(SIMS) Data Checking! What is your method?

[andrewdeegan]

Good morning,

 

I have read some old threads about data checking on this website but I am wondering if anyone has any easier ways to check data staff have inputted in SIMS.

 

I currently manually check each marksheet to check the required data has been inputted by staff.

 

This is a long process.

 

Does anyone have any quicker ways to check data?

 

Ps. I cannot trust staff to tick the button on SIMS when the data has been entered.

 

Thanks, and have a great holiday (If you get a holiday)

 

Andrew

[vikpaw]

Get management support and change the onus onto them, their colleagues and Head of Departments!

We had a cycle of peer review, it was manual print and proof read, but it ensures data was there.

Also, online or on paper HoDs should have oversight. It's not really up to you to find gaps. They are professionals who should be able to fill out a form to a deadline.

If you must do it, it will depend on your setup and structure. Perhaps a report to count up how many grades / entries there are against a student, or how many comments are entered.

You could also build a large global marksheet with multiple bits of data on them, this is great for lower years, but no so easy when they start having options and not everyone does all subjects.

[andrewdeegan]

I thought of creating a marksheet with all the required fields. This is workable for KS3 but not for KS4 because I cannot add multiple classes to a marksheet to check which students should have data.

 

Or is that possible without exporting them and uploading them to an aspect?

[vikpaw]

You can have all students of a year applied.

It's a little long winded, but you could associate the global marksheet with a course, so e.g. chemistry, and apply a group filter so you only see those kids. Marksheet set at year level. It's all configured in the template screen.

 

You can also view the marksheet from within template definition screens, so you don't need to jump around. Also if you show analysis, or whatever the button is that gives you averages and counts at the bottom, that can also be useful.

You'd just have to check, close, change the course, save and then re-open.

[vikpaw]

Also see this great method: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/165977-missing-marks-report-report-template.html#post1422395

[SouthCoastSaint]

I have a subject list for each year. On deadline day, I go through each subject marksheet and check if complete, cross subject off my list if it is, make a note of the class codes & teachers if not. That way I have a starting point when I check again. When my DHT asks how data is going I have a list to hand with all offenders showing in one place.

 

Not quick, but quicker than printing and seeing gaps too late.

 

When I last used the missing grades report, it didn't really work for us as it showed duplicate results for subject leaders and class teachers. Has this improved since does anyone know?

[ajp233]

When I was a Data Manager I set my marksheets up with formula columns to check that all required data had been entered. The final column in the marksheet was a validation column that went green and displayed 'OK' if all data for the student had been entered and red (with an appropriate message) if there was data missing.

 

For example if one of the pieces of information staff had to enter was a grade then I had a hidden formula grade tally column that would return 1 if one of the allowed grades had been entered. I also had a hidden 'zero' column and then did a sum of the grade tally column and the zero column. I would repeat this for each piece of data that was required and have a final sum column that was the sum of the 'sum' columns. Therefore if staff had to enter 3 pieces of data the final sum of sum column should return a 3 if everything had been entered. A final (nested) if then else could generate a validation message based on the sum of sums result.

[Ecclesbury]

I don't think you'd need a separate Grade Tally column for each aspect. You can just have 1 column and include all the possible types of grade in the Grade box and select all aspects. I don't use a zero column myself...is the purpose of this to make sure it flags up red if there is nothing entered at all?

 

Another option here is to set up big summary marksheets. So I have a marksheet for all subject grades and targets for a whole year group. If you open this and use the summary button you can get a quick glance of where the gaps are. Even with comments you can use this just to have a quick visual scan of where the gaps are. The benefit of this is that you can identify the subjects where everything is complete. Once you know which subjects have gaps you can go to the individual markbooks (very quick if you have you category associations set up well) and then scan through the marksheets to see which teacher is missing grades. I find that this approach means that I can identify which teachers have missing data in well under an hour (probably under half an hour_ even though it is effectively manual checking.

[vikpaw]

That's the large global marksheet that I was talking about. For option subjects it needs some filtering, though I guess if you know how many classes are running / students have taken each option looking at the summary would also work well.