[sims] First time using Profiles

[wpjon]

We are using Profiles in SIMS for the first time and finding it very slow for staff to preview their reports.

 

We have a template which has one page per subject which has a few grades along with two free-text comments. The data entry is fine however the SLT want the reports printing by staff to be checked by the head of department before the final reports are printed, so at the moment each member of staff have to preview the report for each pupil in their class and then print the page for their subject.

 

This is causing a couple of problems as it takes about a minute for the report preview to generate and then this produces a document with the students report for all their subjects so the member of staff has to check which page number to print to print their report.

 

Is this normal or is there a better way which I could of set the template/reporting session up.

 

The old system we used was to mail-merge the data into a Word template and staff could then print one document to give to their head of department for checking.

 

Thanks,

 

Jon.

[Sivadam]

Have you considered using the Profiles Review option?

 

If HODs are set up correctly with Curriculum Manager permissions then they can review the Deprtment Profiles without printing the reports!

[wpjon]

We looked at the review part, only the HoDs need to be able to check the whole report including comments and grades from AM7 and to check that it all fits in the template and the review option only provides the comments.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Sivadam]

We looked at the review part, only the HoDs need to be able to check the whole report including comments and grades from AM7 and to check that it all fits in the template and the review option only provides the comments.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

If you are only checking the format then an Administrator could do that.

They are all going to be delivered in the same format so surely only a few need checking for each subject's layout?

[Linfit]

A reasonable compromise might be to use the "Class check sheet " option.

To get to this, open up a class list and click on the first pupil in the class as if you were going to edit the comments.

If you then click Print you get an option to print the check sheet. It prints a check sheet for the whole class just for that subject,

which allows a check that all comments read OK, all sections complete etc, but it does not use the template, so it prints much faster

and does not waste paper.

 

We get one of our Admin support staff to do this for each teaching group and they are then given to the Heads of Dept for checking and

they feed back to the teachers if any corrections are needed. This seperates issues to do with formatting and layout of the report (my problem)

with issues related to the poor literacy of many teachers - NOT my problem, but the cause of many.

[pete]

We ended up creating custom marksheets for reporting after a Profiles trial that went awry and resulted in mutiny because you can't do the review stage in SLG.

[Cache]

We tell staff to use the Class Checking Sheet here and to either print a copy or save the file somewhere for safe keeping, with a strict warning that once the profiles have gone on to the review stage that if they then want a copy of the reports they have written they will have to go through each individual student and pull out the detail they require. I'm really strict with it now after the first few times we went through it staff came to say they hadn't done it and expected me to do it. A couple I didn't mind, but getting more each time starts to wear thin.

 

I think it would be a great and really useful addition to profiles to be able to print a class set of reports off for a subject in the report format, I'm also pretty sure there is a change request on supportnet for it (I can't remember if I created it or it already existed).

 

I do think that the review profiles area might be the way to go, but not sure of the permissions you'd need to set to be able to do it (I don't think ours does, but it does allow HOD's to view Assessment Marksheets)

 

Edit: Take a look at Change Request Numbers 1011-808531, 1112-1016550, 1112-1016551

Edited January 10, 2012 by Cache

[Sivadam]

......but not sure of the permissions you'd need to set to be able to do it (I don't think ours does, but it does allow HOD's to view Assessment Marksheets)

Just add the HODs to the Curricular Manager Group and they will then be able to review the Profiles for their Department!

[wpjon]

Thank you all for your suggestions, HoDs really need to check the report in its template so they can check that staff haven't written too much for the comments as the comment areas are a fixed size. I had suggested using the class check sheet and whilst that would enable HoDs to check spelling and grammar they couldn't check that all the comments fit in the sections and they would also need to check the grades etc separately to make sure the comments reflect the grades.

 

When I saw how slow it was to generate the preview I thought I might have set something up wrong and was a bit suprised that when a subject teacher previews a report it compiles the students complete report for all their subjects, but it appears it is set up correct and hopefully there might be some improvements with Profiles before our next reporting session.

[wpjon]

Thanks @Cache for finding the CRs, two of them were ones I had posted when first looking at this before Christmas (I thought they were familiar when I was reading the description and then noticed I had posted them) and I have voted for the other.

[Conigula]

Cache, It is possible to print class sheets once profiles to review mode. You need to go to Tools\Performance\profiles\Batch Printing of class check sheets from here you can select the session you have switched to review and the classes will appear. You check the ones you require and then print them. Again this only gives you the comments and not the template.