Edwin Analytics Update

Here is a summary of yesterday's ESE Edwin Analytics User Group WebEx (thanks to my Data Specialist colleague in Greater Boston, Paula O'Sullivan, for this update as I was unable to attend the WebEx.)

Teacher Access - As presented at the Edwin Workshops in November, ESE is doing a "soft" rollout of teacher access to Edwin Analytics.

• At this point, access is available only to those participants of the workshops, but districts can email the Edwin Analytics team to request access if they did not go to a workshop. The security role is "Global Access Teacher" and should NOT be assigned in combination with any other Edwin Analytics role.
• There are three reports available to teachers. These reports are also available to administrators in the Classroom folder.
• Teachers can view the data for last year's students, and for two years prior. At this point, teachers can not run the reports for their current students, but eventually that will be available for districts that have implemented SIF. Manual student claiming does not include updates to teacher reports for current students.

WIDA/ACCESS reports - You can now run these reports for your "claimed" students, i.e. those currently enrolled, IF your district submits claim files.

Local Assessments Data Uploads - ESE is revisiting the idea of allowing districts to upload local assessment data, particularly data from "off-the-shelf" assessments.

New User Guide - This will be posted any day now, along with a new Security & Access Guide.

Housekeeping - ESE is retiring the remaining references to Education Data Warehouse, EDW and DW. The new email address is edwinanalytics@doe.mass.edu, although the old address still works as well). Security role names have changed (e.g., DW 211 School User is now Edwin Analytics School Administrator).

Cubes - A basic demonstration of the cube functionality was provided.

The Edwin Analytics User Group WebEx is held the first Wednesday of the month at 11a.m. and the third Wednesday of the month at 2p.m. ESE sends email reminders to several lists including the Edwin Analytics Contacts as identified in Directory Administration and to subscribers of the EDWusers email list.

To subscribe to the EDWusers list:
Please send an email to imailsrv@list1.doe.mass.edu
with the following text—and only this text—in the body of the message:
subscribe listname your_full_name (e.g., subscribe edwusers john smith).

Edwin Analytics Updates

The following information was shared in yesterday's Edwin Analytics webinar (thanks to my colleague Paula O'Sullivan at the Greater Boston DSAC for sharing!)

1. February Biology results are now available (as of 3/25) in the following student-level reports:

• Student Profile Report (PR600)
• Assessment History Summary (PE613)
• Assessment Detail (PE606)
• Student Item Analysis Report (IT616)
• MCAS Student Roster (PE617)

2. Competency Determination status updates are now available  (as of 3/25) in the following student-level reports:

• Student Profile Report (PR600)
• Assessment History Summary (PE613)
• Student CD Roster (PE618)

3. March Retest data will be available in mid-late April.

4. The Edwin Analytics team is seeking feedback on the new EWIS and Postsecondary Reports. Please share any feedback you may have with me (and I will pass along) or directly with the Edwin team (Edwin@doe.mass.edu).

5. Internet Explorer 10 is NOT compatible with Cognos. If you use IE and upgraded to 10, there are steps you can take to revert back to IE 9 (please visit the Edwin Analytics Home Page for more information.)

Two other updates shared related to data and technology: 

• You can find ESE’s School Interoperability Framework (SIF) updates, past newsletters and other materials on the SIF site. 
• DESE is planning a state-wide IT directors meeting in Andover on May 16th. The purpose of this meeting to build collaboration among IT directors. More information will be coming.

The Education Data Warehouse is now Edwin Analytics

Today's announcement from ESE:

As of today, the Education Data Warehouse (EDW) can be accessed through the Edwin Analytics link on the ESE’s Security Portal.

Edwin Analytics is accessible using the EDW login roles. These roles should be assigned to district and school users in accordance with the rules set forth in the Department’s Data Access Policy for the EDW.

Edwin Analytics includes:

• All EDW state data (MCAS, Growth, SIMS, EPIMS, SCS) and all personal content saved to a users’ ‘My Folders’, district, and school folders.
   
• Six new Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS) and Postsecondary Outcomes reports located on the District, School, and Student tabs. (The same 5 district and school level reports are on the District and School tabs and one student level report is on the Student tab.)

Contact for Support:

• For access to Edwin Analytics, contact your district’s Directory Administrator (DA). If you already have access to the EDW, you automatically have access to Edwin Analytics and the specific reports available for your level of access.
• For technical support questions, please contact the Data Warehouse Contact person in your district. A list can be found at Profiles: People Search and choose Data Warehouse Contact in the ‘Function’ dropdown.
• If you are the district’s Data Warehouse contact and need additional technical support, contact the EDW team at datawarehouse@doe.mass.edu or 781-338-6820.
• For data issues including analysis, please contact the team responsible for data content:
• MCAS and Growth reports: Student Assessment Services at mcas@doe.mass.edu or 781-338-3625. 
• EWIS and Postsecondary Outcomes reports: edwin@doe.mass.edu. 
• For general Edwin questions, please contact edwin@doe.mass.edu 

I am also happy to answer questions or provide guidance, so please don't hesitate to contact me! Your questions help me understand how districts are using this new data resource. I hope to offer some "Edwin Analytics" workshops this spring as well.

Coming soon -- Edwin!

Happy New Year! Most of you have heard that ESE will soon be releasing Edwin, an "integrated suite of cutting-edge tools and resources to promote best practices in classroom instruction and assessments." Edwin will have two major components: Edwin Analytics and Edwin Teaching and Learning.

Edwin Analytics will be a suite of analysis tools, including the Massachusetts Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS), college and career readiness reports, and the Education Data Warehouse, all available through the security portal. According to the information provided on this week's EDW conference call, we should start to see minor branding and interface changes to the EDW/portal within the next month, with some more major user interface changes and additional tools in the spring (eventually with teacher-level access to reports!)

Edwin Teaching & Learning will provide online curriculum and assessment tools for educators aligned to the 2011 MA Curriculum Frameworks in English Language Arts and Literacy and Mathematics, which incorporate the Common Core State Standards. Massachusetts is working toward procuring an instructional improvement system (IIS) with Ohio and we look forward to hearing the vendor selection in the near future.


Opportunities to pilot new Edwin resources as they are developed will be provided to districts who have been participating in identifying requirements for the system as well as those who have identified project 5a (Teaching and Learning System) in their RTTT applications. For more information, please contact edwin@doe.mass.edu.

Stay tuned for additional information on the launch of Edwin in the coming weeks. For additional information about Edwin, including an extensive FAQ, visit http://www.doe.mass.edu/edwin/.

Data Warehouse Updates

The following information was shared during last week's “EDW User Group” webinar. See the bottom of this post to learn how you too can be part of the user group and hear this information first-hand!

Additional Data Now Available

With the addition of the 2011-12 End-of-Year Student Course Schedule data and EPIMS data:

1. The Classroom reports now have two years of data available. These reports currently include:

• Classroom Item Analysis Roster (IT516)                         
• Classroom Results by Standard (PE506)
• Performance and Growth by Teacher (PE520)

These reports are only available to users who have been assigned the "DW-Evaluator" role. ESE has developed guidance around assigning this role, available on the "Home" tab within the EDW. 

2. The Student Profile report (PR600) now displays two years of course data for the selected student(s).

Additional Functionality

1. The ability to view your data either by the  “old” MA2004 standards or by the new Common Core standards has been added to the Student Assessment Detail report (PE606) and the Student Item Analysis Roster report (IT616), bringing the total to six EDW reports with this option (the Test Item Analysis Summary reports (IT301/IT401) and the Results by Strand and Topic reports (CU306/CU406) already had this option). This option will soon be added to the Classroom Item Analysis Roster (IT516) and the Classroom Results by Standard report (PE506).

2. The Student Assessment Detail report (PE606), which previously printed one page per student, now has the option for a roster display (list of many students on one page).

3. The Growth Distribution reports (GR302/GR402) now have an option to display multiple years of data for a particular grade level for trend analysis.

Reminders

1. The EDW Team at DESE holds webinars twice a month (1^st Wed at 11am, 3^rd Wed at 2pm) to share information regarding new features and data in the EDW. Participants have an opportunity to share comments, questions and/or suggestions. To join the listserve and receive reminders about these webinars, please see the bottom of the EDW home page.

2. The supported browsers for the EDW are Internet Explorer and Firefox. You may experience issues with other browsers. It is expected that at some point in the future Safari and Chrome will also be supported.

3. The old EDW (v2.6) will be put out to pasture after this month (i.e. no longer available). Is anyone still using the old version??? 

(Thank you to Paula O'Sullivan, Data Specialist for the Greater Boston DSAC, for sharing this summary with me so that I didn't have to re-invent the wheel.)

2012 MCAS Data Now in the EDW Cube

The Education Data Warehouse "cubes" were updated this week to include 2012 data. (Cubes are predefined data tables in the EDW that make on-the-fly data manipulation possible.)

The cubes can be accessed from either the District tab or the School tab in the EDW, near the bottom on the left side of the page, under the header Data Analysis Cube. Clicking the link ESE Cubes will open a folder with both the cubes and supporting documentation (a handbook and an up-to-date FAQ). The MCAS Default View cube allows users to start from scratch to analyze data for a particular school or district. The folder Starting Points (Cube Views) provides cube starting points that have already been manipulated and saved to present the data in a particular way. The currently available cube views include:

• MCAS % Correct by Strand and Topic Trend
• MCAS CPI Trends by Grade Level
• MCAS Demographic Trends
• MCAS Performance by Grade Level
• MCAS Performance by Year
• MCAS Performance by Gender by Subject
• MCAS Special Education Performance Gap Trends
• MCAS Subject, Strand, Topic, Question Type, % Correct compared to State by Subgroup (SPED)
• MCAS Weighting by Strand and Topic Level

The State MCAS Default View cube is available for training purposes and contains only state-level data.

To save a cube view, click the Save As icon in the lower right corner and save it to the My Folders tab or your District Folder. (Don't worry, you can't accidentally overwrite the public cube views.) This is similar to saving Report Views. To convert the cube view to PDF for printing/saving outside of the EDW, click the File button in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen (looks like a page) and choose Export PDF. The File button will also allow you to export the data into Excel.

I will offer a regional workshop on using the Data Warehouse cubes if there is enough interest - please email me at laura.tilton@dsacma.org if you're interested in a workshop.

Embargo Reminder

Just a follow-up to my earlier post regarding the incorporation of information from the EDW into PowerPoint or other documents. The 2012 data in the EDW is preliminary and currently embargoed, so it is not permissible to present aggregate 2012 MCAS information to groups at this time. The Commisioner's May memo stated that, "since these are preliminary data, you may NOT release any aggregate data to the public until the official release of school and district results in September." I hope you will find the PowerPoint tips helpful at that time for presentations on the 2012 MCAS to staff, school committees, and other groups.

Putting EDW Information into PowerPoint

I often get asked about the best way to get information (such as the graph from PE405) from the Education Data Warehouse into PowerPoint or another document. Folks often want to share the data or graphs from reports in a presentation for district or school staff, school committees, and others (after the data becomes public and the embargo is lifted!)

There are several ways to go about this and it mostly depends on the technology you have available to you. I apologize that these are not the most formal "how-to" directions (they will vary slightly depending on your system) but I hope one of these options will work for you.

1) Screen Capture Software (puts the display in as an image)

If you have a screen capture software such as SnagIt or the Windows Snipping Tool, you can select/copy the part of your screen that you'd like to include, and then paste it into your document. However, SnagIt is not free (though there may be similar software that is free), and the Windows Snipping Tool is only included in Windows 7, 8, or Vista (look under "Accessories.") So these may not be options for many school users.

2) Screen Shot / Cropping Option (puts the display in as an image):

• Take a screen shot of the report by pressing the "Print Screen" button on your keyboard. This copies the screen image. (Alt-Print Screen will copy the active window only.)
• Then open your PowerPoint slide and choose Paste (Ctrl-V).
• Double-click the screen image you just pasted, look for a "Crop" option in the toolbar, and choose it.
• Use the "handles" that appear around the image to crop the image appropriately; hit the ESC key when you are done.
• To resize the image, click it and drag the corners (not the sides) to re-size.

3) Excel Option (puts the display in as an Excel object):

• At the top of the report page, look for the icon that looks like a little page with the globe on it (same place you go to convert to PDF)
• Click the icon and choose "View in Excel Options" and then "View in Excel 2007 Format"
• You will get a prompt asking if you want to open or save the file. Choose "Open."
• The report will open in Excel and you can copy and paste the graph, or any tables, from Excel to PowerPoint
• Note that this may not be straightforward on all computers. If it doesn't work for you the first time you try it, try choosing "Save" instead of "Open." Or choose Excel 2002 Format  instead of 2007. And if it still doesn't work, try holding down the Control key while opening/saving the report. Sometimes pop-up blockers get in the way.

I hope one of these options will work for you. If you have come up with a simpler/easier way to get information from EDW reports into PowerPoint, please let me know!

MCAS and Accountability Teleconference Highlights

I know that many readers of this blog attended this week's teleconference related to the release of the preliminary 2012 MCAS results and related accountability reports but I thought I would provide some of the essential information for those that were not able to attend.

MCAS Results and Discrepancy Reporting
Earlier this week, the preliminary MCAS data files were posted in the ESE Security Portal for review and discrepancy reporting. Some preliminary EDW reports are expected to be available in the Education Data Warehouse by this Friday, August 10 (ELA long compositions can be downloaded from the MCAS Service Center.)

As a reminder, the preliminary data is embargoed - Commissioner Chester has given the following guidelines for the use of preliminary data:  “I want to encourage schools and districts to use the preliminary… student data for educational planning purposes. Preliminary student results can and should be shared with teachers, parents and instructional leaders who are making decisions about Individual Education Plans, summer programs or decisions about the scope of services needed for English Language Learners.” The folks from ESE expect that the 2012 MCAS and accountability results will be released publicly on or about September 19, 2012. 

Accountability Reporting

In June, districts received their schools' provisional PPI data and accountability and assistance levels, which are based on data from 2009, 2010, and 2011. During the week of August 13, districts will receive their preliminary school-and district-level PPI data and accountability and assistance levels based on four years of data (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) for review (also embargoed). The official results will be released in mid-September.

Education Data Warehouse Updates

There are lots of excellent new updates in the Education Data Warehouse just in time for the busy season! Here are some highlights:

• The EDW Home page is now standard for all EDW users without needing to be configured as previously discussed. It contains information about recent updates and improvements as well as what's coming down the pike. 
• All of the reports from version 2.6 have been migrated to the new EDW. Please note that although the link is still available from the landing page, EDW 2.6 is no longer being updated and will be retired in October.
• The Test Item Analysis reports now have the option to map the test items to EITHER the old or new curriculum frameworks for Math and ELA. 
• There is a "Super" student profile report which provides SIMS, attendance, course, MCAS, and CD status information for any selected student.
• There are several new classroom-level reports which utilize SCS data for a given instructional group (classroom, course section, etc.) These reports are only available to users who have been assigned the "DW-Evaluator" role. ESE has developed guidance around assigning this role to EDW users which they will post on the EDW home page shortly. (Watch for a more detailed blog post once this guidance document is available online.)

EDW 3.0 Report Basics Handout

After mentioning that there are new 2012 pre-preliminary reports in the EDW, I realized that it would be helpful to post a copy of the EDW 3.0 Report Basics handout. This handout walks through the necessary steps to:

• Log in to the EDW
• Create a folder in "My Folders"
• Run reports and convert/save a to PDF

PDF files are much more manageable for printing, saving, and sharing (especially for multi-page reports) - although please remember that reports containing confidential data (student names and scores, etc.) should not be shared via email or stored to unsecured flash drives. The My Folders and District Folders areas of the EDW are secure and a better choice for storing files or sharing them with others in your district with EDW access.

I hope this is helpful!

EDW 3.0 Report Basics Handout:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bw5VovkMQ3FFaHQwd3lJWEVxa2M

Preliminary MCAS 2012 in EDW 3.0

The following EDW 3.0 reports are now available with preliminary MCAS 2012 data:

District-Level Reports

• MCAS District Results by Subgroup (PE304)
• MCAS District Results by Strand and Topic (CU306)
• MCAS District Test Item Analysis Summary (IT301)
• MCAS District Test Item Analysis Graph (IT302)

School-Level Reports

• MCAS School Results by Subgroup (PE404)
• MCAS Detailed School Performance (PE408) and its drillthrough
• MCAS School Results by Strand and Topic (CU406)
• MCAS School Test Item Analysis Summary (IT401)
• MCAS School Test Item Analysis Graph (IT402) 

Student-Level Reports

• Assessment Detail (Individual Student)(PE606)
• Assessment History Summary (Individual Student)(PE613)
• MCAS Student Item Analysis Roster (IT616)
• MCAS Student Roster (All Subjects)( PE617)
• MCAS Student Growth Scatter Plot (GR601) (ELA only)
• MCAS Student Growth Roster (GR602) (ELA only)

Please remember that there is an embargo in place for preliminary MCAS data. While this data may be used for instructional planning, it may not be discussed with the public or press.

See the bottom of the “EDW Home” tab within the EDW for additional features and functionality that have been added to the EDW 3.0. The "EDW Home" tab can be added as the default home page in your EDW account by following the steps outlined in the May 17 blog post.

2012 Preliminary MCAS Release and EDW Updates

Yesterday's regularly scheduled Webinar on the Education Data Warehouse shared an excellent new feature - an EDW "Home Page" which will keep us updated about new features, data releases, and additional resources.This home page is now available, but does not currently appear automatically as a tab at the top of the screen after you log in. You can follow the steps below to add this tab as the default so that you will see the latest information when logging into EDW 3.0.

To add the EDW Home Page tab:

• In the upper left corner of the screen, under the “Data Warehouse” banner, click the “Tab Menu” button, and choose “Add Tabs.”
• Under “Available Entries,” navigate to Cognos > Public Folders > Pages.
• Click the checkbox next to “EDW Home” and then click the green arrow in the middle of the page so that “EDW Home” moves from “Available Entries” to “Selected Entries.”
• Click “OK” at the bottom of the page.

To make the EDW Home Page your default tab:

• In the upper left corner of the screen, under the “Data Warehouse” banner, click the “Tab Menu” button, and choose “Modify the Sequence of Tabs.”
• Select “EDW Home” and then click “To top.”
• Click “OK.”

One very important piece of information that was provided during the Webinar is that the preliminary 2012 MCAS data is expected to be released via the Dropbox on June 22, and then in the EDW on June 29.


The EDW Webinars are held on the first Wednesday of the month at 11 am and the third Wednesday of the month at 2 pm. Please email datawarehouse@doe.mass.edu if you would like to be placed on the notification/reminder list for these calls.