Data Collection Policies help you coordinate data drops so you can analyse your Assessment marks on time.
You can define the collection deadline, who is responsible for inputting marks and when approvals will take place. Staff will automatically get an alert in the To Do section on their Homepage when it's time to input the marks, or you can send them a reminder.
Permissions
- Assessments: Administer - Set up, manage and send reminder emails for Data Collections
- Assessments: Administer All/My Students - Add assessment marks for all students/students for whom they are the academic lead
- School: Assessments: Approver - Set data collection assessment marks as approved
If you don't have the right permission, ask your admin team to give it to you using these instructions.
Creating a new Data Collection policy
The first step is to create a Data Collection Policy. You can create multiple policies, for example, if you have different data collection dates for different subjects or departments. You need to set up a new policy each academic year.
Go to Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Data Collections.
Click the green Create new Policy button and choose the name of your policy and how many approvals you would like to take place.
The mark entry deadline will default to 5 working school days (excluding weekends and holidays) before the collection deadline, but you can change this to up to 30 working school days (excluding weekends and holidays).
Top Tip: Don't want an approval, just mark entry? Leave approval blank and set the Mark entry deadline as one day before the deadline.
Click Create Policy and you will be taken to the Policy Details page.
Add students by clicking +Add in the Students section, and selecting the groups of students included.
Top Tip: A Data collection item will be added for each of the student groups added here, and for each of the courses linked to the assessments.
Click +Add to add more groups, or select a group to remove it.
Add Summative Assessment Rules by clicking +Add and filling out the correct details in the slide over, then click Add Assessments. You can add rules for multiple assessments at once.
Add Ad Hoc Assessment Rules by clicking +Add and filling out the correct details in the slide over, then click Add Assessments.
Please note that:
- Data Collections will only work for Ad Hoc assessments that have a Marking strategy of One Mark per Course.
- Stand-alone Single Mark ad hoc assessments (that are assigned a date rather than an assessment period) cannot be monitored through Data Collections - they'll just show completion as N/A.
If you notice any of your Assessment Rules turn red, this is because the academic lead could not be found. This can happen if for example, your assessment is linked to a year group rather than a class, so no Academic lead for the class could be found.
To amend this, click the assessment and update with an alternative staff member option. The red text will then revert to standard.
You can edit or delete the setup on this page at any time by clicking the field you would like to edit.
Adding a Data Collection
Once you have defined your policy, you'll need to decide how many data drops you'll have during the year, and how long teachers will have to input the marks. You need to set up data collections for each data drop.
Go to the Data Collection tab and click +Add.
Choose the dates between which marks should be input, and select the deadline date, then click Create Collection. Please note that if your Data Collection includes Ad Hoc assessments, the Collection range start date will need to cover the first day of the assessment period that you are collecting the ad hocs for. For example, if your Summer 2 assessment period started on June 3rd, you would need to set this as the collection range start date to pull through marks for any ad hoc assessments being collected for Summer 2.
The collection will now appear on the Data Collection tab and shows what percentage of marks have been entered.
On the Data Collection Items tab, you can see which assessment marks are being collected for and what level of approval is being completed.
Click the staff member's name then click Edit.
You can change who the collection is assigned to or the individual's deadline - useful for setting earlier deadlines for certain staff members.
You can also assign staff in bulk by selecting the items and clicking the Bulk action button.
Select the data collection on the Completion Overview or Data Collection Items tabs, then click Marksheet.
You can also go to Students > Assessments > Summative Tracking > Mark Entry > Data Collections. Select the collection, then click Marksheet.
Inputting and approving marks
You can see what percentage of the marks have been entered and approved and follow up with staff to remind them to complete their data entry via email.
Staff can see all their data collections from My Items > My Classes and selecting Assessment Data Collections from the left-hand menu.
From the Collection range start date, any staff who have been assigned to Input marks will see a notification in their To Do list.
This notification will disappear once all blank marks have been filled in, or the next academic year starts.
Click the item in the To Do list to visit the My Classes page and select the incomplete assessment. You can use the academic year drop down to select past academic years and fill in previously incomplete data collections.
You'll be taken to the marksheet for the current assessment period where you can bulk edit marks or add marks in.
Go to Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Data Collections, and go to the Data Collections tab and select the data collection. Here you can see an overview of what percentage of marks have been entered.
Remind staff to input marks by selecting the tick boxes next to the members of staff and clicking the Bulk action button to send an email reminder.
Please note: The email message shown here is an example. You won't be able to see the exact message sent - it will look the same just with the correct dates, student groups and numbers.
You can also do this from the Students > Assessments > Summative Tracking > Mark Entry > Data Collections page. Tick the boxes next to the staff to email, then click the Bulk action button to select Send Email Reminder.
Approvers should go to Students > Assessments > Summative Tracking > Mark Entry > Data Collections. Select the student group to review marks for. Make sure the Task column reads Approval rather than mark Entry.
Remember that approvers will only be able to approve marks, not add them, unless they have the permission - see the top of this article for permissions.
In the slide over, click the Marksheet button.
Review the marks that have been input.
- If you want to approve all of the marks, click the box at the top of the table to select all rows.
- If you only want to approve certain marks, click the boxes next to each mark.
Click the Bulk action button to send a message to students or guardians, add students to interventions or edit the marks. To approve them, select Mark as Approved.
Don't see the Mark as Approved option? You need to be given the School: Assessments: Approver permission - ask your team to give you this permission using these instructions.
In the slide over, you can see the students you'll be approving the marks for. Click the green button to confirm the approval.
The students who have had marks approved will then show as Yes, with the other students still showing No.
To mark a student as unapproved again, just click into the field and update it back to No.
FAQ
The most common reasons you can only see Mark Entry actions in the list are:
- You've not selected an approver - follow the Editing Assessment Rules section above to select Approvers
- You've selected an Approver that doesn't exist. For example you selected Heads of Department, but if you go to School > School > Structure they have not been set up.
Yes you can! When setting up the Data Collection, make sure the date range covers all of the ad-hoc assessments' reporting periods. For example, if the assessments are half-termly, make sure the data range includes the start and end date of the half term. You can check your assessment period dates from Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Assessment Periods.
Please note that:
- Data Collections will only work for Ad Hoc assessments that have a Marking strategy of One Mark per Course.
- Stand-alone Single Mark ad hoc assessments (that are assigned a date rather than an assessment period) cannot be monitored through Data Collections - they'll just show completion as N/A.
Please see a full FAQ here: Data Collection showing as not complete, 50% complete or N/A
Go to either:
- Students > Assessments > Summative Tracking > mark Entry > Data Collections.
- Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Data Collections, and go to the Data Collections tab. Select the data collection, then go to the Data Collection Items tab.
Click into the item, then click Edit. You can then change the staff member assigned.
Top Tip: Make sure the person you are assigning is the Academic Lead. to be able to add marks or has the Assessments: Administer permission to be able to approve marks.
Need to change who is assigned in bulk? Tick the boxes next to the data items to change, then click the Bulk action button and select Bulk Assign Staff.
Change the staff member in the slide over, then click Assign Staff.
You can only add marks if you're the academic lead or if you have an Assessments: Administer permission.
This means that Teaching Assistants or other staff who are linked to the timetable slots but are not the academic lead will not be able to add marks. They must be linked to the class as an Academic Lead.
When selecting the approver, you select a group of staff to assign such as the Head of Department. If you change the approver to a different person, you can select any member of staff. This means that they may not be able to set marks as approved because they do not have the School: Assessments: Approver permission. To give someone permission, follow these instructions.
Please note that deleting a data collection will not remove any assessment marks that have already been collected, and is irreversible.
To delete a whole Data Collection Policy, go to Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Data Collections and select the policy to delete.
Click into the Policy name then click Delete in the slide over.
To delete just one Data Collection instance, click into the Data Collections tab and click the collection.
Click into the Collection deadline field to delete the Data Collection.
Yes. Data Collection Policies are linked to the Assessment policy. Because you need to select the assessments to create or copy over each year, you also need to define your Data Collection Policies each year.
If you can't see the button to send the staff member an email, click on their name.
In the Contact Details section on their staff profile, ensure you add an email address.
No you cannot approve a predicted mark. Mark approval is set up for the current mark only.
Comments
Gwyn Mabo,
Will this ever be extended into Formative Statements?
If not is there a particular road map item I can comment on?
Thanks
Hi Oliver, we won't be enabling this feature for Formative Assessments. This is because formative assessments are ongoing, so you wouldn't usually be able to set a date for when the data would be entered by, as it's entered on a continuous basis.
However, if you do have other feedback, you can find the link at the top of this article to the specific area.
Gwyn Mabo
Thank you for your reply. We do use them to collect information about topic study on a particular exam or to send a report home at the end of a term so being able to set deadline would be good.
We shall continue to mange the filling them in the same we are currently.
When does the feedback close as I think it likely that this will come into play in next year policy with a trial maybe in the Final term of this year. SO would want to give an informed feedback rather than a snap shot of first thoughts having not used the product.
Hi Oliver, thanks for replying to my comment! The feedback window never closes, as we always welcome feedback on our current and upcoming features. We prioritise our roadmap using the RICE prioritization framework each term, and use the feedback to decide what our teams will work on next based on demand.
Hi Gwyn, thanks for this feature. I have a few questions I am unsure of -
1. Setting up the data collection policy - does this restrict teacher access to the marks until the specified start of the data entry or does it just add a reminder to the homepage?
2. Once the marks are approved, does this restrict data entry? It would be fairly important that it does, as the assumption would be that once approved by a senior manager, the data would not change again.
3. When looking at the data collection items (the list of bottom level courses indicating what percentage are completed - Schoolwebaddress/?/assessment-data-collection-ui/collection-overview/id/1) it appears that while the course data entry is incomplete you can click on it to access the mark sheet, but when it is complete this option is no longer available - it just says 'all done, great job!'. Is this deliberate, as it would be great to still click on it to access the mark sheet?
Thanks!
Hi James, thanks for your comment, these are some great questions!
Setting up a data collection won't stop teachers from entering marks before the start of the data collection period, after the deadline or changing the marks once approved. It just determines when the notification will appear in your to-do list, and colour-codes the data collection depending on whether the information is past the due date.
You're right, once the data collection is complete that item is no longer clickable.
If you'd like to submit feedback on this feature, please add it here: https://portal.productboard.com/arbor-education/1-arbor-development-roadmap/c/114-data-collections
Gwyn Mabo in your reply to James Hutson you say that once approved they can still change them.
Ad-Hoc do not have a history of changes. Si their any where that the approved mark will be stored for an Ad-Hoc?
If this does not lock them can I ask what the benefit is apart from it placing a notification in the to do lists?
Hi Oliver, that's correct - marks can be changed after they've been approved.
If you would like to prevent teachers from changing marks once they've been input, you can lock them! Just go to the marksheet, and use the blue pencil icon to select Set/Unset Approved.
The approved mark is stored in Students > Assessments > Summative Tracking > Mark Entry > Data Collections. Just click the approval then jump to the approval marksheet.
Gwyn Mabo,
thank you.
I have raised it on the road map previously that locking them in that way is not practice due to the high number of marksheets that are needed for a 11 form entry school and 3 year groups data are collected at once. I shall add it to this road map item also
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