Spiral Universe provides a software platform for student information

Student information system

A student info system is a software application for education establishments to manage student data. Student information systems provide capabilities for entering student test and other assessment scores through an electronic grade book, building student schedules, tracking student attendance, and...

, learning management

Learning management system

A learning management system is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content...

, and distance learning

E-learning

E-learning comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked learning or not, serve as specific media to implement the learning process...

 applications. The company is based in White Plains, New York

White Plains, New York

White Plains is a city and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...

. The flagship product is called Spiral, an Ajax

Ajax (programming)

Ajax is a group of interrelated web development methods used on the client-side to create asynchronous web applications...

 desktop environment

Desktop environment

In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...

 rich Internet application

Rich Internet application

A Rich Internet Application is a Web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software, typically delivered either by way of a site-specific browser, via a browser plug-in, independent sandboxes, extensive use of JavaScript, or virtual machines...

 (also known as a "webtop") hosted by the company and available for free under the web portal

Web portal

A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....

 or software as a service

Software as a Service

Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common...

 model of charging for support and services. The software is currently in private beta. Features include admissions, assessments, calendar

Calendar

A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...

, course management, e-mail

E-mail

Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

, file storage

File hosting service

A file hosting service, online file storage provider, or cyberlocker is an Internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. Typically they allow HTTP and FTP access. Related services are content-displaying hosting services A file hosting service, online file storage provider, or...

, gradebook

Grade (education)

Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters , as a range , as a number out of a possible total , as descriptors , in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary...

, medical record

Electronic Health Record

An electronic health record is an evolving concept defined as a systematic collection of electronic health information about individual patients or populations...

s, report card

Report card

A report card communicates a student's performance. In most places, the report card is issued by the school to the student or the student's parents twice or four times yearly. A typical report card uses a grading scale to determine the quality of a student's school work...

s and transcript

Transcript (education)

In education, a transcript is an inventory of the courses taken and grades earned of a student throughout a course.- United States :In United States education, a transcript is a copy of a student's permanent academic record which usually means all courses taken, all grades received, all...

s, reporting, and scheduling.

The system is available in several languages in addition to English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, including Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, and Chinese. The company has customers in 100 countries, including Uganda

Uganda

Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...

.

The Arizona Charter Schools Association

Arizona Charter Schools Association

The Arizona Charter Schools Association is a membership and professional organization providing support and services to charter schools in the state of Arizona. The association has partnered with Spiral Universe to provide its student information system to member schools.-References:**...

 has entered into a partnership with the company to provide Spiral's software to its member schools.

Spiral runs on Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...

, Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

, Spring Framework, Tomcat

Apache Tomcat

Apache Tomcat is an open source web server and servlet container developed by the Apache Software Foundation...

, and Ext

Ext (javascript library)

Ext JS is a JavaScript library for building interactive web applications using techniques such as Ajax, DHTML and DOM scripting.Originally built as an add-on library extension of YUI by Jack Slocum, Ext includes interoperability with jQuery and Prototype...

/Google Web Toolkit

Google Web Toolkit

Google Web Toolkit is an open source set of tools that allows web developers to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications in Java. Other than a few native libraries, everything is Java source that can be built on any supported platform with the included GWT Ant build files...

 (GXT). The system uses 128-bit TLS

Transport Layer Security

Transport Layer Security and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer , are cryptographic protocols that provide communication security over the Internet...

 encryption

Encryption

In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...

. All passwords on the system are SHA1 hash protected. Information transferred through the system is protected using RC4

RC4

In cryptography, RC4 is the most widely used software stream cipher and is used in popular protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer and WEP...

 encryption. The software is compatible with the Schools Interoperability Framework

Schools Interoperability Framework

The Schools Interoperability Framework, Systems Interoperability Framework , or SIF, is a data sharing open specification for academic institutions from kindergarten through twelfth grade...

 (SIF). JasperSoft

JasperReports

Teodor Danciu began work on JasperReports in June 2001, the sf.net project was registered in September 2001 and JasperReports 0.1.5 was released on November 3, 2001.JasperReports Version 1.0 was released on July 21, 2005....

is used as a tool for reporting.