Fujitsu launches cloud service to lighten workload of educators

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Fujitsu on Monday launched its Education Solution K-12 Administration Support, a new cloud service that lightens the administrative workload of educators at elementary and middle schools, while at the same time providing a secure environment for tracking student data.

The new service allows educators to keep digital records of day-to-day student information, including attendance records, test scores, and comments about students. In turn, this information can be employed as basic data for use in students’ report cards and other student records. With the inclusion of technology for recognizing handwritten numbers, developed by Fujitsu Laboratories Limited and Fujitsu Research and Development Center Co of China, users can scan graded test sheets with a scanner or multifunction printer, and the written scores in the score boxes will automatically be recognized. This is the first solution in the industry to offer such test result input and tabulation functionality.

As a result, the new service helps lighten the administrative workload for educators so they can instead focus on their primary duty of teaching students. In addition, by centrally managing and visualizing student data, it is possible for educators to collaborate among themselves on instruction, and for detailed feedback to be given to guardians. Since the student information is stored in a cloud environment, it is also protected in the event of a disaster, thereby helping schools to quickly resume operations.

The New Strategy in Information and Communications Technology Roadmap, published by the Japanese government’s IT Strategic Headquarters, sets forth the goal of deploying administrative support systems in every school in Japan by 2020. In light of this, public elementary and middle schools have been exploring ways in which they can provide their faculty with computers and how they can take advantage of administrative support systems.

At the same time, most teachers today still mark and record student materials by hand. Not only does this kind of day-to-day administrative work place a heavy burden on instructors, but it has also made it difficult to efficiently take advantage of daily collected student data.