Initiatives
STUDENT INFO SYSTEM 2020
STUDENT INFO SYSTEM 2020
Need: Director BEA's effort to reduce teachers' non-instruction tasks; Increasing inadequacy of the current SIS to meet the data needs of the MOE and especially of the DRE; Master Plan 4.1 Strengthen the Student Data and Education Management Information Systems to facilitate school and Ministry effectiveness;
Purpose: To build a replacement SIS that better serves the MOE's data needs and provides more value to teachers and schools.
Developer: Ms. Vrinda Gupta, CMU/TCinGC Student Consultant 2020.
Local Counterpart: Edwel Ongrung, Palau MOE TCinGC Project Supervisor.
Project: Build a new SIS that can accomodate the MOE's need for more data and for providing more value to teachers and schools.
Status: Successfully completed and turned over to MOE on August 14, 2020.
Next:
The ministry has two web based apps that it calls the Student Information System. These arose from Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU) Technology Consulting in the Global Community (TCinGC) program projects from 2005 and 2007. The first was deployed in 2007 to print Palau High School transcripts and report cards. The second was deployed in 2009 to collect elementary school students' quarterly scores in core subjects and quarterly absences. As the years have gone by, the underlying database for these apps have become an important data source and pipeline for the DRE.
Two initiatives were undertaken in 2020 as part of an existing effort to improve the capabilities of DRE so that it can evaluate first, in 2014, the goals of the Palau College Acccess Challenge Program, and second, in 2017, the progress of the Ministry of Education Master Plan 2017-2026. Utilizing CMU's TCinGC program, a Data Analysis Stack (DAS) and a new School Information System (SIS) projects were undertaken.
| Pics | Who |
|---|---|
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Ms. Vrinda Gupta is the developer for this project. She is about to graduate from Carnegie Mellon University and is working from home in New Jersey, U.S.A. Ms. Gupta's Resume. |
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Mr. Edwel Ongrung is the local counterpart for this project. Mr. Ongrung is the BEA's Administrative Services Manager and also the MOE's TCinGC projects supervisor. |
The two will work on developing a clear model of the process and a demo of a possible solution for the DRE to consider.
Ms. Low successfully completed her projects and submitted her report to MOE management on August 14, 2020. She documented her model and solution demo in writing and video for the DRE to review at their convenience.
This page is about the new School Information System. It addresses the capability of DRE to acquire more and better student data.
Undertaken by student consultant Ms. Vrinda Gupta working with MOEIT, the project was sucessfully completed, presented to the management team on August 14, 2020, and turned over to MOEIT.
The new SIS is a web app designed for data entry by individual teachers (all elementary school teachers now have MOE issued laptops; high school teachers will get theirs soon). It is also designed to enable more interaction with teachers especially to provide on demand data and reports of value to them. It is also design to be a data source for the DAS and the Apache Superset tool (by Caitlyn Low).
The app is currently running on an MOE server. The next step is to work on the schools' data entry so that it includes all the data needed by the app. There are several ways to do this, eg., train teachers to enter the data, set up a process for teachers to send data to the school's data entry person who will in turn enter the data for everyone, etc. MOEIT decided to undertake a pilot to modify the school's gradebook to become the data entry process (see "Meyuns Gradebook Pilot 2021").
Features Comparison
| Feature | Current SIS | New SIS |
|---|---|---|
| Design | Homeroom based | Grade Level, Class, and Subject based |
| Target | Elementary Schools | Underlying app design is for both Elem and High school |
| Quarterly Scores | Core Subjects and absences. Later QAT, PE, and Health were tacked on. | All scores and absences |
| Registration | Homeroom, date in, date out, action type | Grade Level/Class/Subject, date in date out, action type |
| Other Assessments | None | PERA, PAT, PILNA, IOWA |
| Other Info | None | Residence data, all info from report cards |
-- Project Notes --
EMIS/SIS - Moving to Digital
The establishment of an Education Management Information System (EMIS) is a long term objective of the MOE. In these early stages, the MOE is concentrating on a few major data sources.
The School Information System (SIS) is a major component of the EMIS because it brings in student and school data.
The project created a modern SIS app to address the following objectives.
The system starts with a base record keeping document that the teachers use to capture student data. The data then gets transferred by hand to other forms for various purposes include for permanent storage in the schools file cabinets.
The work flow is described below.
1. Teacher Gradebook
This is a hardcopy booklet that is mandated by the MOE for use by teachers. It is used by the teacher to capture the student’s data that will go into the report card and permanent student record. It is also the source for other forms or reports that deal with student grade data.
2. Mid Quarter Progress Report
This is a single student form for each quarter mandated by the school to which teachers transfer their gradebook data to, and then used to calculate mid-term grades. The form has the grade calculation formulas printed on it. The data duplicates the gradebook data but arranges them in a one page format with clearly identifiable sections and a clear progression from raw to transformed scores.
3. Quarter Grade Worksheet.
This is a class level form for each quarter that lists all the students for the class along with their average scores for each subject, total absences, and calculated GPA.
4. Quarterly Assessment Control Sheet
This is a class level form for each quarter that lists all the students for the class along with their QAT scores for each subject.
Coming soon ...