Attendance Module

A full attendance package with all standard features is available to allow teachers to very easily record and manage student attendance. It was designed to be a time saver so its focus is that a teacher records only the exceptions (non attendance) rather than having to record the normal situation (those who attended). It produces a number of charts about student attendance relating to which days of the week they failed to attend, their reasons for non attendance to pick up any behavior patterns. Other features are:
o Incidental classes and timetable overlay (eg music lessons)
o Automated teacher access
o Parent ability to notify of late or absent students
o Student leaving class management plus late student management
 

Enhanced Parent Teacher Interview Scheduling Tools

The Parent Teacher Interview module provides the means for parents to select online the most suitable timeslots for their parent teacher interviews. Schedules are colour coded to facilitate ease of use. The school administration sets up the day, interview period (i.e. 15 minutes per interview), the classes and interview rooms and then the system automatically creates the interview schedule. Once published to the school web site, parents are invited to logon and make their interview selections. Final interview schedules can be printed out.
 

Pathways

Knowledge Community’s Pathways module allows organisations to organise, manage and monitor the careers, skills and compliance aspects associated with their business and employees.
It can also be used in the education arena for students or mature adults who are looking for a career but are unsure of the required skills, requirements, available courses, their locations, entry levels, durations, outcomes and other considerations.

For each organisation, division, department, section, job category and/or employee the system will provide:

• Skill Gap Analysis

• Compliance and Certification

• Career Planning and Pathways
   

Skills Gap Analysis

The module provides the means for the Human Resource Manager to be able to create and launch a Needs Analysis type questionnaire across the divisions, departments, sections, skill sets and job categories. This is used to test the current level of skills, achievements and compliance. Questions can be developed in a variety of formats (ie Yes/No, 1 to 10, percentages, drop down choice box, radio buttons or even extended to viewing a video where further comprehension questions may be formed).

The resultant report will show any gaps or highlight areas needing attention and action.

Pathways also allow the Human Resource Manager to build the appropriate action or activities which could be undertaken as a result of a certain score or level of achievement. An employee on having completed a job or education related needs analysis questionnaire could be automatically directed to some reference materials, further reading, internal or external courses (with direct links) or perhaps a career planning interview.

 

Compliance and Certification

Many organisations have regulatory requirements relating to the services they provide to their clients (ie food handling, hygiene, O H & S, certifications). The key aspect is to ensure that these are kept up to date, renewed, reviewed, refreshed and that any course or training requirements are identified and acted upon.

For each employee a record is created containing their current levels of certification or achievements and the expiry or renewal date associated with each certification. Reminders are then created close to the expiry date to both the employee and manager.

When the employee is authorised to undertake the required certification or course the system can direct this by providing the link, course or documentation. Final achievements and results will then be stored back into the employee’s record and the renewal date re-set.
Pathways remove the headaches involved in managing and monitoring this complex process.
 

Career Planning and Pathways

All people have hopes, dreams and aspirations about their future. It is predicted that in the future employees will have to be retrained many times for new roles which currently don’t even exist.

The Careers planning section allows any person be they employee or student to be able to search for a training course, certification or education using the Career Pathways function. This could be within an organisation or searching across a number of education institutions.

They will be able to view the available categories and then drill down to each education or training path. This path will display all the factors about each course – its pre-requisites, subjects, outcomes, course locations, duration and course details.

From here the actual career planning process can commence with each person armed with sufficient information to be able to plan their career.

Summary

Pathways combines the activities of a skills analysis with compliance storing the results into the employees record as well as providing each employee with a future path or career on which to concentrate.
The employee record could be held within an existing HR software system (ie SAP).
 

Event Management Module – “BookIT”

Knowledge Community’s Event Management module “Book-IT” allows organisations to create and manage events, conferences, seminars, courses, fairs and meetings. It can also be used to book items either as part of an event or as a standalone requirement (e.g. booking a projector for a meeting). Another aspect is that when registering items, the purchase information can be recorded providing the base for an Asset Management System.

This booking module provides the means to set up locations, grounds, areas, venues, sub venues, halls and rooms to be used for each event. Maps, pictures, diagrams, brochures, booking rules, documents and files can all be included as part of the description or outline attached to each venue.

Once all booking data has been set up by the administrator then authorised users can use the system to book days and times for planned events linked to a venue using the events calendar. These could be recurring events covering several days or weeks or just one off events. The system automatically checks for possible double bookings for venues, items and/or assigned people.

All events have a key organiser assigned who will manage the event. An authorisation process can also be included.
Some events require people to participate or carry out work to make an event successful. The system provides the means to add these people via a drop down box of names. Once allocated and given a title they cannot be double booked.

Events can be paid or free, by table or seat and link to a payment engine (e.g. Paypal) where payment is required at the time of booking or at the event. The system allows a number of different pricing levels (i.e. members, non-members, adults, children, etc).
Once an event has been created and authorised, it can be published onto the main web site where attendees can review the advertising material describing the event and then make a booking including a payment if appropriate.

Attendees who have made a booking then become visible to the organiser who can see the list of people booked for the event.
Individual items can be booked or reserved without being linked to a venue, so a mobile piece of equipment (e.g. projector, sports equipment, white board) can be booked for a date and time via the item calendar and linked to the person who booked the item. This ensures that equipment movements can be traced and tracked.

As files can be linked or added into any event it is possible to operate a budget for an event by utilising either an excel spreadsheet or other means. Should a menu or brochure be required this could also be created using say Word and then imported.
 

Rapid Application Development Tool (RAD)

This is a tool which allows Acryn to be able to rapidly build new functions and features. It means that a client can make a request for a new function and have it delivered for review in weeks rather than months. Our future intention is to offer this tool to our clients who will then be able to use it to build modules for their own use.

Scorm Management Tools

A new Drag and Drop interface to the Scorm SCO Management has been added allowing tighter control of Scorm Objects.

e-Library:

The e-Library module which is under construction combines the functions of a normal Library with those of an e-Library where books, magazines, articles, DVDs, music, videos can be borrowed or purchased electronically.

MyLibrary:

This module, which is part of the Document Management module, will be made available for the senior school to facilitate study and review. It provides an individual repository for each student where they can hold documents, notes, items, files and electronic records. Each item, paragraph, sentence, line or word can be tagged, notes added, highlighted and notations made for easy review. This function was designed to make students pre-examination preparation much more efficient and effective.

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA):

The Knowledge Community platform will be extended to allow teaching and learning opportunities out of the classroom via the use of PDA’s (eg iPhone). Students and Teachers will then have access to their curriculum-based learning activities using mobile phones and the Internet.