Monday, September 19, 2011

Good riddance to BCeSIS

The government has announced they will be phasing out the much maligned BCeSIS computer system. At a cost of $10 per student per year, this system was an incredible waste of public funding. Similar systems that were in use cost as little as $3.

This program has always been a boondoggle. For years, teachers have expressed frustration that it was unreliable and poorly designed. It constrained a teacher's ability to report to students (only codes allowed), it logged out automatically, requiring teachers to spend class time logging on over and over, and the user interface was a classic in bad design - multiple scroll bars on one page, buttons with obscure symbols and multiple steps to do what should be done in one.

In my best guesstimate, teachers would spend 10 - 30 minutes per day wasting time with BCeSIS. Additional countless hours have been spent transferring Individual Education Plans into the system. Time that would have been better spent with students.

Lo and behold, the BCeSIS system was brought in when no other than Christy Clark was Minister of Education. No surprise.

2 comments:

  1. Sigh. I suppose we should be pleased. I work in the public education system & find BCeSIS an incredible waste of my time and taxpayers' money.

    But I worry about what we will use in its place. Will we hire another independent consulting firm to come up with a "solution" and then purchase another expensive American program that doesn't fit our needs in BC? Will teachers--once again--scarcely be consulted?

    This seems to be the trend with the decision-makers... spend lots of money and refuse to ask those that could best tell us what's needed in a student timetabling & reporting system (teachers themselves, of course).

    Isn't BC a technology-friendly province? Couldn't we create something cost-effective, that's student- and user-friendly--right here in BC?

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  2. Bring Integrade back! Since Pearson bought out BCeSis and the other useless program eClass, it is my hope that they will will phase in Integrade asap!

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