Shrinking budgets and increased staff demands have districts nationwide assessing their edtech solutions. From managing student enrollment and forms to delivering classroom lessons, your edtech investments should benefit your staff and students, delivering value that justifies their costs. Measuring the value your school receives from its edtech products can help identify opportunities for consolidation and reductions in spending.
Evaluating your edtech tools involves five different areas for assessment. If a tool performs well in most, it’s likely worth retaining. If it consistently underperforms, exploring alternatives may be necessary. To help, we’ve put together five methods you can use to assess the third-party SIS technology your district currently uses.
Understanding the Cost of Third-Party Edtech Solutions
Before diving into how to assess your software tools, it’s essential to understand the impact third-party solutions can have on your budget and user experience. Multiple third-party solutions might seem efficient to handle disparate functions within your district’s operations, but inefficiencies and costs of disconnected solutions can add up.
Third-party edtech solutions typically have licensing fees, support contracts, and training requirements. These fees quickly accumulate, driving up costs that are compounded by having to manage products provided by numerous vendors. Managing multiple systems also creates technology and data silos, making it harder for staff to access the information they need and resulting in slower processes.
By having a clear picture of the costs of their edtech solutions, districts can determine how much they can reduce spending by consolidating their edtech tools; an appealing option covered at the end of this blog.
1. Adoption and Usage
Evaluating adoption and usage rates can highlight how well the edtech tools function and help you measure their importance in daily operations. When usage rates are high, it shows that staff are accessing the software, and that the product plays an important role in them carrying out their responsibilities. Conversely, low adoption rates can indicate usability issues or that the software isn’t crucial for daily operations.
You can also conduct surveys to gather satisfaction scores. These scores can be particularly beneficial if you’re implementing a new tool. Software satisfaction scores allow districts to identify areas where their tools meet or fall short of user expectations. Gathering feedback enables quick adjustments and can help improve both adoption and user satisfaction.
2. Return on Investment
When assessing the return on the financial investment made for your edtech tools, you should compare the upfront cost and ongoing fees to hard and soft cost savings such as supplies and staff time savings. For example, suppose you’re evaluating your online enrollment platform that was implemented to replace traditional paper-based enrollment. You should compare the purchase cost and annual fees of your new software against the old costs of paper, mail, printing, and the time sink of manual data entry.
3. Alignment with District Goals
Assessing whether your edtech solutions support your district’s strategic plan and goals is also an important way to determine their value. You should continuously consider if your edtech tools are helping your district progress towards its goals.
For example, if one of your district’s goals is to make data and reports more accessible, implementing a data analytics solution that makes data easier for key stakeholders to access could be a worthwhile focus. Although this may increase your district’s spending, the long-term benefits of enhancing student success could make it an important investment.
4. Integration Capabilities
Another key factor in evaluating your edtech software is its ability to integrate with other administrative and instructional tools and platforms. Your edtech products should connect with one another to share data commonly used data such as student rosters and grades.
Integration streamlines operations and reduces the need for redundant tools, which can increase costs. If your current solutions require extensive workarounds to share data across systems, it may be time to consider new options with stronger integration capabilities.
5. Scalability and Future-Proofing
As your district evolves, so should your edtech tools without having time-intensive overhauls or costly upgrades. As your district evaluates its software, assess how much room for growth your current solutions provide. Scalable tools allow you to adapt to changes in student population, state reporting requirements, and technological advancements without compromising performance or requiring a system replacement or significant changes to upgrade to a new product version.
Future-proofing your technology also means looking for a vendor that regularly updates its software to align with the latest industry standards, data privacy laws, and user needs. Choosing scalable and future-proof edtech tools ensures long-term efficiency and avoids the disruptions that come with outgrowing a system.
Ways to Reduce Edtech Spending
Once you’ve evaluated the edtech software your district uses, the next step is to determine if you are paying for non-essential products that your district can go without. During this part of the assessment phase, the focus should be determining what tools are not widely adopted, have high costs and are not advancing your district’s goals. Consider eliminating or replacing those products at the top of this list.
Consolidating multiple products under a single vendor that offers an integrated suite of solutions is another effective way to reduce spending and increase edtech adoption. With a comprehensive edtech suite, your district can reduce spending and eliminate the inefficiencies of managing multiple systems. This consolidation helps reduce licensing and support fees, streamlines training and daily use for staff, and ultimately saves time and money.
A Comprehensive SIS Suite
In a time of limited resources, regularly evaluating your edtech solutions is essential to ensure you get the most value for your investment. Consolidating tools and aligning your software with district goals will save money and improve staff and student experiences.
For districts in California looking to maximize their budgets and improve user experiences, our Q Student Information System might be a great fit. Our SIS is backed by a local support team and designed to help educators save time to focus on what’s most important-educating students.
If you’re interested in learning more about our SIS solutions, contact us today.