Opetus Education ERP (Configuring Institute Metadata)

1. INTENT AND SCOPE OF PRESENTATION The presentation intends to cover the partial scope of digitization process of student life cycle management. The focus is to define academic prerequisites needed to map education business process and aid maximum automation of entire academic life cycle. Certain part of life cycle like admission process, fee management, placements and alumni module are covered in other presentations Opetus has other modules such as library, fleet management, canteen, hostel, placements, alumni, accounts, inventory, payroll, timesheet, content/learning management which are not included but we assume data availability as needed for managing academic life cycle The presentation is generic and caters to all models of education, schools, colleges, universities. Many slides or functionality explained may not be relevant to current context of an education institute but can be assumed as features available if needed to capture data rather than manage information in documents and sheets The target audience is assumed to be admin, principals, vice chancellors, trustees, course coordinators, faculty, admission and fee collection personnel. Presentation assumes institute to have an implied org-chart with designated roles and responsibilities assigned to respective functional experts. Opetus requires certain hardware and software prerequisites which has been defined and is available on https://www.youtube.com/

2. Configuring OPETUS – complete application life cycle and business process mapping Setting up entities which are perpetual in nature i.e. they DO NOT change for entire application life cycle Setting up rules and objects which have academic/accounting year as their lifespan i.e. change every year Setting up entities and object parameters which can change within an academic/accounting year or can change due to events or terms. What you need to know about your institute before you start basic setup ? Is it a small single site institute Or it’s a large trust running several multisite institutes Does the institute support multiple streams / models of education (ICSE/IGCSE/CBSE/IB/Engg./Medicine/Post Grad…) ? Is it a private autonomous university or government aided/private institute affiliated to one or more universities ? Is data of students needed across academic years (ATKT / Distance Learning) ? Do you need web / mobile access for students / parents or related stakeholders (prospects / applicants / alumni ) ? Does the institute have good IT infrastructure (DB / Web servers / firewalls / network admin etc..) or would like to have a cloud hosted SAAS model ? Have they implemented any ERP earlier? Is present software policy / role driven ? How far is the staff IT literate ? How old is the institute – recent or established ? How is the legacy data maintained ? SOFTWARE PREREQUISITES

3. TERMINOLOGY USED AND GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF ENTITIES IN OPETUS SOFTWARE TRUST Trust is a type of company / financial body offering certain services. In the context of education vertical it is assumed to be generally philanthropic in nature. There can be a single parent trust or group of trusts working in syndication to provide education under a brand. INSTITUTE Institute is an educational body governed by a trust and its policies. A trust can have several institutions under its umbrella. An institute can have several branches at different geographical locations. COMPANY Company is purely an accounting entity. For fund management / manipulation institutes can be broken down into several accounting companies or can follow a practice of 1 institute = 1 company. LOCATION The geography where the institute campus is situated. Large trusts have several multi site institutes or each franchise outlet of an institute can also be considered as a geographical branch. YEAR As per different perspectives of implementation a year can be either classified as Academic or Accounting. Accounting year is defined and statutory as per laws of land. Academic year is primarily climate driven. Skew between these years dictate lot of parameters, interpretation of which are calendar driven. SECTION Based on resource scheduling the student community is largely divided into various categories at macro level. For schools it maybe preprimary/primary/secondary, for colleges junior/degree, for b-schools full/part/distance learning, for IB PYP/MYP…. STANDARD / PROGRAM Certification cycle has various durations, some traverse several years and some last few weeks. Tenure and level of curriculum content, streams dictates several levels a student needs to clear for certification. These levels are termed standards/programs. Ex: Schools will have I, II, III, IV… , Colleges may define it as FYJC (first year of junior college) etc…. DIVISION / BATCH Within a standard/program, enrolled student strength gets divided into batches called division. Segregation can be based on seating capacity, electives chosen, gender, previous academic records, last name etc…

4. SUBJECT CONTENT QUESTION BANK EXAM EXAM SCHEDULE EXAM DETAILS ASSESSMENT METHODS ASSESSMENT RUBRICS Course / Subject is basic entity collection which comprises entire syllabus in a certification course. Schools may have academic and non academic subjects as part of curriculum. Subjects can be compulsory or optional / electives as per stream chosen by learner Digitized information in various formats (DOC/XLS/PPT/PDF/MP3/MPG) relevant in context to curriculum. Subjects are sub divided into chapters and topics and content explains or delivers information related to each of these topics Collection of questions defined to test the learners understanding of a subject topic. Questions may be objective / subjective or may need a diagrammatic representation or any art form to query and gauge knowledge and understanding of a topic Periodic event conducted with defined frequency within academic year to assess learners capability of understanding information imparted by teachers and to judge learning outcome. Learner gets graded in this process and may perform excellently or poorly based on evaluation Timetable of sequence of events within an exam. It involves all participating roles and defines tasks with timelines and ensures availability of resources for the event lifecycle Granular breakup of each sub event in an exam defined with rules and boundaries of evaluation. It defines methods adopted, breakup of assessment methods, weightages, minimum passing prerequisites and calculation process to derive learning outcome Methods adopted to evaluate learning outcome that can be quantized. Ex: written assessment, practical's, viva, group activity, usage of performing arts to explain learning outcome etc… Metrics to evaluate intangible entities expected in a learner after teaching process is over. It measures and evaluates a learner’s ability using verbose evaluation methods defined in form of a matrix

5. HIERARCHIAL STEPS FOR DEFINING INSTITUTES METADATA

6. Exit the form Order records in form Online tutorial of the form Print selected recordRefresh / set form to default Clear form data Save form data Currently logged company/institute Form caption/title Displays result of user action or software reaction TYPICAL OPETUS MASTER FORM

7. Most education institutes are supposed to be philanthropic and are sponsored / governed by Trusts DEFINING TRUST(s) ROLE: ADMIN Trusts are a format of company type supported by accounting practices which define them as non profit entities. Some of these have inclination towards specific religion and caste/ethnicity Single or syndicate of trusts generally form the root of education institution clusters. Most of the institutes are governed by rules and policies dictated by trusts. Aid, donations and charity funds received by trusts are distributed among institutes based on guidance of sponsors Accounting mandate and statutory requirement needs certain information to be captured for reporting purposes. Information capturing is necessary as many functional workflow which follow an approval system needs information and acknowledgment from trustees Trusts are needed for generating group balance sheets and most companies have trust defined as a supplier for managing intercompany transactions TRUST(s) INSTITUTES ACCOUNTING COMPANIES WITHIN INSTITUTES

8. DEFINING INSTITUTES ROLE: ADMIN Institutes are basically created based on sponsor and/or education streams supported Affiliation to a university is a must to get certifications recognized. Beyond affiliation, accreditation maybe mandatory for imparting certain programs. Some institutes may be granted autonomy hence workflow of such institutes may vary from those being under government control Based on sponsorship institute accounting maybe split across various companies. Hence institutes may have one or more accounting companies. This is generally done to manage cash flow and monitor effective utilization of sponsored funds Many statutory reports needed for government census and periodic updates need information based on institute details

9. DEFINING LOCATIONS ROLE: ADMIN Lot of information related to institutes is bound with its geography. This becomes more critical when ERP needs to maintain branch accounting. Large institutes or one with wide franchise base have geographically distributed presence. Each branch is a replicated extension of parent body with varying scales of operation. Many transactions get bound to location and movement of employees / assets across locations. Location dependency may have independent institutes and not necessarily a branch concept yet ownership and consolidation in accounting needs geographies to be maintained and mapped. Many organic/inorganic growth due to merger and acquisitions yields to similar model Most popular ones are the franchisee model in distance learning. Location data also helps map administrative network topology and manage distributed assets. Accounts, Inventory, Fixed Assets and Payroll get affected by locations. Student movement across locations affects admission, fees and result processing Opetus allows location specific rules and policies. Since each geographies have specific requirement and local laws Accounts, Inventory, Fixed Assets and Payroll module have deviations in master and metadata. In many cases fee / salary structure of same institutes across branches for same academic enrollments varies hence student / faculty transfers invoke bulk debit / credit note transactions

10. DEFINING ACCOUNTING AND ACADEMIC YEARS ROLE: ADMIN Opetus manage distinctly two time trends – accounting and academic distinctly. Academic calendar generally follows local seasons and accounting; government needs. Skew in them makes many things complex as all transactions do not fall in integral multiple of these academic/accounting cycles. Besides academic year can be sub or across accounting years. Many programs can be as short as few days to a week and many academic year may span 15-18 months Very few software can manage this skew effectively and can provision data scope visibility in context to logged year. Opetus manages this seamlessly and decades of data across years and locations can be traversed simultaneously. Institutions where examinations follow ATKT and distance learning pattern need this traversal as prior examination attempts and failures traverses academic years Young institutions or institutions where digital format of data is available from day of establishment should configure Opetus ERP with start year as their year of foundation and establishment. Data can be imported for each of these academic years so that sequence of history falls properly in chronology In real life scenario based on proximity of current date to year start or end the need for traversal to previous and next year increases as many overlapping transactions occur and life cycle and state of completion switches across transacting years. This scenario is also observed in admission, fees and result module

11. ACADEMIC TERMS AND DURATION Term is a part of an entire tenure of a certification program. A program may have several stages and duration can be as short as few days to several years. Each stage has certain portion of entire curriculum imparted in order of learning dependencies. Generally terms are divided in some integral part of academic calendar. Academic tenure is generally divided into two or three parts (semesters / trimesters) There is an exam at the end of each term and model of education which follows CCE (comprehensive and continuous evaluation) generally use aggregation of assessments conducted across each week of informative sessions Start of term marks end of admission cycle and is preceded by course planning, content mapping, appointment and allocation of faculties as per subject/topic expertise, lesson / session plan i.e. timetabling Once the student list is freezed they may be divided into batches/divisions and roll numbers allocated for specified term. For higher education and distance learning student subject registration of electives / optional subjects maps the student => subject => faculty => term timetable (optionally study center in case of distance learning)

12. DEFINING COMPANIES AND LINKING LOCATION/YEAR ROLE: ADMIN Create companies with SAME name as needed for your accounting and tax returns. Many statutory reports needed for filing taxes and returns are generated by OPETUS. Hence all tax numbers, registration, address and contacts details should be defined as part of company creation. In case the company has multiple sites (branches) define each location and associate accounting year. Ideal way is to create templates and then use it across locations so standardization of terminologies prevail and duplicity and data redundancy can be avoided Company is accounting entity of an institute. Based on sponsorship or ease of management set of companies may comprise an institute. This bifurcation is generally done to ease aid/grant flow from sponsors and devise budgeted expensed based on fund availability. Government aided institutes generally follow different accounting practice from private bodies Any role using the software via rich client, browser, mobile devices gets logged into a company for which his rights have allocated. Scope of data visibility and privileges to change them depends on grants allocated. Role dictates functional availability of the software exposed to him in overall digitized workflow Rules, policies which dictate workflow are defined at company/location level. Automated counters/ alphanumeric strings used in document workflow are derivatives of these policies. Besides these counters global generic accounts which map to transaction types such as sales/purchase/taxes and part of company specific environment which user inherits upon successful login

13. Trust(s) Institutes Companies Locations / Campuses Accounting Year Academic Year Trust rules and policies are inherited by Institutes Institute rules and policies are inherited by Companies Company rules and policies are inherited by campuses / locations Perpetual rules and policies are (C)ompany (L)ocation dependent Transitionary rules are derivatives of (C)ompany / (L)ocation / (Y)ear Rules/policies templatized and inherited/imported from past records PRIMARY ENTITIES – TRUST / INSTITUTE / COMPANY / LOCATION AND YEAR ROLE: ADMIN Automated data generated by ERP are derived from these rules such as Enrollment #, General Register#, transaction counters, receipt numbers etc …. Authentication/Authorization of login process exposes scope of data / functional visibility as per allocated grants/roles/privileges. Logged user is governed by rules and policies defined as per company/location

14. DEFINING DEPARTMENTS / SHIFTS, SCOPE : PERPETUAL, ROLE : HR/PAYROLL First step after company creation and linking locations is to define functional departments. This helps in mapping existing org chart with functionality assigned to each role in the department. It also serves as a path to approach right personnel for information and approval during digitization process of masters Mapping departments, roles and personnel involved also helps design business workflow and create graph of data movement in a transaction during its life cycle till completion Most departments are associated with its functional time (i.e. Shifts) and whether they follow single or multiple shifts in their duty cycle. It also helps cascade responsibilities when tasks/job needs to be performed round the clock. Ex: security personnel or watchman In education vertical departments are largely divided into two major categories : Academic or non- academic. Non academic functionalities include fees, accounts, hr/payroll, inventory/fixed assets/stores, canteen, maintenance etc… Academic includes admission, placements, visiting and full time faculty etc… Defining departments and shifts become mandatory for hr/payroll and time office functioning. Many corporate rules vary as per departments/shifts and it helps in scheduling resources such as visiting faculties where time is a constraint For processes where goods/asset movement is involved physical or logical/notional department helps track distributed inventory and current ownership and location

15. DEFINING SALARY SCALES / LEAVES (optional), SCOPE : ACCOUNTING YEAR, ROLE : HR/PAYROLL Opetus binds time attendance module to leave management which in turn is linked to payroll. Defining leaves and allocation/approval as per employee class is one of the most critical functioning of HR. Like academic and accounting year cycle leave debits/credits and opening balance carry over are done as per Jan – Dec cycle automatically Gender, class specific leave allocation and eligibility is definable. Leave application, planning, approval, grant/rejection is permitted as per org chart hierarchy. Leave set offs, overtimes and compensation is managed in Timesheet module. Automation of attendance using various devices such as card, RFID, biometric can be easily integrated with Opetus Opetus allows user definable employee scales. Scale types such as wage, deduction, tax, perks, investments etc… are part of metadata. Scale definition and allocation as per various employee class must be defined. As soon as an employee gets inducted for a designated class defined scale template gets allocated which can be tweaked as per salary negotiated. Various scale types and attributes allows most complex mapping of salary structure Entire employee life cycle of induction, presence monitoring, working efficiency, skillset mapping, appraisals, feedback, transfers, exits and resignations is seamlessly managed

16. DEFINING EMPLOYEES / VISITING FACULTY, , SCOPE : ACCOUNTING YEAR, ROLE : HR/PAYROLL Opetus maps all roles in an organization chart and links employees to it. Employee information includes basic data of address, contact details, qualification, skillset, work experience, salary scales and leave details, gender, dates such as birth, wedding , joining, confirmation etc… Opetus allocates each employee a unique ID as per policy defined and links this ID to various functional entities such as library, time office, accounts, HR and payroll. Banking information for salary, tax numbers for taxation are linked as per need for salary slip generation and automated centralized salary disbursement Timesheet module maintains leaves, over times, attendance (i.e. absence, presence, outdoor duties, compensatory offs, leave applications, approvals, grants and directly updates varying scales Course coordinator or vice principal links teaching faculty to time tables, content creation and lesson plan management, messages and notifications, activities and events pertaining to academic or extra curricular schedules Librarian links all staff – teaching and non teaching faculty to digital libraries, books acquisition/approval / purchase / receipt workflow, circulation and other activities of library which archives digitized data of events such as annual day, convocation, seminars, sports etc… Accounts and stores tracks perks given to employee such as living quarters, chaffer services, assets such as cars, mobiles and laptops

17. DEFINING EMPLOYEE DEPARTMENT ALLOCATION, SCOPE : ACCOUNTING YEAR, ROLE : HR/PAYROLL An education institute workforce can be broadly divided into two sections - teaching and non teaching. For administration purpose it can get further bifurcated into full time faculty, visiting faculty for teaching staff and into admission, fees, HR/payroll, time office, library, stores / inventory, accounts, placement, management etc…. For small institutes a single person may play multiple roles hence virtual departments can be defined and employees allocated for ease of defining data workflow, security and enforcing grants and privileges Allocating employees completes the org chart tier and defines hierarchy. This facilitates defining scope of information availability and maps role/people involved in ERP digitization process Many trusts have same employee working in several departments across companies. In such cases salary can be done from any one company but expenses can be tracked by defining employee as a cost center Analyzing employee tenure helps trace rise of an employee across roles / departments / designations. Opetus supports employee transfers across companies and departments which needs to be in sync with time office so that attendance / leave data does not get scattered for calculation of salary Employee allocation to a department in a company automatically inherits rules and policies defined for that company / department / shift

18. DEFINING EMPLOYEES RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES, SCOPE : ACCOUNTING YEAR, ROLE : HR/PAYROLL/ADMIN Each role in an org chart is expected to deliver certain set of functionalities and most effort needs to be digitized to manage unified scope of data, manage approval workflow and track data movement in an transaction till completion of its life cycle. A transaction completion may need many roles and state entity of data changes across each stage which notifies stages of completion. Each employee is allowed certain access to data based on his role and seniority in org chart. The access may be read only or privileges to modify data may also be permitted. In Opetus delete is not permitted (except certain exceptions) but with audit trail logged. Upon associating and employee to department / designation / role, rights allocation is done with periodicity limitations. Access may be between specific date / time intervals and till his tenure in the organization. Transfers, appraisals, resignations, demotions change privileges. Privileges within or across companies / locations or across accounting/ academic years are permitted. Access can also be restricted to intranet / internet and can be locked to specified machines too Users can be forced to periodically change passwords, passwords can be policy specific and entire scope of rights can be bound to domain and active directory settings

19. DEFINING CHART OF ACCOUNTS, SCOPE : PERPETUAL, ROLE : ACCOUNTANT As soon as org chart and roles are mapped the next important mapping and definition is Chart of Accounts. The heart of every ERP system is accounting and all Account Receivables / Payables irrespective of modules implemented should be tracked. Each company depending on legacy and statutory needs follows an accounting template. Advisors such as accountants and audits define the processes how monetization needs to be tracked and accounted Opetus allows user definable Chart of accounts (COA). This is primarily due to various accounting practices followed and how funds need to be reflected / manipulated to achieve desired p & L results changes as per customer Opetus design allows mapping of functional entities or any master element to be mapped to COA. Hence fees, miscellaneous collections, services, salary scales, taxes etc… need one time creation and mapping as per application life cycle. COA accounts are global but each company / location specific linking should be done once for facilitating transactions. This feature allows to have and manage common debtors/creditors and cumulative MIS across companies, locations and accounting years Cumulative or separate budgets, common bank trust accounts, suppliers helps track expenses and eliminate unnecessary grouping. Accounting data can be exported into various formats or if needed web services can be used to push / pull transactional data

20. MISSED ACCOUNTING LOGIC BY MOST … SCOPE : PERPETUAL, ROLE : ACCOUNTANT Skew in Accounting / Academic year makes it crucial to define collections w.r.t receipts and realizations. Hence Opetus allows most income accounts to have a linked Liability Account to manage advances and deposits Many fee transactions cross accounting years hence previous outstanding’s / advances needs to be current years opening balance. Admission cancellations, transfers, dropouts, restrictions and debarring, promotions, changes in fee structure within an academic year leads to many accounting complexities. Opetus tracks them all Daily fee collection may have components of advances, previous out standings or even forfeit amounts. Opetus tracks various components, methods of payments (online/offline), collections per OTC, deposits per day and EOD counter close activities. Various methods of collection – Yearly / monthly, full / partial and periodicity/event dependent, miscellaneous collections, sale of forms / goods etc… Periodic audits, reconciliation can freeze / lock data with date time / personnel / account limits. Refunds and payments over OTC can be enforced and linked with various department functions such as labs / library / admission etc…

21. MAPPING ENTITIES TO CHART OF ACCOUNTS, SCOPE : PERPETUAL, ROLE : ACCOUNTANT Before admission process starts fee structure of standards / programs get defined. Entire fee amount is bifurcated into various sub components such as admission fee, term fee, tuition fee, lab/library fee. Many of these components have varying frequency of receipts and are applicable under specific conditions. Ex: Admission fee is charged for a new admission or for transfer cases only but promotion from previous standard to next does not include these fee. Similarly lab or library fee is generally a deposit collected to be refunded later after successful completion of academic year. Hence accounting wise part of the fee is income and part liability. Similarly all advances collected for next year also become liability and needs to be used to set of bills/invoices for next year. To manage correct accounting practices Opetus allows each such entity to be mapped to an income account, liability account for advances and income account for managing separately forfeit amount or late charges collected for delay in payments beyond a stipulated date Mapping is done once in a lifetime of fee creation. Unless new fee gets introduced or there is change in COA due to statutory need mapping does not change. This has to be done by the accountant in concurrence with auditors Account mapping also is needed for salary breakups, taxes, various registers and global STUDENT ACCOUNT under which all students are registered debtors created during admission process

22. Several factors define the macro level classification of sections such as : Model of education (state boards/ICSE/CBSE/IGCSE/NIOS/IB/Junior-Degree Colleges/B-Schools …) Scheduling of resources (infrastructure/skillset availability/economic feasibility) Age group of students and climatic conditions Besides these general categorizations some schools define Morning/Afternoon/Nightsections/NIOS DEFINING SECTION MASTER FOR INSTITUTES WHICH ARE SCHOOLS Schools get largely divided into sections based on age group. Pre schools or playgroups are for kids less than legally permitted admissible age for schools. Pre primary consists of Junior / Senior K.G (Kindergarten) Primary sections consists of Standard First (I) to Fourth (IV) Secondary section starts from Fifth (V) to Tenth (X) For IB : Primary / Middle Years Program PYP is for primary students with age range 3 – 12 years MYP is designed for students aged 11 to 16 ROLE: ADMIN

23. In colleges Streams / Specialized or Vocation courses / Elective subjects play a major role Distance learning courses can be for short duration of few months to several years based on electives. Availability of full time versus visiting faculty dictate categorization DEFINING SECTION MASTER FOR JUNIOR/DEGREE COLLEGES If model of education follows 10 + 2 + 3/4 patterns the junior college gets divided into 2 academic years Degree college for Arts / Science / Commerce stream have 3 academic years Architecture / Engineering / Medicine have 4+ academic years Post graduation and specialization vary between 1-2 years. ROLE: ADMIN

24. Some programs are designed for working professionals who opt for post office hours education. These are generally part time courses. ROLE: ADMIN DEFINING SECTION MASTER FOR B-SCHOOLS (MANAGEMENT COLLEGES) Certain management programs need rigorous training and education cannot be imparted without full time physical presence. Such courses are categorized as FULL TIME In distance learning students can remote attend lectures via internet webcast, learn from study material given after course enrollment and appear for exams with subjects of their choice and sequence. Such programs fall under distance learning In all the categories of sections defined, minimum attendance percentage, lecture timings, subject electives, term duration, frequency of repeat exams, negative credits are governed by rules defined by institutes and affiliated university. Programs and courses defined in these sections inherit rules and policies governing the section

25. OPETUS STANDARD / PROGRAM MASTER ROLE: ADMIN Program / Standard is generally the certification stream divided into each academic year. Ex: (SSC/ICSE/CBSE) State Board is divided into 10 academic years from first to tenth after which the student gets certified. Colleges divide these into first / second / third / forth / fifth year of junior / degree college and attach a suffix of stream chosen such as B.Sc / B.Com / B.A Program / Standard are governed by rules set by affiliated bodies. Institutes have restricted seat intake capacity as permitted and have to follow admission quota policy based on reservations set by government / ruling trust. Seat reservations are controlled as per gender / caste / management preference seats and finally the rest becomes open category where academic eligibility comes into play Based on term duration, programs may get divided into batches. Admissions for standards generally follow a naming convention and Enrollment Number / General Register Number are policy generated strings. Admission prerequisites and eligibility criteria are mandates to be followed before admitting a student. Age limits, proximity to institutes, employee / alumni child, documents and certificates, successful clearance in entrance tests / other exams with minimum threshold passing admissible percentage becomes rules for selection criteria

26. OPETUS STANDARD / PROGRAM ALLOCATION ROLE: ADMIN Allocation of standards in a section is generally done for scheduling resources for “like” requirements. Many schools have more than one shifts; Morning/Afternoon and some even have night schools/colleges. For higher education and post graduation grouping is done based on time availability of students and visiting faculty While allocation many entities need to be defined such as admission eligibility, rules and periodicity of admission, limitations of capacity and reservations if any, streams supported, cost and process of moderating application forms, previous experience or attempts in common entrance tests considered etc… Entire process of admission from prospect to applicant to student needs to be scheduled and synchronized across various stake holders. Many admission processes have several stages like group discussion, personal interview, micro presentations, peer/parent interviews besides academic qualifications and scores in entrance test. This needs to get mapped every academic year All eligibility proofs needs to be submitted as documents for admission. These needs to be mapped as proof of eligibility in sequence of importance. Originals and copies of documents and ownership of the same needs to be defined

27. OPETUS DEFINING ADMISSION PARAMETERS FOR STANDARD / PROGRAM Opetus supports online admission process with payment gateway support. Sale of application form online/offline is tracked. Entire cycle of admission process right from release of advertisement across various media can be planned and data captured Admission process tracks real time seats consumed and available as cancellations and transfers happen during hectic admission phase. Unique number assignments for prospects, applicant, students as enrollment / GR number can have policy driven generation. Prospects and applicants can log online and track stages of admission process. Upon applying online login credentials are notified by emails/SMS. Admit card generation, scheduling interview calls and other information exchange can be managed online Notifications to exercise admission claims, rejections, reminders, admission schedule can be pushed as SMS All valid prospect / applicant data who do not clear eligibility criteria can be used for marketing distance learning or equivalent programs

28. OPETUS DIVISION MASTER ROLE: ADMIN Program / Standards are usually divided into divisions for capacity planning. Generally the main limitation is distribution of tutor’s attention and count of student’s the teacher can manage retaining her teaching quality and devotion of time to each pupil Division can also be due to limitations of infrastructure, subject / elective choices, house / extra curricular preferences, route planning for bus/fleet management and statutory needs of maintaining student to teacher ratio Many institutes follow certain conventions in naming divisions and many name it on streams (Mktg / Fin / HR etc …), flowers, scientists or planets Suppose a standard / program has intake capacity of 180 students and institute decides to have three batches of 60 each, admission process if configured for FIFO, can decide division allocation and sequentially fill one division after another

29. OPETUS DIVISION ALLOCATION ROLE: ADMIN Division allocation splits a program into various batches / divisions. Opetus allows association of various roles as per division such as class / home room teacher, class monitor, CAS / TOK and other coordinators Many institutes divide divisions according to streams and have division specific policy. Opetus supports this feature too. In case of same pattern being followed across years prior data can be imported / migrated to define current academic year dependencies For distance learning model each of these divisions can be a study center with its own set of policies. Such virtual sub ecosystems to form an aggregated university can also be mapped and defined in Opetus

30. Trust is a collection of institutes … Institute is a collection of company (ies) … Company/Institute is a collection of sections … Section is a collection of standards/programs … Standard is a collection of divisions/batches … Division/Batches is a collection of students OPETUS ACADEMIC OBJECT HIERARCHY In short entire strength of student community is just a group of student collections, pursuing desired stream of certification, having different curriculum, governed by different eligibility / certifying criteria’s within their choice of electives. Each of these certifications may have different fee structure and duration in academic terms

31. Based on whether the certification program is government recognized or from an autonomous body the curriculum is decided. Curriculum is composed of various subjects/courses. Bouquet of subjects has minimum count of subjects needed for certification and based on stream to be chosen it can have compulsory or optional/elective subjects. Student decides his/her choice of subjects before the term commences. This process can be part of admission/promotion. While defining subjects few factors need to be considered: The name and acronym should correlate to each other and brevity in report cards printed later should create least confusion For smaller standards/grades such as pre-primary and primary most subjects are compulsory but this choice can vary as per model of education such as IB. Stream specific job oriented courses may not have any optional subjects. Certain subjects may not need assessment or are part of exams (ex: library). Schools define library as a subject for scheduling / timetabling purpose Tag attributes appropriately to define language subject or non academic subjects. Subject such as P.T (physical training) may need gender specific tutor. Certain subjects may need shared resources such as lab / playgrounds. Hence attributes to capture subject specific needs should be defined while creating masters for first time so that timetabling parameters gets associated to linked resources Many subjects are hierarchical Ex: Math's can comprise of Algebra and Geometry, Science is a collection of Physics/Chemistry/Biology or in some case Science – 1 / 2. Such parent child relationship should be defined at the beginning of term when master records are created. This parent-child relationship may not exist for all standards for the same subject or for same standard across exams in an academic year Teachers / Faculty can create content or refer to URLs. In case unstructured data (content such as PPT/DOC/PDF) needs to be associated and archived in common NAS/SAN for each subject user needs to map NAS path. Opetus takes care of path specific uploads and downloads of content if defined in master data. SUBJECT MASTER (Define subjects) – SCOPE : LIFETIME OF SOFTWARE, ROLE : ADMIN

32. SUBJECT CONTENT (Map Subject to Digital Content) – SCOPE : LIFETIME OF CURRICULUM, ROLE : FACULTY Opetus classifies subject /course to be mapped into chapters / topics / sub-topics. Each chapter / topic defined in curriculum can be attached to video / audio / docs such as PPT/DOC/XLS files. The content can be created by teacher or can be off the shelf (COTS) Opetus allows user definable taxonomy to catalog content. This aids in searching binary data. All textual data gets indexed automatically upon archival. Opetus uses full text search capabilities of database as well as creates index shards based on powerful search engine capabilities embedded as web service in education server Teacher can define content as chapters/topic and can set chronology of same. Such user defined content can be published as e-book and distributed to students. Links in content can be played or navigated to directly upon user click Assignments, exercises, archived question papers can be part of content. Students get access to these contents via portal / mobile once published / shared by creator. Content is linked to question bank and self assessment engine Opetus database architecture isolates and manages binary / textual data separately. Database design does not allow content to fragment transactional data. Cleansing of unwanted content can be done periodically if needed. Content houses digital part of library too, hence when annual weed-out is exercised unwanted content can purged and database shrunk For multilingual support, vector data, formulae and equations there is a separate module which supports MathML and Latex

33. CONTENT QUESTION BANK – SCOPE : LIFETIME OF CURRICULUM, ROLE : FACULTY Opetus allows faculty to create question bank and associate it with content related to a chapter / topic in a subject Largely question types are classified into subjective or objective. In each of these categories a wide variety of sub types exists. Opetus supports over 47+ types and user can define the layout in which each of these types can be published. This features allows a neat generation of question paper and helps make templates for ease of use and standardization Quality of assessment depends largely on question bank and how cleverly questions are drafted to dig out learning outcomes. Ratings of questions in terms of difficulty level, solving time and methods / instruction to answer questions can be defined Automatic question paper generation, random questions during automated self assessment, automated marks entry of evaluated results is supported

34. SUBJECT ALLOCATION (Associate Subject To Standard) – SCOPE : ACADEMIC YEAR, ROLE : COURSE-COORDINATOR Many subjects are common across standards such as language subjects English, Hindi… Many schools opt out to create special divisions as per elective subjects such as French, hence for timetabling and exam scheduling subject allocations across divisions needs to be defined at the start of academic term by course co-ordinators For primary standards “Math's” is main subject but for secondary it is parent of Algebra / Geometry. Similar rules apply for other subjects also, as behavior of a subject varies as per higher grades. Such behavioral changes can be defined while allocation / associating standard to a subject else uniform rules can be defined during master creation For B-Schools and many other job oriented courses subjects never get repeated across terms. Also many subjects do not have credits associated Same rule applies when some subjects which are compulsory of a particular standard may be optional for others Other parameters which needs to be associated while allocating subjects are faculty/teachers, timetabling slot preferences and associated attendance rules If allocation parameters are same across divisions or as previous year the set can be imported and applied for current context

35. EMPLOYEE SUBJECT ALLOCATION – SCOPE : ACADEMIC YEAR, ROLE : COURSE-COORDINATOR Opetus allows employee skillset and experience to be defined. Subject proficiency and level of teaching experience help map faculty / teacher to subject and standard. Faculty availability, frequency of lectures needed to complete syllabus, infrastructure availability and roles to be played can be defined for an employee It also helps HR / course coordinator to plan resource contingency in case of absence and allocating proxy teacher. For managing contracted or visiting faculty and planning time table this information mapping is a must This mapping also restricts scope of data visibility for faculty login to only those students and standards / divisions which have been allocated. Rights to send messages, reminders and notices, bulk emails, SMS, assignments, uploads and downloads get restricted as per mapping of employee -> company -> location - > academic year -> section -> standard -> division -> subject This process needs to be repeated every academic year as per promotions, resignations or contract expiry / renewals of faculties. In case mapping do not change, previous years / terms data can be imported and extended to next academic year

36. EMPLOYEE SCHEDULE – SCOPE : ACADEMIC YEAR, ROLE : COURSE-COORDINATOR Employee skillset needs to be scheduled as per academic needs and resource availability. Opetus allows to map company / location / academic year / section / standard / division / subject / infrastructure (room) to be mapped to a date time. In case associates are needed they can be mapped too to specific date time intervals Faculty can map a teaching lesson / session plan to date / time / venue and this lesson plan can be made available for students in advance so that they can prepare with content provided Data entry of repeat patterns with a date range (generally a term) can be automated. Plan for a week can be extended to a term with minimal data entry In case of unplanned disruptions or changes in schedule, notifications to all respective stake holders can be pushed via SMS / Emails. For compulsory or optional subjects student notification head count is as per their choice of subjects and intent to attempt in selected term

37. EMPLOYEE CALENDAR – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : COURSE-COORDINATOR Typically employee calendar will have sessions / lectures assigned from timetable module. Calendar view can be day, week, month or yearly. It clearly indicated session and colors assigned are as per subject color. Employee calendar can have tasks such as appointments, meetings, excursions, lab sessions, exams or dissertation related activities Employees can maintain their calendar by defining their own activities and sharing calendar notifying availability. Calendar is accessible on web and mobile too with restrictions on certain modify activity

38. EMPLOYEE LESSON / SESSION PLAN – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : TEACHER / FACULTY Teachers / Faculty can define subject / course related content and upload any digitized format of content or links pointing to sources for references. Many sessions need pre-notification of chapter / topic to be conducted. Session / lesson plan allows faculty to define a detailed breakup of activities in a session. Opetus provides a user definable taxonomy for further classifying session activities Content loaded can be assessed by student from digital resources in library. Uploaded content gets automatically cataloged as per standard / subject / chapter or topic which can be searched using various keywords like author, publisher, title, chapter, topic or any word in textual matter of published content Lesson plans helps faculty to define safe time limits to cover expected syllabus within finite sessions. It also helps define safe buffers for managing unplanned disruptions. Lesson plan can be defined only after time table is scheduled and resources allocated. Changes to plan can be notified to target audience based on subject electives or to guardians

39. FEE MASTER – SCOPE : PERPETUAL, ROLE : ACCOUNTANT Prior to admission schedule a formal fee structure for certification courses needs to be defined. Fee structure typically is collection of various charges for educational services rendered with defined periodicity. Defining fee structure is mandatory as per laws of land and transparency must be maintained by institutes in justification of charged amount versus services rendered. Fee structure can be complex when it comes to accounting as many complex use cases such as advances, refunds, cancellations, transfers, deposits needs to managed to calculate and derive profit yielded after successful completion of a course Opetus allows most complex structures to be defined and mapped to accounts. It can safely delink accounting versus collection. While defining a fee Opetus needs three post able accounts to created for every fee structure (two income and one liability). Normal collections get posted to income account, advances to liabilities and any forfeits collected as fine / overdue can be posted as income Though fee collection OTCs and accounts are different departments it is advised to define COA in concurrence with chartered accountants or auditors. This helps manage finances and cash flow seamlessly Opetus fee mapping is so flexible that each student in an institute can have his/her own fee structure and billing cycles

40. FEE ALLOCATION – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : ACCOUNTANT Fee allocation allows define breakup amounts and associate periodicity. Generally fee structure is largely mapped into normal / open category and varies for employee children, management quota and other economically backward classes During admission process an invoice is raised against the debtor student of amount allocated in fee structure for selected program / standard which the student pays in several installments as defined and dictated by allocation periodicity. Opetus allows concessions or user definable amount for exceptions and thus avoids large amount of transactions of debit / credit notes for transfers, cancellation and dropouts For admission cancellations, late payment or bounced instruments a forfeit account needs to be defined to justify unbilled collections. Opetus allows a user definable late fine policy for overdue and delayed payments

41. INDIVIDUAL ADMISSION – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : ADMISSION INCHARGE Opetus follows a very detailed admission process from prospect -> applicant -> student. This process is beyond the scope of this document and is available as a separate document / tutor video, yet complete preadmission cycle from releasing of an advert till completion of admission can be transacted and tracked for every stage of admission process Individual admission allows FIFO type of admission based on merit / short list of eligible candidates. User can follow the complete admission cycle or can abruptly admit a prospect or applicant in any stage of admission lifecycle. Admission tracks quota limits, documents submitted, eligibility specifications and follows a user definable policy of allocating General Registration Number or Unique ID which remains constant throughout student life cycle in enrolled institute Admission process links a student academic life cycle to accounting cycle. Admission is the starting point of monetization of education business process. It maps a student as a registered debtor in COA and amortizes the education amount into small chunks as defined in fee structure Individual admission allows user to customize each student bill amount which can deviate from standard fee structure defined

42. BULK ADMISSION – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : ADMISSION INCHARGE / ADMIN Bulk admission follows batched intakes and generally is done when common admission rules and fee structure is followed for a set of students without any deviation from standards defined This feature is typically used for programs where entire fee amount is collected in advance before program commencement. Typical cases include set of students enrolled from franchisee institutes for distance learning, corporate training programs (MDPs) and short term weekly courses. Most of the courses are just participation programs to keep abreast of changes in respective fields and are post graduate courses Bulk admission is also used in heterogeneous environments where several software's are used for automation of student life cycle. When information exists in federated databases bulk admission is best option to be used because fee collection and accounting may be managed outside Opetus scope of implementation

43. STUDENT PROMOTION – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : ADMIN / CLASS TEACHER Promotion is a readmission process of existing in-house students from one academic year to another upon successfully passing with defined prerequisites. Promotions happen once in an academic year and is executed after publishing of final result at the end of academic term Promotion is similar to bulk admission but for existing students with validation of academic excellence. Rules of promotion can vary as per certification and affiliated academic bodies. Many institutes follow similar rules of admission during promotion such as gender ratio balance, affinity to academic scholars, dispersing evenly irrespective of academic achievements, grouping as per streams, electives or extra curricular activities Promotion needs definition of fee structure of target standard / program to be defined in advance. Promotion from one term / academic year to another carries forward all financial balances to next year. It raises invoice for next academic year based on fee allocation and generates opening balance as per advances or dues

44. STUDENT TRANSFER – SCOPE : ACADEMIC LIFE CYCLE, ROLE : ADMISSION INCHARGE Student transfer is shuffling of students from one batch / division to another with the same stream and program enrolled. Transfers are generally done upon requests by guardian, adjustments for timing or bus route, gender balance or late admissions or transfers midway in an academic term Often admission department admits all students in one division during individual admission process and to avoid missing roll numbers due to admission transfers and cancellation they later bulk shift students from one division to another to balance distribution and then allocation roll numbers Student transfer is different from admission transfer. Student transfer does not change program, company or location. It just changes batch or division unlike admission transfer wherein student can change streams / programs, companies and locations. Admission transfer changes GR number too and affects accounting and billing process. This happens generally after final merit list generation due to admission cancellations when students on borderline or threshold value get an opportunity from one program to another due to seat availability. Detailed explanation of admission transfer is available in admission workflow presentation and is beyond the scope of this document

45. STUDENT MASTER – SCOPE : ACADEMIC LIFE CYCLE, ROLE : ADMISSION INCHARGE Student master has all data captured during online admission process and is generally entered by applicant. If Opetus implementation start midway in academic year, data is generally bulk imported from legacy sources and many not have all relevant fields and some information may be missing. Student master captures parents data, student legacy academic records, work experience, address and contact details Student is inactive until admission process is complete. Student master does not ensure enrollment in academic and billing cycle

46. STUDENT ROLL NUMBER – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : CLASS TEACHER / FACULTY Admission process tags every student with a unique GR number till its life cycle yet after promotion every academic year a new number is allocated upon allocation of division / batch / standard. This number is Roll# used for attendance and sometimes for library study rooms and other extra curricular activities Opetus supports a variety of policies for roll# generations. Most common used practices include sorting by gender / last name and assigning an incremental number. Many simply follow FIFO sequence as per admission. Many prefer to reseed missing gap due to admission cancellations or transfers with new allocations Roll numbers are generally numeric yet many institutes use alphanumeric roll#. Opetus supports both numeric and non numeric numbers with support of prefix / suffix and zero padded fixed width numbers. This ensures that despite being string data type order is in sequence of numbers and concatenated derived Roll# remains sorted as ever

47. STUDENT IDENTITY CARD – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : ADMISSION CO-ORDINATOR Opetus supports identity card generation and printing as per user format. Opetus card designer is metadata driven which can be customized as per institute formats. Typically schools issue new ID cards every academic year as growing years of child changes appearance. Sometimes changes in uniform, logo, color codes and vendors enforce change of standards Using student / parent portal photographs are uploaded and information validity of address and contact details are verified before mass printing of cards is initiated. Size of photographs, background and profile needed is notified by institutes to students and parents Residential / day boarding schools issue cards to drivers and caretakers too. Institute must be notified of such guardian roles in advance so that security permits access to institute campus Opetus supports all technologies available for ID cards such as barcode, RFID, LR cards, biometric etc…

48. STUDENT HOBBIES / EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES Recording of hobbies, extra curricular activities and special skillset of child in music or sports is supported. This helps institutes to shortlist talent pool within for inter school/college events Proficiency in other activities also helps form groups, house mates so than team building can be organized faster based on information and prior participation in events related to hobbies and passion driven activities

49. STUDENT MEDICAL RECORDS / HEALTH CHECKUP Opetus logs and records medical history of child across periodic checkups. This information is part of student transcript. Growing years of child, infections, injuries, vaccinations, periodic medical checkups of dental, ENT and weaknesses observed by para medics is logged and recorded for future references Medical history, allergies, vaccinations etc… Periodic dental checkups Periodic ophthalmic checkups Overall physical examination Monitoring of hygiene standards Investigation logs and other medical test reports

50. STUDENT BUS / ROUTE ALLOCATION Opetus supports fleet management and allows definition of vehicles, routes, pickup points and schedules. Student is tagged a bus child upon subscribing to bus services. ID card printing carries information regarding bus route and queue to be followed. All features for bus fee collection, change of route, stop / resume services, driver / helper information per route/vehicle is captured and display for parent on portal

51. STUDENT GATE PASS Movement of student within campus is restricted and not allow during certain time intervals. In case student has to leave at odd hours special permission has to be taken and approved by class / home room teachers. A special gate pass is issued to student permitting him to leave campus on special grounds and justifiable reasons. Gate pass generation and verification is part of Opetus visitor management module but involves students and associated relationships permitted to pickup and drop student in campus

52. STUDENT BEHAVIORAL LOG Campus behavior of student other than academic records and profiling is part of Opetus. Abnormal behavior, violence, eve teasing, bullying, damage to campus infrastructure, unruly erratic bouts of misbehavior are recorded by observer faculty and logged with date time, occurrence and probable cause. In case such recurrence of such abnormalities are observed student is advised counselling sessions Counsellor starts remedial actions and student is under observation of repeat misbehavior. Initial escalations may need parents to be notified and further actions may need medical or psychiatrist advice Student behavior log is a part of transcript. It also includes good and exceptional behavior noted by faculty which can be exemplified

53. STUDENT OPTIONAL SUBJECTS – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : CLASS TEACHER / FACULTY / STUDENT Electives or optional subjects are part of curriculum. Based on who exercises the choice of data entry many methods of choosing electives are supported by Opetus. For small standards in schools generally second / third language is an elective. This is notified to the class teacher by parents and teacher / faculty enters the data of student choice Student optional subject is a form used by faculty to define students choice of electives. This can be done by student or guardian from portal within date window provided before term commences

54. STUDENT SUBJECT REGISTRATION – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : STUDENT Most post graduation programs have all subjects as electives. Student needs to bid for electives based in his previous GPA scores. Some subjects have dependencies and cannot be attempted unless all dependent subjects have been cleared in prior terms attempted. Certain subjects have capping limit hence eligibility kicks in defining ranking for bidding. Each subject has set credit scores and count of subjects in term is decided by sum of credits of subjects selected. Opetus calculates real time ranking based on student’s choice and displays ranking and eligibility Bidding for electives or subject registration can be exercised by student from portal or Opetus mobile app

55. STUDENT ATTENDANCE – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : CLASS TEACHER / FACULTY Opetus tracks presence or absence in many ways. Student can be present for part of the day and can retire on many grounds, health being one of them. Opetus maintains presence in fractions too. Absence for participating in extra curricular activities can be exempted or approved Student or guardian can apply for leave and notify reason of absence. Opetus verifies such request and classifies absence in notified and approved. Leave approval for absence is approved or rejected. Disapproved becomes notified absence. One of mandates in this conclusion is that leave application has to be in advance of absence. Back dated applications are not permitted Attendance during exams and leave application for exemption from exam attempt is also supported

56. STUDENT LEAVE APPLICATION – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : STUDENT / GUARDIAN Application for leave is supported from portal or from mobile app. Approver of absence is generally class / home room teacher or addressed faculty. Faculty reserves the right to approve or reject hence conclusion of absence can be approved or notified based on status of leave application Absence beyond approved limits invokes negative credits

57. STUDENT DEACTIVATION – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : ADMISSION INCHARGE Student deactivation marks the end of academic tenure. It can be after successful completion of enrolled certification program or due to transfers, terminations or inability to continue the academic process Deactivation delinks the student from billing cycle. In case the student has paid fees in advance and wishes to discontinue, as per policy and eligibility the institute may refund full / partial fees. Student may have to pay forfeit charges or cancellation amount if he violates any stated norms of admission process. Fee refund with appropriate enforcement of these policies is supported by Opetus If part of fee structure had some refundable deposits against library book issues, assets allocated / rented Opetus tracks and notifies user of outstanding claims and returns. If no liabilities are pending deactivation can proceed normally Opetus supports conversion of student deactivation into an alumni. Deactivated students can access portal and get all the privileges permitted to an alumni

58. STUDENT LEAVING CERTIFICATE – SCOPE : ACADEMIC TERM, ROLE : ADMISSION INCHARGE After successful completion of academic tenure, abrupt transfers or terminations institutes issue leaving or transfer certificates. The primary aim is to certify information furnished during admission so that same can be cascaded by the next absorbing institute It also certifies that documents submitted by student during admission were accepted by current institute and is in possession of originals / copies. This justification is needed for claims for reservations in admission process. There exists institutes where eligibility is not measured with competence of candidates but by his caste, religion, influence or financial capability to satiate the greed of absorbing institute. Leaving certificate are an accepted standard of proof to emboss these claims Opetus automates the process of leaving certificate generation. It can be single or bulk and can be digitally secured and certified. These certificates have a unique identity number which needs to maintained and propagated with every new issues

59. STUDENT TRANSITION ACROSS ACADEMIC YEARS Each stage from student life cycle could be across changing trusts, institutes, companies, locations. OPETUS tracks this state transitions across academic years without data loss and complete snapshot history of student lifecycle is maintained. Student data for transcript generation or any historical records of academics, payments, medical, behavioral logs can be instantly obtained by logging into that (C)ompany, (L)ocation, (Y)ear

60. TYPICAL ACADEMIC SCHEDULE Some state board schools have semester exams preceded by two unit tests whereas some have only one Some management colleges and professional programs can have a short duration or can extend beyond a year. Unlike schools, higher education has revaluation and re-exams. This complicates the entire process of assessment as historical records become future calculation variables. Process of final result calculation, processing and publishing gets stretched and creeps into future terms

61. Freeze exam syllabus from curriculum Prepare question bank for syllabus content (chapters/topics) as per scope Freeze assessment methods to conduct exam and define weightages/rules Prepare question paper from a new or predefined template For universities/colleges delegate/appoint paper setters / invigilators / assistant invigilators Update student list for electives / optional subjects Complete data entry of internal assessment marks before exam Generate/Dispatch Question papers, Barcoded Answer sheets, Door/Floor Plan, Hall Tickets For each subject verify credentials as in Attendance Sheets, record presence, distribute question / answer sheets, monitor, collect attempted answer sheets Recorded absence needs to be notified with submission of signed attendance sheets Collected answer sheets to be arranged, secured, bundled and dispatched to appropriate centers for assessment Violation of rules such as copying, cheating and unfair means cases to be notified to respective authorities Ascertain dispatched answer sheets received. Notify assessment deadlines Monitor assessment progress, collect assessed answer sheets and complete marks entry Process evaluation data to generate reports such as consolidated, grace/grade, promotion lists Print final report cards upon verification and approval Publish revaluation dates and notify revaluation procedures, deadline and amount Publish revaluation date and notify revaluation procedures, deadline and amount Notify result to associated colleges / study centers Publish content for respective courses and notify enrolled students Notify franchisee exam centers to sync servers Define rules for online engagements Update exam center servers with question banks, login credentials, security certificates Complete student-subject registration and notify study centers TYPICAL EXAM WORKFLOW

62. What are various exam types ? Academic exams for which marks needs to be entered Exams which are derived from academic exams after some calculation such as total / average Revaluation which is reassessment request for previously appeared exam subject Rexam or ATKT for students failed in prior attempts but can continue term Mock exam which have no bearing on final academic outcome Exam conducted for assessing applicant admission eligibility or entrance test Exam for assessing and enhancing employee skillset Cumulative periodic assessment outcome for academic subjects can be termed as exam. Based of various models of education the pattern of evaluation varies and so does the frequency of conducting exams. Periodic and continuous assessments is the ideal way to gauge learning outcome (also known as CCE- continuous and comprehensive evaluation). Various evaluation methods exists and most are supported by OPETUS for calculating Ranks, grace, grades, GPA, CGPA (absolute/relative/user definable) Student’s eligibility for being promoted to next standard is based on merit in final assessment at the end of academic year. This process involves calculating cumulative outcome based on previous successful attempts. Besides academic merit, sports, participation in extra curricular activities also have weightage. Promotion, grace eligibility and final grades are decided by class teacher. Processed results then are used to print report cards and exam clearance certificates. EXAM MASTER, TYPES AND SIGNIFICANCE What is Exam ? How do we define it?

63. EXAM SYLLABUS AND TEACHING PATTERNS Syllabus can be flexible but scope is generally dictated by governing certification bodies. A teacher needs to plan several things in advance: Check scope of syllabus to be covered within stipulated sessions defined in timetable (with some contingencies) Plan effort need to cover each chapter / topic using various teaching methodologies Content preparation (lesson plan) for each session considering assessment at end of each session closing a topic Spare some buffer time for iterative efforts needed or unplanned disruptions Create question bank for assessment of each topic, conduct, assess, evaluate learning outcome

64. EXAM SCHEDULE AND RULES Exam is an important event, involves lot of stake holders and needs meticulous planning. Many involved may be on contractual terms and geographically distant with limited availability. Prior to term commencement academic syllabus is decided, skillset needed to teach gets delegated and experts in each subject/course are assigned tasks such as pedagogy definition, question paper generation. Assesse, invigilators, assistant invigilators and exam controllers get decided based on scales of operation, distributed venues for conduction / franchisee operations and infrastructure availability Exam conducting guidelines, rules of attendance, eligibility and participation gets defined and violators are prohibited from attempt, forfeited or debarred Series of steps gets defined in chronology with date / time / venue / resources / role / actor involved to execute responsibility. Opetus allows each task to be scheduled, monitored and automated if possible. Processes such as syllabus definition, question paper generation, attendance sheet, barcoded answer sheet, hall ticket generation, notification to participants, eligibility verification, attendance in participation, aggregation / digitization of answer sheets, dispatch, receipts, assessments, returns, forfeits and debars are monitored. Post assessment aggregation and processing of results for evaluating learning outcome, graces, grades, promotions, ranking, averages, GPA / CGPA calculation, negative credits and failures is published and mark sheets printed

65. Since various stake holders get involved before, during and after exams, lot of activities need to be defined, coordinated and monitored. As shown in exam workflow slide earlier clear roles, tasks with timelines needs to be defined and monitored. Opetus provides a Gantt view to each track status of progress of various tasks. EXAM SCHEDULE WORKFLOW VIEW Simple task such as answer sheet bundle dispatch via courier, receipt acknowledgement, status of assessment and return of dispatch. This can be monitored and notifications / reminders issued in form of emails / SMS

66. EXAM ROLES Conducting an exam is like playing a symphony, you need an orchestra and each one is assigned set of tasks against timelines. At the head is the exam controller and many roles such as QP setters, assesse, faculty, invigilators and their assistants, course coordinator and personnel in examination department need to execute tasks in sequence or parallel as per exam schedule. Exam role defines these persons for set of exams and manages actors in execution plan. Contact information and address details defined helps push emails / SMS or other notification to remind deadlines and check assigned task status. Address of assesse is used for creating dispatch labels for answer sheet bundles. Each role has web based login to update status of tasks such as exam attendance, unfair practices, answer sheet dispatch, acknowledgement receipt, assessment status etc…

67. EXAM SUBJECTS, ROLE ALLOCATION, ELIGIBILITY AND PASSING PREREQUISITES Exam details defines date, time, venue, roles for conducting exam of each subject. It defines grades, minimum and maximum marks, credits of each subject and links question paper. It also defines eligibility criteria or passing prerequisites against which students get verified Exam details is the actual exam schedule for students to lookup to and prepare attempt. Sequence of subjects in exam, gaps or concurrence helps preparation

68. GRADE ALLOCATION Opetus support both absolute and relative GPA generation. In schools and many colleges grade point generation follows absolute format. Translation of percentage to grade is based on this lookup table definition. Many institutes have grade scales varying for each subject others follow uniform grade definition across subjects conducted in an exam. Many institutes follow the practice of print grades only on report cards whereas some follows marks and grade both. Fixed remarks of set range of grades can be defined as needed for report card generation Grade allocation definition seamlessly links qualitative and quantitative interpretation. It serves as a translation metrics smoothening result disparities by blunting competitiveness

69. ASSESSMENTS, EXAMS, EXAM SUBJECTS, RULES AND SCHEDULE It’s the reciprocal process of evaluating students to access learning outcome. A teacher imparts information and employs various teaching methodologies (practical’s, audio/videos, enacts a play… ) to enable the child grasp information conveyed in best possible way and retain it to apply for all analytical purposes in life. Information imparted gets converted to knowledge “only if” the child has understood the concept, jist in the topic and the whole learning experience was engaging without loss of attention. What is Assessment ? Lets take subject “English” as an example to convey the point discussed. Proficiency in such a subject needs to be accessed in various ways. Whether the child can read well but can he write or speak well? A child may speak well but written text maybe full of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Hence evaluation of learning outcome in subject such as English cannot be resolved by just a plain written test. The teacher needs to conduct sessions of recitation, grammar exercises, etc…to evaluate each child. So when a teacher uses various teaching methodologies to explain a topic so has to be the way assessment needs to be conducted for evaluating learning outcome. Hence when a subject is taught a set of teaching methods and assessment patterns needs to be predefined and planned for evaluation. If the child is poor in the language used as medium of instruction the learning outcome is very depressing. The problem starts when assessment finally lands as a report card / grade sheet which does not ascertain conclusively learning outcome. Most evaluations are quantitative and percentage or grade does not necessarily convey the proficiency of the child in that subject. Deficiency or remedial corrections also needs to be reflected. For making the objective more practical many problems needs to be anticipated and overcome in the already busy, tightly scheduled timetable. Education being creative process teachers should be allowed to define their own methods of assessments within the guidelines laid by respective state boards / certification bodies. This often gets restricted by technology due to inflexible software or pre programmed macro layouts done in excel sheets.

70. If report card generation is manually done teaches must create excel sheets with new macros and formats. This makes the entire process rigid as any change for any subject makes iterative reworks across standards for correct computation. Opetus exam configuration allows teachers to define unlimited assessment methods, associate them in hierarchical parent child relationship, define weightages and even interpolate / extrapolate marks as needed for final result metrics defined by state boards or regulatory authorities. Teachers can conduct / schedule assessments throughout the term span at planned or disruptive intervals. These assessments can be included / excluded or rated (best of) for term evaluation. Ex: If a teacher conducts 5 assessments test of dictation (dic 1-5) she can choose best 3, or 10% of (dic 1-3) + 90% of (dic 4,5) or cumulative sum of all. ASSESSMENT DEFINITIONS FOR AN EXAM (QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT) Exceptions such as absence, exemptions (due to sports or school related extra curricular activities), condoned cases can also be defined for each assessment breakup. Each of these breakup assessment methods may have various privileges. Suppose if a subject was sub divided into two assessment methods (Method – 1, Method – 2), Method – 1 has 60% weightage and Method – 2 remain 40%. This gives a probability that the student can pass overall if he obtains 40% in either of these methods, but ideally the student should have secured passing marks in each of these assessment methods. In such a scenario the teacher can define “MUST PASS” attribute so that each desired breakup assessment outcome yields correct cumulative outcome.

71. ASSESSMENTS METHODS

72. ASSESSMENT ALLOCATION Creative dynamics of assessment depends purely on the instructor’s skill, his involvement and how actively and rigorously he wants every small perspective of subject topic to be understood by students The instructor can define his own methods of assessments based on his teaching methodologies. His creative freedom is not restricted by statutory requirements of enforcing certification bodies. Instructor can classify or decompose syllabus into several small fragments of learning units, conduct assessments on each small topic of learning unit and assimilate / aggregate result into well analyzed outcomes While conducting iterative assessments he can choose best of, sum of or enforce overall passing only when student clears required percentage in smallest of learning units In subjects like Math each topic/chapter can be an assessment unit. Ex: Integers, Fractions, Complex Numbers etc… During aggregation of component units parent – child evaluation marks can be interpolated or extrapolated. Rules for rounding off can be applied at each stage of evaluation

73. ASSESSMENTS DEFINITION FOR AN EXAM (QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT)

74. SYLLABUS, EXAM PORTION AND TEACHING PATTERNS Syllabus can be flexible but scope is generally dictated by governing certification bodies. A teacher needs to plan several things in advance: Assume annual syllabus (text book) has 20 chapters to be covered, 10 in each term/semester Assume frequency of 5 sessions/lectures per week per class for assumed subject (ignoring holidays) It yields cumulative 75 (15 w x 5s/w) sessions to cover 10 chapters and conduct periodic assessment i.e. a total of approximately (average) 7.5 sessions to teach a chapter using various teaching methodologies, some chapters may take more time, others less Create question bank for assessment of each topic, conduct, assess, evaluate learning outcome after each topic covered in set of sessions/lectures One session or part of sessions can be used to evaluate and analyse learning outcome If we assume 5 chapters to be part of exam portion and 5 different assessments to evaluate we need 25 units of evaluations. Adjacent diagram shows various assessment methods and frequency with a week This process allows each chapter/topic to be comprehensively evaluated and the process of evaluation is continuous throughout the term. This methodology is termed CCE (continuous comprehensive evaluation)

75. SYLLABUS PLAN AND EXAM SYLLABUS In primary and secondary education system syllabus is predefined or dictated by regulating bodies. Text books contain information of subjects for entire academic year and part / portion of which is used to assess a child during exams. Exam portion maps part of entire syllabus in context of an exam by narrowing the scope of assessment, restricting it to few chapters from entire content Exam syllabus refines the scope of academic content w.r.t an exam. It helps define question paper by filtering unwanted content and eases QP generation. It examines the richness of question bank and facilitates distribution of objective and subjective content of question paper

76. ASSESSMENTS DEFINITION FOR AN EXAM (QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT)

77. ASSESSMENT RUBRICS MASTER Rubrics is essentially a guideline for assessment and is generally defined as a matrix. It’s a metrics for assessment in the form of a matrix. Qualitative and verbose assessment methods prefer to use rubrics for non academic assessments Rubrics completes those parts of assessment which are difficult to quantify and needed descriptive conclusions. Opetus allows these abstract intangible assessment parameters to be mapped as matrix for evaluation which essentials becomes a metrics for conclusion Assessment rubrics can be summative for a term or can be used for each subject to be assessed. Creation and definition of rubrics is an art a teacher possesses and how he/she wishes to evaluate a child / student beyond academics. In fact it can be used to assess practical applicability of knowledge imparted but cannot be judged or concluded using quantitative assessments Opetus allows hierarchical definition and linking of rubrics in assessment category, attributes in category and range or set of valid values of attributes within which the assessed has to choose to conclude his interpretation or experience of subject Rubrics can be defined for behavioral audits, feedbacks, peer assessments, appraisals, psychometric analysis etc…

78. ASSESSMENT RUBRICS MAPPING FOR QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS Rubrics mapping and allocation can be for several types of assessment. Most faculty use it as a summative conclusion for overall assessment. Faculty generally defines set of criterion on which he/she would love to assess and grade or rate on a scale of 1 to 5 or 10 Assessment input is generally verbose but Opetus allows to quantify and plot these qualitative result into various charts

79. ASSIGNMENTS AND SUBMISSIONS One of teaching methodologies adopted to inculcate self study is allocate students some assignments and let submit their learning outcome as documents, presentations etc… It can be individual or group activity. Opetus facilitates uploads and downloads of submission related content and helps maintain version, feedback or rejection Faculty can define assignments are part of academic assessment and grade and define marks for effort in submission. This data gets directly linked with results and assessments

80. DISSERTATION APPOINTMENTS/APPROVALS/TRACKING/COMPLETION Most post graduation and distance learning programs have mandatory dissertation. Dissertation is a project or workshop that a learner undertakes according to his area of interest as self study just to be guided / monitored by a mentor. Dissertation involves extensive research on chosen topic and deep analysis of the subject for a specified period of term. Conclusion of dissertation is an exhaustive report with learners understanding of topic and conclusions Opetus allows data capturing and approval automation and tracking progress of activities in dissertation. Opetus records all information and message exchange for a dissertation between mentor and student. It saves information of facilitator company who helps students by lending resources and expertise needed for dissertation

81. FACULTY / SESSION / COURSE FEEDBACK Opetus provides several feedbacks. It can be for single session / lecture or for entire course / program. Appropriate questionnaire rubrics must be defined and scheduled. Students can use portal or Opetus App to give sessional or course feedback. Feedback option is visible for defined date range of a term. Feedback once freezed cannot be modified. Feedback feature of Opetus is part of Qualitative assessment engine where non numeric verbose responses are quantified to analyze outcomes

82. FEEDBACK ANALYSIS Feedback result is aggregated and analyzed as per user responses. Summarized outcome of each rubric question and average values derived helps judge not only learning outcome but take remedial steps to improve quality of staff, content, infrastructure or teaching methodology Graphical representation of feedback result in charts / graphs is supported. Same can be exported in excel for further analytics if needed Rubrics for feedback can be defined for content, session / lecture, course, program, infrastructure or library. Each subject can have its own rubrics and mapping of these rubrics with feedback frequency and periodicity can be user defined

83. EXAM FEES Revaluation and re-exam attempts need student to pay exam fees. Opetus validates collection of fee prior to generating exam eligibility list. Opetus also generates a projection list based on failures in prior attempts to help users notify students and remind them dues outstanding. Online payment gateway collection is supported based on integration of services with institutes primary bank or other mobile wallet providers

84. EXAM HALL TICKET GENERATION Hall ticket generation, hall allocation, seating arrangement, floor plan and door plan can be generated. Opetus allows infrastructure mapping of a campus in terms of building / wings / floors / rooms / stairs / halls etc… While defining exam subjects user has option to map infrastructure based on capacity and availability. Opetus manages this scheduling and allows to generated hall tickets with policy driven unique Hashtags Hall tickets can be printed in bulk and dispatched or student can print after logging in student portal

85. EXAM ATTENDANCE SHEET Eligibility of a student to attempt an exam is governed by various factors such as minimum percentage of attendance during sessions, completion of assignments / worksheets / workshops / dissertations / internal assessments etc… For multiple attempts payment of fees is also verified. Exam attendance sheet is a derivative of student optional / elective subjects selected during subject registration process Attendance sheet generation can be subject wise or exam wise if all subjects are compulsory. It can be barcoded or can be printed with student photographs too

86. BARCODED ANSWER SHEET Opetus generates answer sheets with index pages for marks entry. If question paper is generated using template engine and question bank from Opetus answer sheets can follow the same template. Choice of electives by students decides count of students expected in an attempt. Answer sheets can be printed and dispatched prior to exam or can be done simultaneously when registering attendance of student during exams. Number of answer sheets needed in a booklet can be controlled by user

87. UNFAIR MEANS REGISTRATION Any unfair practice adopted by students to bypass or circumvent examination rules gets registered under unfair means. It can be a simple copying case to any advanced means adopted to attempt an exam using proxy. Such cases can be registered by invigilators and till examination committee decides the severity of offence and remedial action the process of assessment proceeds normally. Before final marks entry the outcome of committee result decides the fate of attempt and its severity impact Based of severity the student may be debarred for a subject or all elective attempts. Opetus restricts marks entry for such cases and assessment engine assigns fail grade tagged with UMA (unfair means adopted)

88. EXAM ANSWER SHEET DISPATCH / RECEIPT / ASSESSED / RETURNED Post exam collected answer sheets needs to be dispatched to respective assesse. Opetus provides interface to generate labels, tags and barcodes to dispatch bundles and addressee details. Invigilators and enter data of bundles dispatched with encoded details of content in barcode. In case of forward thinking, non miser universities / institutes Opetus provides interface to scan answer sheets into small size Black & White TIFF files. Entire process of dispatch and collection can be avoided if assesse is IT literate and has access to internet. Scanned answer sheets can be assessed, annotated with comments, remarks and marks can be entered via secured web interface Assesse acknowledges receipt of answer sheet bundles and updates status of assessment via web. In case of remote areas with no internet access the status can be acknowledge and updated in Opetus database via SMS. This needs a special modem with SMS data plan SIMM which can provide required status update real time via SMS without need of internet. We assume that even the dumbest role involved in examination process has access to cheapest of mobile phones without data plan and has sufficient IQ to send response SMS as per Opetus requirement Upon receipt of accessed answer sheets marks entry can be started or can be scanned / OCRed and imported in bulk. All marks entry forms provide barcode interface to scan and enter data as per barcoded sheets

89. EXAM ASSESSEE NOTIFICATIONS Many stake holders are involved in completing successfully an examination cycle. Each role has specific responsibilities for specific tasks to be complete. Large institutes have several programs and many visiting faculties. Opetus provides a common platform for each role to execute his task and update status of current transaction Different roles such as QP setter, invigilators, assistant invigilators, assesse, examination controller and exam department personnel need to be in sync. Right from setting of QP, final selection, printing / distribution, attendance sheet and answer sheet printing, notification of attendance and copying cases needs to be registered in system which each role can login and update data. Post examination dispatch of answer sheets to various assessor's via courier, acknowledgement of dispatch, status of assessment and re-dispatch to university / institute can be tracked Entire process many need communication via emails/SMS. Opetus has interface to send bulk messages / reminders and notify respective roles to accomplish deadlines of tasks assigned

90. ASSESSMENT MARKS (LEVEL 2) Opetus allows user definable breakup of marks which can be aggregated to get the cumulative score. Based on teaching methodology or assessment patterns marks can be broken down into granular patterns to verify learning outcome. Marks can be entered in integers or fractions, grades, predictive or effort grade. Remarks can be templatized or user defined Data entry of marks breakup can be imported when each breakup result has individual contributors. Opetus supports barcode based data entry from barcoded answer sheets For schools generally in-house teachers act as invigilators hence same person may manage multiple roles based on scales of operation. For university exams or distance learning when scales are large separate roles handle exam attendance and notification of unfair practices (copying cases) during exams. Opetus supports separate attendance recording by different roles or teachers can enter attendance data during marks entry For all cases of unfair practices either the student gets debarred for current exam subject or for entire exam. Till conclusion of decision regarding exam attempt outcome is reached Opetus supports assessment and evaluation. During processing of result it validates such cases and accordingly marks/grades are calculated

91. ASSESSMENT MARKS (LEVEL 3) Level 3 is mainly used when assessment of learning outcome is evaluated by means other than written exam. It is generally based on teaching methodology adopted and teacher evaluates by means such as viva, project, group activity, performing arts etc…. It also depends on the rigor adopted by assessment standards and whether teachers are capable and passionate about learning outcome. Many do not want the extra effort of marks entry and evaluation and interpolating or extrapolating of marks during stages of conversion across levels when sum of breakup of assessment marks does not match the parent value CCE mandates this but seldom do practices follow defined guidelines and hardly do assessment software support features existing in Opetus since decades. So the trade off depends on the teacher and enforcement authorities whether to adopt granular breaks till level 3

92. ASSESSMENT MARKS (LEVEL 4) Fourth level of marks entry is needed in some IB schools and for those who strictly follow CCE integrated with lesson plan Aggregated sum or derived marks get saved in level 3. Generally this level is used for worksheets or surprise / impromptu tests. Level 4 marks are also used from online assessments as they affect the least in consolidated results Level 4 can be used largely to get an overview of how a concept / topic was understood by audience by conducting an objective based test immediately after the teaching session. Many lesson / session plans have test as part of the plan similar to a Q & A session

93. EXAM RESULT GROUPING / PROCESSING / PUBLISHING Assessment processing and aggregation is needed for generating final result. For Re-exam / revaluation cases best of attempts approach is followed. Rankings, grace, grade, GPA/CGPA, -ve credits are applied during processing

94. EXAM RESULT PUBLISHING / HOLD TAG / REVAL APPLICATION Final processed result can be tagged to be published. Published result is available for students to view on portal or mobile app. In case of failures and revaluation student can submit online revaluation application. Opetus provides default payment gateway integration but can be customized as per institutes banking requirements In case of disputes or discrepancies student can approval grievance cell and submit requests for clarifications needed. It is institutes responsibility to address each request within stipulated period and assure mutually agreed closure of same

Opetus Education ERP (Configuring Institute Metadata)

Gyani Feku

Opetus Education ERP (Configuring Institute Metadata)