Challenge
Student management software is a comprehensive solution for digitalizing school management, providing full control of the educational process, including all the roles involved. The software includes such functionality as a curriculum board, lesson schedule, logbook, and so on.
Our customer reached us with a very common problem. To operate the educational process they have to use different managing systems for reporting, scheduling, and working with the logbooks and class registers. Moreover, the systems were completely outdated and the management workflow varied greatly. The problem got worse during the pandemic when there was a need for remote work. The best solution was to contact a team to develop school management software.
So the major request was to create a school management software that combines all the systems into one modern, multifunctional, and easy-to-use service, capable of managing a huge load of workflow.
The school management system development team was provided with the only thing – superficial requirements of what this custom school management system should look like. Add here a limited budget, and you will see why the task became a real challenge.
Therefore, we have to not just develop the software but create the whole system workflow, make a product design, and conduct the testing phase to assure the quality of the product and its being in accordance with the end user's requirements and expectations.
Student management software is a comprehensive solution for digitalizing school management, providing full control of the educational process, including all the roles involved. The software includes such functionality as a curriculum board, lesson schedule, logbook, and so on.
Our customer reached us with a very common problem. To operate the educational process they have to use different managing systems for reporting, scheduling, and working with the logbooks and class registers. Moreover, the systems were completely outdated and the management workflow varied greatly. The problem got worse during the pandemic when there was a need for remote work. The best solution was to contact a team to develop school management software.
So the major request was to create a school management software that combines all the systems into one modern, multifunctional, and easy-to-use service, capable of managing a huge load of workflow.
The school management system development team was provided with the only thing – superficial requirements of what this custom school management system should look like. Add here a limited budget, and you will see why the task became a real challenge.
Therefore, we have to not just develop the software but create the whole system workflow, make a product design, and conduct the testing phase to assure the quality of the product and its being in accordance with the end user's requirements and expectations.
Solution
To achieve a goal having been set we had to conduct research on the market, check and analyze all the existing solutions and have a close look at the education systems of different regions. All these pre-actions were critical to the school management system creation, which was an unprecedented solution.
A lot of time and effort was put into the automatic scheduling feature. This feature is worth talking about and could have been a complete project on its own because it is a unique solution, having no similar features in the market at the moment.
As we have mentioned, the budget to create a school management app was strictly limited even for MVP project development, but the scope was impressive.
To achieve a goal having been set we had to conduct research on the market, check and analyze all the existing solutions and have a close look at the education systems of different regions. All these pre-actions were critical to the school management system creation, which was an unprecedented solution.
A lot of time and effort was put into the automatic scheduling feature. This feature is worth talking about and could have been a complete project on its own because it is a unique solution, having no similar features in the market at the moment.
As we have mentioned, the budget to create a school management app was strictly limited even for MVP project development, but the scope was impressive.
Results
For automatic scheduling we used a genetic algorithm, being a substring of the evolutionary algorithm when math from biology is used. So to say, “under the hood” there's a simulation of mutation occurring and chromosome forming. As soon as the simulations are completed, the optimal option is picked, or the one, which is matching the inserted criteria best.
In alternative solutions, presented in the market, the planning is realized with simple iterations. The final result has a lot of flows and faults, the number of events for the teachers is not balanced, so the teachers are often overloaded. In our case, the algorithm creates a collection of a couple of schedule options. After that, it picks the best match. It looks like a survival of the fittest in natural selection. The genetic algorithm makes this selection possible
But there are still a lot of points to rework for us as a school management software development company. Nowadays, the algorithms we use do not include the setting and limitation of the beginning and the end of the classes for both students and teachers. The teachers' load and so-called “hours for academic development” is not included in the calculation as well.
For automatic scheduling we used a genetic algorithm, being a substring of the evolutionary algorithm when math from biology is used. So to say, “under the hood” there's a simulation of mutation occurring and chromosome forming. As soon as the simulations are completed, the optimal option is picked, or the one, which is matching the inserted criteria best.
In alternative solutions, presented in the market, the planning is realized with simple iterations. The final result has a lot of flows and faults, the number of events for the teachers is not balanced, so the teachers are often overloaded. In our case, the algorithm creates a collection of a couple of schedule options. After that, it picks the best match. It looks like a survival of the fittest in natural selection. The genetic algorithm makes this selection possible
But there are still a lot of points to rework for us as a school management software development company. Nowadays, the algorithms we use do not include the setting and limitation of the beginning and the end of the classes for both students and teachers. The teachers' load and so-called “hours for academic development” is not included in the calculation as well.