Company Profile
Bright Sky Learning, LLC is an educational publishing and services company currently operating in communities in nine states with highly-effective research- and evidence-based products.
Business Situation
In response to the “No Child Left Behind” national program, Bright Sky developed a series of tutoring programs. These programs are geared towards helping community based organizations nationwide help disadvantaged students with their reading and math skills. Bright Sky helps independent not-for-profit organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club, the YMCA, and others administer tutoring to individual students all over the country.
As the program’s success began to show, so did the challenges of tracking and reporting to the authorities in charge of monitoring these programs. Furthermore, the thrust behind the system consisted of reporting progress to the student’s parent or guardian and school administration. In addition to the challenges posed by increasingly more complex and time-sensitive reporting, Bright Sky found themselves having to deal with the coordination and logistics of administering these programs.
Technical Situation
Bright Sky needed to provide a means for each organization to log the time spent with each student in particular tutoring activities (i.e. reading, math). Additionally, the solution needed to provide scheduling capabilities so that the independent organizations could coordinate the meetings between students and tutors according to the availability of the tutors. They were also required to report to the student’s school teacher, parent, and to the federal government in a timely basis.
Solution
No out-of-the-box solution seemed to have offered the features needed to fulfill the requirements. After careful analysis, Bright Sky decided they needed to develop a custom web application. The solution provided Bright Sky a way to configure each organization with their own login. Upon logging in, organizations were able to manage their own set of students easily. These organizations could now select a student and enter the time spent with a particular tutor doing a particular activity and monitor each student.
An administrator for the organization could now schedule students according to the availability of tutors and see their schedule at a glance.
The reporting requirements mandated a means to download and print reports effectively and efficiently. A desktop utility was developed that allowed them to quickly and easily download all reports for one organization at one time (in the case of the individual organizations) or multiple organizations (in the case of a Bright Sky administrator) Once downloaded, the reports could be printed in a batch eliminatig the need to download each report individually.
Benefits
Reduced administrative costs
By implementing this custom solution, Bright Sky was able to reduce the costs of administering the program every year. Bright Sky was temporarily re-tasking a full-time staff member to help administer the programs. By shifting the tracking and reporting to each individual organization, Bright Sky was able to eliminate this cost.
Improved regulatory compliance
Before implementing this solution, complying with the reporting requirements was becoming increasingly difficult. Reporting in a timely fashion was a big factor for the funding of the program. Bright Sky achieved a higher level of agility that made the reporting easy, efficient, and achievable.
Ease of use
An important factor in the solution was usability. Each member organization had an administrator dedicated to keep up with the data entry and maintenance of the applicaton. In some cases, this person was not computer-savvy and was overwhelmed by their own organizations' workload. The solution provided an user friendly and intuitive interface that significantly reduced the burden of administering the programs.
Products and services
Microsoft .Net Framework
The .NET Framework is Microsoft's comprehensive and consistent programming model for building applications that have visually stunning user experiences, seamless and secure communication, and the ability to model a range of business processes.
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server is a comprehensive, integrated data management and analysis software that enables organizations to reliably manage mission-critical information and confidently run today’s increasingly complex business applications. SQL Server allows companies to gain greater insight from their business information and achieve faster results for a competitive advantage.
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