As you hopefully are aware a new Student Information Service has been chosen to replace BCeSIS. The successful team chosen was Follett’s Aspen Software run by Fujitsu as the service provider.
A Provincial contract was signed in October and School Districts will have the option to join the system through a Memorandum of Understanding in November-December of 2013. My recommendation is that we use the Provincial common SIS.
We hope to start transitions with some schools as early as April 2014 potentially using the new system for attendance and report cards. Other schools will get slots in 2014-2015 and fall of 2015 for transition. BCeSIS will be decommissioned in early 2016.
A detailed implementation plan will be released through here as well at a later date.
Several school district staff members were nominated and chosen to be part of provincial configuration working groups. I’ve been added to the CACTWG (Core Application and Configuration Team Working Group) as well as the Teachers Functional Working Group. I’ll be posting updates on what I can here as well as soliciting feedback when needed.
There is some more info available on the new SIS at http://sisimplementation.ca/ including a general training site at http://www.follettsoftware.com/_files/fsc/training/01ASe0000r1/01ASe0000r1.htm . This is for general implementations. The BC system will differ in some ways but at the very least you can have a look at the default system.
So if you have any feedback for the new ConnectEdBC SIS please feel free to comment publicly on these posts or email me.
Posts on ConnectEdBC will be found in this category – http://www.prn.bc.ca/ts/?cat=380