The Skolplattform, which has cost more than 1 billion Swedish Krona, SEK, ($117 million), has failed to match its initial ambition. Parents and teachers have complained about the complexity of the system—its launch was delayed, there have been reports of project mismanagement, and it has been labelled an IT disaster. The Android version of the app has an average 1.2 star rating.

A pity that the parents’ open source alternative was originally so negatively received by the officials, but good that in the end there was acceptance. It goes to show though that with open data APIs, some tremendous innovation and improvements can be made available. There is nothing wrong with having two or three alternative apps to use. Application Program Interfaces (API) just need to differentiate between public data to be used vs data that an authenticated individual is allowed to access.

See https://www.wired.com/story/sweden-stockholm-school-app-open-source/

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