Importing and Exporting Data

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Much of the data that is required by Accelerus when setting up in preparation for the assessment of students is already stored in computerised administrative systems and timetable packages, eg student and teacher records, enrolments, etc. Rather than re-entering all of this data manually, data may be imported into Accelerus, therefore making it unnecessary to key in records twice.

In addition, export procedures allow you to extract data from Accelerus to use in other applications, eg in Excel, if required, or even to undertake bulk modifications and then reimport into Accelerus.

Most of the importing of data takes place at the beginning of each year or academic cycle, although periodic imports may be carried out thereafter to keep the Accelerus database synchronised with the source database. Also, if result-type data is stored in other locations, eg details of absences may be stored in the school’s administration system, this may be imported into Accelerus at appropriate times.

Importing is a much speedier alternative to manually entering data, although the two may be used in conjunction, eg initially importing the data each academic cycle and making subsequent modifications manually, such as when a new teacher arrives at the school mid-cycle.

In addition, you may use the importing processes to make bulk changes to your database. For example, the end date of all students in Year 12 may be imported to update all students in the one process, or updating student custom property information.

In most cases, data is imported and exported via comma-separated value files, commonly known as CSV files, and used extensively for the transfer of data between different systems.

The records of the following entities may be imported into and exported out of Accelerus via CSV files:

Teachers
Cohorts
Students
Subjects
Classes
Enrolments
Assessment items
Results

In order to do so, the CSV files must conform with specific formats, relevant to the type of entity being imported. Also, the data therein must conform to the field specifications for the different entities being imported.

 

Other than the importing of the above CSV files, other import processes are available in Accelerus for specific purposes, including the importing of:

Student photos so that teachers may refer to a photo of the student they are currently assessing.
Graphic functions via an XML file, containing calculation formulae that convert result data into a graphic.
XML files containing analyses that may be run, analysing the school's data.
Comment banks that are either .csv or .cdb files, the latter being comment databases used in MarkBook.

 

Export processes available include:

The exporting of Accelerus comment banks to a CSV file.
Results that have been logged as conflicts in the Result Conflicts table being exported to a CSV file.
Analyses set up in Accelerus may be exported to an XML file.
Data listings throughout Accelerus may be exported to an .xls, .csv or .pdf file from the listing preview window.

 

VELS

Schools in the Victorian State and Catholic sectors setting up AusVELS reports must import an XML file of students up to and including Year 10 every semester.

It is important that these schools follow the instructions on the importing and exporting of XML files prior to proceeding with any importing of data via CSV files.

Also, these schools have several other import and export options available to them to when setting up and producing their AusVELS reports, including:

Importing the Quick Setup structures applicable to them.
Importing absence data through an XML file.
Exporting the domain/dimension scores for a semester to an XML file.
Exporting any selection of prior AusVELS scores to an Excel spreadsheet.
Creating an XML file of prior AusVELS scores that may be imported into other cycles of their Accelerus database.

 

 

 

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CSV import file formats

Working with CSV files in Excel