Achievement profiles 

Definition

Achievement profiles are new to edsembli SIS 1.0. Previously, schools would use Select Terms, Select Topics and Define Weights to make sure that teachers would have the appropriate places to enter marks and comments, and to make sure the final mark would be calculated properly, if a final mark is needed at all. Achievement profiles reduce the school’s chances of error (assigning invalid terms/topics to classes) and streamline the process of setting the classes up for mark-entry.

An achievement profile contains the necessary attributes and term/topic selections. It gets assigned to a class or homeroom, thus setting that class up for mark and comment entry.

Defaults can be set up to define which classes or homerooms a profile gets assigned to. A profile can be assigned to any class or homeroom, but the defaults help to streamline the assignment process at the school level.

Achievement profiles are defined centrally and can be shared to each school as needed. The assignment of the achievement profiles to the classes/homerooms is done at each school.

Notes:

Each class or homeroom can only have one achievement profile. Therefore, if there are slight differences in the requirements for some classes (e.g., 80/20 exam weight compared to 70/30), separate achievement profiles must be defined for these unique situations.

If the achievement profile changes (either by changing the profile itself, or by switching the profile of a class), and a term or topic would be removed from a class, marks, comments and program code values will never be removed. The term or topic will remain on the class, making the class a discrepancy which can be dealt with using utilities if necessary.

All mark-entry rules and comment parameters are defined in Achievement Parameters. The achievement profile is simply a way of grouping the term/topic selections for assignment to classes/homerooms.

In jurisdictions with a provincial report card, profiles will be defined in accordance with the provincial requirements, using the card titled ‘Provincial report card setup’.

Elements of an achievement profile

On the GENERAL tab, the following attributes are available:

Markbook type: cumulative or non-cumulative

Terms: the terms that are required. If the profile is defined as cumulative, the term weights will be disabled, and the last chronological term will be assigned 100%.

Topics: the topics and subtopics that are required. Each topic and subtopic can have a weight assigned that will be used to calculate a final mark.

On the DEFAULT ASSIGNMENT tab, the following attributes are available:

Assign to: Classes or Homerooms

Course code: the course code, using wildcard character of %, of the classes that will use this achievement profile. This field can be left empty, indicating ‘Any’. Course code is only available if ‘Classes’ is selected above.

Grade start with: the lowest grade that will use this profile. You may select ‘Any’.

Grade end with: the highest grade that will use this achievement profile.

Schedule: the semesters and terms that use this achievement profile. Schedule is only available if ‘Classes’ is selected above.

Examples

Typical secondary class profile

This achievement profile is meant for grade 9-12 classes in semester 1, both terms 1 and 2, and has the terms S1 First and S1 Final with S1 Final weighted at 100%, and the standard secondary topics with Grade weighted at 100%.

Typical elementary class achievement profile

This is a non-cumulative profile designed for grades 1-6 classes starting with ENG, any schedule. Contains terms Progress, Report 1 and Report 2, and the Language 1-6 subject topics.

Typical elementary homeroom profile

This is a non-cumulative profile designed for grades 1-6 homerooms. Contains terms Progress, Report 1 and Report 2, and the Learning Skills & Work Habits topics.

Adding and editing achievement profiles

To see the list of achievement profiles, go into the central office, then choose Setup – Marks & comments – Achievement profiles.

Click the GO button.

The list of achievement profiles can be sorted and filtered, by using the icons in the header of the table.

To edit a profile, choose the profile from the table and choose Edit.

To create a completely new profile, click the Add FAB in the bottom right corner of the screen.

To copy an existing profile, choose the profile from the table and choose ‘Copy this profile’.

Sharing achievement profiles to schools

To share or remove a profile, edit that profile and use the Selected schools card to add or remove schools from the list.

Achievement parameters  

Definition 

Achievement parameters are the elements that define how marks, comments and programs are entered by the teachers.  

Achievement parameters are all about the intersection of the term and topic. At one intersection, there can only be one mark-entry setting, one comment entry setting, and one topic program code setting.  

Elements of the achievement parameters 

There are really four elements that make up the achievement parameters for a particular term/topic intersection: 

1. Mark entry – using the letter grade groups defined, we can tell the system which marks are available for the teachers. In addition to the letter grade groups, pure ‘Numeric’ is available, as well as ‘Disabled’ (no mark).  
2. Comment entry – here we can set the font, font size, width and height of the comment box that will be available to the teacher.  
3. Collaborative comment entry – if multiple people will be contributing to a comment space on a report card, multiple topics can be set up to share a comment space for a specific term.  
4. Topic program code entry – topic program code checkboxes can be made available to the teacher.  

 
 Editing the achievement parameters  

To see the grid of achievement parameters, go into the central office then go to Setup – Marks & comments. Choose the GO button on the Achievement parameters card.  

You are met with a grid of the entire board’s terms and topics, showing all settings (marks, comments, programs). 

It is usually easier to narrow down the grid by choosing an Achievement profile. To do this, click the Achievement profile dropdown (‘All terms/topics’) and choose an achievement parameter. You can leave this at ‘all’ if you wish.  

To edit one of the elements, click the Setup parameter dropdown and choose either Marks, Comments, Collaborative comments, or Programs.  

The screen will refresh and you will now be able to edit the setup parameter you have chosen.  

Note: You can set up one term, then use the ‘Copy term’ function to copy those settings to another term. See further below for these instructions.  

Editing marks parameters 

If we select the achievement profile called ‘1-6 Language’ and choose to edit the Marks parameter, we will see this screen:  

Only the terms and topics that are used in that achievement profile are shown. We can see that a mark is used in the term Progress, for the top-level topic ‘Language (1-6)’, but for the other two terms, Report 1 and Report 2, marks are allowed in the subtopics, and not in the main topic.  

To change the marks parameter, choose the appropriate letter grade group, or choose Numeric or Disabled, for each term/topic intersection. In this particular example the dropdown looks like this:  

Each letter grade group shows the possible letters and whether or not it allows numeric values.  

For more information on letter grade groups please see here.  

Editing comment parameters 

If we leave the achievement profile at ‘1-6 Language’ and choose to edit the Comments parameter, we will see this screen: 

A comment parameter is defined for all three terms, in only the top-level main topic, Language (1-6). The comment parameter for the Progress term is a collaborative comment space, as indicated by the asterisk. The comment parameters for Report 1 and Report 2 can be directly edited but the collaborative comment can only be edited by choosing ‘Collaborative comments’ from the Setup parameter dropdown. See further below for these instructions.  

To remove a comment parameter from a term/topic intersection, choose the garbage can icon on the current parameter definition.  

To add a comment parameter, choose the plus sign icon in the appropriate spot, and enter the values that are required.  

Width: Enter a numeric value for the width. Remember your units (centimeters or inches)  

Height: Enter a numeric value, or leave it blank to indicate an unlimited height for the comment. 

Font style: Choose from some common fonts.  

Font size: Choose from a given list of font sizes  

Editing collaborative comment parameters  

To see the collaborative comment parameters, choose Collaborative comments from the Setup parameter dropdown.  

The collaborative comment parameters are not grouped by profile.  

A collaborative comment parameter has one term and any number of topics. A topic can only be in one collaborative comment parameter.  

In the above example, the first collaborative comment parameter uses the term ONRP1, and the topics 7HST and 7GEO. The dimensions are shown in the table.  

To edit an existing collaborative comment parameter, click on that item in the table and choose Edit.  

The same settings are available as regular comment parameters – width, height, units, font style and font size. The difference is that the collaborative comment parameter requires an identifier and title, and it is designed to accept multiple topics.  

To add a collaborative comment parameter, click the plus sign icon in the card header.  

Editing program parameters  

To see the program selections, choose Programs from the Setup parameter dropdown.  

Again, using the topics for Language (1-6), we can see that the program codes ESL/ELA, IEP and NA areused for the main topic, in the Progress term. NA is also used for the main topic in Report 1 and Report 2. ESL/ELA and IEP are used in the subtopics in Report 1 and Report 2.  

To add or remove programs from a term/topic intersection, check or uncheck the box.  

Copying settings from one term to another  

In any of the setup parameters above (marks, comments, programs), the settings can be copied from one term to another. This can be done for a single achievement profile, or for all terms and topics.  

To use this feature, choose the ellipse icon in the top right corner of the card. This icon will not be available if ‘All’ (view only) is chosen from the Setup parameter dropdown.  

From the ellipse icon, choose Copy Term. The dialog will look something like this:  

Choose the term to copy ‘from’ and ‘to’, and click COPY. This will only affect the selected achievement parameter (unless it was set to ‘all’) and only the selected setup parameter (marks, comments, programs).  

Assigning achievement profiles  

Achievement profiles are defined centrally but assigning the profiles to classes and homerooms is done at the school level.  

There are four main methods of assigning achievement profiles to classes or homerooms:  

• Assign default profiles 
• Assign by class 
• Assign the unassigned classes/homerooms 
• Assign by editing individual class/homeroom  

Notes in general about changing achievement profiles:  

Assign default profiles  

If the default assignment settings have been defined accurately, then most classes and homerooms in a school can be assigned a profile based on the defaults.  

To access this, go to Setup – Marks & comments – Assign achievement profiles, and use the ASSIGN DEFAULT PROFILES tab  

The default assignment settings are listed, and more details can be seen by hovering over that area:  

To assign a profile, check the box to the left of that profile and choose ASSIGN in the bottom left corner. Multiple achievement profiles can be selected at once.  

Note  

If multiple achievement profiles are selected, and the situation occurs that two (or more) achievement profiles could be assigned to a class based on the defaults, the last profile to be assigned will be the one that stays assigned.  

Assign by class 

A situation may occur when the defaults aren’t defined, and the school needs to assign an achievement profile to more than one class at a time. The best method to use in this case is to assign profiles by class.  

To access this, go to Setup – Marks & comments – Assign achievement profiles, and use the ASSIGN BY CLASS tab 

Choose the profile to assign, then choose the classes or homerooms to which to assign the profile.  

Optionally, the classes or homerooms that are up for selection can be narrowed down using the Filter card below.  

Once the selections are made, click the ASSIGN button in the bottom right corner. 

This method can be used to remove the profile from classes – there is an option at the bottom of the ‘Select profile to assign’ dropdown for ‘Remove profile’.  

Assign the unassigned classes/homerooms 

After assigning profiles there may still be classes or homerooms without a profile assigned.  

To find a list of these and assign the profiles, go to Setup – Marks & comments – Assign achievement profiles, and use the UNASSIGNED tab.  

Beside each class listed, choose the desired profile from the ‘Select achievement profile’ column. The list will automatically refresh and remove the assigned classes.  

Assign to an individual class/homeroom 

If necessary, the achievement profile can be changed when the user is editing the class or homeroom. In the class, the achievement profile is located at the bottom of the General subheading:  

Examining the discrepancies  

The situation may arise where the terms and topics assigned to a class differ from the terms and topics that should be assigned, based on the profile.  

To find the classes/homerooms with discrepancies, go to Setup – Marks & comments – Assign achievement profiles, and use the EXAMINE DISCREPANCIES tab.