Emerging Technologies - Open Source School Management Tools
This site is dedicated to Open Source (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source) resources that can be used to manage all aspects of a 21st century academic institution. The page was assembled and is maintained by Kerry Sanders. The page includes contributions from several Web Service providers.
Quick Links to School Management Tools
1. Communications
a. Gmail
b. Google Sites
2. Office Automation
b. Google Apps
i. Shared Calendarii. Shared Documents
iii. Contact Management
3. Course Site Management and Collaboration
4. Student Information Management
a. OpenSIS
5. Orange HRM - Human Resources Management
a. Orange HRM
6. On-line Library Catalog
7. Help Desk, Inventory Management, and Systems Management
8. Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware
9. Constituent Relationship Management (CRM)
a. CiviCRM*
Note: * - Technical Summary, not yet started.
Summary of School Management Tools
Google Apps Education Edition
Google Apps Education Edition (http://www.google.com/educators/p_apps.html) is a broad IT solution that schools can use to bring communication and collaboration tools to the entire academic community for free. Google manages all the technology details, so you can focus your time, energy and budgets on teaching your kids.
Students, teachers and staff can share ideas more quickly and get things done more effectively when they have access to the same powerful communication and sharing tools. Google Apps Education Edition lets tech administrators provide email, sharable online calendars, instant messaging tools and even a dedicated website to faculty, students and staff for free. There's no hardware or software to install or maintain, since everything is delivered through a standard web browser -- anytime, from anyplace. (http://www.google.com/educators/p_apps.html)
You can mix and match from the following services for your entire school:
Gmail - Offer email to your faculty, students and staff with 2 gigabytes of storage per account, search tools to help them find information fast, and instant messaging built right into the browser (chat can easily be disabled for the whole school if you don't want students to be able to IM with their accounts).
Google Talk - Teachers and students can call or send instant messages to their contacts for free -- anytime, anywhere in the world. Imagine the possibilities for people collaborating on projects from different locations.
Google Calendar - Everyone can organize their schedules and share events, meetings and entire calendars with others. You can even publish the school calendar on your website to let families know about events like back-to-school nights, homecoming and vacation days.
Google Docs - Students and teachers can create documents, spreadsheets and presentations and then collaborate with each other in real-time right inside a web browser window.
Google Sites - Create a class site and edit it the same way you'd edit a document -- no technical expertise required. Your site can bring together all the information you want to share with your colleagues and students, including docs, calendars, photos, videos and attachments.
Mozilla Firefox Web Browser
Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html) is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. As of July 2010, Firefox was the second most widely used browser, with 22.91% of worldwide usage share of web browsers, according to Net Applications. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox)
The latest Firefox features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing (also known as "geolocation") based exclusively on a Google service and an integrated search system that uses Google by default in most localizations. Functions can be added through extensions, created by third-party developers, of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox's users. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox)
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org/product/), is an open-source software application suite available for a number of different computer operating systems. It is distributed as free software and written using its own GUI toolkit. It supports the ISO/IEC standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) for data interchange as its default file format, as well as Microsoft Office formats among others. As of November 2009, OpenOffice supports over 110 languages. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org)
OpenOffice.org originated as StarOffice, an office suite developed by StarDivision and acquired by Sun Microsystems in August 1999. The source code of the suite was released in July 2000 with the aim of reducing the dominant market share of Microsoft Office by providing a free and open alternative; later versions of StarOffice are based upon OpenOffice.org with additional proprietary components. The OpenOffice.org project is primarily sponsored by Oracle Corporation (initially by Sun Microsystems). Other major corporate contributors include Novell, Red Hat, RedFlag CH2000, IBM, Google and others. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org)
Sakai – Higher Education
Sakai (www.sakaiproject.org) is a community of academic institutions, commercial organizations and individuals who work together to develop a common Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE). The Sakai CLE is a free, community source, educational software platform distributed under the Educational Community License (a type of open source license). The Sakai CLE is used for teaching, research and collaboration. Systems of this type are also known as Course Management Systems (CMS), Learning Management Systems (LMS), or Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakai_Project)
Sakai is a Java-based, service-oriented application suite that is designed to be scalable, reliable, interoperable and extensible. Version 1.0 was released in March 2005. As of July 2007, Sakai is in production at over 150 institutions and being piloted by over 100 more. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakai_Project)
MJI Sakai Orientation (shot w/Camtasia)
Moodle – K-12
Moodle (http://moodle.org/)has several features typical of an e-learning platform, plus some original innovations (like its filtering system). Moodle is very similar to a learning management system, but it has many more standard features. Moodle can be used in many types of environments such as in education, training and development, and business settings. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle)
Developers can extend Moodle's modular construction by creating plugins for specific new functionality. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle) Moodle's infrastructure supports many types of plug-ins:
· activities (including word and math games)
· resource types
· question types (multiple choice, true and false, fill in the blank, etc)
· data field types (for the database activity)
· graphical themes
· authentication methods (can require username and password accessibility)
· enrollment methods
· content filters
OpenSIS
OpenSIS (http://opensis.com/) is a free student information system that rivals costly commercial alternatives in looks, functionality and ease of use and administration. OpenSIS is developed and maintained by Open Solutions for Education (OS4Ed). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSIS
OS4Ed aims to produce an open source package that is easy to use, has the same functionality as commercial alternatives and represents a TCO up to 75% less than comparable solutions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSIS
OpenSIS is written in the PHP programming language and uses the PostgreSQL and lately MySQL database system to store information. Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, it is free software. OpenSIS is listed as one of the top 50 Open Source Apps Transforming Education for administration! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSIS
OrangeHRM
OrangeHRM (http://www.orangehrm.com) is a Human Resource Management (HRM) application for the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME). It is developed on PHP, MySQL and Apache HTTP Server and can be downloaded to use on both the Linux operating system and Microsoft Windows. OrangeHRM is also available as SaaS which is branded as OrangeHRM Live. OrangeHRM is released under the GNU General Public License, and is thus free software. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OrangeHRM)
Since the project was started in 2005, OrangeHRM has been downloaded over 400,000 times and is being used by over 1,000,000 users around the world. In 2007, it reached the top 10 on the activity ranking out of more than 140,000 listed projects on www.sourceforge.net. OrangeHRM was also named as the Project of the Month in December 2008 and selected as the 5th Best Project for Enterprises by www.sourceforge.net. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OrangeHRM)
OrangeHRM consists of 11 different modules:
· Administration Module
· Personal Information Management Module
· Reports Module
· Employee Self Service Module
· Benefits Module
· Time and Attendance Management Module
· Leave Management Module
· Recruitment Module
· Performance Evaluation Module
· Training
· Budgets
Evergreen
Evergreen (http://www.open-ils.org/) is an open source Integrated Library System (ILS), initially developed by the Georgia Public Library Service for Public Information Network for Electronic Services (PINES), a statewide resource-sharing consortium with over 270 member libraries. Beyond PINES, the Evergreen ILS is deployed worldwide in hundreds of libraries, and is used to power a number of statewide consortial catalogs, including the King County Library System. In 2007, the original Evergreen development team formed a commercial company around the software, Equinox Software, which provides custom support, development, migration, training, and consultation for Evergreen. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_%28software%29)
Spiceworks
Spiceworks (http://www.spiceworks.com/) provides a free systems management, inventory, and helpdesk software application, Spiceworks IT Desktop, designed for network administrators working in small- to medium-sized businesses. Spiceworks IT Desktop is used to inventory, monitor, manage and report on software and hardware assets. It also includes an integrated help desk system. Spiceworks runs on Microsoft Windows and discovers Windows, UNIX, Linux and Mac OS X machines along with other IP-addressable devices such as routers, VOIP phones, printers, etc. Spiceworks is adware and is written in Ruby on Rails. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiceworks)
AVG Anti-Virus
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition (http://www.avg.com/) is an anti-virus protection tool available free of charge to home users. Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high level of detection capability. The new 9.0 edition is faster, safer and easier to use. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition gives you free rock solid protection for your basic security needs. The combined anti-virus/anti-spyware scanner in AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition runs up to 50% faster than earlier versions and doesn't get in your way. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition also delivers new anti-phishing detection techniques, which can quickly and accurately determine whether or not a web page is hosting a phishing attack. Additionally, version 9.0 comes with basic anti-rootkit protection to ensure protection against sophisticated hidden threats. (http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html)
References
http://www.google.com/educators/p_apps.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html
http://www.openoffice.org/product/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakai_Project
http://www.sakaiproject.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle
http://moodle.org/about/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSIS
http://opensis.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OrangeHRM
http://www.orangehrm.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_%28software%29
http://www.open-ils.org/
http://www.spiceworks.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiceworks
http://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10320142.html
http://www.avg.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
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