What is the relationship between Gradebooks and Report Cards?
QuickSchools comes with both Gradebook and Report Cards modules. They are inter-related. But schools can choose to use one without the other. It is important however to note how these two modules interrelate, so that you get the most out of your QuickSchools experience.
There are TWO key differences, which we’ll discuss first:
Gradebook |
Report Card |
Continuous Assessment
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Periodic Assessment
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Basic Assessment Detail
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Rich in Assessment Detail
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Continuous vs. Periodic Assessment
The Gradebook is mainly controlled/administered by the subject teacher. The subject teacher can define gradebook columns, categories, dates, grading scales and even final grade calculations. Teachers can do this on a regular basis; weekly or even daily. When teachers enter a new gradebook column, it can be made available to parents immediately (there is a configuration setting to make the gradebook entries available to the Parent Portal).
Parent View of Gradebook Entries (if enabled)
Blog Entries Re-Categorized
We’ve just re-organized our blog articles to make it easier for you to reference materials posted on our blog. You can now very easily look at all the tutorial-related articles posted on our blog, via the “Tips and Tutorial” category. There’s a special category to discuss new features and recent releases. You can also look at testimonials, as well as events and conferences that we may be attending. Check it out!
Activating and Deactivating Student records
When you subscribe to QuickSchools, you only pay for active students enrolled in your school. However, even though a student leaves the school, you will continue to have read-only access to the student record, for as long as your account remains active with us.
If a student who left the school returns, you can re-activate the student record, and all previous information about that student can be re-instated and modified. Here’s a short video that describes the process of de-activating and re-activating a student record (go to 1:51 or click here):
Go to 1:51 or click here for a direct link
Managing Parent Relationships
In QuickSchools, you can already link students as siblings via the “Parents” tab on the student screen. This saves time by allowing administrators to manage/update only one set of parent records (parent records for siblings are automatically updated). Also, when a parent logs in, he/she will have access to all students linked to that parent record, from a single login:
View of the Parents tab after opening the Student Record (for School Administrators)
But what happens if a parent should only be allowed access to some of the siblings (because of divorce and remarriage)? This is where it helps to click on the “Manage Complex Relationships” link. Read more…
Say goodbye to Gradebook Incompletes
In a recent article, we discussed how the gradebook will display an “I” for incomplete, if the system does not know how to calculate a grade, due to missing categories in the gradebook. We heard you, and we now have the option of re-normalizing the calculation by removing missing categories.
To re-normalize, you can go to the “Grading Setup” menu, and select the appropriate “Grading formula behaviour” from the dropdown below. Here’s what the dropdown looks like:
Creating New Academic Terms (and New Gradebooks)
REVIEW: Academic terms are designed to work independently of one another. So for example, if you make changes to subjects, enrolments or grades for one academic term, it will not be reflected in other academic terms. This is true even for grade levels / programs. If you add a new “13th Grade” or a new “Bachelors of Arts” program for this academic term, it will not appear in previous academic terms.
But schools don’t want to have to create all that data (from scratch) over and over again whenever a new academic term is created. And so we introduced this concept of archiving/migrating the academic term. What this does is copies over all the data from the previous academic term, and copies it into the new academic term. From then on, you can make changes to the new academic term safely, without effecting information from the previous academic term.
So let’s go over the various ways that you can create a new academic term:
Method 1: Creating an empty academic term
Creating an empty academic term is useful for purposes of admissions. You would then reserve the actual data archive/migration process for the end of the academic term (so that only the latest data is copied over). This is what the screen looks like:
This screen can be accessed via the “New Semester Setup” > “View All Semesters” screen, or via the “Admissions” > “View All Semesters” screen. Simply use the “Add New Academic Year” and “Add New Term” buttons to create empty academic terms.
Remember, if you use this method to create a new academic term, you should refrain from activating it, because there’s no data in there. Only when subjects are created / copied over do the gradebooks get created as well.
Method 2: Archiving and Creating a New Academic Term in the CURRENT Academic Year
This process is a straight up “archive and migrate”, as was discussed earlier. This is what the screen looks like: Read more…
Locking Report Cards
REVIEW: When you first create a report card grading session, the report cards are editable. All fields are calculated and displayed in real-time. You can override the fields by typing in something yourself. And if you move your mouse over the field, the “Default value” will pop-up over the field.
The report card will display the latest information based on information entered into the various modules. So for example, when teachers update the gradebook, the report cards will be updated automatically with the latest final grade calculations.
QUESTION: Once the report cards are done, and I’ve printed them off, how do I make sure that the report cards don’t change anymore?
Remember that if teachers continue to use the Gradebook and Attendance modules after the report cards are printed (especially if the academic term is not archived), the fields in the report card may get updated as well. And so the report cards that you printed earlier may look different if re-printed again later.
Mass Printing Report Cards
From the main “Report Cards” > “Report Cards” menu, you can follow these steps to print all the report cards in bulk:
1 – Check off all the checkboxes next to the report cards. You can click on the “All” link, but that only checks off the checkboxes on the first page. So page through, and click the “All” link as you go (we’ll improve the way this works in a future release).
Just a quick announcement, QuickSchools will have a booth at the 2011 Annual Conference organized by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS) in Detroit Michigan on Nov 3 – 4. Be sure to come check us out if you’re there. We’d love to hear from you.
What’s up with the “Incomplete” grade in the Gradebook?
If you’re new to our gradebook, you may notice something strange. What’s up with the “I”s? Why do some students have a final grade, and some don’t? Here’s an example of what your gradebook might look like (Notice the “I”s on the far right column):
Subject Gradebook with Incomplete Final Grades
In this example, we’ve configure the final grade to consist of 60% Assignments and 40% Tests. If you click on “(Formula for final grade)”, the calculation might look something like this:
