Never ending data... but what's it all worth?

[Pico]

I have made a web page available to staff through the MIS. What they access is actually an SSRS report and it displays various links depending upon their role. So, for example, a teacher will see a list of their sets, a Head of Department will see all the subjects in their department, a form tutor will see their form groups and so on. These lists are all links, so the teacher clicks on the link to see the details for that set, subject or form group. A Head of Department, for example, will see a summary of the A*-C grades and residuals for each of their subjects in each year group. They can see that broken down by set as well if they want. If the information displayed includes a list of student names, they can click on the name of the student and see the details for that student.

 

Basically, what you see is role-dependent, so a form tutor will see an overview of how a student is doing across all subjects, but a set teacher will only see their own grades for just the students in their set. It's a bit rough and ready at the moment, but I think the basic idea is sound.

 

The usability problem is that sometimes there is a lot of information that teachers want to see side by side. I guess I'm lacking some ideas as to how to get some of this information across in a way that is meaningful, fits on the screen, and answers the questions that they are implicitly asking. I've been given some report designs that I've implemented that I actually think are disastrous on screen. Sometimes they are not so bad on paper, but flipping through a decently formatted print out is often quicker than paging through screens of display, especially if you are trying to use that information at the same time as fill in an electronic form. May be there is an additional issue about the difference between reading on screen and on paper, though that may depend on the kind of screen you are working with. I guess my instinct is that there are better and worse ways of designing these reports and that I just need to find out what the better ways are. Or, to give an analogy, I wouldn't call myself a web designer, not necessarily because I lack the technical skills, but because I lack the design skills.

 

And, of course, this is all bound up with what teachers, at various levels, are trying to use the data for. Unfortunately, right now it seems I'm just supposed to know this!

[Pico]

@NormalDistribution I've now finally gotten permission to go ahead and implement a version of your report design in our academic tracking from September, so very many thanks for that.

[Mark_VdB82]

Hi

 

What essentially is done in Excel to create this data view - is it some kind of programming or is it all based on 'if' or 'lookup' formula?

 

Thanks

[NormalDistribution]

10% planning how it is going to look - i drew it on a piece of paper first

 

10% taking care of your column widths to ensure that something at the top doesn't make something unworkable at the bottom

 

30% consulting with staff to see if it meets their needs

 

50% Excel IF and VLOOKUP formulas

[skunk]

@NormalDistribution I have just printed that out and put it on the wall, a very nice piece of work. Thinking of basing some of our exam analysis on it this summer. What does your student view look like?

[NormalDistribution]

It looks like this:

 

http://i41.tinypic.com/2zq4g2v.jpg

 

There is a filter which passes through the class code from the front sheet that filters this sheet when the "view students" button is clicked.