The Register of Individual Student Contact
(RISC) v8

The Register of Individual Student Contact (RISC) system is a purpose-built database developed specifically for the recording of details of all individual student contact (incidents) by school staff.

RISC can be used to track individual issues of student discipline and welfare on one hand as well as commendations and merit on the other. It provides an excellent reference tool when decisions need to be made regarding individual students. Details of meetings with students and/or parents can be recorded, detention logs kept, individual correspondence to a student's parents can be bother generated and tracked and specific issues involving police or media contact can be stored.

With its powerful reporting and contact archiving module, RISC can store each individual student contact over each student's school career. Many schools store thousands of contacts using RISC each semester.

RISC is professionally designed and developed by information technology specialists and input towards its design made by school executive staff, teachers and counsellors. With direct links to the New South Wales (Australia) OASIS Admin System, the Victorian (Australia) CASES21 Admin System (based on MAZE) and a general ASCII import function, RISC can be made to work with your school's current administration program.

RISC is a Windows-based application which is designed so that features, speed, ease of use and value for money are the highest priorities.  We invite you to find out more about RISC by reading specific details about RISC below, taking the Virtual Tour and reviewing Comments received from schools.

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• RISC is a fully network-ready, multi-user relational database for Windows.
• With Windows or Novell networks, RISC can be simultaneously made available to multiple users such as the Principal, Deputy Principal, Leading Teacher, Counsellor, Head Teachers & Year Advisers - or even to every staff member at school!
• With RISC running across a LAN, security access can be allocated so sensitive data and the RISC system itself is only made available to appropriate staff. Read-only access can also be made available.
• Of course, RISC will also run very effectively on a standalone computer, but it really excels on a network.
• RISC contains user-definable field names and user-definable lookups for Officer, Contact Category, Type and Status. You can make the system run exactly the way you want it to run.
• A link to OASIS Admin, CASES21 (Maze) is provided to allow for the transfer of Student details into RISC. This link can be used whenever newcomers or leavers are entered into OASIS/CASES21/MAZE to refresh the RISC database.
• If your school does not use OASIS, CASES21 or MAZE, two different ASCII (comma-delimited) upload facilities are provided with RISC which can be made to work with most database systems.
• RISC is probably the most flexible student incident tracking system on the market.  With seven user-definable fields and Lookup Tables, you can set RISC to track what you want and how you want.  You are not locked into one school's perception of student incident tracking as with other systems available.
• Sensitive contacts can be entered into RISC and marked 'confidential'. Access to the details of these contacts can only be made using a password. This ensures confidentiality where necessary.
• Data entry is made quick and simple with the use of a Shortcuts Lookup. Define your own common-use Codes, Phrases and Sentences and pop them straight into the Contact Description and Action fields with a couple of clicks of the mouse.
• A 'smart' Clear Form button allows for the quick entry of multiple contacts for different students, but with the same contact details. For example, if five students were found together outside school grounds during school time, five contacts can be entered into RISC as simply as typing up the first student's contact and then simply selecting the other four students' names, saving the already completed contact, one at a time.
• The RISC database offers sophisticated searching facilities using either single or multiple selection parameters as well as keywords or string searches. For example, you can quickly find all occurrences of graffiti by Year 9 students between any two dates.
• Hardcopy reporting for individual students for inclusion in student records.
• All reports/queries can be filtered by a specific date range.
• The RISC Form Letters module provides professional-quality customised form letters. This module integrates RISC with Microsoft Word to allow you to easily define up to 200 of your own form letters then simply merge RISC data into them. For example, if the school's standard action after a student has been found smoking at school is to send a personalised and fully addressed letter home to parents, RISC will do this with just seven clicks of the mouse. Simple! This is what you have been looking for!
• All the functionality of MS Word is available for your use, so your RISC Form Letters can include tables, images, columns, headers and footers, spelling and grammar checking and much more!
• As well as form letters being a product of contacts, all letters sent are tracked automatically and reports on all (or selected) letters sent available.
• The RISC MailMerge Wizard allows you to compose a form letter and send a personalised version of the letter in one go to multiple students grouped by grade/roll class/homegroup and/or gender.
• The Contact Reports Module allows you to attach a detailed report to any contact, and that report stays with the contact from then on. For example, a normal contact can be typed up and saved, but if there is a need for more information to be stored than that which fits in the Contact Description and/or Action fields, a Contact Report can be attached. This feature also uses MS Word as in the Form Letters Module, and allows for pages of notes to be attached to any contact. These notes can then be printed, saved, recalled, edited and archived. You can even search for contacts with attached reports, and the reports can use merged fields from the RISC database.
• The RISC PhotoCapture! utility allows schools to easily and automatically attach a photo of each student to their RISC record.  Using an inexpensive USB WebCamera, the photos can be taken and attached into RISC at the rate of two per minute (or faster).
• Statistical reporting allows the school executive to gather information by categories, contact types, form letters sent, groups of students or staff and status.  All of these reports are automatically displayed in MS Excel for further manipulation, formatting and printing.
• Multiple Search results can be combined in the one report or export file.
• Selected RISC data can be quickly exported into Excel, Access or Works etc.
• RISC contains a powerful archiving feature that allows data to be archived each year for easy future reference. Archived databases are always on-line and can be accessed by a simple menu selection.  A student's record can be maintained for the whole time they are at your school.
• RISC can store thousands (max. 64,000) of records of student contact in each database.
• An Auto-Backup function helps protect the main RISC database.

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• RISC indexes each student name and each officer name, so all searches involving a student or officer are almost instant.
• Even with 10,000 individual student contacts in the RISC database, a search for all occurrences of contacts with a particular student will only take a few seconds.
• The custom relational database management system built-into RISC helps make access as quick as possible.
• RISC appears like any standard Windows application with pull-down menus, pick-lists and dialogue boxes. It is both intuitive and efficient.
• The installation procedure for RISC is fully automated for either a fileserver or standalone PC.
• Help Screens are available to guide the user through the main functions of RISC.
• A Help Status Line is displayed at the bottom of the RISC screen to provide instructions to the user for whatever the mouse is pointing to.
• A newly rewritten comprehensive on-line Help System fully documents all functions in RISC.
• This website contains an up to date Help Desk facility which provides details of common problems sometimes faced by new users. The Help Desk fully describes the problems as well as solutions.
• Creating and merging Form Letters using MS Word and RISC is much easier than doing the same thing using MS-Word alone!
• Marillion Designs offers a FREE Fax or E-mail Support Line if you come across any problems when installing or running RISC.

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• Since 1995, RISC is still the best-priced network-ready, specific-purpose, tailored application to assist with student administration and management available.
• Specially designed for schools use and tailorable by schools to their individual requirements, RISC is a professionally developed product that runs on industry-standard networks, workstation and operating environments. This ensures a long life for the application.
• Government, Catholic and Independent Schools can purchase the complete RISC system for only A$500 plus GST. This entitles the school to either install RISC on standalone PCs or on a fileserver in the school. If installed on a fileserver, you are allowed to use RISC on as many workstations as you like without a separate charge for each concurrent user. For example, you can install RISC on a fileserver and provide simultaneous access to the Principal, Deputy, Counsellor and ALL other staff if desired - all for only A$500! Many schools have all staff accessing RISC for this one-off low price. In these situations, RISC pays for itself very quickly.
• Postage and handling for RISC is only A$5.00 - anywhere in the world (included in the $500 price)!
• As you can see, pricing for RISC is very competitive and represents excellent value for money.

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Operating System/Environment:

• Microsoft Windows 98SE / NT4 / ME / 2000 / XP / Vista
• Only works with Intel iMac / iBook / MacBook if using Windows under Bootcamp or Parallels

Computer/Workstation:

• Works with minimum Windows configuration - no special requirements
• Suggested minimum system - Win XP/Pentium 4/512MB RAM/4GB hard disk
• Designed for performance enhancement with Windows 2000, XP and Vista
• Microsoft Word 2000 or later is required for Form Letters/Reports
• Microsoft Excel 2000 or later is required for Exports/Reports

Networking Options (directly supported):

• Novell Netware 3.x/4.x/5.x/6.x
• Microsoft Windows NT Server v4 or later
• Microsoft Windows 200x Professional
• Microsoft Windows Terminal Services
• Citrix WinFrame / WinCentre
• Microsoft Windows Peer to Peer Networking
• Linux Server running Samba
• Protocols supported - TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, NetBEUI, NetBIOS

Printing:

• Any MS Windows-compatible printer (networked or local)
• Laser printer recommended for Form Letters and Contact Reports

Disk Space and Limitations:

• Space required for RISC software - 6MB
• Space required for RISC Data - 1MB per 850 contact records registered
• Maximum No. of Contacts per database - 64,000
• Maximum No. of Contact Databases - 11 (1 x Current, 10 x Archived)
• Maximum No. of Form Letter Masks - 200
• Maximum No. of Contact Reports - 1 per saved Contact record
• Maximum No. of Registered Users per system -120

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The Register of Individual Student Contact (RISC) is developed & distributed
by Marillion Designs.

Copyright © 1995-2008 Marillion Designs. All rights reserved.
Information in this document is subject to change without notice.
Other products and companies referred to herein are trademarks
or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

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