Correct use of aspects in Assessment Manager ?

[iceman]

Hi,

I have the task of data analysis, tracking and target setting. The guy that set up Assessment Manager seems to have made hundreds of aspects for similar data e.g. 'Spring Y11 Maths Effort', Spring Y11 English Effort, 'Autumn Y11 French Effort'.

 

This makes analysis a nightmare. I'm used to building proper relational databases where, using this example, an single effort grade would be identified by a compound key comprising Season, Year & Subject with each grade in a different row, not in a different column with a different name.

 

How is this sort of thing achieved in Assessment Manager 7?

 

Howard

[GrumbleDook]

Sort of replied to this on the newsgroup ...

 

People often forget to put things in via result sets ... I am half tempted to say you should get that side of it sorted first and get the data moved across to give yourself a better chance of not having to fudge things again next year.

 

We have the following result sets .. Year 7 Prog 1 (year 7 progress report number one ... usually done in autumn), Year 7 Prog 2 (progress 2 ... done in Spring), year 7 Full (The full report ... it still contains data similar to that as the progress grades though) ... and then the same for 8 - 13

 

Common aspects in subjects are Target, Predicted Grade, Effort and Homework.

 

This means that we can take the effort across all subjects in on set of reports for a student and get an average ... or we can look at how they have done over the year.

 

Most of that canbe done via excel, but you can now use most of the same formula in Assessment Manager ... and even include conditional formatting so when you have a student that is below target you can have it as red and above target as green ...

 

This is our first year of doing this in SIMS ... and so far I have nearly had a breakdown doing it ... and there have been 3 of us working on it (me initially and then a Maths AST and ICT specialist after the structure has been sorted ... these are reporting veterans and stats gurus ...) and it is a horrible, lenghty and tedious process to set up the marksheets required.

[iceman]

Thank you GrumbleDook, Thats a very good start, at least I know where to start looking. So if I understand correctly you only have one aspect, say 'effort', that you then attach to different results sets that define which particular effort you are talking about is that right?.

 

Will it be possible to translate my inherited aspects into these better ones?

 

Do you know if you can use these result sets in queries (or whatever passes for them in SIMS)?

 

 

(I get nervous when I see menu items called 'focus'. It looks too much like an old fashioned hierarchical database.)

 

Three people doing it! The head told me that he had underused my potential and would I do it - as well as running an ICT faculty with nine staff - on my own, in a school with 1800 pupils. He said I could take a couple of days off if I want. Fine but I've got A level classes to get through exams, he hasn't.

 

Cheers

Howard

[GrumbleDook]

You still need to have the aspect 'effort' for each year and each subject ... but at least if you have result sets it makes it easier to track.

 

Feel free to drop me a line and we can have a chat about the mistakes we made (and boy, did I make some!)

[iceman]

Thanks, sorry for the delay in replying, I've been away in the mountains to relax. Thanks for the offer of contact, When we start back and I start thinking about work again I might well take you up on it.

Howard