Tags in Assessment Items

Tags are optional, user-defined fields used in Accelerus in assessment items as a way of grouping together items that have something in common. For example, all items that are to be assessed in a particular report run may be tagged, eg Int1, Sem1, etc.

Tags are set up once for the life of your Accelerus database, ie they do not apply to specific academic cycles but can be assigned to any or all cycles' assessment items. New ones may be added, as required.

They are set up in the Assessment Item Tags tab of the School Settings window, before they can be assigned to assessment items. The School Settings window is accessed via the Tools menu, usually only available to Accelerus administrators.

Tags may be assigned to assessment items:

•	When Accelerus administrators or others with the permission Administer Assessment Items in either school or subject roles, are setting up assessment items in a subject window.

•	When teachers are adding class assessment items for their own marking purposes when in a class results window.

Set TagsDropDowninSubject

Although optional, assessment item tags are highly recommended when you have multiple sets of assessment items in the one subject, eg a set for term 1 and one for semester 1 in a semester subject, or even more in an annual subject.

Schools in the Victorian Catholic and Government sectors do not need to add tags for their AusVELS reports. Tags will be added automatically when the subject report parameters are built in the Quick Setup window. Tags QS_SEM1 and QS_SEM2 will be added and assigned to the automatically generated AusVELS assessment items.

Tags are set up and assigned to assessment items to make setting up and working in Accelerus easier, as they can be used in the following ways:

•	To allow teachers to switch quickly and easily between sets of items belonging to different tags when assessing their students, while hiding all others. They do this via the View menu when in a class or subject results window.

Set TagsViewMenu

•	To make selection of assessment items easier when setting up and running analyses, eg select all results with a particular tag, even if there are no other fields in common.

•	To facilitate the selection of items in the Assessment Item Explorer, in order to be able to lock or restrict items with a particular tag.

•	To make identification of sets of assessment items easier for copying and rollover purposes.

In most cases, schools will set up their tags based on their report runs, eg TERM1, SEM1, etc, but other other tags that may be required include:

•	An Admin tag for assessment items that have been set up for administrative purposes, eg a series of calculated assessment items holding the count of As, Bs, Cs, etc.

•	To identify items that store NAPLAN test results in Accelerus.

•	Ways to identify different types of assessments, eg work habits.

Multiple tags may be assigned to each assessment item, if required. For example, you may have a series of calculated assessment items for semester 1 which are tagged both SEM1 and Admin.

The way tags are assigned to assessment items may vary when your subjects belong to an annual academic cycle, compared to subcycles such as semesters or terms.

This may be demonstrated using the example of a school which reports four times in the year - at the end of terms 1 and 3, and semesters 1 and 2.

•	Where annual subject are used, the annual subjects would have four sets of assessment items, at least - one for each of the report runs. Each of these sets would be assigned the appropriate tag, eg T1, T3, SEM1, SEM2, as shown below.

AI TagsInAnnual

•	Your school's subjects may be assigned to semesterised academic cycles, ie each subject belongs to either semester 1 or semester 2.

In this case, the subject itself already belongs exclusively to the appropriate semester and it is not necessary to distinguish between assessment items belonging to term 1 from those belonging to term 3, or semester 1 from semester 2.

However, you will want to distinguish between semester and term items.

In this scenario, you may proceed in one of several ways in terms of tagging your items, each of which has its own advantages:

➢	Have four tags - T1, T3, SEM1, SEM2 - each of which is assigned to the appropriate assessment items. The semester 1 subjects, only T1 and SEM1 are used; as shown below. Similarly, in semester 2 subjects, only T3 and SEM2 are used.

AI TagsInSem1

An advantage of this approach is that individual assessment items are much more easily identified, without having to refer to their subject's academic cycle. Also there is consistency if you have a combination of annual and semester subjects.

The disadvantage is, when copying assessment items across cycles, eg from term 1 to term 2, the tag is copied as it appears in the items being copied and then must be manually changed in the copied items.

➢	Use only two tags - TERM and SEM - which are assigned to the appropriate items in both the semester 1 and 2 subjects.

AI TagsInSem3

This method should only be used if all of your subjects are in subcategories, eg all are in semesters and terms, and none are in annual cycles. One major advantage is that assessment items may be copied or rolled over from one cycle to another without having to make any changes to the item's tags. Also, it is clear to teachers that the items belong to either the semester or term run.

A disadvantage is that items are not as easily distinguished when in windows such as the Assessment Item Explorer. For example, to select all of the items for the semester 1 report run, you would need to filter by both the tag and the subject's academic cycle.

➢	Tag all items with two tags in both the semester 1 and semester 2 subjects, ie all term items will be tagged T1,T3, and the semester ones SEM1,SEM2.

Because the subject itself is already associated with the appropriate semester, there is no need to distinguish between the items.

AI TagsInSem2

A big advantage of this approach is that, if you have very similar sets of assessment items in each semester's subjects, items can be copied or rolled over from one semester to another without any need to modify the tags.

A disadvantage is that teachers may get confused when selecting the items to view when the same items come up for SEM1 and SEM2. Also, to select all of the items for the semester 1 report run in the Assessment Item Explorer, you would need to filter by both the tag and the subject's academic cycle.

Multiple tags may be assigned to each assessment item, if required. For example, you may have a series of calculated assessment items for semester 2 which are tagged both SEM2 and ADMIN. This will make it easy for teachers as when they select SEM2 in their class results window, the items marked ADMIN will also come up. For the Accelerus administrator or subject coordinator, having the ADMIN tag will make it easy to select all of the administrator level items, eg if they need to be restricted from the view of teachers.

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Another use of multiple tags is where all subjects are semesterised or apply only to a specific cycle such as a term, to make the setting up of assessment items easier, covered in the section above.

Having two tags does not mean that there are two results for the particular assessment item, or that you do not have to have multiple sets of items. There is only one result for the assessment item in the database, and teachers do not type over the semester 1 results in semester 2, for example.

It simply means that the items will appear in the class and subject results windows whenever any of the assigned tags are selected, ie for either ADMIN or SEM2, in the above example.