[sims] Reports, getting the department for a subject (or subjects in a department)?

[iceman]

Using SIMS reports I'm exporting loads of stuff for analysis and reporting via another system I'm building and so need to match up things like results to student or subject to result.

 

So far its going OK but I now need the my application to group subject results by department and I'm stumped on how to get a SIMS report of department names and subjects - or department name and anything else for that matter - or even get a simple list of departments names!

 

I've gone through what things can get reported in every focus I can think of and can't find Department or Faculty mentioned anywhere.

 

The concept of Department must exist as its used for timetabling, but how can I make a report that tells me what subjects names or subject codes are in which department?

 

(If it can be done, how about which staff are in which department as well?)

[CAM]

SIMS uses subjects, not departments. You can assign a Head of Department in Course Manager but it's just used for setting permissions in Assessment.

 

Students and teachers are assigned to a class. Classes are assigned to a course. Courses are permanently linked to a subject.

 

Example: Joe Bloggs has membership of the class 10A1/Ma. 10A1/Ma is assigned to the course Maths(GCSEF) which automatically assigns Joe to the course. Maths(GCSEF) is assigned to the subject Maths.

 

Subjects can be modified in Tools -> Setups -> Subjects (BUT I RECOMMEND YOU DON'T TINKER WITH ANYTHING HERE UNLESS YOUR SUPPORT TEAM TELLS YOU TO).

[iceman]

Thank you,

Yes I was beginning to suspect that. I have argued for many years that the data team & timetabler should make much better use of course mananager and try to separate, both in their minds and also in SIMS, the concept of 'course' from that of 'examination title' in order to make the analyses they subsequently want me to do even remotely possible.

 

Although I have admin rights to SIMS, my main role is in the mathematical processing of what gets put in there, not the day to day setting up. So I tend to advise others in what's best to do, not directly tinker myself. Oh well it looks like if they want reports by department then I shall have to hold the mapping of departments to subjects in a table of my own making which they populate as they wish each year.

 

I am sure this table will have to be edited each year as the timetabler has a habit of inventing new 'subjects' and class codes ad hoc to make the timetable work, without really considering whether these are really already part of an existing subject, already belong to an existing course or even letting me know they've done it.

 

So then when they want a report of all grades given in the Applied Mathematics department they wonder why I ask if DT is a subject within the Applied Mathematics department and if the separate subjects of Design, Food, Engineering etc are for reporting purposes, in fact all the same subject as DT!