Locking and Restricting

Accelerus Icon
 

Assessment items may be locked and/or restricted in Accelerus, processes which have different meanings and implications. In addition, a whole cycle may be locked.

 

minusLocking assessment items

In the Assessment Items table of each subject, there is a column that indicates whether the assessment item is locked or not.

As shown here, three assessment items, all tagged T3, have been locked.

AI LockedColumn

A locked assessment item is one where the results data held in it may be viewed but may not be added or modified in it.

At the beginning of the year, assessment items that belong to future report runs may be locked by the Accelerus administrator. Then, at the end of each report run, assessment items are usually locked, and the next run's items unlocked. In this way, the only unlocked items available for data entry are the items applying to the current report run. At the same time, though, teachers may still view results assigned to students in earlier runs.

Note that locking an assessment item does not prevent the Accelerus administrator, or those with a subject role that allows the administration of assessment items, from making modifications to the actual assessment item, eg its description or its tags. Only the results data held within it may not be changed, including any calculated results therein, unless the item is unlocked first.

 

Warning

Assessment items that contain calculations will not be recalculated or refreshed when the item is locked. Where a result stored in an assessment item feeds into a calculation in another item, unlocking the source assessment item and changing its data will not change the calculation if its item is locked. You must also unlock the calculated item.

 

 

Locked assessment items still appear in the teachers' class windows, but locked columns are shaded blue and a lock icon appears in the header of each locked column. In addition, the status bar informs teachers that the item is locked.

These locking protocols apply to both class and subject results windows, whether teachers are working in the Accelerus database or in an offline file.

AI LockedPadlockHeading

The locking of assessment items takes effect immediately. If a teacher has an offline file that contains changes to results that have not been synchronised back into the database, and the Accelerus administrator locks the assessment items, when the teacher synchronises, the results in the locked items will not be updated into the database. Also, these results will be deleted from the locked assessment items in the teacher's offline file.

The Synchronisation log will inform the teacher that the item was locked and that the results were not kept.

AI LockedSynchMessage

However, as a precaution, all such results are added to the Result Conflicts table in Accelerus, and can be retrieved via the Result Conflict Explorer, should it be necessary.

AI LockResultConflict

 

Assessment items may be locked and unlocked directly in the window of the subject to which they belong.

Items that have been locked have a padlock icon in their Locked column.

AI LockedUnlockIcon

You may lock or unlock individual items or any selection of items in a subject.

Use the standard procedures to select rows in a table, and then click the appropriate one of the Lock or Unlock assessment item icons.

Although you may lock assessment items on a subject-by-subject basis, locking of items in bulk, eg for one report run, may be carried out from the Assessment Item Explorer window

 

In addition to assessment items being able to be locked across a whole subject, teachers may locally lock assessment items when they are working on their own classes. For example, a teacher may have finished entering result data into a series of assessment items and locks them to prevent accidental changes.

To lock assessment items in a class or subject results window:

Click the heading of the column you require and the whole column will become highlighted.
Hold down the Ctrl key while selecting other individual columns by clicking their column headings.

OR

Move to the last column you want to select and, holding down the Shift key, click the column heading.

In this case, all columns between the first and last selected will be highlighted.

Right click over the highlighted column headings and select Local lock from the menu.

AI LockLocal

Red lock icons will appear in the heading of columns that have been locked locally, as opposed to the yellow padlocks for items locked from the database.

AI LockLockIcons

Unlock locally locked columns in the same way, but selecting the Local unlock option.

 

In addition to locking the assessment items of a subject, Accelerus administrators may lock a whole cycle via the School Settings window. No changes at all may be made to the records that belong to the locked cycle, by any users, including Accelerus administrators.

It is recommended that academic cycles are locked as they are finished, to prevent accidental changes being made to any of its data.

If you wish to lock an academic cycle:

Go to the Tools menu and select School Settings.
In the Academic Cycle Categories tab, go down to the bottom pane, the Academic cycles pane.
If necessary, open a parent cycle to reveal the cycle you want to lock, eg double click 2011 or click the arrow beside its name, to reveal Sem1 and Sem2.
Click the particular cycle to be locked.
Check the Locked field to the right.

Set AcademicCyclesLockCycle

When finished, save the School Settings window and close it.
All windows subsequently opened for the locked cycles will not be able to be edited.

 

minusRestricting assessment items

Another property of assessment items is the restricted state. Assessment items may be marked as restricted and those that are restricted may not be viewed by teachers at all when working in their class results windows.

Assessment items that have been restricted from class view have a restriction icon in their Restricted column, as seen below with the four highlighted items.

AI RestrictUnrestrictIcon

Restricting assessment items may be useful in many different situations:

If importing the number of days late or absent into assessment items, it is usually not necessary for teachers to even see these columns, especially as they will be blank until late in the report run.
Assessment items that contain calculations used for inhouse purposes may be restricted from teachers. As shown above, a series of ADMIN tagged items have been marked as restricted.
Assessment items containing graphical functions that convert the data entered by teachers into graphical representations for the reports may not need to be visible in class windows.

 

Assessment items may be restricted or made available directly in the window of the subject to which they belong.

AI RestrictIcon

You may restrict or make available individual items or any selection of items in a subject.

Use the standard procedures to select rows in a table, and then click the appropriate one of the Restrict or Make available in teachers' view icons.

Although you may restrict assessment items on a subject-by-subject basis, restricting in bulk may be undertaken from the Assessment Item Explorer where, for example, all of the items tagged ADMIN in all subjects may be restricted in one operation.

 

Any Accelerus user who has Administer Assessment item permissions at the school or subject level may choose to display restricted assessment items in the subject results window.

Accelerus administrators and others with a school role that includes this permission may do so for all subjects. Those with a subject level permission may only do so for their own subjects.

To view and hide restricted items when in the results grid of a subject:

Select View > Show Restricted Assessment items.

Columns for these items will be then found at the far right of the grid.

The option will be ticked in the menu when the items are currently visible.

Click the option to hide the restricted items again.

AI RestrictShowHide

 

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Go to View > Reset Column Order after showing restricted assessment items to move the restricted columns into their correct positions, in accordance with their ordinal position set up in the subject' Assessment Items table.

 

 

minusBulk locking and restricting

The Assessment Item Explorer is activated through the Explore menu, only available to those with school level permissions. It is the window that allows you to find any combination of assessment items, using the standard Explorer and selection procedures, and then perform various functions on these assessment items in bulk, including:

Locking and unlocking them.
Restricting and making them available.

Although these functions may be performed on a subject by subject basis, except in special circumstances, the Assessment Item Explorer would be used to perform these functions in bulk.

AI ExplorerWindow

 

In relation to locking and restricting, the following features apply in the Assessment Item Explorer:

 

By default, when you open the Explorer, items will be displayed whether they are locked or not. Lock icons will appear in the Locked column for those that are locked.

However, you may choose to view only assessment items that are either locked or unlocked, in conjunction with entering other search criteria, if you wish.

To select the locked status you require:

Click in the search field for the Locked column and a dropdown list will appear.
From the list, select Locked, Unlocked or <all>.

AI ExplorerLockedDropdown

If you want, you may also sort the assessment items by their locked status, by clicking the heading of the Locked column, and all of the locked items will be grouped together.

 

Any selection of assessment items may be locked or unlocked. For example, at the end of the term 1 report run, you may want to lock all of the assessment items that belong to that run, and unlock the items for the next report run, eg the end of semester or term 2 report run.

To do so:

If a column you require is not displayed in the Assessment Item Explorer, right click over any of the column headers and select the column you want.
Enter search criteria in any of the search fields to filter the assessment items.

For example, if you want to lock all assessment items for a particular tag, or academic cycle, enter search criteria in these fields.

Use the standard methods to select the rows that you want to lock, including pressing Ctrl A or clicking in the top left cell in the header row to select all.

AI ExplorerLockedSelectAll

In the bottom icon panel in the Explorer, click the Lock assessment items icon or, to unlock items, click the Unlock icon.

AI ExplorerLockItems

Click the Save icon or press Ctrl S to save the changed lock status for the items.

 

Assessment items that have been restricted are displayed in the Assessment Item Explorer when you open it, along with those that are available. The items that are restricted will have a blue restriction icon in the Restricted column.

AI ExplorerRestrictColumn

If you want to view only assessment items that are either restricted or available, in conjunction with entering other search criteria, you may.

Click in the search field for the Restricted column, below the icon in the header, and a dropdown list will appear.
From the list, select Available, Restricted or <all>.

AI ExplorerRestrictDropdown

You may also sort the assessment items by their restriction status, by clicking the heading of the Restricted column, and all of the restricted items will be grouped together.

 

You may select any sets of assessment items to restrict or make available, as required.

For example, your school may have created a set of assessment items in each subject that count the number of A to E scores across the subject. These may all have a certain tag or be coded in a consistent manner. You may want to restrict these from teachers' view as they are created for administrative purposes.

To do so:

If a column you require is not displayed in the Assessment Item Explorer, right click over any of the column headers and select the column you want.
Enter search criteria in any of the search fields to filter the assessment items.

For example, if you want to restrict assessment items for a particular tag, or code sequence, enter search criteria in these fields. As shown below, TOT*2 has been entered in the Item Code search field to find all items that begin with TOT and end with 2.

Use the standard methods to select the rows that you want to restrict, including pressing Ctrl A or clicking in the top left cell in the header row to select all.
In the bottom icon panel in the Explorer, click the Restrict icon or, to make items visible to teachers, click the Make available icon.

AI ExplorerRestrictIcon

Click the Save icon or press Ctrl S to save the changed restriction status for the items.