Infinite Campus, the Madison School District's new student information system, goes live on Tuesday, August 8.

A student information system is the basic database system for all things related to students in our district, including registration, enrollment, scheduling, attendance, behavior, parent and household information, grading, transcripts, and more.

The new system makes data more accessible to school staff than the previous system. Using a secure connection that is like those used in electronic banking, Infinite Campus directly provides teachers with information about the students they serve.

Teachers will no longer have to contact the office for this information. And because the system runs on the Internet, access can be made from any computer running a web browser, like Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Infinite Campus requires some tasks to be done on the computer, replacing the paper methods used in the past. For example, attendance and grades will be entered by teachers on their computers rather that on scan sheets that are shuttled to the office. All teachers will receive training on or before September 1 in how to log in, navigate in the system, and record attendance. More training will be offered as the school year unfolds.

Parents will have access to the system at some point in the future, most likely sometime in the second semester of the 2006-07 school year. Time is needed to ensure that staff are comfortable using the system and that all student records are completely up to date and accurate.

Those employees whose job requires access to Infinite Campus will receive a user login and password either at a training session they attend prior to the beginning of the school year, or via a secure email message, or both.