very specific reason: to manage client expectations about the poor condition of the code base as we work through it line by line to turn it into a dependable enterprise application that schools can depend on day in and day out with confidence. We are almost there and when we release Version 4.2 in late October, we are very confident that we have eliminated most of the issues. Why such care? Because our primary target market, public schools, depend on the SIS as the critical application of the district and it is often the data source for state reporting, which is tied directly to school funding. We cannot release something that does not work correctly into the public school system.
Most of the issues? We have fixed over 250 known or newly discovered issues since we forked the Centre code base. Simple things like providing field level validation so you cannot enter garbage to critical things like not allowing you to delete things that are tied to other things and blowing up the application. Go download Centre or Focus SIS and spend hours setting up the application, scheduling students and then go and delete a marking period. What happens? Every course period tied to that marking period is now in limbo as it does not have a marking period associated with it anymore. Then go run a report for class lists or schedules. Guess what? They don't work anymore because you deleted a link between many things.
And to you, and everyone else who complains to me about registration and openess, we will deploy Version 4.2 to Canonical's Launchpad SVN so the community can have access, can contribute if they wish, can engage in the community and, thank goodness, can download the code without registering. The base site is established in Launchpad and we are working on everything to get it set for the 4.2 launch. We will be establishing developer forums and mailing lists to try and guide the community to help develop the functionality and integrations that many people are asking for daily.
So we hope this resolves all of the final issues and we hope people understand that we did things for a reason. We also hope that people contribute, either by effort or financially, to help us sustain our dream of providing quality open source alternatives to education, an industry sorely in need of help with operational budgets.
And if you have issues, feel free to contact me by email at casey at os4ed.com. I am an open person and make myself available to anyone who wants to have a discussion about OS4Ed. I will even give you my phone number so you can call me whenever you want. Hope this helps your viewpoint of our offerings.
Casey Adams
Founder & President
Open Solutions for Education, Inc.
Agreed with Casey. I've just registered my contact details and hope I can use OpenSIS soon to manage my free-school. For something that OpenSIS could provide (as seen on the screenshots), registering my contact details is really nothing. If OpenSIS really suits me, donating something (in financial) is my future plan, too.
If I may suggest, put a clear message that this software is free. I was having a little argue with some people about this :)
Anyway, thanks a lot for brought us such a quality software! Thank you! Thank you!
Hi, we are working on OpenSIS to change the code to converto OpenSIS in multilanguage.
More info, visit
http://os4ed.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=8
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SerIfnformaticos
info@serinformaticos.es
www.SerInformaticos.es
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