Spot the difference: SMS vs SIS vs LMS

SMS, SIS, LMS - that's a lot of acronyms. These terms are thrown around a lot in the Edtech world, but what do they mean for your school, and how do they differ?

Knowing the difference between these systems can save you from being caught out if your expectations don’t align with what a provider is offering - and will help you avoid the trap of comparing apples to oranges when you are looking to implement a new system or reviewing your existing software environment.

In this month’s blog, we take a look at some of the usual features you will come across in these different systems, how to decipher what system your school currently has and what system would suit the needs of your school.

What is a School Management System? (SMS)

A School Management System, such as TASS, is a comprehensive platform designed to manage the overall financial and administrative functions of a school. It is designed to improve operational efficiency with automation and workflow across operational areas of the school – finance to admin to teaching. An SMS is the best platform for schools where the financial and administrative functions are equally as important. When schools are struggling with disparate systems for finance, payroll, administration and other key functions, an SMS will allow the opportunity to manage these systems into a single platform, streamlining workflows, improving overall efficiency, and reducing administration and IT overheads.

What you should expect to see in an SMS:

What is a Student Information System? (SIS)

As the name suggests, a Student Information System (SIS) focuses specifically on managing student data. Its primary goal is to centralise student information and track academic progress, and is essential for schools that need a robust system to manage and track student data. Some student administration functionality could overlap with an SMS, the focus of the platform is on students and family billing, and other systems are needed to complement the platform for finance and payroll.   These platforms have a strong presence in Australian Government Schools.

What you should expect to see in a SIS:

What is a Learning Management System? (LMS)

Although commonly associated with the systems above, a Learning Management System (LMS) has a different purpose. Designed for teaching staff an LMS helps teachers to organise courses, deliver curriculum, and manage assessment. An LMS is often used in combination with one or more of the systems above, to complete the functions required for the day-to-day education needs of the school.

Schools use LMSs to provide a unified platform for the teaching staff to curate, manage and deliver classroom content for their students. An LMS can assist schools aiming to improve and modernise their teaching methods, enhance the learning experience for students, and increase student engagement. Although an LMS is designed for teachers and the educational experience of the students, there can be some overlap of student administration functions such as attendance, pastoral care, and academic reporting. Choosing the right LMS platform for your school may require you to consider this overlap and look at what your school is focusing on as an initial priority.

What you should expect to see in an LMS:

To help navigate the functional areas of the various platforms SMS, SIS, and LMS we have put together this comparative table to look at the differences and similarities these systems have.

✓ = Typically     / = Sometimes

So, which systems should you be using at your school? There is no right or wrong answer to this, but there are a couple of key things to keep in mind:

Data Integrity / Source of Truth

When evaluating which of these is right for you, keep in mind the importance of having a dedicated location to use as a 'source of truth' for your school's information. For student records, this might be your SIS, but for financials/Parent accounts and billing it may be an entirely separate piece of software.

The advantage of an SMS is that it can often act as the single source of truth for all information, rather than having this spread across multiple systems. This makes it easier to see everything related to a single student, for instance, rather than accessing a SIS for their student record, and going into another system for their parent details.

Having a single source of truth provides consistency and helps prevent discrepancies that can arise when different systems hold conflicting information, for example, when information is updated in one place this should be reflected across all relevant systems and ensures data is accurate and up-to-date. Utilising disparate systems and having no single source of truth, like the chart below, can result in administrative nightmares for staff and incorrect or incomplete data sets.

Integration

Of course, even with all-in-one SMS or an extensive LMS, you will certainly need to leverage school data for other solutions. Whether it is for things like learning analytics, boarding systems, or library software, storing all your data in one place is only useful if you can access it when you need to.

With APIs now a near-universal standard in the software industry, there is no reason that a system should not be able to connect to other solutions securely and efficiently. If you are working with an SMS that does not integrate with other systems, you lose many of the benefits that a ‘single source of truth’ can offer.

A public API program offers even more benefits, with the documentation readily available for schools and other software providers to develop against. This offers schools more flexibility when it comes to how they integrate, and greater choice of who they can integrate with – leaving behind the days of being ‘stuck’ with the only provider that’s partnered with your chosen system.

User Experience

Even where data is shared efficiently between various systems, it is important to consider how information is accessed and updated by your users, as well.

There might not be any issue with transferring contact information between systems, for instance, but if they have multiple places to log into, do your parents know which of them to use for viewing and updating their current details?

If you do require multiple systems, consider implementing an authentication method like Single Sign On (SSO) to make things easier on your school’s parents – or use a dedicated intranet with clear instructions for where to go for what services. We have some more tips on ensuring that your systems contribute to a positive parent community in this blog.

Our advice is to start by looking at what your school needs and what is ‘fit for purpose’, rather than trying to fit your school into the narrow definitions above. Once you have identified what functionality is important to you, you can investigate which SMS, SIS and/or LMS best suits your school, it could be just one or a combination of any.

Are you ready to reassess what platforms are ‘fit for purpose’ in your school? Our TASS team is here to help. Reach out to the team to learn more about how a TASS Solution will connect your whole school community.