Re: [school-discuss] Collecting Assessments at District Level

[Stephen Braunius <sbrauniu@zeeland.k12.mi.us>]

Thanks for the response!  I'll try to clarify my situation by responding 
to your questions:

Les Richardson wrote:

>1) What format are the assessment items in now? Are they in just raw text
>or are they marked up in some fashion...Tex, HTML, etc. or are they just
>collections of files in proprietary formats like Word, Wordperfect, etc?
>
Currently we are collecting or converting all assessment data into CSV 
files using either FMPro or Excel.  These assessments are typically 
either percents or scales from 1-4.  Everything is currently tagged to 
our district assigned student id's.  These assessments are created as a 
part of our curriculum rewrite/revisit process.

>2) How do you want these items to be assembled into tests?
>
The assessments are actually cumulative scores (kind of like final 
grades).  

>3) How are you going to classify these items so that they can be usefully
>retrieved?
>
This is what I am struggling with.  I don't know how best to store the 
data to be meaningful over a long period of time.  Is it best to have a 
table with characteristics of each assessment (year given, score type, 
scale, quantatative/qualitative, curricular area, etc) and a table with 
just data and the associated test?  

>4) What kind of output formats do you want to generate?
>
I would like an individual teacher to be able to pull up information 
about each student, the average for their class, and the average for the 
building in each area.

>5) Who has access both for retrieval and for entry/editing of existing
>items?
>
Currently all entry is coordinated by me using CSV files imported into 
MySQL with with fields like this: student id, score1, score2, etc.  They 
are then associated with a table that has some very general test 
information.

>So, I'm willing to help out with some opinions or code if you wish. I use
>a MySQL database and Perl/DBI for my testbank. Markup is either raw text
>or TeX for the items.
>
Thanks for the offer.  I enjoyed looking at the testbank stuff you have 
created.  It looks like you have already worked through a lot of the 
items for how to collect assessment data.  I wish there were some site 
out there that has a diagram for how best to create the database tables 
for creating an academic assessment warehouse.

Wow, if anyone made it to the end of this email and actually understood 
what I was saying I would be amazed. ;^)

I'll see how many people have ideas on this topic and will then probably 
contact you outside of this list since the topic probably isn't of 
interest to everyone.  Thanks again for sharing your work.

-- 
Stephen Braunius
Director of Instructional Technology
Zeeland Public Schools - http://www.zeeland.k12.mi.us
Zeeland, Michigan