Quick Access to EDW Reports

The latest version of the Data Warehouse includes a great new feature - the Reports Page. This page provides links to run each of the available reports in HTML or PDF format directly. It also provides the option of scheduling a report to be run in the background.

Rolling your mouse over any of the report names provides a "screen shot" of a sample reference report. No more waiting for the report to finish only to find it wasn't the one you expected!

In addition, this page provides direct links to the pre-run reports in the DropBox, School and District Profiles, the DART tool, and other Data Warehouse documentation.

To get to the Dashboard, log in to the EDW, and go to Public Folders > ESE MCAS Reports > ESE MCAS - 2011 Preliminary Report View.

2011 March Retest Results in EDW

The 2011 MCAS March Retest results were added to the EDW today. The data are available through the following reports in Public Folders > ESE MCAS Reports:

• R-610 Student Test Results*


• R-613 Student MCAS History*


• R-616 Test Item Analysis Roster


• R-617 Student MCAS Roster

Please remember that running student-level reports with one page per student (* above) will generally take 20-30 seconds to run per student. If you plan to run these reports for larger numbers of students, you will want to set up the reports to run in the background.

In addition, a student data file (.xls and .dat formats) is available to districts and schools, and student roster reports (.pdf format) are available to schools, through DropBox Central in the DESE security portal. For more information on this data release, please see http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=6141.

A Resource Summary and Shout-Out to SSESPA

I wanted to post a special "thank you" to the South Shore Elementary School Principals Association for inviting me to speak at their meeting last Friday. I am glad you've found your way to the SouthEast Educational Data (SEED) blog and hope you'll find the information here helpful.

Here is a brief summary of the resources I mentioned at the SSESPA meeting - some data related, and some general - which I hope will be useful for all SEED blog visitors.

Data Warehouse Resources (some very practical blog postings)

• Running Reports in the Background
• Creating Customized Student Roster Reports
• Engaging Staff in MCAS Data Exploration Activity
• Data Warehouse Report Summary Document (updated 10/20/2010)

The Growth Model - a new way to look at student performance

School and District Profiles - access lots of school/district data without logging in to the DW!

District Analysis and Reporting Tool (DART) - allows comparison with "like" schools and districts using a variety of indicators

Toolkits and Resources on the ESE/DSAC Web page

• Conditions for School Effectiveness Self-Assessment
• Professional Learning Communities Guidance
• District Data Team Toolkit
• Learning Walk-Through Implementation Guide
• Common Planning Time Self-Assessment Toolkit

If you're new to the blog, please check out the right hand side of the main SEED blog page for Email subscription options as well as access to previous posts through the Archives or Labels links.

Creating Customized Student Roster Reports

I hear it all the time: "But in TestWiz, we used to be able to run reports by classroom!" While it's true that the data warehouse doesn't technically have this feature at this time, you can certainly produce reports for any list of students (including a classroom roster) with a few extra steps.

The 600-level (student) reports in the Data Warehouse include a feature which allows the user to customize the report for a specific roster of students. This roster can be created in several ways: by choosing students from a list, by using a series of prompts to identify the students, and in some cases, by incorporating a list of SASIDs.

Some 600-level reports will produce one page (or more) per student, which can make for a very lengthy report. Reports that include the word “Roster” in the title (for example, R-616 Test Item Analysis Roster) will produce a compact format report which will include all selected students on a single page (or several pages, depending on the length of the list.)

Attached is a document which explains how to customize these student reports in a variety of ways. It is much more manageable (and secure!) to look at a student report that only contains the desired students...rather than going through, say, an entire grade-level list with a highlighter (trust me, I've been there.)

Save Time! Running Reports in the Background

Many of you have been looking at 2010 preliminary ELA reports in the data warehouse since earlier this summer, and may also have accessed the preliminary roster reports for all subjects from your Security Portal drop boxes.

The Data Warehouse welcome screen informs us that the reports for Math and Science are available as of today. But you're not the only one who's excited and ready to jump in and run reports! Obviously this is a very busy time for Data Warehouse use across the state. Even though upgrades have been made to the Data Warehouse servers over the last year, you may still encounter delays in performance while waiting for reports to run.

The solution? Learn to run reports "in the background" (also sometimes called "batch mode.") In this way, you set your reports up to run, but don't have to watch the hourglass spin on your screen while they do so. Reports are delivered to your My Folders or District Folders area in the desired format (PDF, Excel, or HTML.) This simple instruction sheet (Running Data Warehouse Reports in the Background) will walk you through the process.