Comment Bank Window

When a comment bank is being created or an existing one opened, it appears in a Comment Bank window such as the one shown below. However, the Comment bank window:

•	Appears as shown below when a school comment bank is being accessed by a user with privileges allowing them to assign school comment banks to subjects.

•	Does not contain a subject assignments panel when a teacher opens one of his or her teacher comment banks. Instead, the top panel extends to the bottom of the window with teacher comment banks.

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The pane in the top left of the window contains the name of the comment bank and its structure of categories and their values.

Where the comment bank is a school comment bank that the teacher does not have rights to modify, the comment bank will appear greyed out, as shown here.

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Icons in the category/value pane allow categories and values to be added, moved up and down, and deleted.

The table of comments is where you add and display the comments for the comment bank. It will reflect the comments belonging to the part of the structure selected. If you click:

•	The comment bank name, all comments are listed, together with the category and value to which they belong.

•	A category, only the comments belonging to that category are displayed, with their value.

•	A value, its comments are listed.

Icons at the bottom of the comments table allow you to add new comments, insert special name/pronoun substitution text, move comments up and down, and delete comments.

The Assigned pane is only visible when users have school or subject privileges that allow the administration of comment banks and, even then, only if logged directly into the Accelerus database. It displays the subjects to which the comment bank has been assigned. Teachers of these subjects will be able to use this comment bank to write comments about the students enrolled in classes of the subject.

The Unassigned pane is also only visible when users have school or subject privileges that allow the administration of comment banks when logged directly into the Accelerus database. It displays the subjects which have not been assigned the comment bank. Unassigned subjects may be selected and dragged from the Unassigned to the Assigned pane, and vice versa.

Comment banks have an Explorer through which they may be opened and modified.

Com WelcomeCBExplorerIcon This Explorer may be accessed from the Welcome Screen by all Accelerus users by clicking the Comment bank explorer icon in the bottom right of the screen.

Those with school level privileges may go to the Explore menu and select Comment Banks from there.

The Comment Bank Explorer will only list comment banks available to the particular teacher. For example, a teacher who has just a class role will only be able to see the comment banks he or she has created and those school comment banks that have been assigned to his or her classes.

On the other hand, the Accelerus administrator will have all comment banks listed, no matter who the creator and whether they are school or teacher comment banks, as shown below.

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The standard Explorer options are available in the Comment Bank Explorer, eg entering selection criteria, sorting by columns, etc.

At the bottom of the Comment Bank Explorer, is a series of icons that allow:

•	The creation of a new school or teacher comment bank.

•	Comment banks to be opened.

•	Printing out a listing of the comments in the comment banks.

•	The importation of teacher and school comment banks in either CSV or MarkBook .cdb format.

As with all Explorers in Accelerus, records therein may be deleted using the Delete icon in the bottom right corner. However, teachers may only delete their own teacher comment banks and those with subject roles may only delete school and teacher comment banks that they created.

A comment bank may be opened in one of three different ways, from:

•	The Comment Bank Explorer

➢	Highlight an individual comment bank or select multiple comment banks using Ctrl and Shift while clicking rows.

➢	Click the open comment bank icon at the bottom of the Explorer.

➢	Right click and select Open from the menu.

➢	Double click a particular comment bank.

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•

A subject

Accelerus administrators, and subject coordinators with sufficient privileges, may open a comment bank via the Comment Banks tab of a subject window.

When in this section of the subject window, highlight the particular comment bank required, whether in the Assigned or Unassigned panes, and click the Open comment bank icon. Alternatively, double click the comment bank name.

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•	The Welcome Screen

The Welcome Screen greets all users and, in addition to displaying a teacher’s classes, subjects and cohorts, it displays the comment banks they own.

Clicking a comment bank listed therein opens the comment bank.

As shown here, teacher Alexandra Martin has two teacher comment banks of her own that she can open.

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An important feature of Accelerus comment banks is the special control text that is inserted into comments when they are being created so that, when linked to a particular student, the comments are personalised, showing the student’s name and/or appropriate pronoun.

As shown below, the comments include text within curly brackets or braces, eg {He/She/Name}, {his/her}.

Com NamePronounSubIcon

The substitution text may be inserted easily by clicking the Insert student name/pronoun icon at the bottom of the table of comments, when positioned at the point where you want the student's name or a pronoun to appear.

A popup box will appear in which you may: Com NamePronounSubBox

•	Choose the combination of pronoun and/or name options appropriate for the comment being composed.

•	Check either the Pronoun Only or Name Only checkbox, so that only the selected pronoun combination or Name option, respectively, is available when the comment is used.

These checkboxes are useful when a comment contains two or more sets of substitutions and one of these should always be a pronoun or name to avoid repetition. For example, in a comment such as 'Although Mary’s work is improving, Mary needs to work harder …', you may wish to make the second substitution pronoun only, ie 'Although Mary's work is improving, she needs to work harder …'

In other cases, it does not make sense to allow one or the other, eg 'Congratulations on a good semester's work, Mary.' In this case, the Name only box would be checked.

•	Select the case of the substitution text, noting the following:

➢	Lower converts all pronouns to full lower case, eg he, she, his, etc. However, Name substitution will be in Proper case, eg Michelle.

➢	Proper ensures that all substituted text will be have an upper case first letter, eg He, She.

➢	Upper means that all substituted text will be in full upper case, eg SHE, HE, JOHN, etc.

Some handy tips ...

In most cases, after you have selected a combination from the Name/Pronoun Substitution box, you must remember to include a space after it, before the next word.

However, to create the words himself and herself, you would not put a space but would select:

•

Him/Her

•	Pronoun only

•	Lower case

so that the text appears {his/her}self, without a space.

Com NamePronounSubManual You may manually enter the required substitution text in a comment, rather than bring up the Name/Pronoun Substitution box.

To do so:

•	Type the open brace character, ie {.

This will bring up a dropdown list of available options from which you may choose the correct substitution, eg {His/Her/Name’s}.

•	Type as much of the substitution text as you wish and, as you do so, the dropdown list will only reflect the options that match.

If typing the substitution text rather than selecting it from the Name/Pronoun Substitution box or from the dropdown list, take care that it is entered in a correct format. Otherwise, correct substitution will not occur, but the text, as typed, will appear in the comment.

The substitution text must always be enclosed in braces, and only the recognised masculine and feminine pronouns may be used.

However, the name and pronoun fields may be entered in any order, eg {She/He} or {He/She}, and either forward or backslashes may be used and will be recognised by Accelerus.