"We've had IC two years now and we call it Infinite Crapus."

Hate it! 08-28-2010, 04:28 AM Run, run, run! We'v'e had IC two years now and we call it Infinite Crapus. It's horrible for flex grouping because it's a pain to change kids from class to class, when you get new students in you can't put them at the end of the list so it screws up your grades if you transfer from a hard copy gradebook. EVERY year we have to go in and do all this setup on Lessonplanner to allow it to do numeric grades and then we always get the "list". They send out a list of all the people who've done it wrong - of course there's no way of knowing if it's right or wrong until the "higher ups" actually start running the report cards. Last year I got a student in from Mexico after the first 9 weeks so of course there were no grades for her. At the end of the year they couldn't run the end of year grades without something in the spot for the first 9 weeks, so I was told to just make up something and put it there. This came from central office admin!!!!!   READ MORE: http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/showthread.php?p=2012289

So far I’m not impressed with Infinite Campus…

Infinite Campus

So far I’m not impressed with Infinite Campus…

I know, the school year hasn’t even started, and there probably isn’t much data in it yet, and the fact that they misplaced my daughter, and had someone completely unrelated to my family associated with my account (somehow living in my house, with my mobile phone number) is all probably the fault of some human rather than the system itself…

I’m interested to know how much Infinite Campus costs. From my preliminary research, it looks to be expensive. Really expensive. REALLY REALLY expensive. Aren’t there open source alternatives to these things? I mean, it’s not like there’s a need for software like this… it’s only the educational market, how big can that be? I probably wouldn’t mind having my tax dollars used for the development of open source software that pretty much every school district could have the option to use to manage things…

Obviously I’ve not seen the back end of this thing… If it makes life easier for the teachers and administration, that’s a good thing… My opinion is only that of a user. A user who has about 15 minutes of using it. So far… I’m not impressed, but I’ll keep an eye on it. It seems to work for other schools. Maybe it’ll just take time. Hopefully I won’t have to fix things myself like I did with WebGrader.

LINK: http://rasterweb.net/raster/2010/08/20/infinite-campus/

Maine DOE Places Hold on Contract with Infinite Campus

Special Education Data Collection Software

INFORMATIONAL LETTER: 13
POLICY CODE: JF/KLL

TO: Superintendents of Schools, Directors of Career and Technical Education Regions
FROM: Angela Faherty, Ph.D., Acting Commissioner
DATE: August 16, 2010
SUBJECT: Special Education Data Collection Software

This letter serves as clarification of the Department’s progress toward providing Special Education software for all units to aid in collecting and reporting of Special Education data. This software will not be available in time for the upcoming 2010-2011 school year. It is recommended that all units continue collecting and reporting Special Education information as they have done in the past.

Last spring, we attempted to contract with Infinite Campus to provide the same Special Education functionality that they provide as part of Infinite Campus District Edition (ICDE) to all Maine schools. At the time, Infinite Campus was to provide a fully functional version for the Department to preview and test the first week of June. As of this letter, they have not provided test-ready software and the Department has elected to place a hold on the contract until they do so.

Despite the need and desire for this software in the units, we feel that providing untested software would merely add to the units’ burden. Even if the software became available immediately, there would not be time to adequately test the software or train the field staff before the start of the new school year.

The Department remains committed to providing a highly functional, easy-to-use tool to aid all units in the collection and reporting of Special Education information. Unfortunately, it will not be available this Fall. We will keep you apprised of any further developments on the availability of the software.

Link: http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=edu_letters&id=123051&v=article

Is Kentucky Considering Dropping Infinite Campus?

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION directing a comparative study of the STIDistrict and Infinite Campus information management systems.



WHEREAS, accurate data is critical for policy-making, budgetary planning, and program management and improvement; and



WHEREAS, an educational information management system should provide a seamless methodology for collecting the data needed by the local school district, the state, and the federal government; and



WHEREAS, an educational information management system should provide the highest levels of security for the data collected; and



WHEREAS, an educational information management system should generate timely data in a manner that is functional, efficient, and user-friendly and eliminates redundancy for all users of the system; and



WHEREAS, an educational information management system purchased for use in the Commonwealth should be cost-effective and include the training and other supports needed by system users; and



WHEREAS, selected pilot districts in Kentucky testing the Infinite Campus information management system have repeatedly expressed frustration utilizing Infinite Campus in comparison with their experience with the STIDistrict information management system;



NOW, THEREFORE,
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Senate concurring therein:



Section 1. Staff of the Legislative Research Commission shall conduct a study of the STIDistrict and the Infinite Campus information management systems in order to ascertain the relative merits and costs associated with implementing each system.



Section 2. The designated staff shall coordinate the collection of information from the Department of Education, local school districts, information management system vendors, and other sources necessary for completion of the study.



Section 3. At a minimum, the study report shall include:
(1) A comparison of the similarities and differences between the features and capabilities of the STIDistrict and Infinite Campus information management systems. This comparison shall specifically reference utility and efficiency in collecting data necessary for district, state, and federal program reporting;



(2) A statement of the total cost projections for the phase-in of the Infinite Campus, including the cost of training;



(3) A projection of the comparative costs for fully implementing the STIDistrict or the Infinite Campus information management systems with equivalent features;



(4) A list of which states use STIDistrict or Infinite Campus for information management;



(5) A summary of the perceived benefits and challenges of each system collected from a sampling of Kentucky users; and



(6) Recommendations for consideration by the Department of Education that relate to improving assistance to local districts in the implementation of contracted educational information management systems.



Section 4. The study shall be completed by October 1, 2009, with a written report presented to the Interim Joint Committee on Education by November 1, 2009.



Section 5. Provisions of this Resolution to the contrary notwithstanding, the Legislative Research Commission shall have the authority to alternatively assign the duties identified herein to an interim joint committee or subcommittee thereof, and to designate a study completion date.



LINK: http://www.lrc.ky.gov/RECORD/09RS/HC125/bill.doc

Midnight robo-calls from Sequoia school district irk parents

By Shaun Bishop

Daily News Staff Writer

Posted: 08/05/2010 03:00:00 AM PDT

Updated: 08/05/2010 12:18:34 PM PDT

When he got an automated phone call from the school district just after midnight Monday, a parent of two students at Carlmont High School thought it was just a strange but isolated mistake.

Then then he got the same robo-call from the Sequoia Union High School District the following day, again right around midnight. That was perplexing, thought the parent, who asked that his name not be published.

"To me it's incredible," he said Wednesday afternoon. "Eight thousand (students') homes got called two nights in a row at midnight. There must be zombies out there. I know I'm a zombie."

District officials still aren't clear exactly how it happened, but acknowledged that the first test of a new high-tech automated phone system went very badly.

And it got the district's new superintendent scrambling to apologize.

"I am so deeply sorry that an automated call from the district went out again late last night," Superintendent Jim Lianides wrote in e-mails to parents Wednesday morning on behalf of the district, which fielded hundreds of calls. "We have been in contact with our host software vendor since early this morning trying to identify where communication broke down. ... Please accept my sincere apology for last night's call. You have my personal assurances that this will not happen again."

District officials tried to use the new system from Minnesota-based Infinite Campus to send a phone message at 3:30 p.m. Monday to alert

parents about training for a new online registration system, said district spokeswoman Bettylu Smith.

But for some reason the system started dialing every household in the 8,700-student district at midnight on Monday instead, Smith said. The district contacted the vendor, which thought it had deleted the message and resolved the issue, Smith said. But the same call went out again Tuesday at midnight.

On Wednesday, the district told Infinite Campus to shut down the automated calling feature. And the company made pinpointing the cause of the problem its "highest priority," said Kim Schroeder, Infinite Campus' director of marketing.

"We regret this error and we're trying to do everything we can so it doesn't occur again," Schroeder said.

Though the district was swamped with calls from students' parents, most were "incredibly gracious and understanding," Smith said.

Schroeder said Infinite Campus, which has been serving 1,900 districts across the country since April 2009, has never before experienced the midnight calling problem.

Besides the robo-call function, the Infinite Campus system offers the district online registration, online posting of grades and homework assignments, and a messaging function for communicating with teachers.

The Palo Alto Unified School District bought the same system from Infinite Campus and is getting ready to test the automated function next week, Director of Technology Ann Dunkin said.

"We want to find out quickly what's happened because we don't want to have this happen again in another district, and definitely not again for the poor parents of Sequoia Union," Schroeder said.

LINK: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_15683940?source=rss&nclick_check=1