In 2008, for the first time, laptop sales surpassed desktops [iSuppli]. Sometime between late 2013 [IDC] and 2015 [Gartner], tablets will surpass both laptops and desktops. These trends were made possible by the advances in power efficiency and computational capability predicted by Moore's law, and they are one of the driving forces behind BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), thanks to the fact that most people nowadays consider a portable computer to be their main computational device. This shift in behavior, especially in high-growth markets (such as Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore and United Arab Emirates), has been blurring the lines between work and personal devices and between work and personal time [Ovum]. Another enabling technology that has great influence in BYOD behavior are wireless communication technologies. Wireless communication ranges from Near Field (NFC and RFID), passing through Personal Area (such as Bluetooth and Wireless USB), Local Area (Wi-Fi, RFID), Metropolitan (Wi-Fi, WiMAX, Muni Wi-Fi) and Wide Area (WiMAX, 3G and 4G telephony). Most of these technologies overlap and some even make use of one another (Bluetooth Smart or 4.0, for example, can use NFC to negotiate pairing and use Direct Wi-Fi to increase file transfer speeds), and are therefore part of the same IEEE standards family, 802.
Speaking of standards, one of the main forces of adoption of Internet protocols is the adherence to IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) standards. The IETF is an open standards organization, mostly run by volunteers and with no membership requirements, but its standards are well regarded and taken into consideration by other standard organizations such as ISO and the W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium), responsible for HTML and related standards and Ecma International, the European Computer Manufacturers Association. WebDAV and related protocols are IETF standards, HTML is a W3C standard, JavaScript (in the form of as EcmaScript) has been standardized by ISO and Ecma; as has JSON, JavaScript Object Notation. Cerri and Fughetta (2007) classified standards in a gradation between closed, disclosed, concerted, open concerted and open de jure. Although none of the standards cited above reach the highest level of openness in Cerri and Fughetta, they do all belong to the open concerted definition, for they are all developed and managed by an official standardization body or by an open group or consortium. This allows everyone to implement solutions based on these standards, even to base their own standards on these.
The best way to develop a solution based on open standards and to ensure its implementation is through the adoption of Open Source Software. OSS provides for a reference implementation that can be replicated and easily audited by external parties, ensuring there are no implementation mistakes. It also allows for easier adoption, because its replicability leads to widespread dissemination (Davidson and Heineke, 2007).
These are the main enabling technologies and/or strategies that orient my proposed implementation of a ubiquitous solution: portable, wireless communication devices with low-power, high performance processors, in the form of the users own personal computing devices, Whenever possible, respecting the users own choice of software implementation is key, therefore the solution must implement open protocols and standards to allow the user to choose his own solutions to his scheduling and messaging needs. When there are no existing solutions on the client side, or when such solutions do not provide for all the needed functionality, Open Source implementations of standards-based solutions (such as dynamic web applications based on HTML, JavaScript and JSON) can supplement existing solutions without breaking users workflow (i.e. without forcing users to log into a specific website just to complete a given task). All the communication between existing solutions, functionality extenders and the underlying system should also happen using open protocols, allowing for rapid implementation by other educational organizations without forcing them to move out of their existing implementations (save when the organizations have no control over existing implementations, i.e. when they use commercial, closed-source software). This would allow for widespread adoption, not only by users served by ASIO such as the staff and students of Tallinn University but also by other educational institutions.
References:
- Cerri D, Fuggetta A. Open standards, open formats, and open source. J Systems Softw 2007;80(11):1930-1937.
- Davidson SM, Heineke J. Toward an effective strategy for the diffusion and use of clinical information systems. J Am Med Inform Assoc 2007;14(3):361-367.
Bonus round: analysis of existing competing solutions
Fedena is an open source, web-based student information system developed in India for the government of Kerala. It is built on Ruby on Rails and allows for the development of plugins. It is entirely used via a web browser also has the ability to communicate with students, parents, teachers and staff via SMS and but is otherwise unable to integrate with users mobile systems, such as calendaring.
SchoolTool, likewise, is an open-source SIS written in Python and completely web-based. It is included in the Edubuntu Linux distribution. Besides being web-accessible, it is also able to import and export most of its data as Excel spreadsheets and CSV (comma-separated values), but it cannot communicate in real-time with other calendaring systems.
OpenSIS is another open-source SIS, based on PHP and MySQL. It is available as a free community version, has premium paid upgrades and integration features and is also available in a Cloud SaaS (Software as a Service) version. Although premium versions integrate to other systems such as Moodle, OpenSIS also has no BYOD provisions.
SIMS is the closed-source School Information Management System developed for use in the United Kingdom. Although it is commercial, closed-source software, it was paid for by the Bedfordshire County Council and enjoys 80% adoption in the England and Wales. It is based on Microsoft SQL and accessible via web through Microsoft SharePoint. Although the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency has established an Interoperability Framework for British Schools, SIMS does not implement it.
Of all systems mentioned above, probably only SIMS users would have a hard time implementing a standards-based communication and collaboration platform for BYOD, a problem it shares with ASIO EduERP itself, since it is also a closed-source, commercial solutions.
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