Student Information System Migration Plan for Alaska Gateway

This report details a student information system (SIS) migration plan for the Alaska Gateway School District, focusing on upgrading their existing PowerSchool system. The report begins with an overview of the current system's limitations, including poor communication and lack of visibility for parents and administrators. It then outlines a comprehensive implementation plan, covering system analysis, design and development, testing, training, and risk management. The new system aims to improve learning quality by involving all stakeholders: administrators, teachers, students, and parents. The plan involves adding features such as study patterns, performance evaluations, and enhanced communication tools. The report also describes the required hardware and software, including the use of WebFOCUS for reporting and cloud storage for data. It emphasizes the importance of training for all users, including parents, teachers, and administrators, and the use of test cases for effective system validation. The migration will involve migrating data from the old system to the new database. Overall, the project aims to modernize the school district's educational approach and improve communication between all stakeholders.

STUDENT INFORMATION
SYSTEM MIGRATION

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Overview................................................................................................................................1
Implementation plan for IT system........................................................................................3
Timeline and resources...........................................................................................................8
Organisational Change...........................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
In the present era of digital advances it has become crucial to make businesses to comply
with the latest technologies. There are different functions played in an organisation that can be
turned fully automated and more effective by making use of suitable technologies (Creamer and
et. al., 2013). In the present report, a student information system will be developed for a school
district named as Alaska Gateway School district. The old system present in it is not much
effective and henceforth, an advance system will be developed in the present report. This
undertaken work will pay attention to the systems analysis, system design and development,
testing, training, implementation, maintenance and risk management plan of the newly developed
system.
Overview
The selected organisation for which the student information system plan will be
implemented is Alaska Gateway School Districts. The chosen firm operates in educational
sector. It is a renowned name in the industry and comes in top 5 among all the school districts
working in US. The existing system in the entity is less effective because of the opaqueness of
the students, teachers and school metrics to the parents, community and administrations, thus, to
enhance this visibility it is significant to implement a highly advanced school information system
(Laudon and Laudon, 2016) The current system in the organisation does not reflects the teaching
and learning pattern, performance of teachers to the administrators and parents, etc. Further,
there is also poor communication between different components and schools of the district. It
should be further recognised that the different systems implemented in the different schools of
the district makes the work complex for the Alaska Gateway to effectively manage all the units.

Also, there exists a biggest drawback of ineffective communication between the antithetic
departments that causes harm to the organisational by rendering incomplete messages. Hence, in
order to remove all these flaws, it is essential to modify this system to make it advanced.
The new student information system will enable improvement in quality of learning by
involving administration, teachers, students and their parents. Development of the new system
will further assist in the access to near real-time and better quality data for decision support. This
system will help in development all primary and secondary schools coming in Alaska Gateway
school district. At present the mentioned organisation follows an online school improvement
planning tool named as STEPP. This tactic assists in preparing, submitting and managing a
comprehensive school improvement plan. In addition to this, a PowerSchool log in IOD and
credentials are given to each and every student for their online results and performance
evaluation. At present these PowerSchool and STEPP software are used by the Alaska Gateway
School District for the functioning (Kadam and Onkar, 2015) However, it should be recognised
that these tools does not enhance visibility of operations of the teachers and students to
administrations and parents. Further, STEPP is proved ineffective in developing effective
communication within different components of the school district. There are thus different issues
which are observed in the effective operation of the selected organisation and in order to deal
with them implementation of a new and effective tactic is necessarily required. The major goal of
implementation of new system is to improve the education system of Alaska Gateway School
District. This new system is setting to achieve the goal of managing impelling relations between
parents, students, teachers and administrators by rendering them with a platform to
communicate. Further, it is aimed to improve the quality of teaching and learning by revealing

education pattern to parents. It should be further noted that the newly developed system will
provide administrative bodies with a proper and effective control over the education system by
giving them opportunity to observe the teaching behaviour of teachers, techniques used by them
for making students learn the important topics, to monitor attendance of teachers and students,
etc. By accomplishing all these goals, the Alaska Gateway School District can improve an an
education system in the district (Jin, 2015, January).
Implementation plan for IT system
Systems Analysis
In the modification of existing student information system to make it more effective, the
hardware and software that will be required involves the internal communication, external
communication, mobile interface, user interface and bulk upload interface. Those stakeholders of
the Alaska Gateway School district that will be affected by this newly developed system. This
includes students, teachers, administrators and parents (Ajanovski, 2013). For the modification
of existing PowerSchool, tools that will be used for development are internet and intranet. Also,
android app will be developed for giving easy access to parents. In addition to this, all the earlier
platforms will be used in this new information system such as network, server, login credentials,
computers, etc. The present project is aimed on addition of study pattern, evaluation of teachers'
and students' performance, attendance, communication enhancement between different
components of school, etc. and thus, a database will be needed in it for effective storage of all the
information. The database that will be used in present case is online server database. It is due to
the fact that parents will also access the information. In addition to this, a bigger database will
needed for the storage of the newly added data such as study pattern, etc. For this Alaska

Gateway can make use of cloud for the storage of all the annually study patterns, timely
evaluation sheets, attendance, etc. (Memon and et. al., 2014) Also, it should be recognised that
this is not a completely new application rather some modifications will be done in the existing
PowerSchool application of the Alaska Gateways school district. It will be beneficial to build a
specific system as per the requirements than purchasing off-the -shelf product. It is due to the
fact that purchasing of entirely new system will consumer more cost as compared to the
modification of the system as per needs. In the new system, study pattern, feedback box,
attendance of teachers and students will be added along with performance evaluation. All these
mentioned features will be developed in the revised system.
System design and development
In order to achieve the mentioned goal of improved quality of learning, a specific system
will be developed. For the development of new student information system programming will be
required. The present system will require programming to enter the study patterns, attendance
records, teacher's and students' performance sheets, etc. Henceforth, all these elements are
required to add in the existing programme to implement the new information system with
effective functioning (Xu and et. al., 2014). The planned student information system will be
connected to current system by suitable programming, a bigger database and relevant hardware.
This system will further require some additional hardware such as intranet and internet devices
for effective communication within different components of the school district. In order to track
the individual incidents, responses and patterns, effective reporting system is required. In the
present case, the most suitable reporting system that can be used by the Alaska Gateway School

district is WebFOCUS. This tool will render assistance in flexible operations along with
delivering governed tools and analytical applications to different users linked with the
implemented system. The implementation of the present system will also include additional
training to the responsive bodies. They will have to be able to analyse the different data, dealing
with information, etc. Also, teachers will have to develop calibre to understand the newly
developed plan. They are required to teach how to upload attendance, student performance, etc.
Board should be able to plan effective study pattern and way to upload it on the site. For the
overall development, consultants will be required for getting the reliable atmospheres (Walia and
Gill, 2014). Staff should be aware of responding effectively to the comments of parents. In
addition to this, administrative bodies are also required to deal with these advancements for
monitoring attendance of teachers, their classroom behaviour, etc.
Testing
In order to check the effectiveness of the newly implemented student information system,
it is essential to test it. In order to evaluate it, a standard testing mechanism will be required. The
most impelling for the present SIS is test cases. It is because of the fact that there are different
components involved in this such as parents, teachers, administrative bodies and teachers which
will make the testing mechanism complex and bulky (Barnes, Kölling and Gosling, 2017). Test
cases will thus simplify the overall procedure by involving different kinds of testing. This can be
done by different people to achieve the different objectives. In order to test the effectiveness of
the plan all the suers will be involved at the execution point. At this point all users can access the
system and thus, the flaws can be analysed effectively at different points. That is, any issue that
is being experienced by any of the component that is administrative body, teachers, students, and

parent can be reported at the execution step. Also, alterations can be made as per the
requirements. This, in turn, assist in getting impelling outcomes of the plan. The test will be
signed off by the administrative of the Alaska Gateway school district. Through all these steps, a
development and production environment will be maintained.
Training
The present information system will entail to train different components associated with
the Alaska Gateway school district. These are parents, teachers, students, and teachers. Parents
will be trained to develop a sense of effective monitoring of the environment where there student
studies such as performance of their child, teachers' intelligence, study pattern, etc. They should
thus have an ability to check it. Also, knowledge of feedback system should be rendered so that
they can transmit their messages. Students also need to be trained so that they can ask for
anything related to their course, teacher, study pattern, etc. On the other hand, teachers arec
entailed to develop an ability to upload the attendance of students, performance evaluation
sheets, and ability to respond to the direct comments of parents. In addition to this, training is
also needed by the administrative people for getting the work done on right track and ion
appropriate manner. Training to administrative person will be given first so that they can carry
their work in a right direction. Further, training will be provided to the staff so that they can start
doing their work positively (Kadam and Onkar, 2015). Lastly students and parents will be taught
to operate the new SIS. This training programme will require use of some special applications so
that it can be made easier and understandable. For the parents that live outside the district web
videoconferencing will be developed. In case of the parent living in near proximity customised

training videos will be displayed. For training to the teachers and administrative members,
consultants will be hired for the same.
Implementation
The present plan of revised student information system will be developed after
identifying the needs of each and every component associated with it. These thoughts will be
initially evaluated at the first level. Later, these needs will be considered after applying SAF test.
Based on the outcomes of the test, suitable decision for the development will be taken. Following
this, planning will be done for the implementation of new student information system. This
planning step will cover programming for the study pattern, performance evolutional sheets,
teachers' and students' attendance, etc. Coding for these features will be added in the existing
PowerSchool software. A bigger database will moreover be required for the storage of the
mentioned information. Further, required hardware that is intranet and internet will be added in
the existing system. After completion of the overall system, data will be migrated from the older
system to the newer database (Jin, 2015, January). It is further essential to train all the users so
that they can make effective use of this system. In this order, training will be given to all these
users. In addition to this, to check the effectiveness of the system it will be tested by using
sample test. Initially, few of the teachers, parents and students will be given login credentials to
access the site. Later, their perceptions will be analysed. Following this, based on the outcomes
of the tests, required changes will be made in the system. Further, the implementation of the
system will be performed by using phased approach strategy. Under this, the SIS will be first
launched for the administrative bodies, then for teachers, lastly students and parents will be

covered. The system will be active or goes live after the head of Alaska Gateway school district
will sign it off (Kadam and Onkar, 2015).
Maintenance
The complete procedure from planning to execution along with thorough running of the
student information system is required to be maintained effectively under the IT department of
Alaska Gateway school district.
Timeline and resources
Timeline for the implementation plan
In order to implemented the new student information system the total time-period that
will be required is 9 months. There are basically 7 steps which are required to be covered for the
implementation of the new system. These milestones are identification of needs, initial
evaluation, final evaluation, decision-making, implementation planning, training & data
migration and going live (Laudon and Laudon, 2016). Time associated with these steps can be
observed by the Gantt Chart prepared below:
Activities Time-frame in months
Identification of needs
Initial evaluation
Final evaluation
Decision
Implementation planning

Training and data migration
Go-live
Resources
The implementation of the new student information system will require intranet and
internet for internal and external users. In addition to this, an internal team will be prepared to
make all these person aware of the new plan (Ajanovski, 2013). The overall procedure will
require a system analyst, system designer and a programmer. They will have to play different
roles for the development of SIS. In addition to this, consultants will be require for training and
implementation.
Organisational Change
The newly developed system may result in loss of staff by analysing their performance
and making it visible to students and parents. It can demotivate them for working effectively.
The other factor that should be considered by the school district is that the online server will
make risk of easily hacked by the key rivals to copy the study pattern. Also, they can hack it to
make a clone of the system which will destroy the competitive advantage. In order to retain the
employees, employers can motivate them to enhance their teaching skills so that their
performance can be boosted (Creamer and et. al., 2013). This enhancement in their work will
automatically help in retaining them. Further, Alaska Gateway school district is required to
develop effective safety tools so that their system can not be hacked.

CONCLUSION
From the present report, it can b concluded that development of student
information system demand for effective planning for the implementation. There are various
parameters which are entailed to be consider before final execution of an IT system. The present
report has shed lights on all those aspects.