E10 - Selecting multiple sport options for different terms / semesters using an Electives dataset

Modified on Thu, 14 Aug at 12:45 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble

Preamble

Some schools opt to gather sport selections for four terms one selection process. The Line results will show one sport line, with four rotations of sport classes. The main advantage of this approach is that students can select all their termly rotated sport preferences at once, along with some reserves, and Edval can juggle the class list numbers across the whole year, where sport options run for more than one term. Schools that collect preferences on a term-by-term basis may find particular sports are very popular in Term 1 (possibly having students miss out on their preferred sport), but interest has tapered out by Term 4. Selecting all the sport options for the whole year allows E10 to take into account all four main preferences of the students, and create more evenly balanced classes. Students' sport preferences can be imported via a spreadsheet, or collected through Choice. This document covers the Choice collection method.

This process must be set up in an Electives type dataset - not in the Sport type dataset. First refer to E10 - Choice Form Type: Sport and E10 - Elective data > Courses to determine which dataset would be most suited to your needs and familiarise yourself with the Electives dataset for the purpose of selecting sport options for multiple terms.

Notes:

In the Electives type dataset:

The 'First come first served' sport allocation is not an option.
Students are not placed / booked into a sport option at submission time, but students are allocated to sport classes when the sport line is generated.
There is no warning when a sport reaches capacity during the submission process. Students can thus not be placed on a waiting list as in the Sport dataset.
Student sport preferences can be imported from a spreadsheet or collected through Choice.
Subject selection rules may be used.
One line with four rotations of sport classes will be generated to satisfy the highest number of student preferences across the whole year.
Sport classes will be created for each rotation.

Step 1: Create a sport year level

If sport classes contain students from several year levels, it is recommended to set up a new year level e.g. SP within E10 to manage the class list of sport classes. The sport classes in the SP year level will appear in their own class data screen, separate to the classes in each academic year level, e.g. Year 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 / 7.

In the .etz file, navigate to ADMIN > Setup > Year levels.
In the 'YearLevel' field, add a new year level, for example SP, which will be the year level where the sport classes will be created.

Step 2: Set up an Electives type dataset

Navigate to Lines > Datasets.

Enter the following fields:

Column	Description / Data entry
Dataset	The code of the dataset e.g. Sport4 (each dataset code must be unique).
Form Name	E10 will duplicate the dataset code in the Form Name cell. Enter a more descriptive title for the form e.g. Sport Electives 4 Terms. This form name will display to students upon login to Choice (E10 will automatically add the relevant calendar year for the sport selection to the form name).
Type	Click in the cell and select Electives from the Type drop down box.
Groups and House	If required, the dataset may be limited to certain Letter or Number groups or to certain Houses, if this information is contained in the .etz file.
Year levels	Include all year levels of students who will be making sport selections, as well as the SP year level (which will hold all the sport classes when they are created - providing this SPT year level is entered first in the list of year levels entered in the Years column in the Lines > Elective data > Courses). Tab to move across to the next cell and enter the other required year levels.

Step 3: Add sport options to the Courses table

Navigate to Lines > Elective data > Courses.
Filter, in the top menu on the right, by the dataset, e.g. Sport Electives 4 Terms, and select the SP year level.
Enter sport options:
1. Manually.
2. Import from a spreadsheet.
3. Import from courses that already exist in Class data.

See: E10 - Elective data > Courses, E10 - Import Elective course data from a spreadsheet and E10 - Elective data > Courses Action: Import courses.

Explanation of each field of the Courses table:

Column	Description / Data entry
CourseCode	Enter a short unique code to identify each sport option for each semester / term e.g. SPTE, SPTP, SPFB, SPVB etc.
Subject	Enter a name that is a clear description of the sport e.g. Tennis, Futsal, Volleyball, Chess etc.
#C	Enter the number of classes required for each sport option.
S/C	Once student sport preferences are in the file, the S/C field will show the average class size.
Max students	Enter the maximum number of students that can be placed in each class. E10 auto-fills the Max students the default value of 27. Adjust as necessary.
Teachers	Edit the Teachers > Subject teachers for each sport option. Leave the field blank to allow E10 to refer to the grey Subject teacher set - except where a specific teacher needs to be forced. E10 will not place a sport requiring the same teacher on the same rotation. 'None' can be entered if the sport option does not require a teacher e.g. the sport is couched by someone independent at a club / venue, not listed as a teacher in the .etz.
Rooms	Edit the Rooms > Subject rooms for each sport option. Leave the field blank to allow E10 to refer to the Subject room set , except where a specific room preference needs to be forced. E10 will not place a sport requiring the same room on the same rotation. e.g. if there is only one Basketball court, E10 will not place two basketball classes in the same rotation. 'None' can be entered if no school space is required, for example if the sport is off campus.
Units	Specify the number of units e.g. in a file where the 'Number of Rotations' are set at 4 and students are required to select four sport options, running on a termly basis, we would have 1U entered for each termly sport option.
Lines	In the image above Summer sport options offered in Term 1 and 4 have been entered as 'a, d' in the Lines field. Winter sport options offered in Term 2 and 3 have been entered as 'b, c' in the Lines field. Where the Line field has been left blank, it indicates that the sport option is available in all four terms.
Rules	Sport options can be categorised by allocating a letter of the alphabet in the Rules column, e.g. W for Winter and S for Summer sport options. Submission rules can then be added such as 'at least' - 2 units - Summer sport options and 'at least' - 2 units - Winter sport options to ensure that students have the correct combination of sports.
Coreq	Enter a co-requisite sport code if a student must select a secondary course in addition to this one.
Prereq	Double-click to add course prerequisites or press DEL in the cell to remove. See: E10 - Choice: Setting Course Prerequisites.
Fee	Enter the fee if one exists. Edval will add the $ sign after you enter the value. The fee will display in the online Choice selection form.
Years	Enter the SP year level first (so that when sport classes are created, they are transferred to the class data screen in the SP year level, rather than Year 10 or 9 etc.), then add all the other year levels that are able to select the sport option, separated with a comma.

Classes will appear slightly greyed depending on which year level has been filtered in the View menu. This is fine; it only appears in black in the first year that is listed in the Years column, as a reminder of which class data year level the classes will be created in.

Step 4: Enter the Parameters

In the Lines > Elective data > Courses screen, click on the Parameters icon in the action bar on the right hand side of the screen for the Parameters table to slide out.
For our purpose of collecting one line including 4 rotations of different sport options, enter:
Elective lines: 1
Reserved prefs: 4 - or the number of reserved preferences that will be collected from students.
Units per line: 4 - one unit per rotation.
Periods per line: e.g. 2 - the number of periods that sport classes will run per cycle.
Letter or Number of the first line: Enter the letter or number indicating the line to which sport will be allocated e.g. S / 1.
Rotated: Tick Rotated, to create sport classes as rotated classes.

See E10 - Elective data > Courses Action: Parameters

Step 5: Enter Rules (if required for Edval Choice)

Selection rules may differ across year levels, therefore they must be set up in each individual year level. Select the year level from the Year level selector (top right) to enter the rules associated with that particular year level.

In the Lines > Elective data > Courses screen, click on the Rules & Constraints icon in the action bar. Rules are not set up in the SP year level selector, since this year level has no link to students.
Add 'at least' or 'no more than' rules.

See E10 - Elective data > Courses Action: Rules

Step 6: Configure Edval Choice forms

Navigate to Lines > Edval Choice > Configure forms.
From the top menu on the right, ensure the Sport4 dataset is selected, and select a year level from the filter.

Each year level involved will need to be configured separately, as it is possible to enter different information and rules for each year level.

Explanation of each field:

Column	Description / Data entry
Minimum required units and Maximum allowed units	Enter 4, since there are four rotational sport options and each student needs to choose at least and at most one sport option per rotation.
Minimum required reserve units	Enter the number of reserved options you allow the students to make, e.g. 4, one for each rotation.
Main preference drop downs	Label: Enter the description that students will see on the online form. Groups: enter alphabetical letter/s, to indicate the categories of sport options to display in each drop down. Sub-line: Enter the rotation as lower case a, b, c, or d (or a combination of) if the drop down is to display sports running in certain rotations only.
Reserve preference dropdowns	As above.
Notes	Enter text that will be displayed on the Choice form screen. This may be different for each year level.
Text upon submission	Enter text that will be displayed at the bottom of the printed form.

If a form has been configured for a year level, the parameters / rules / text can be copied into another to get an identical copy of the configuration details. In the image below, the 'Copy parameters' icon is selected from the action bar in the Lines > Edval Choice > Configure forms screen and parameters / rules / text of the SP year level's form is copied to Yr11's Sport Electives 4 Terms form.

Step 7: Sync forms

Navigate to Lines > Edval Choice > Sync.
Enter settings

Column	Description / Data entry
Email settings	Send confirmation emails to: emails a copy of the submitted selection to each student and/or the Administrator; or leave blank to send to no one. Students in fact have the option to print or email their form at the time of submission anyway. Confirmation email sender: Select 'noreply' for email replies to go to an unmonitored email address. Select Administrator and add the Administrator's email address in the allocated field to allow student to respond to the Administrator via email. This may assist in viewing any emails returned due to incorrect student emails.
Submission settings	No changes. New submissions only: Tick this to allow students to only submit once. Leaving unticked will allow them to log in and make changes to previously submitted selections while the form remains open. Close forms with message: When the form is to be closed to students, tick the box and enter a message that will displayed to the students if they try to log in.
Sync	To send the data to the online webserver. Sync any time changes are made, or when the form is to be closed. A pop up message will appear affirming that the 'form for Sport4 in the relevant year has been synced' and a reminder to 'Keep in mind that all the year-levels must be separately synced'.

Step 8: Publish forms

Once the form has been configured and synced, thoroughly test the Choice form online before issuing / communicating any WebCodes to students.

Test forms: Selecting this button opens a web browser, which allows you to login using a test WebCode. The WebCode is automatically copied to your clipboard and can be easily pasted into the open web browser to view the sample student - Peter Pan.

Export WebCodes: Export WebCodes to Excel, which can be used to create a mail merge document.
Email WebCodes: Email WebCodes directly to students from Edval (only if student email addresses are in the .etz file in Students > Student data (F8)). To see if all student emails have been populated, go to Students > Student data > Fields to show and select Email + Phone.

Refer to E10 - Choice: Publish - Test forms, E10 - Choice: Publish - Email or export student WebCodes, Choice: Document templates and Choice: Communicate to students via Email or Printed letter.

Step 9: Students submit sport selections

Students log in to my.edval.education with their WebCodes to select their sport choices and submit the form. They may email or print a copy of their submission.

Step 10: Download student choices from Choice

Once the submission period ends, the forms can be closed in Lines > Edval Choice > Sync.
Go to Lines > Elective data > Students.
From the top menu on the right select the Sport electives 4 Terms dataset and the required year level.
In the action bar on the right hand side of the 'Students' screen, select the 'Download student choices from Choice' icon to download the students sport electives.

The Students table displays:

Pref 1, Pref 2....: The student's main sport preference and reserved sport preferences, separated with a bold line.
UnitsR: Displays the total number of main preference units requested.
Submit time: The time each submission occurred.

Step 11: Generate lines

Once the form has been closed and all student choices have been downloaded, the sport classes can be decided.

Navigate to Lines > Elective data > Courses > Filter: Sport electives 4 Terms dataset.
Select the Generate lines icon from the action bar on the right of the screen.
It is advisable to keep the default construction parameters, unless the user understands the implications of the change. The algorithm will work to find the best solution to meet student choice, school resources and the file parameters.

See: E10 - Elective data > Courses Action: Generate Lines

The Lines > Line results > View Lines screen will display a single line that has been generated, with classes sitting across the 4 rotations.

Step 12: Optimise solution

To optimise this line results solution further, select the Optimise solution icon from the action bar.

See: E10 - View lines Action: Optimise solution and E10 - View lines: Results of line generation.

Step 13: Populate classes

This action can be performed when student preferences are added after the line generation occurred or when sport classes have manually been moved across rotations. Populate classes looks at a deeper student shuffle to achieve the best student arrangement.

Select the Populate classes icon from the action bar on the right of the Lines > Line results > View Lines screen.

Step 14: Create classes

Once the sport line has been accepted and finalised, the next step is to create the sport classes to be transferred to the Class data screen.

Navigate to Lines > Line results > View Lines > Action bar: Create classes.
Choose the preferred class code format.
In this example, the CourseCode for the sport options in Lines > Elective data > Courses, has been prefixed with the SP year level, so we would leave 'Prefix class codes with year-level' unticked.
Select Create.

This will transfer the sport classes into the Classes > Class Data (F6) screen in the SP year level, populate the class lists, the #Per (number of periods) and the Rot (rotation) fields.

Step 15: Check Class data

Check the sport classes in Classes > Class data:

Code: The class code of each sport class e.g. SPTP1.
Faculty: E10 would have guessed the faculty and colour if the sport subjects have not previously been set up in ADMIN > Setup > Faculty data / Subjects. Incorrect faculties can be changed in ADMIN > Setup > Subjects as required, or directly in the Class data (F6) screen. If changing the Faculty entry in Class data (F6), a pop up box will notify you of your attempt to change the faculty. Select the Move all classes to correct the faculty e.g. to a Sport faculty.
Subject: Subject name will populate as per the Subject entry in the Lines > Elective data > Courses screen.
#Per: E10 auto-fills the #Per as per the parameters entered in the Elective course parameters.
Spread: Enter the desired spread. Anything should be used if hard coding the classes to a particular period.
Line: May be altered e.g. Line S.
Link: Link classes if required, for example, for sharing teachers or rooms across sport classes.
Rot: Blank for full year classes, or a number to represent which rotation/s the class will run in.
#Stu: Populates when the classes are created.
Max student: Entry comes across from the Lines > Elective data > Courses screen.
Periods: If sport is run at a particular time, hard code the classes to the period, e.g. Fri5-6.
TeacherPref: Teacher preferences are auto- filled from the Teachers > Subject teachers' data or hardcoded teachers entered in the Lines > Elective data > Courses screen.
Allocate the sport classes to teachers in Teachers > Staff allocations (F4).
RoomPref: Room preference are auto - filled from Rooms > Subject room data or hardcoded rooms entered in the Lines > Elective data > Courses screen.
Allocate sports to rooms in Rooms > Room allocations.