Assessments

The Assessments page will show grades to parents and students. Some setup is required in order to pull grades into Insight and also to configure charts, if required. Grades can be pulled in from either PARS or SIMS.

This is not the same as the Subjects page, which shows the students' Linked Documents. Grades from SIMS can also be displayed to users via the Self Assessment additional module of Insight which is not covered on this page. The Self Assessment module allows students to record a grade for themselves which is stored in SIMS.

Setup

Importing Grades from SIMS

The following Role Option is required to import grades from SIMS:
Manage > Assessment Manager subjects (On)

To begin go to the following page:
Manage > AM subjects

Select the Aspect that you would like to pull into Insight from the Aspect dropdown at the top of the page. A list of subjects will then appear at the bottom of the page. Tick the subject(s) that the aspect is related to to pull the aspect into Insight. There is no save button; ticking the subjects is all that needs to be done.

To delink an aspect from Insight, select the aspect from the Aspect dropdown then untick all subjects.

Reviewing Linked Aspects

There is a report which shows a list of all the aspects that have been pulled into Insight, and which subject(s) each aspect is linked to. The Role Option required to access this report is:
Reports > Linked aspects (On)

The report is accessed via:
Reports > Linked aspects

Hiding Result Sets for Specific Aspects

When you pull a SIMS aspect into Insight, every result set will automatically be pulled through too. If a student has a grade in any result set, that grade will be displayed on the Assessments page (subject to other Role Options for the user account). However you may wish to hide certain result sets for some aspects.

Result sets can be hidden for specific aspects by editing a text file on the IIS server. No Role Options are required for this, but you do need access to the Insight server.

The text file is found in the _Personalisation folder of the Insight installation, which is typically located:
C:\wwwroot\inetput\INSIGHT\_Personalisation

The file to be edited will either be called blacklisted.aspect.resultsets or blacklisted.aspect.resultsets.unused. If you have a file called blacklisted.aspect.resultsets then open that file using Notepad or a similar basic text editor (not Microsoft Word or Google Docs!). If you do not have an blacklisted.aspect.resultsets file but do have an blacklisted.aspect.resultsets.unused file, then edit the blacklisted.aspect.resultsets.unused file, remove the .unused extension, then edit the file using Notepad or similar basic text editor. If you do not have either file, run a service pack then refresh the _Personalisation folder.

In the file you will need one line for each aspect/resultset combination that you want to blacklist. The name of the aspect should appear first, then a comma, then the name of the result set. For example:

End of Year Grade, Preliminary results

Importing Grades from PARS

If you want to import grades from PARS you will need the following Role Option:
Manage > Preferences (On)

To import grades from PARS go to:
Manage > Preferences

Scroll down to the PARS section and look for an option called Collect Grades from PARS - this must be turned on. Click the Choose Elements option to the right to select the grade elements to import. Tick all of the elements to import then click OK.

What does "Set Subject group row affinities" do?!

iGrades can be pulled from SIMS or PARS but not both. You can however pull grade elements from PARS which themselves are pulling grades from SIMS into PARS.

Configuring Charts

An example of an Assessment Chart. Examples of the three possible options for Column title source are also shown.

Insight can be used to configure bar charts that appear on the Assessments page for students and parents. There are two methods for creating and editing these charts, described below.

iIn order for charts to be displayed, grades must be collected from SIMS rather than PARS.

Using the AM charts page

Assessment charts can be configured within Insight using the AM Charts page. The role option needed to access this page is:
Manage > AM Charts (On)

The AM Charts page is accessed via:
Manage > AM Charts

At the top of the page there is a Live option. This must be enabled for charts to be displayed. The rest of the page is used to configure the charts.

There will be one section for each chart. At the top of each section is a Chart Title option which is used to name the chart. Beneath this will be a list of columns to be shown on the chart, each with an Edit button to the right. At the bottom of this section is a blank row also with an Edit button to the right.

To create a new chart scroll to the bottom of the page to find a chart that has no columns associated to it. Enter a Chart Title for your chart then click the Edit button on the right. This opens a window which is used to add a column to the chart. Use the Aspect and Resultset dropdowns to select the data to be used in the column. The column will be given a title on the chart, which is either the name of the Aspect, the Result set or both. Select the title using the Column title source dropdown.

The Y Scale option limits the range of grades that will be shown on the chart. Insight will check the score of each grade (according to the grade set in SIMS) and only display a column for the grade if the score is between the two numbers entered for the Y Scale.

To remove a column from a chart, click the Edit button next to the column. In the next window click the Delete button.

Using the text file on the IIS server

Assessment Charts can also be created, edited and deleted by editing a text file on the IIS server that hosts Insight. No Role Options are required for this, but you do need access to the Insight server.

The text file is found in the _Personalisation folder of the Insight installation, which is typically located:
C:\wwwroot\inetput\INSIGHT\_Personalisation

The file to be edited will either be called assessments.charts or assessments.charts.unused If you have a file called assessments.charts then open that file using Notepad or a similar basic text editor (not Microsoft Word or Google Docs!). If you do not have an assessment.charts file but do have an assessments.charts.unused file, then edit the assessments.chart.unused file, remove the .unused extension, then edit the file using Notepad or similar basic text editor. If you do not have either file, run a service pack then refresh the _Personalisation folder.

The first line of the file must always read:

<root>

Following that, a new chart can be created by adding the following line of text:

<chart id="ENTER TITLE HERE" />

Where ENTER TITLE HERE is replaced by the title for the chart.

Columns are then added using the following line of text, repeated for each column on the chart:

<aspect chart="ENTER TITLE HERE"   aspect="ENTER ASPECT NAME"   resultset="ENTER RESULT SET NAME"   xlabel="ENTER LABEL" />

The name of the chart, the Aspect and the Result Set must be entered into the relevant sections. If the aspect is not associated with a Result Set, no text should be entered into the resultset option. The xlabel option can be set to:
a - for the name of the Aspect
r - for the name of the Result Set
ra - for the name of the Aspect and Result Set

The lines above can be repeated to create multiple charts and columns. The final line of text must read:

</root>

This example represents a chart showing nine samples of a single aspect over Key Stage 3:

<chart id="KS3 Science Level" />
	<aspect chart="KS3 Science Level"   aspect="Science Attainment Level"   resultset="Year 7 Autumn Term"   xlabel="r" />
	<aspect chart="KS3 Science Level"   aspect="Science Attainment Level"   resultset="Year 7 Spring Term"	 xlabel="r"/>
	<aspect chart="KS3 Science Level"   aspect="Science Attainment Level"   resultset="Year 7 Summer Term"	 xlabel="r"/>
	
	<aspect chart="KS3 Science Level"   aspect="Science Attainment Level"   resultset="Year 8 Autumn Term"   xlabel="r"/>
	<aspect chart="KS3 Science Level"   aspect="Science Attainment Level"   resultset="Year 8 Summer Term"   xlabel="r"/>
	<aspect chart="KS3 Science Level"   aspect="Science Attainment Level"   resultset="Year 8 Spring Term"   xlabel="r"/>
	                                        
	<aspect chart="KS3 Science Level"   aspect="Science Attainment Level"   resultset="Year 9 Autumn Term"   xlabel="r"/>	
	<aspect chart="KS3 Science Level"   aspect="Science Attainment Level"   resultset="Year 9 Spring Term"   xlabel="r"/>
	<aspect chart="KS3 Science Level"   aspect="Science Attainment Level"   resultset="Year 9 Summer Term"   xlabel="r"/>

This example shows different Aspects sampled from the same Result Set:

<chart id="GCSE Targets" />
	<aspect chart="GCSE Targets"   aspect="GCSE Art Target"        resultset="Year 10 Target"   xlabel="a"/>
	<aspect chart="GCSE Targets"   aspect="GCSE Biology Target"    resultset="Year 10 Target"   xlabel="a"/>
	<aspect chart="GCSE Targets"   aspect="GCSE Chemistry Target"  resultset="Year 10 Target"   xlabel="a"/>
	<aspect chart="GCSE Targets"   aspect="GCSE Computing Target"  resultset="Year 10 Target"   xlabel="a"/>
	<aspect chart="GCSE Targets"   aspect="GCSE Dance Target"      resultset="Year 10 Target"   xlabel="a"/>
	<aspect chart="GCSE Targets"   aspect="GCSE Drama Target"      resultset="Year 10 Target"   xlabel="a"/>
	<aspect chart="GCSE Targets"   aspect="GCSE English Target"    resultset="Year 10 Target"   xlabel="a"/>

Parent and Student View

In order to access the Assessments page, students and parents require the following Role Option:
Assessments > Assessments (On)

The Assessments page is accessed via:
Assessments > Assessments

The page will show a table displaying the student's grades. Various columns can be shown or hidden according to the user's role options (see the Options to Configure section below).

Options to Configure

Several grades can be entered into SIMS for an aspect when using no result set. If you would like to display only the most recent grade then enable the following preference (the alternative being to show all grades where no result set was used):
Assessments > Only show the most recent resultset-less Assessment Manager grades (On)

There are also various Role Options that affect the Assessments page for students and parents. These options are described below:

For these years	Show the Assessments page only for students in specific year groups. Enter a list of year groups, separated by the plus symbol, for which this menu item is to be shown.
Show data from how many previous academic years	Select the number of previous years' data to display.
or specify other amounts for specific yeargroups	Show different numbers of previous years' data, depending on the year group of the student.
Earliest	Assessment data entered before this date will not be shown
Latest	Assessment data entered after this date will not be shown
Latest first	Turn this option on to attempt to order the assessments with the most recent at the top of each grouping. The alternative is for the oldest to appear at the top of each grouping.
Limit to current subjects	Turn this option on to only show assessments for currently taken subjects, or leave switched off for all subjects
Use column headings in place of aspect name	The aspect's column heading will be displayed, rather than the aspect name itself
Use gradeset description in place of result	Where a result has a description within its gradeset, use this instead of the actual result.
Show result block	Display the result set that each grade is recorded in.
group by result block	By default Insight will group grades together by Subject. Use this option to group the results by entry date, then result set, instead.
Show grade help popup	This will display a button next to each grade which the user can click to show the descriptions for that grade set.
Show progress charts	This option must be On for the user to see Assessment Charts (see the configuring charts section above for further information).
Hide comments where a result exists	Use this to hide comments from grades, while still allowing comment aspects to be shown.