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.

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