British Columbia electronic Common Information System (BCeSIS): Old Technology or Poor Implementation?

MET 511 Final Essay

Thomas MacIsaac 79770111

The British Columbia electronic Common Student Information System (BCeSIS) was commissioned by the Ministry of Education in British Columbia so there would be a single, province wide program that would be able to collect important data, share that data between districts and produce comprehensive reports on students progress from K-12. BCeSIS has been in place in most schools in British Columbia since 2005 with mixed reviews from those that use it. The Ministry of Education lauded its capabilities while those that used the software on a daily basis grew more and more frustrated with its short comings and nuances. The benefits of the system were said to be improved management of student achievement by schools and school districts, providing them with timely and accurate access to student performance data, increased control and access to information for more effective management of schools, improved quality and standardization of data for accurate reporting and improved benefits and reduced costs of system customization, operation, and maintenance. (British Columbia, 2009). As of September 2011, the Ministry of Education has scrapped the records software even though there is no replacement coming in the future. The Ministry even hired Gartner Inc. to do an independent review of BCeSIS. They concluded that BCeSIS is not meeting the business, technical or operational needs of BC and is not a viable future alternative. (Gartner, 2011, p.5). Even with the report by Gartner Inc., there will be no new system in place before 2014. The benefits of BCeSIS were always reiterated by the Ministry every time a problem was found in the program. Basically it was a benefits outweigh the problems argument.

The concept of a Common Student Information System has been around for many years and it is used in Canada, the United States, and some European countries. It is a useful piece of Educational Technology (ET). But BCeSIS seems to be the exception to the rule. The problems and short comings of this program nullified any of the benefits because users could not get by these short comings. I am going to try and show that the problem was not the Common Student Information System but more due to the implementation and the technology that was used and available. The real question is was it poor implementation, poor technology or a combination of the two that doomed this program from the start?

The Common Student Information System, that BCeSIS is a part of, is a useful and quite common piece of soft ware. The Ministry of Education was not wrong in going to a centralized Common Student Information System, but the software chosen and its implementation were done poorly. Maybe this mistake was due to costs but could they not have found a cheaper price than $16 million development fee? Maybe the cost of updating the provinces computer system was too expensive so this program was chosen because it could be used on a number of old and new computers. Was the problem that the Government of British Columbia decided to implement this program with very little consultation of those that will use the program on a daily basis? The Ministry of Education forced schools to use it, offering funding if they would pilot the project which was

going ahead no matter what anyone said, and then ignoring the most obvious deficiencies as a real problem.

The implementation of this program was not well thought out. Did the government think that if this program fails, it would still be cheaper than a more advanced program that would call for a large purchase of new equipment to run the more advanced program? Maybe that explains the quick implementation of the program. I think that question is a moot point. How many governments base their decisions on frugality? The program was forced on all school districts with very little, if any, input by the districts. Some districts were chosen as pilot districts with the promise that they would receive some monetary compensation and technical support for their work. They would train teachers so that they could go back to their schools and help the teachers. Now most people know that when something is forced on them it is automatically questioned and users are skeptical. The Ministry forcing this program on teachers was seen as another example of a battle between teachers and the Government of British Columbia. The implementation of this program just seemed to add to the us versus them mentality that is prevalent in the British Columbia Educational System. Many teachers, administrators and support staff were put off by this program before they even used the program because of the way it was introduced. It was as if the government was saying, you are going to use it so get use to it. To me this was the first and most lethal hit to this program. The Ministry knows that the relationship between itself and its employees is a tenuous relationship at best.

There must have been a better angle to work when introducing this program then imposing it on the province. Not only did they forcefully impose this program, but they did it while charging all districts a $10 per student fee to help recover the costs of maintaining and troubleshooting the system. (Hoekstra, 2011) Now this money was not included in the almost $100 million that was reported to have been spent in the operation and maintenance of this software. As late as June 2010, BCeSIS, as reported in their BCeSIS News newsletter, was discussing the implementation of another five year plan for BCeSIS. How were they planning to build on the first five years of this program? It was not delivered as promised so was their plan to make the program work like it was promised in the first place? If the program was plagued with problems for five years you would think a complete overhaul would be the only way to improve the delivery. After five years of use in the BC school systems, the Service Management Council (SMC) identified priorities for future development of BCeSIS. The SMC is the executive council, made up of educators and government officials, which guide BCeSIS. The SMC stated that the priorities for future development include enhancing usability and new functionality for reporting, analysis, parent access and Continuous Entry Learning (CEL) schools.(BCeSIS, 2010, p.3) The SMC also pointed out that creating capacity and sustaining basic operations will be essential to successful adoption and use of functionality. (BCeSIS, 2010, p.3). Future development included sustaining basic operations. That seems to be setting the bar pretty low. The basic operations of this program are print and export. As was stated in the beginning of this paper, there is no plan for a new

system before 2014. So this review was to keep the status quo even though that does not work. It seems that they have made priorities of the aspects of the program that were promised in the first place. It does not make a lot of sense to present recommendations based on a review of the program that simply reiterate what the program was supposed to perform in the first place. Did the Ministry overpay for this program? The obvious answer is yes. But maybe the Ministry chose that program because it would cost them the least amount in start up fees. Sure $11 million is a lot of money but what if they had a chosen a cheaper, more advanced program? How much would it have cost to upgrade a large amount of the computers in schools today? If that was the reason, then they should have announced that chosen BCeSIS to save money. If they had announced that they had chosen this program because it would allow all schools in the province to use it without any upgrades to the schools technology, then maybe it would still be in use today.

With education becoming more and more technology based, a program that allows for transfer of information between districts and parent access over the web seemed like a perfect fit. The Ministry of Education recently said that 21st education was going to use the technology available. How are the schools going to provide this cutting edge technology when the school does not have it? program had to be an old platform from the beginning. To simply perform attendance you have three windows opened. When your computer always asks the question if you would like to run an older version of Java every time you try The

to log in it does not instill confidence in the user.

I would actually like to run the

newest version of Java but then I would be unable to use BCeSIS. Our school does not have the newest computers so if they are asking to run old software there must be a problem. The program also lacks the ability to recognize common commands that all other software can perform easily. Some of the more obvious shortcomings make it very user unfriendly. BCeSIS does not respond to right click of the mouse. You can not highlight, right click, and copy. You must use control V. When recording marks you need to use the arrows to navigate because if you hit enter it goes to the box across from it instead of below it. This slows down the recording of marks. You are unable to copy tasks, if you have two of the same classes you have to do everything twice. BCeSIS also slows down when there is heavy use like report card time and September start up. When inputting marks you had to constantly hit the save floppy disk icon because you never knew when the system would shut down. If it shut down for reasons only BCeSIS knew, all marks not saved would be gone. This means more time putting the same marks back in. There was technical support for BCeSIS. In our district, we could email the district HelpDesk with our questions and they would send a reply with their suggestions on how to fix the problem. I contacted them about the frequent crashing of BCeSIS and the subsequent locking out of my password for 30 minutes because I logged in too many times. The response I received was a suggestion that I type slower. It was at that moment that I realized this was not a program I was going to suffer through any more. I returned to using Integrade in my class. It is our pre-BCeSIS mark

program and I have never had it crash when entering marks and I can email parents and students with Progress Reports on a regular basis. So the new technology of BCeSIS could not perform the tasks of the old technology that it was supposed to replace. The point of Educational Technology and technology in general, is to improve on how we deliver education. BCeSIS never did deliver on the improved reporting. BCeSIS was doomed to failure from the beginning. There was not a single reason for the scrapping of BCeSIS. The reasons for its failure, and ultimate demise, were inevitable because of the poor implementation and the technology that it used. The Ministry forcing a program on the entire school system when it had not been tried and tested was a major mistake. Sure they let some districts test run the program but there was no doubt that the Ministry was going to implement this Common Student Information System. The decision was made at the Ministry level, with no consultation with those that would use the program on a daily basis, and they were sticking to their decision no matter what objections were made with regards to the problems with the program. The technology and the amount of money that was used to keep this program afloat were other problems. Over $100 million for six years of frustration is an underestimation. That price tag is not including the cost to keep this project running for however long the Ministry decides to run it. As was stated earlier, the program is around for at least another three years. The Ministry must have known that the shelf life of this program was short. You are taking old technology and trying to use it in an increasingly technological environment. The Ministry is trying to tell parents

and the public that they want education to be flexible and technology based without any explanation as to how that is going to be implemented. In this paper I have tried to show that not all technology used is good technology. Sometimes the best intentions are misguided by politics. The Minister of Education George Abbotts comments about BCeSIS reinforce the poor implementation and old technology argument. Abbott said that he acknowledged that the system had glitches but it was still good value for money and needs replacement largely because the technology is now outdated. (Steffenhagen, 2011). Truer words were never spoken.

References:

British Columbia. Ministry of Labour and Citizens Services and British Columbia Government EBook Collection (2009). Common Student Information system alliance management office report. Retrieved from http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/public/pubdocs/bcdocs/459554/bcesis_amo_status_rep ort_0905.pdf BCeSIS News (2010, June) June Newsletter. Retrieved from www.isw.bc.ca Charvatova, D and Vondrus, J (2008) Users demands on students information system. International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (13078046), Volume 2, Issue 1. Gartner Inc. (2011, September 12) A Report for BC Ministry of Education: Review of Student Information Systems. Retrieved from http://www.vancouversun.com/pdf/bc_education_final_report.pdf Hoekstra, G. (2011, September 19) B.C. schools to scrap $89m records software. The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from http://www.vancouversun.com Steffenhagen, J (2011, October 28) B.C announces plans to modernize education system. The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from http://www.vancouversun.com Steffenhagen, J (2011, September 19) Inadequacies confirmed; BCeSIS to be dropped. The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved from http://www.vancouversun.com Trenfy, B (2002) A guide to student information systems. Technology & Learning (1053-6728). Volume 23, Issue 2, p.54.