Many of these terms overlap heavily and are used inconsistently across markets — what a US school calls an SIS, a UK school calls an MIS, and a Nigerian school may call a school portal. Knowing which term a vendor means is often the difference between comparing two products and comparing two vocabularies.
Platform categories
School management system
Software that handles a school’s administrative operations in one place: student records, enrolment, attendance, timetabling, fees, accounting and reporting. The broadest of the platform terms, and the one most likely to include finance. See school management.
Student information system (SIS)
The US term for the system of record holding student demographic, enrolment, attendance, grade and schedule data. Narrower than a school management system in that it often excludes school finance.
Management information system (MIS)
The UK term for what US schools call an SIS. Functionally similar; the terminology difference is regional rather than substantive, which regularly confuses international procurement.
Learning management system (LMS)
Software for delivering and tracking learning content: courses, materials, submissions, discussion and grading. An LMS is about instruction; an SIS or MIS is about records. Many schools run both and reconcile them by hand, which is the specific pain a combined platform addresses.
School ERP
Enterprise resource planning applied to schools — typically a school management system with strong finance, procurement, inventory and human resources modules. The term is most common in African and South Asian markets.
Assessment terms
Formative assessment
Assessment conducted during learning to inform what happens next. Its purpose is diagnostic, not certifying. A quick end-of-lesson check that changes tomorrow’s teaching is formative; the same quiz recorded as a grade and never acted on is not.
Summative assessment
Assessment at the end of a period of learning that certifies attainment — a terminal examination, an end-of-unit test, a final grade.
Assessment for learning
The practice built around formative assessment: sharing success criteria, questioning to surface misconception, feedback that specifies the next step, and peer and self-assessment.
Mastery tracking
Recording performance against specific curriculum objectives rather than against topics or units, so a report shows which precise skill is insecure. See assessment.
School-Based Assessment (SBA)
Continuous assessment conducted and recorded by the school that contributes to a formal qualification, used notably in Ghana under the NaCCA framework.
Pedagogy and learning design
Pedagogy
The theory and practice of teaching: how instruction is designed, sequenced and delivered, and the reasoning behind those choices.
Pedagogy with AI
Using artificial intelligence to design, adapt and evidence instruction while the teacher retains professional judgement and accountability, anchored to an explicit instructional model and named curriculum standard. See Pedagogy with AI.
Adaptive learning
Software that adjusts the content or difficulty a student receives based on their responses. Distinct from Pedagogy with AI in that the algorithm sets the learning path rather than the teacher.
Competency-based learning
Progression determined by demonstrated mastery rather than by time spent. A student advances when they can do the thing, not when the term ends.
Differentiation
Adjusting instruction, task or support so that students at different starting points can access the same objective.
Constructive alignment
Designing learning outcomes, teaching activities and assessment so that all three target the same capability. Common in higher education course design. See higher education.
Bloom’s taxonomy
A classification of cognitive demand, from remembering and understanding through applying and analysing to evaluating and creating. Used to check that a lesson is not six activities at the same low level.
Data and AI
Learning analytics
Analysis of data about learners and their contexts to understand and improve learning. In practice, the useful subset is analysis that changes a decision someone was about to make.
AI in education
The use of artificial intelligence to support teaching, learning, assessment and administration. See AI in education.
Generative AI
AI that produces new content — text, images, audio, code — rather than classifying or predicting. The category that has forced the reconsideration of take-home assessment.
Multi-tenant SaaS
Software delivered over the internet where each customer’s data is logically isolated within shared infrastructure. It is what allows a ministry to see aggregate data across hundreds of schools while each school controls its own records.
EMIS
Education Management Information System — a national or regional system collecting data from schools for planning and accountability. Ghana operates GES EMIS; Nigeria operates NEMIS.
Compliance
FERPA
The US Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, governing the privacy of student education records.
COPPA
The US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, governing the collection of data from children under 13.
UK GDPR
The UK data protection regime. Schools processing student data are controllers and typically require a Data Protection Impact Assessment for new systems.
NDPR
The Nigeria Data Protection Regulation, governing personal data processing in Nigeria.
Ofsted Education Inspection Framework
The framework under which schools in England are inspected, structured around curriculum intent, implementation and impact. See United Kingdom.
ESSA
The US Every Student Succeeds Act, which requires disaggregated reporting of attainment and other measures by student subgroup. See United States.