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Comment by btipling | Hacker News Reader

It's probably not important to them, as I'm not their target audience but I looked at their home page and their about page and that techcrunch article and still have no idea what they do.

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Sounds to me like they provide an API for "5-minute SIS Integration for Educational Applications" (from their home page) and that an SIS is an "information system [that] capture[s] and store[s] data on students — from class lists and attendance to grades" (from the TC article).

Yeah I guess their target audience would know what those things are. That's why I hedged my comment. I'm glad they're doing well, obviously doesn't seem to be a problem for them.

They provided a "vertical network" for K-12 Education data (your kids' test and homework scores), similar to what companies like Ariba and CommerceOne provided for manufacturers and what Facebook and Twitter provide for Advertisers.

One of the major pains in the butt for a teacher is getting students set up on a learning web app. Either you spend a bunch of your own time making an account for each student (which is time you could spend doing something more important) or you spend a bunch of class time having students sign up for the accounts during your teaching period (which is time you and they could spend doing something more important).

If a web app had a secure API to include all of my class lists automatically, I'd be much more likely to use it.

The killer app for SIS is "support for 200-row CSV upload" ?!

Clever is an SIS: student information system. The SIS we use at my school is a web app that integrates all the database functions you might associate with schools: scheduling, grading, attendance, discipline, etc.

Ours is ugly but functional.

edit: Apparently I misunderstood what I read. Sorry.

Thanks for the comment, pflats. We've seen our fair share of ugly SISes!

Clever actually isn't an SIS, though--we provide an API/integration layer that sits on top of the SIS.

We think SISes are great at a lot of things (state reporting, for example). Providing a nice interface for developers is not one of those things.

I definitely see the appeal here. Do you have any plans to give schools an on-site solution, rather than use your servers? Do you do this? Your site is rather light on details.

My thoughts exactly. I can't find a single place on their site where they define what an SIS is.

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