I know there are plenty who will disagree, but I'm not completely sold on FOSS. The argument is that with so many people looking at an end product, there are more people to catch and correct problems. That may be true, but the flip side is that large companies like Google and Microsoft have a lot of money to throw at creating and perfecting a product.
As an example: OpenSIS. OpenSIS is a FOSS system for grading, organizing student information, creating transcripts, and so on. My principal is a fan and we've been using it for the last two+ years. It has been one headache after another. We have had to upgrade and switch servers multiple times. Each time, the principal has had to repopulate classes and the last time, grades were not all restored. He ended up wiping the entire system and starting over. Now, this is, frankly, a bigger issue for the principal who has to keep fiddling with the system. However, it's an inconvenience for teachers who have to keep redoing grades. Not only that, but the built-in system for transferring grades to grade reports is faulty, and doesn't take into account grades for assignments that have been created, but for which grades haven't been entered.
Long story short--too late--I've gone back to calculating my grades on Excel. I tried to figure out If/Then formulations to exclude exempted grades, but that's way beyond my mathematical skill. Instead, along with the individual totals column, I've created one for excluded points, then worked that into the formula for the percentages. THAT's math I can do.
Sadly, this sets me back years to before we used any type of grading system at all. But, I don't have to worry about my data being lost again. I can keep my grades in excel and just upload the final quarter grades manually (which I was already doing because of the aforementioned glitch).
Back to the FOSS vs. not-FOSS issue: I never had problems like this with Powerschool, even way back in 2002 when I first used it, and it was much more clunky than the web-based version I used 5 years later in Texas. Powerschool is expensive, but it works without the glitchiness of OpenSIS.
Yes, this is just one program, but I've had similar issues with other programs that fill key needs (grading, word processing, anti-virus, so on). I've found some FOSS programs that are fun to use in less crucial areas, but for really important things, I'll stick with Google (....and Microsoft, and so on)...
As an example: OpenSIS. OpenSIS is a FOSS system for grading, organizing student information, creating transcripts, and so on. My principal is a fan and we've been using it for the last two+ years. It has been one headache after another. We have had to upgrade and switch servers multiple times. Each time, the principal has had to repopulate classes and the last time, grades were not all restored. He ended up wiping the entire system and starting over. Now, this is, frankly, a bigger issue for the principal who has to keep fiddling with the system. However, it's an inconvenience for teachers who have to keep redoing grades. Not only that, but the built-in system for transferring grades to grade reports is faulty, and doesn't take into account grades for assignments that have been created, but for which grades haven't been entered.
Long story short--too late--I've gone back to calculating my grades on Excel. I tried to figure out If/Then formulations to exclude exempted grades, but that's way beyond my mathematical skill. Instead, along with the individual totals column, I've created one for excluded points, then worked that into the formula for the percentages. THAT's math I can do.
Sadly, this sets me back years to before we used any type of grading system at all. But, I don't have to worry about my data being lost again. I can keep my grades in excel and just upload the final quarter grades manually (which I was already doing because of the aforementioned glitch).
Back to the FOSS vs. not-FOSS issue: I never had problems like this with Powerschool, even way back in 2002 when I first used it, and it was much more clunky than the web-based version I used 5 years later in Texas. Powerschool is expensive, but it works without the glitchiness of OpenSIS.
Yes, this is just one program, but I've had similar issues with other programs that fill key needs (grading, word processing, anti-virus, so on). I've found some FOSS programs that are fun to use in less crucial areas, but for really important things, I'll stick with Google (....and Microsoft, and so on)...