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From a conceptual perspective one can easily perceive that education is one of the most relevant triggers towards individual success and social integration (Millán, Congregado, Román, van Praag, & van Stel, 2014). As the educational process becomes increasingly complex and available information and data grows at a fair rhythm, both students and education institutions need to incorporate information systems focused on allowing improved and feasible manner to manage and use existing data and, by consequence, stimulating performance and particularly success (Brabazon, 2016).
In the current digital Era, information-based decision making has become one of the most relevant priorities for those who plan and implement information systems (Branco, Martins, Gonçalves, Bessa, & Costa, 2015; Gonçalves, Martins, & Rocha, 2016). In parallel, and as argued by Dabbagh and Kitsantas (2012), having access to structured and relevant information and knowledge has also become a necessity for both students and education institutions managers.
From a conceptual perspective, Education Management Information System (EMIS) are information systems designed to produce, manage and disseminate educational data and information, and are typically deployed on education institutions as an integrant part of their information technologies structure (Hua & Herstein, 2003; Wako, 2003). This type of information system allows for a dual perspective on its use, a first when being used by those managing the education institutions (thus allowing to achieved the necessary information to make strategic decisions) and a second when EMIS are being used by students to not only manage their education path but also to collect the information necessary to make decisions on their learning activities (Deng & Tavares, 2013) (hence, triggering their learning success (Holsapple & Lee‐Post, 2006)).
Despite the prospect advantages on using EMIS, existing literature is yet limited when providing indication on the determinants that must be taken in consideration when deploying the referred systems and when promoting their use as a tool aimed at addressing both students and education managers necessities (and by inherence, triggering their success). In order to shed some light to this research topic and reaching a formal solution to the detected flaws, the presented research used Balaban, Mu, and Divjak (2013) e-Portfolio systems success model as the basis for an empirical study aimed at perceiving student perceptions on the impact EMIS might have in their personal learning success.
Hence, the main contribute of this paper is to provide for an initial analysis, drawn from the data collected from a minor sample of students from only one university, to the determinants which might impact EMIS success. In order to reach this goal an initial empirical validation has been performed and the achieved results have been analysed at the light of Pearson Correlation technique.
In what concerns the present manuscript organization, it starts by presenting a brief introduction to the research project and is followed by a focused theoretical analysis to existing literature on the educational use of information systems and technologies. The third section presents in a descriptive manner a conceptual model proposal for mimicking EMIS impact on students learning success and overall educational performance. This is followed by a straightforward description on the empirical study performed to reach an initial validation of the referred model. The manuscript is finalized by a conclusions sections were various acknowledgements are described and some limitations, and future work to address them, are highlighted.