Mistakes to Avoid In Buying School Exam Result Software

Educational institutions are incorporating technology for school management and there is no doubt that it saves time, effort and money. In this context, the school management software may or may not have a module specifically for school exams and results. Sometimes it may be preferable to have separate exam result software. As anyone knows exams are part of studies and some schools conduct monthly tests in addition to quarterly, bi-annual and annual exams in order to grade students. It is a stressful time for teachers if they have to manually assess answer sheets, give marks and calculate grades. After that, the mark sheet needs to be prepared by collating information on tests on all topics. This is time-consuming and error-prone. The better solution is to opt for exam result software that automates most of the tasks in a speedy way. However, when you think of buying school result software stop and think before you opt for any particular one. It is easy to be drawn in by attractive price or glib talk of salesmen who will hide flaws. The result is you will be burdened with software that does not meet your requirements and is difficult to use. Here are the common mistakes to avoid in buying school exam result software.

Buying without Trial

Never be in a hurry to buy software or be taken in by what salesmen say about their products. They may even show a demo but that will only focus on the good parts and you have no way of knowing if that exam software will work for your specific model of exam results. Some software vendors may offer a trial version with some features crippled such as the ability to print. Do not go for this kind of trial. It is better to opt for trial version that is time limited. You have a week or month to try out all features and you can judge if the software is a perfect fit.

Software Customization

Schools have different methods of conducting exams and different curriculum. The exam may be paper based or it may be online. Your school may conduct tests on a monthly basis and then quarterly, biannual and annual exams. The software you pick should have customizable features to let you include or exclude monthly test results from final results and, if these are to be included, you should be able to set percentage weightage. In that case it should be fine-grained, allowing you to define percentage and weightage for each topic and according to various grades from KG all the way to 10th.

Data Input

Schools may blindly buy exam result software without checking for the data input capability and then teachers have to put in extra effort. For instance, many schools use a spreadsheet format in which marks are entered by teachers for each student and for each class in the school. The school result software you think of buying should be flexible in data input capability. It should be able to capture data from other sources and also allow direct input of data by teachers.

Ease of use

How easy is it to use the school result software? This is best answered by having the vendor install it in your system on a trial basis and then have a few teachers try it out after an initial training session. Software that requires intensive training to understand and has a complex navigation structure will not be easy to use and teachers are likely to find it frustrating. It consumes time and energy which is something you should avoid.

Can it plug into your existing school administration software

While it may be a good idea to have a standalone exam result solution you will find that it is more practical if it plugs into your school communication app. This way the results can be transmitted by email to each student in a secure way. The software you choose should integrate well and let you schedule exams in advance and communicate it to each student.

Security

Talking about security it is absolutely essential to ensure that the software for exam results is highly secured with at least two layers of authentication and possibly encryption. This is necessary to prevent attempts at tampering and to instill confidence in the system.

Printing

Each school may have a predefined report card already in use. You may want to continue to use the same format so check if the exam result solution allows minute adjustments of rows and columns. If this is not that important you should at least check if it allows customization in addition to offering standard templates.

Analytics

Ignoring analytics can deprive you of benefits you get such as assessment of each student’s performance, their weak points and even information about the quality of teaching that may be affecting performance. A well-rounded solution for exam results should have an analytics feature.

MyEdu is one of the best vendors of the finest school management systems and exam result software that you should take a look at before you commit.