Tokyo, April 19, 2013
Fujitsu today announced the immediate availability of FUJITSU Education Solution K-12 Administration Support, a new cloud service that lightens the administrative workload of educators at elementary and middle schools, while at the same time providing a secure environment for tracking student data.
The new service allows educators to keep digital records of day-to-day student information, including attendance records, test scores, and comments about students. In turn, this information can be employed as basic data for use in students' report cards and other student records. With the inclusion of technology for recognizing handwritten numbers, developed by Fujitsu Laboratories Limited and Fujitsu Research and Development Center Co., Ltd. of China, users can scan graded test sheets with a scanner or multifunction printer, and the written scores in the score boxes will automatically be recognized. This is the first solution in the industry to offer such test result input and tabulation functionality.
As a result, the new service helps lighten the administrative workload for educators so they can instead focus on their primary duty of teaching students. In addition, by centrally managing and visualizing student data, it is possible for educators to collaborate among themselves on instruction, and for detailed feedback to be given to guardians. Since the student information is stored in a cloud environment, it is also protected in the event of a disaster, thereby helping schools to quickly resume operations.
The New Strategy in Information and Communications Technology Roadmap, published by the Japanese government's IT Strategic Headquarters, sets forth the goal of deploying administrative support systems in every school in Japan by 2020. In light of this, public elementary and middle schools have been exploring ways in which they can provide their faculty with computers and how they can take advantage of administrative support systems.
At the same time, most teachers today still mark and record student materials by hand. Not only does this kind of day-to-day administrative work place a heavy burden on instructors, but it has also made it difficult to efficiently take advantage of daily collected student data.
With these needs in mind, Fujitsu has developed K-12 Administration Support, which it is offering as a cloud-based service.
Service Features
1. Industry's first technology for automatically reading handwritten test scores
In contrast with existing labor-intensive technologies that require test score data to be manually entered, the new handwritten number recognition technology from Fujitsu Laboratories and Fujitsu R&D Center allows users to create a PDF of a graded test sheet with a scanner or multifunction printer and then automatically digitize handwritten test scores for each section of the test and the overall test. Since digitized scores can be directly input as test results data or used for tabulations, the service substantially reduces the teacher's workload.
2. Cloud service enables lower administrative overhead and reliable disaster countermeasures
Since K-12 Administration Support is offered as a cloud-based service, schools do not need to deploy any specialized hardware, such as servers, or perform system configuration, keeping startup costs low. Moreover, Fujitsu handles systems operations and maintenance, security measures, and data backups, enabling schools to significantly reduce their system administration overhead. Even if the school's student records are lost in a disaster, for instance, the original data is stored in the cloud, delivering greater peace of mind.
3. Easy to use
Commonly used features are organized in a central menu, and each feature uses a consistent theme color. Collected data can be employed as basic data for use in report cards and other student records, thereby reducing the amount of work involved in producing these records, which previously required a considerable amount of information to be transcribed. Teachers can also check class progress reports and attendance records in real time. In addition, the system supports paper-based workflows in which reports are printed and stamped, as well as electronic workflows in which the data is confirmed on-screen and transmitted electronically.
4. Complies with standard specifications, enabling tie-ins with packages from other vendors
The service can tie-in with data created using other vendors' packages for legally mandated student records and medical checkup history. It is also compliant with Education Information Application Unit Standard V1.0, stipulated by the Association for Promotion of Public Local Information and Communication (APPLIC), and has received an Orange Mark. The Orange Mark is a measure of data compatibility, ensuring that, when students are transferring in or out of a school, their records and medical checkup histories can be shared with other Orange Mark-certified applications, even when digitized in the future.
Pricing and Availability
Pricing and Availability
Product Name |
Pricing (incl. tax) |
Availability |
K-12 Administration Support |
JPY 15,000/month per school |
Immediately |
Sales Targets
Including sales of this service and related systems, JPY 1.2 billion by the end of fiscal 2015 (Fujitsu's fiscal year ends March 31).