This case study highlights our solution for helping educational institutions seamlessly manage their academic activities, streamline student data, and improve communication. Our approach enhances operational efficiency, fosters better engagement with students and staff, and simplifies the overall management process for educational organizations.
Challenges:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions were forced to transition to digital solutions, and SchoolGurus played a key role in addressing various challenges in this new era of remote learning.
1. Online Exam During COVID:
As schools shifted to online assessments, the process of conducting exams became a significant challenge. Teachers had to upload exam papers at a specified time, while students submitted their answer sheets simultaneously in PDF format. This system worked well, but a challenge arose when it came to downloading the answer sheets from all students at once. Initially, the process was cumbersome, but the solution was found by grouping the sheets for easier downloading, ensuring teachers could efficiently grade them.
2. Uploading of Online Lectures:
Another challenge was the need to upload lectures in various formats, such as PDFs, videos, or audios, to ensure students had access to the content in a way that worked for them. Teachers had to upload these materials in a timely and organized manner, while students required easy access to download the lectures. Managing this process for various subjects and ensuring smooth access for students was a key issue that required efficient systems to handle multiple file types and formats.
3. Gmeet Feature During COVID:
With the rise of virtual classrooms, platforms like Google Meet became essential for live interactions. During COVID, an additional challenge was to provide teachers and students with the ability to quickly set up and attend virtual classes. SchoolGurus created a feature that allowed admins to send quick Google Meet links to students through the website. However, this feature was discontinued after the pandemic, as the reliance on other video conferencing tools increased.
4. Designing of Student Report Card
One ongoing challenge has been the frequent changes in report card patterns required by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Whenever the board changes the marking pattern, the team redesigns and updates the student report card.SchoolGurus took on the task of ensuring these updates were managed efficiently, making sure that the report cards for all sessions were in line with the new guidelines, every year.
5. Marks Entry Pattern:
The CBSE would occasionally revise the marking patterns, which posed a challenge for managing the records. SchoolGurus addressed this by adapting their system each year to ensure that teachers could enter marks in the newly prescribed formats, guaranteeing that the school’s grading system stayed compliant with CBSE guidelines.
6. Student Promotion:
Student promotion to the next academic session also presented challenges, particularly when it came to proper distribution of students across classes. Based on student performance (percentage), it was essential to shuffle and assign students to sections that would help optimize their learning experience. This was a complex task, requiring detailed analysis of student data to ensure a balanced distribution across different sections of the class.
7. Yearly-wise Data Management:
Managing yearly academic data posed another challenge. SchoolGurus needed to create databases that tracked student performance and academic patterns on a yearly basis. This required organizing vast amounts of information, from attendance to exam results, and ensuring it was easily accessible for reporting and administrative purposes. The solution was to create a structured database that managed yearly data efficiently, making it easy to track and report progress over time.
Solutions Implemented by SchoolGurus
1. Online Exam During COVID:
The process for conducting online exams involved several steps: teachers would upload the exam papers at a specified time, students would submit their answer sheets simultaneously in PDF format, and then the teacher would download the answer sheets, evaluate them, and upload the students' marks. Initially, the system faced challenges in downloading all the answer sheets at once, especially with a large number of students. To resolve this issue, SchoolGurus introduced a method of grouping the answer sheets, allowing for smoother and more efficient downloads. This change helped ensure that teachers could easily access all submitted answer sheets without delays.
2. Uploading of Online Lectures:
In terms of content delivery, teachers were required to upload lectures in various formats—PDFs, videos, or audios—based on what was most appropriate for the subject matter. This solution ensured that students had multiple ways to access learning material, whether through reading, watching, or listening. Students were given easy access to these lectures, allowing them to download the resources and study at their own pace. This flexibility in content formats supported various learning preferences, helping students engage with the material more effectively.
3. Gmeet Feature During COVID:
During the pandemic, one of the key challenges was facilitating live classes. To overcome this, SchoolGurus implemented a feature allowing administrators to quickly send Google Meet links to students directly from the website. This feature simplified the process of scheduling and attending virtual classes. However, with the shift to other video conferencing platforms, the feature was eventually discontinued after COVID. Despite its discontinuation, the integration of this tool during the pandemic helped ensure that teachers and students could continue their classes with minimal disruption.
4. Designing of Student Report Card
Whenever CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) would alter the report card format, requiring schools to redesign their report cards to align with the new guidelines. SchoolGurus tackled this by designing new report cards for each session based on the CBSE's latest requirements. The system ensured that the report cards for all academic sessions were appropriately structured and in compliance with the prescribed format, enabling smooth and accurate reporting of students' academic performance.
5. Marks Entry Pattern:
Along with report card modifications, the process of entering marks also changed based on session- specific guidelines issued by the CBSE. SchoolGurus implemented a system that adapted to these yearly changes in the marks entry pattern, ensuring that teachers could enter grades following the updated guidelines without any issues. This adaptability helped schools remain compliant with the regulatory changes and avoided any confusion or errors in grade reporting.
6. Student Promotion:
One of the key aspects of student promotion was ensuring that students were placed in the appropriate sections of the new academic session based on their performance. SchoolGurus developed a system to shuffle students across classes based on their percentage scores, ensuring a balanced distribution of students in each section. This process aimed to provide an optimized learning environment, where students with similar academic performance were placed together, promoting a more effective educational experience.
7. Yearly-wise Data Management:
To manage the vast amount of student and academic data, SchoolGurus implemented a solution that created a separate database for each academic year. This system allowed for the easy management of student performance, attendance, and other key academic details, organized by year. The platform also ensured that the academic pattern for each session was tracked and managed efficiently, ensuring that the transition from one year to the next was smooth, and historical data was always accessible for reporting and analysis.
Transformation Achieved:
Streamlined Answer Sheet Downloads: Initially, downloading answer sheets from all students simultaneously posed a challenge. This was resolved by implementing a batch-wise download system.
Quick GMeet Link Feature During COVID: During COVID, the short GMeet Link feature allowed facilitators to give students short links straight from the login. After COVID, this feature was later dropped.
Effective Report Card Administration: Annual report card layouts were easily adjusted to conform to changing CBSE regulations.
Adaptation to Annual Changes: To account for modifications in the CBSE marks input pattern, the system is updated annually.
Optimized Class Section Allocation: Student distribution across classes is now handled more effectively, factoring in academic performance.
Improved Annual Data Management: To guarantee consistency and operational effectiveness, academic data and trends are effectively managed annually.
