ClaSS 0.8.0 review
DownloadClaSS is a complete and integrated student information management system turned on its head
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ClaSS is a complete and integrated student information management system turned on its head. ClaSS takes a classroom-first approach to collecting and disseminating information in the most dynamic of ways.
By placing at the diposal of teaching staff the wealth of information traditionally horded in management databases and spreadsheets, it encourages early intervention in the learning process based on authorative data. Speeding the recording of data and freeing staff from the duplication of administrative effort, it brings ease, efficiency, and immediacy to all the information processes in a school.
A single installation of ClaSS on a web-server allows access to the system for all staff from the classroom, office, or home. All that is neccessary for access is a networked PC (running ANY operating system) loaded with the web-browser Firefox. This provides a single point of access to all information and functions (dependent on access permissions) through a unified and easy to learn web-based user-interface.
Here are some key features of "ClaSS":
Administration
personalised user profiles based on in-school duties and categorised as pastoral or academic
system permissions based on staff responsibilities to tier access to student information
log-in authentication using encrypted passwords stored in the database, limited life-time sessions, encrypted cookies and an IP-address check
history logging of user access
file import tool for staff, student and parental data
simple tool for staff to update their email and login details
plug-in 'Curriculum Packs' to define courses and subjects for the curriculums of different educational systems and age ranges
start-of-year functions to generate the curriculum structure, teaching classes, and to populate class-lists with students
integrated forms for posting support requests and bug-reports
InfoBook
search facility to find and group students
single-page student profile provides a snapshot and a point of entry to all of each individual student's records
generic tables for user-defined supplementary information such as prizes, activities, background circumstances, parental contacts, etc.
a dedicated section for students with special educational needs (SEN)
parental contact information and addresses ordered by priority and with links to siblings
supporting information including religious belief, first and second languages, nationality, etc.
area for posting staff comments (or referrals) to record praise and concerns, organised by categories
area for recording incidents with automatic generation of email alerts to those with an interest or responsibility
immediate access to all the past reports for a single student
single-page snapshot of academic results to allow a rapid comparative assesment of a students current performance
MarkBook
personalised view of teaching classes and class-lists
alternate views by subject or course for the staff with relevant responsibilities
spreadsheet-style display of marks and grades for individual or multiple classes of students
a simple set of functions to operate on columns including averaging, summing, levelling, ranking and copying
the export of marks to csv files for import of data into a spreadsheet when more sophisticated analysis is needed
a quick but sophisticated hide/show tool to manage the display of large numbers of mark columns
a core set of grading schemes and mark-types predefined by each curriculum pack
tools to construct user-defined mark-types, grading schemes and levelling boundaries
a one-click shortcut to view cross-curricular tracking assessments for an individual student
flagging of SEN students and one-click access to their individual profile
highlighting of students with recent concerns and one-click posting of fresh comments and concerns
linking of mark columns to predefined assessment grades for tracking and reporting
compound columns to combine numerous marks into one
special columns for editing and viewing subject reports to parents
ReportBook
auto-generation of columns in the MarkBook for assessment grades by subject or course
overviews of assessment grades for students grouped by year or form
averaging and statistics for assessment grades by subject or type of assessment
a bank of user-editable report templates for customising the the presentation of subject reports to parents
a tool to collate and print subject reports to parents individually, by form-group, or by course
a tool to collate and print comments and concerns during a chosen period, again by subject, by form-group or by year-group
What's New in This Release:
ClaSS is a fully featured and working system already proving useful to the information needs of schools.
This is the latest release of the 0.8 version which is the stable version for the current academic year (2006-2007).
It will be supported with bugfixes and upgrades for that period.
There will be an accompanying demo dataset available for download seperately should you wish test out your installation, and a basic curriculum pack to download to get you started configuring your own database.
ClaSS 0.8.0 keywords