February 2008 — Features
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Remote Control
School districts are catching on to SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE, a business model that allows administrators to manage essential organizational functions and plug in to student data from anywhere with an internet connection.
IMAGINE SCHOOL DISTRICT STAFF inputting
school data and sharing it in real time, managing teacher
absences and arranging substitutes from the comfort of
home, or deploying IT personnel to the right site at the
right time to tackle the highest-priority jobs first. The concept
of managing applications from anywhere with a network
connection, known by the name of software as a
service (SaaS)'or on-demand computing'is catching on
across business channels and is starting to find a clientele
in the education space.
Software as a service is a software distribution model in which essential business applications normally handled by in-house resources are hosted by a vendor or service provider and accessed by customers over a network, usually the internet.
The benefits of SaaS are plain. Allowing anyone with proper authorization to access an application remotely frees up employees and managers from having to be at the office computer to conduct business. Since all users work with the same version of the software, administration of software and collaboration among users are easier. The process also allows for more accurate estimation of application costs. Vendors generally charge a setup fee and then either a per-month or per-user charge for the service. Moreover, IT departments like SaaS because updates occur at the vendor site, instead of in the server room or on individual computers spread throughout a school district.
At first glance, storing and accessing sensitive data from a remote server for back-office operations can be a scary prospect for information-conscious school systems. Districts have a natural anxiety toward handing off technology administration to a third party. Though a perceived lack of security may be a drawback to some districts, the argument could be made that security at an SaaS vendor site is superior to that within a district, because vendors have a vested interest in treating customer data with the highest level of protection and redundancy. Lack of customization also is seen as an issue among larger districts used to having their own performance standards; the availability of quality open source software applications may tempt some districts to create and adapt open source for their own use.
