ADAM

Reporting Period Administration

A reporting period is equivalent in many ways to a school term. Each reporting period can produce a single report for each of the grades in the school. If your school requires more than one report per term for any particular grade, it is likely that you will require two reporting periods. To clarify your school’s particular requirements, please contact your ADAM support representative who will discuss your options with you.

Adding a new Reporting Period

At the start of each new term, a new reporting period needs to be created. These can be created for the year in advance, but it is not advised to create any reporting periods beyond the end of the current academic year.

On the Reporting tab, under the Reporting Period Administration section, click on the Add reporting period option.

Fill in the appropriate settings for the reporting period. At the bottom, you can also choose which reporting period you’d like to copy the settings from. This enables you to quickly set up a new reporting period with similar settings to a previous report.

These settings are shared across all the grades. They are discussed as follows:

Once you’re happy with these settings, click on the Add a new Reporting Period  button at the bottom. ADAM will now show you some additional settings as well as the grade specific settings for this reporting period. Have a look at the next section, “Editing a reporting period” for more information.

Editing a Reporting Period

Whether you’ve just added a new reporting period or are editing an existing reporting period, you will see the same screen. Navigate to Reporting → Reporting Administration → Edit reporting period.

A:\Users\Philip\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Word\big_warning_11.pngIf the correct grades are not shown, you can change the starting and ending grades in the Site Settings.

At the top of the screen are the same settings for the reporting period which were set when the period was added. These can be changed here if required.

A:\Users\Philip\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Word\big_warning_11.pngPlease be circumspect about changing the period’s end date. It can have unintended consequences. ADAM uses this date to see who should be in each class. If you change this date after the fact, you may find pupils “disappear” from their classes because they were not enrolled in those classes on that date.

Additional settings control whether this reporting period is considered a formal report (in other words, whether it will collect marks for the pupil, as opposed to, say, comments or other behavioural indicators), and whether the reporting period should be shown at all to parents and pupils on their respective portals.

Report Template Options

Each grade is able to have its own reporting template with its own set of requirements. These appear under the heading Report Template:

Reporting Screen Options

The next set of options, under the heading Reporting Screen, determine what fields ADAM will display on the reporting page for these grades:

Effort:1,2,3,4,5

It is also possible to have more than one behavioural indicator by separating them with a vertical “pipe” character: |

Effort:1,2,3,4,5|Behaviour:Good,Indifferent,Bad|Punctuality:Early,Late

The teachers, in this example, will have five options to choose from for “Effort”, three options to choose from for “Behaviour” and two for “Punctuality”.

Once reporting has started, please be careful when changing any of the descriptions or options for the behavioural indicators.

Calculation Information and Options

The next set of options is titled Calculation Information and allows you to determine how ADAM will calculate the results for these reports:

Other Settings and Advanced Options

At the bottom, a section on Other Settings exists. Here you can toggle the Pupil Goals for the reporting cycle, as well as an option to show the advanced settings (which are shown below):

Reporting Period Time Frames

Each time, after you add or edit a reporting period’s information, or click on the Edit reporting period time frames from the main menu (Reporting → Reporting Period Administration → Edit reporting period time frames), you can edit the deadlines associated with each reporting period.

A:\Users\Philip\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Word\big_warning_11.pngThe deadlines that require “editing” require privileges to be assigned to staff. See “Security Administration”.

Each line represents a reporting action, which are discussed below, and on each line can be multiple windows, each with a start and end time. The start times are listed in green below the dates on which they take effect, and the end times are shown in red.

As you make changes to the time frames below, be aware that the changes you make take effect immediately.

Adding Time Frames

To add a window to any particular line, click on the add option that appears on that line. A pop-up window will appear. Choose the appropriate dates and times that the window should be active for and click on the Add time frame button that appears at the bottom of the window.

To return to the list of time frames without adding a new time frame, either click on the “X” at the top right, click on the dark area around the window, or press the Esc key on your keyboard.

Clearing Time Frames

Removing the time frames set for any particular reporting action can be done by clicking on the clear option on that line.

Multiple Time Frames

It is possible to have multiple windows per reporting action. For example, say that we wanted to have mark book entry closed for a few days before a mid-term academic assembly, but the re-opened afterwards. This temporary closure will ensure that results are not modified while rankings are taking place:

First, we clear the line, and then add the two windows. The final result could look like this:

Adding an Overlapping Time Frame

If you add a time frame that overlaps with an existing window, ADAM will merge them. Consider that we want the report comment entry to begin earlier, on 1 July. Look what happens when we add a time frame from 1 July to 1 August:

Because the time frame already starts on 17 July, ADAM detects the overlap and merges the two windows. The time frame will now span from 1 July until 7 December - the original ending date:

Reporting Period Actions

There are a number of different deadlines that can be set. Note that apart from Markbook Entry and Merkbook Embargo, all other actions have both an “Entry” and an “Editing” option. Broadly speaking, the Entry option is required for normal teachers to perform their reporting functions, while the Editing is rather for teachers who may be required to Edit comments after the teachers have finished capturing their results. Not all schools use editing teams and thus nor all schools will make use of the Editing options in this list.

Markbook Entry

This determines when teachers have access to add marks to the mark book. This is typically closed off before the reports are published in order to allow time for checking of those marks and reports.

Markbook Embargo

This deadline is a feature that allows the administrator to block access to any marks that are entered while the embargo was enforced. Typically this is used in examination periods in order to prevent pupil stress.

A:\Users\Philip\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Word\big_warning_11.pngNote that the embargo only affects assessments that are dated between the start and end of the embargo. Setting an embargo from “today” will not hide the results from an assessment dated “yesterday”. Either the embargo’s window must be widened, or the assessment edited to move into the embargo window.

If a new assessment is added while an embargo is in force, ADAM will automatically set the results release time of the assessment to match that of the embargo. While this can be changed, the effect of the embargo cannot be overridden.

The time of day set with the embargo is generally ignored except in the results release time mentioned above.

Report Comment Entry

This deadline determines when teachers are able to enter their report comments. Normally this will start about a month before the publishing dates and close about a week before the reports are published to give editors and checkers time to read through the comments.

Report Mark Entry

Unlike the mark book entry, report mark entry is used when the mark book is not being used. This allows for direct manipulation of the report mark on the report entry screen itself. If the mark book is being used, this allows the mark book’s result to be overridden. In some cases, this is desirable and allows for some marks to be condoned or adjusted without making adjustments to individual assessments in the mark book. If the mark book is being used, there is generally no reason to allow report mark entry.

Report Level Entry

In a similar vein to the Report Mark Entry, this privilege is required when Learning Outcomes and Assessment Standards must be entered directly on the reporting screen.

Behavioural Indicator Entry

As with the other deadlines discussed above, this provides times when behavioural indicators can be edited. In some schools, it is required that these are done before report comments start, for example.

Report Comment Editing

This time frame allows those teachers who specifically have the ability to edit report comments to do their editing. This will allow them to continue with their editing work while report entry is closed off for most other teachers.

Report Mark Editing

If report mark entry is enabled, this allows those teachers who specifically have the privileges to edit report marks to do so. When schools use the mark book, this is often the best privilege to give to an Academic Head who would have the ability to decide on condonations. It is worth noting that this should only start once the mark book entry has closed since if any marks in the mark book are adjusted after the editing has taken place, those edits could be overwritten.

Report Level Editing

Where schools use Learning Outcome symbols, this allows those teachers who specifically have the privilege to edit learning outcomes to  do so. Again, these teachers can edit once the normal report mark entry time frame has closed.

Behavioural Indicator Editing

Similarly, this privilege allows the editing of Behavioural Indicators by teachers who specifically have the privilege to do so.

Capture Goals (for pupils)

If set, this setting determines when pupils are able to set and make changes to their goals. See elsewhere in the manual for more information on Goal Setting.

Custom Aggregate Calculations

This is discussed in its own separate section.