Ecclesbury Posted December 3, 2013 Posted December 3, 2013 I was just reading the blog of @NormalDistribution and wondered whether there are any other data manager types out there with a blog? Post your links here! I'm also considering starting a blog of my own, but am unsure that kind of thing that might be worth posting about. I always have variuos data managery things spinning around in my head and no one to waffle at, so maybe I should just use it as a place to off load my more persistant ramblings (think Kurt Vonnegut in Breakfast of Champions) What kind of blog posts would data managers here be interested in here? Sharing techniques like @NormalDistrubtion's excellent excel tools? Sharing thoughts about government changes? Sharing MIS tips and tricks? General thoughts on the state of the world? First world problems? Anyone else thinking of starting a blog? As I'm probably making clear, I've never blogged before so it's all new to me!
Mark_VdB82 Posted December 3, 2013 Posted December 3, 2013 I've been thinking of starting one but not really sure how best to go about it or how useful anything I discuss will be. As you say it could be specific thoughts on a change to the education system, a day in the life of, tools to share that one finds useful. The possibilities are endless I guess.....
NormalDistribution Posted December 3, 2013 Posted December 3, 2013 Happy to collaborate on anything. I'm decent in excel but pretty pants at MIS, so I'd appreciate MIS tips. One I picked up the other day was that you can use % as a wildcard when searching in SIMS, so when you are looking for say an attendance marksheet but are unsure on it's exact name you can search for %attendance and it will return search results for anything that contains the word attendance, the difference being if you searched for attendance it would have to start with the word attendance for the search to be returned. A day in the life sounds good, as does tips for newcomers. Must be overwhelming with all the changes to be a newcomer at the moment. Tips on how to get teachers to use data. A results day survival kit etc. All would be interesting, we are a niche group but we can be a good niche group. I think a general problem with data managers is that they are unique to their school, can be lonely, or not lonely but you yearn to talk with someone who has the same outlook / work issues / etc.
NormalDistribution Posted December 3, 2013 Posted December 3, 2013 Other data blogs I like: Wrestling with the Data Genie | In praise of great use of school performance data – Mike Bostock An Overflow of Ideas | Reflections on educational advancement dataeducator | Data, data everywhere, no time to stop and think :-) #ilovedata | head like a sponge
jrma91 Posted December 4, 2013 Posted December 4, 2013 @NormalDistribution This is why I love this group! I never know what if your put in % in the search bar that it would do that!! It will make my life so much easier when looking for for templates that I rarely use can can't remembe the names of! Or even when I want to have the the marksheets of certain reports up!
ICTLady Posted December 4, 2013 Posted December 4, 2013 Oh! @NormalDistribution, I didn't know that either! The hours I have wasted looking for aspects/templates created by my predecessor..... *blows kiss to NormalDistribution* As a newbie myself, it would be fantastic to have some insight into how other DMs cover those big tasks that we all have to do: results day, exams analysis, ALPS/FFT estimates (where do you put them in SIMS and how, how do you use them) etc. Sharing best practice, good ideas etc. I find that I glean most of my knowledge about changes in education from on here or SupportNet, as well as heads-up about big jobs coming up. Any and all information about that sort of thing is extremely helpful - I'm from a data background, not an education one, so the intricacies of performance tables etc are all new to me.
Ecclesbury Posted December 4, 2013 Posted December 4, 2013 Does anyone else use the 'Catagories' sections of assessment manager to tag all of their templates/grade sets/aspects? It can seem daunting at first to set them all up (although the Tools>Performance section helps hugely) but every since I spent the time tidying them all up I have found them incredibly useful. ...perhaps I should write a blog post about it!
QWERTY72 Posted December 4, 2013 Posted December 4, 2013 The "category" section is really useful, IF you use it correctly and consistently:) I have been setting up new categories to my requirements (Tools>Performance>Assessment>Category), but I never noticed the following path Tools>Performance>Assessment>System Utilities>Templates>Modify the Category association for a selection of Templates (and you can add to or overwrite an existing association). Thank you Ecclesbury for that. Now I only need some chunk of time to tidy up those templates etc. where the category wasn't used consistently
LosOjos Posted December 4, 2013 Posted December 4, 2013 Categories are great, can really speed things up. I have to export a load of marksheets for printing every term (I know, I know!) and being able to tick a box to filter down to just the ones I need saves loads of time. Also useful with aspects, I set up a category for my in house reporting system so that it's simply a case of putting an aspect in that category to make my system pick up its results, rather than manually specifying each aspect in code. Saved a hell of a lot of time and makes maintenance much easier. TL;DR: Categories are an often overlooked gem! BTW - I have a website, Geek Josh ←, but I rarely ever get around to posting anything on it. The only things I think would be useful data wise are the KS5 Facilitating Subjects CSV (KS5 Facilitating Subjects QAN List in TSV Format ← Geek Josh) and perhaps some of the tools posted in programs (I really need to add some more of my SIMS specific stuff to the site, I'm just so lazy when I leave work!) Software ← Geek Josh
ICTLady Posted December 4, 2013 Posted December 4, 2013 Ah, I use categories for my Aspects but hadn't thought of using them for templates and other stuff. Another job to add to the list for a quiet moment.
SouthCoastSaint Posted December 6, 2013 Author Posted December 6, 2013 My tip from capita forums this week was export marksheet unformatted, unhide first column and lo and behold the UPNs appear. (Have no idea why they can't be added as additional field, but glad to know this after all this time anyway)!
CAM Posted December 6, 2013 Posted December 6, 2013 Where did you get that tip? My unformatted exports don't have any hidden columns.
LosOjos Posted December 6, 2013 Posted December 6, 2013 @CAM - I think @SouthCoastSaint has it backwards, formatted sheets contain the UPN in column A (hidden by default), unformatted don't. I hate inconsistency in SIMS!
gazskeltz Posted December 6, 2013 Posted December 6, 2013 I think that may have been one of my tips...
CaterinaAnna Posted December 6, 2013 Posted December 6, 2013 That's what I like about being here, always something worth 'hearing'! Thank you for the tips.
SouthCoastSaint Posted December 7, 2013 Author Posted December 7, 2013 Whoops, sorry my bad. I meant formatted, (which I never normally use). Now I can see UPNs I may use them more. But still - UPNs def should be a selectable field.
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