SWIS
About SWIS
The School-Wide Information System (SWIS) is a web-based information system designed
to help school personnel to use office referral data to design school-wide and
individual student interventions. The three primary elements of SWIS™ are:
- an efficient system for gathering information
- a web-based computer application for data entry and report generation
- a practical process for using information for decision making
These three elements give school personnel the capability to evaluate individual student behavior, the behavior of groups of students, behaviors occurring in specific settings, and behaviors occurring during specific time periods of the school day. SWIS™ reports indicate times and/or locations prone to elicit problem behaviors, and allow teachers and administrators to shape school-wide environments to maximize students' academic and social achievements.
What is SWIS™?
The School-Wide Information System (SWIS™) is a web-based software system for collecting and summarizing office discipline referrals in schools. The system was developed by University of Oregon faculty in collaboration with elementary, middle (junior high) and high school personnel. The purpose of SWIS™ is to provide schools with accurate, efficient, practical information for decision-making about school-wide discipline.
SWIS™ was developed to be an efficient, reliable and confidential strategy for managing office-discipline referral information. SWIS™ can be used (a) for internal decision making as schools improve their discipline practices, (b) for support plan design with individual students and their families, (c) for reporting to district, state and federal agencies about school outcomes, and (d) as a method of collecting aggregated data across schools.
SWIS™ database is housed on a secure and dedicated server at the University of Oregon, and is managed by a systems operator employed by the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports Technical Assistance Center projects at the University.
Once a SWIS™ account is set up, the school staff enters office discipline referrals onto a protected, web-space. The data may be summarized to provide information about individual students, groups of students, or the entire student body over any specified time period. Both numerical printouts, and graphs (histograms) are created for use in decision-making. While SWIS™ is flexible and can be adapted to the needs of individual schools, the major uses involve monitoring (a) the number of office discipline referrals per month, (b) the type of problem behaviors leading to office referrals, (c) the locations of problem behavior events, (d) problem behavior events by time of day, and (e) the students contributing to office discipline referrals. The system uses a menu-based data entry process that makes data entry and report generation easy and efficient.
The data entered into SWIS™ are protected to ensure that only approved individuals from the school may access the database. Information about SWIS™ and opportunities for adopting SWIS™ may be obtained by contacting one of the following Project Directors: Rob Horner, Jeff Sprague, or George Sugai.
Why use SWIS™?
The design of SWISTM facilitates data-based decisions on queries made about frequency of problem behaviors, locations of problems, types of problems, students involved in problem behaviors and staff making referrals. The design of SWISTM also supports custom queries for specific reports.
How Does SWIS™ Work?
SWIS™ is an information system. That means it is designed to collect and summarize information that is used for decision-making. The heart of SWIS™ is the web-based computer application that allows easy collection, summary and storage of office referral data. However, schools using SWIS™ have also developed the internal skills, and allocated the faculty and staff time to use the information on a regular basis for making behavior support decisions about both individual children and school-wide discipline systems. SWIS™ is more than a computer application. It is a system for improving school-wide behavior support. The time allocated for team meetings, data summary and decision making are as, if not more, important to the success of SWIS™ than the computer application.
SWIS™ Features include:
- Easy control over staff and student information.
- Data entry for students who are involved in problem behavior events.
- Student and staff information is entered one time and available for future use.
- Simple data entry (approximately 30 sec. per referral).
- Comprehensive and standardized referral form for problem analysis.
- Easy accuracy checks for data entry.
- Report options that include graphs and tables for a specified period of time.
- Creatable custom reports and graphs to answer specific questions.
- Multiple security levels.
- Easy navigation.
Name |
Position |
E-mail Address |
Contact Info |
Robert Dimuccio |
Assistant Principal, Hope High School |
456-9161 school |
|
Peg Marcotte |
Principal, Silver Spring Elem |
435-7836 school
|
|
Debbie Hakanson |
Behavior Specialist, Oak Haven Elem |
822-9470 school |
|
Lynn DeMerchant |
PEP Liaison |
456-1942 main |
|
Melissa Dingley |
Psychologist |
647-3361 school 647-3377 school |
|
Donna Ouellette |
Librarian Lonsdale Elementary |
725-4200 school |
|
Peg Votta |
Research Specialist |
222-8412 main |
|
Lavonne Nkomo |
PBIS Coordinator |
456-2763 |
