[sims] Converting UMS Marks to Grades in SIM's

[Steven_Cleaver]

Hi

 

Is their any easy way to create a Grade Aspect in SIM's to convert UMS marks to a Grade so something like 240, 239, 238 etc to 201 all equals A* 200, 199, 198 to 180 equals B etc. Without having to list each integer. So link a grade to a Value Range A* to 240-201 etc or a difefrent way of doing this.

Edited January 15, 2013 by Steven_Cleaver

[vikpaw]

Yes, that is exactly how the aspect would work. You only need enter the grades i.e. A*-E and then the points value for each would be a suitable grade boundary. So in your example A* = 201 any thing that isn't that high falls down to the next lowest. So you could put A = 191, B = 181.

[Steven_Cleaver]

Cheers Vikpaw your a Star, thanks the reason we are looking at this is we have always had a central system for Assessment\Progress based on reports three times a year and this is really well used year but classes and subjects do their own module tracking and progress in their own systems but we want to do this in SIM's.

 

Thanks again Vikpaw really appreciatted.

Edited January 16, 2013 by Steven_Cleaver

[vikpaw]

Just beware that if you later want to compare that aspect to other similar grade aspects, the value of each grade may differ, for example for points scores etc. You may choose to after doing the conversion copy the grade into another aspect. Or using a formula for marks to grade, enter the grade boundaries on the fly as part of the formula. But you've got the gist of how it works now, so mess around with it.

[Steven_Cleaver]

Chers again my only concern is if UMS points change and Historic data what do you think would be the best way to handle this if a points score changed for a grade would this cause an issue with Historic data and the Historic Grade if we changed this aspect. But your right just need to mess with this and test.

[LosOjos]

Chers again my only concern is if UMS points change and Historic data what do you think would be the best way to handle this if a points score changed for a grade would this cause an issue with Historic data and the Historic Grade if we changed this aspect. But your right just need to mess with this and test.

 

So long as you use a different result set (or just the date), then any historic results should not be changed. To alter the points allocated to grades, open up the relevant gradeset and you'll see a "version" field, with a date range applied. Just create a new one when you alter the points and old results *should* show points from the version number active when they were entered (theoretically, I've not tested that!)

[number34]

A couple of points to make here. If the UMS associated with an exam module changes then it is highly likely that it is a new course or syllabus so I would not change the conversions and instead use a different aspect. Here I record the actual score in a separate aspect to the UMS. You may also find that the relationship between the actual score and the UMS changes from exam season to season, witness the recent furore over GCSE English, and it is not always a simple scaling conversion as the gaps between grades are not always the same.

[Steven_Cleaver]

So long as you use a different result set (or just the date), then any historic results should not be changed. To alter the points allocated to grades, open up the relevant gradeset and you'll see a "version" field, with a date range applied. Just create a new one when you alter the points and old results *should* show points from the version number active when they were entered (theoretically, I've not tested that!)

 

Cheers not to sure about a diiferen't Result set as I think this might cause confuison elsewhere and start to make it complicated with too many result sets but hadn't realised the Version field so date range applied deffinately sounds like a good one to try and test first thanks.

[Steven_Cleaver]

A couple of points to make here. If the UMS associated with an exam module changes then it is highly likely that it is a new course or syllabus so I would not change the conversions and instead use a different aspect. Here I record the actual score in a separate aspect to the UMS. You may also find that the relationship between the actual score and the UMS changes from exam season to season, witness the recent furore over GCSE English, and it is not always a simple scaling conversion as the gaps between grades are not always the same.

 

Good point about the likely hood of Sylabus or Course change and would if this were the case probably look at using a different Aspect but haven't looked at UMS before and how this relates and just trying to think everything through before we agree with departments to set this up I was thinking of just setting this in Excel lookup tables and then staff enter the grade but have staff saying this is a lot of extra work even though we set up the sheets if they want so am just seeing how many issues it would cause if we tried to do it in SIM's directly with the conversions.

[number34]

I do use SIMS for the conversions and staff just have to enter their test marks. It is much better than using Excel.

[Steven_Cleaver]

Cheers this is the way we would like to do it I just wanted to make sure it was workable and try and get a feel for all the pit falls

[LianneKemp]

I have created a Grade Set for some UMS Grade Boundaries (A* - 108, A - 96 etc.) and then subsequent Aspect and Result Set, but when I have tried to enter data on a Marksheet in a column attached to my new Aspect I am getting the Invalid Value error message as I am entering a score (108) and not a Grade. I went back to the Grade Set to swap the Grade and Value around but you can't put an alphabetical figure into the Value field. This has then made me question how you can put in a UMS Score which is inbetween grades as surely I will get another invalid value error as you can only enter the values that are on the Grade Set.

Please can someone help me, and tell me what I need to do to get a Grade Set set up so that I can convert a UMS Score into a Grade, using boundaries and not having to type in hundreds of values/grades (eg. 107 - A, 106 - A, 105 - A, 104 - B, 103 - B).

Thanks!

[vikpaw]

@LianneKemp - you would need another aspect that is say integer values from 0-250, this could store your UMS values. then in a marksheet template you put that aspect and a data entry by formula which is a marks to grade, which takes the ums aspect and looks up the value in your correctly created grade aspect, and fills in the relevant letter (grade)

[LianneKemp]

Thanks I'll try that

[vikpaw]

shout if you need more explanation, that might have been a bit too concise!

[Steven_Cleaver]

Cheers Vikpaw we were able to work it out from the info you provided, as always really appreciatted we can kinda see where we could develop this more.

[LianneKemp]

Hi

I have just created a Grade Set in SIMS to convert a Total UMS Score into a Grade. The UMS grade is A* - 360, A - 320, B - 280, C - 240, D - 200, E - 160, F - 120, G - 80, U - 79, U - 0. As you can see, 79 is a U and so is 0 but SIMS doesn't let you have duplicate grades in a Grade Set, so i have had to leave it as 79 is a U. When i calculated my Marksheet, it doesnt populate a grade for anyone who has a UMS score of less than 79. I thought that SIMS would recognise a score as being less than 79 and know it is a U.

Is there something I am missing here?

Any help would be appreciated!!

Lianne

[MattMitchell]

@LianneKemp just have U set to 0 in your gradeset and it will assign U to anything over and above 0, but less than 80

[LosOjos]

@LianneKemp just have U set to 0 in your gradeset and it will assign U to anything over and above 0, but less than 80

 

Just to expand a little, SIMS always rounds down to the nearest grade, therefore you should think of your scores as boundaries, where each score is the minimum required for that grade (the same way the exam boards do it). This is why setting U to 0 will result in anything less than 80 being a U, as at 80 it will be high enough to gain a G in your example gradeset

[LianneKemp]

Thanks both for your quick responses - ive changed U to 0 in the Grade Set and this has worked! Thank you!!

[LianneKemp]

Just when you thought that was the last from me (for today)...I've managed to sort out my grade sets now so the marks entered for different units are calculated into a grade, but my traffic light formula no longer works because the value of the target grade and the topic grade is now different (the target grade has the KS Point Score grade set - A- 52, B - 46 etc and the topic grade I have calculated is using an ISA grade set).

Is there a way you can convert a grade back to points, and then back to a grade again - so id be converting the newly calculated grade to the KS point score and then using this in my formula?

[vikpaw]

A grade is actually just the underlying points score, what you see is the display view. You can add / multiply the grade and it will affect the points. You could then try to convert it to the other gradeset but there needs to be a relationship between one gradeset and the other. e.g. *5 + 10. Though it doesn't look that simple.

[LosOjos]

Another method you can use is to create lookup tables. I do that here to convert AQA unit scores in to UMS and from there in to GCSE grades. I wrote a bit about how to do it over in the Data Managers group, here: http://www.edugeek.net/groups/data-managers/347-share-your-data-tips-tricks/#gmessage1884

 

You'd create your lookup tables as described above, then in an AM7 template you'd need a LOOKUP formula referencing your previously made lookup table, then a "Marks to grade" formula column which would convert your points back in to a grade. You can then hide your calculation columns and just show the grade if you want, makes it a bit easy for teachers to read

Edited May 1, 2013 by LosOjos

[vikpaw]

Workin on something more accurate but try * 7 -30

[vikpaw]

Wasn't sure if you can multiply / divide by decimals, but you can, so roughly * 6.67 and subtract 26.67 . Or for a better result do 3 formulae. Multiply by 20, Subtract 80 (well Plus -80) and then divide by 3. Gives the exact answer for the two sets you gave. You can then convert back to a grade.

 

A lookup table is way easier, i just 'needed' to know how they were linked. Plus if different sets of scores have different gradesets, you don't want to keep putting formulae in, a named lookup table is a much better reference and easier for someone else to follow.