What is the difference between academic software and administrative software?

Answer 1

Academic software is purchased and used by the instructional side of a college's employee's, for instance the faculty as a teaching tool or for students by installations in labs. Administrative software is purchased and used by the staff side of a college's employees, for instance administrative personnel (president, directors, vp's, provosts) and classified staff (IT technician, registrar, admin aides, faculty on their office computers, etc). Typically you classify software as academic if it is used in an instructional manner, and all other is administrative. The same software title can be classified both ways. For instance, Dragon Naturally Speaking can be installed on an employee's computer (administrative) as a disability necessity for the employee to perform their duties. It can also be installed in a lab or classroom (academic/instructional) for a student with disabilities to utilize for their studies. Thirdly it could be installed on a workstation, say in the Ecuation Department, to use as a teaching and training tool to give familiarity to students learning to become teachers so that they are trained on it for use once they graduate (instructional/academic installation). The word Instructional is interchangeable with Academic in this particular discussion, some college's and university's use one over the other.