SDSHOWTO:Howto...TRAX

Introduction

What is TRAX?

TRAX is a file format specification created by the BC Ministry of Education to facilitate data transfer between schools and the ministry database. The file format specification is available here:

File:TRAX 2005-06 Specs.pdf

There are three main file types:

DEM Files

This file contains demographic records for every student currently enrolled at the school. The system only sends students who are currently enrolled in grade 9 - 12 courses, as per the TRAX spec.

CRS files

This file contains records for non-provincially examinable courses. The SDS can tell if the course is provincially examinable by checking whether the MOE Subject has any provincial exams associated with it.

XAM files

This file contains records for provincially-examinable courses.

The SDS and TRAX

The SDS expands on the concept of TRAX a little bit to provide a mark record for each student in each course that they take while at the school that is difficult for their teachers to change later. These marks are sent to the ministry through CRS and XAM files, but are also used in various other parts of the SDS. At SMUS, the TRAX marks are also used when creating permanent transcripts and PR cards.

BCS was asked whether they wanted this functionality and they declined (see Bug 2113), so the legacy BCS transcript functionality must be used to create PR cards and student transcripts.

Why is it necessary?

The BC Ministry of Education has pressed for all manual-submission schools to adopt a system that supports TRAX data transfers. BCS is one of the few remaining manual-submission schools. SMUS was previously able to submit TRAX transfers through their Trevlac system, but that will be shut down as of Fall 2010.

The SDS needed a way to archive marks so that teachers couldn't change the viewing date and alter the marks as well. The TRAX mark collection allows for this by restricting where those marks can be accessed. By limiting security to the pages that still can change TRAX marks, we prevent most teachers from being able to edit TRAX marks without coordinating with the school data administrator.

TRAX submissions to the Ministry

The primary use of the SDS TRAX module is to communicate marks with the ministry.

How TRAX marks are stored

TRAX marks are stored in a special mark collection period called "TRAX Marks". This TRAX Marks MCP must be present for any year that a currently enrolled student took a grade 9 or above course. For example, if a current (2010/2011) grade 12 student took a grade 9 course in grade 8 (2006/2007), you must set up TRAX MCPs for 2006 onwards.

While most marks can be changed by standard teachers, TRAX MCPs are different. By selecting the type "TRAX" on the Edit Mark Sessions page, this MCP becomes restricted such that it cannot be seen on most mark pages. The "Edit Student Marks" page is one of the few that can be used to edit TRAX marks after they have been migrated into the TRAX MCP.

Setting up Mark Collection Periods

For each year (as determined above), a TRAX MCP must be created:

• Expand Administration -> Mark Collections, then choose "Mark collection periods"
• Click the "Add a new MCP" button
• Specify "TRAX MCP" for the name, a start time of the 1st of October for that year, and end time of the end of July of the following year, MCP types of "Marks" AND "TRAX", then click Save
• Scroll down and click the "Add new mark caption" 4 times
• Fill in the Mark caption data as follows:
  • Mark caption 1: Name: School Mark, Maximum value: 100, Caption type: Mark
  • Mark caption 2: Name: Exam Mark, Maximum value: 100, Caption type: Mark
  • Mark caption 3: Name: Final Mark, Maximum value: 100, Caption type: Mark
  • Mark caption 4: Name: AP Mark, Maximum value: 5, Caption type: Mark
• Click the Save button

MOE Subject examinations

The school data administrator must enter the ministry exams that the school intends on having students write. For SMUS this would mean that the January and June session exams for courses offered at the school would need to be entered. To enter ministry exams:

• Expand Administration -> MOE, then choose "Edit MOE Subjects"
• Click "Edit" beside the subject you would like to enter an exam for
• Click the "Add MOE Exam" link
• Set the Exam date and time, then click the "Add Exam" button
• Repeat for any other exams you need to enter for that subject

The SDS uses the MOE exam data to determine whether the course is provincially examinable, and also to store exam registrations (see below).

MOE Subject exam registrations

Prerequisites: MOE Exams must be set up

The school data administrator must enter ministry exam registrations shortly after the school year commences. The October TRAX submission must contain all expected exam registrations for the year, so all exam registrations must be entered in the system before the October TRAX files are generated.

To enter exam registrations for an MOE examination:

• Expand Administration -> MOE, then choose "Edit MOE Subjects"
• Click "Edit" beside the subject you would like to enter registrations for
• Click the "Registrations" link beside the MOE exam you are registering students for
• A list of all students registered in any course linked to that MOE subject will be presented. Individually check the students who will be taking the exam (if there are only a few) or scroll down to the bottom and click "Check All"
• Exams will default to Electronic, but you can click the "Set all to paper" button to set Electronic to "No"
• Repeat for each exam that students will be writing

Rotating Courses

If a subject's "number of rotations" is set to anything more than 1, the students registered in courses in that subject must also be registered in a cumulative course. This is because the TRAX export only generates a record for cumulative course registrations in rotating subjects. Otherwise, if the student was registered in 3 sets that year, there would be 3 records on the TRAX export for that course.

To set up a cumulative course, add another course to the subject that is rotating. Set the is_cumulative flag to "Y", which indicates that it's the cumulative course. Register all of the students who are in all of the rotating sets in this course. The record will then show up on the TRAX export.

If you have a subject where some of the sets rotate and some don't, try to convince the head of academics to set the subject up so that all or none of the courses rotate. If you aren't successful, you need to create two subjects - one that holds the rotating courses and cumulative course, and one that holds the non-rotating courses. For the non-rotating subject, you need to enter the number of rotations as 1. This means that these registrations will show up on the TRAX export directly. For the rotating subject, the number of rotations should be 2 or 3, and then only the cumulative registration will be exported.

How to migrate marks into TRAX

Prerequisites: MOE Exams must be set up, TRAX MCP must be set up

Before a TRAX file can be exported, the latest marks must be migrated into the TRAX MCP. You should only copy over marks for completed courses. The TRAX MCP should only contain final school marks. The "interim" mark field in the April TRAX submission is filled differently, so you never need to migrate non-final marks across into the TRAX MCP.

Migrations are done separately for non-provincially examinable courses vs. provincially-examinable courses.

Migrating marks for CRS courses

• Expand Administration -> MOE, then choose "Migrate TRAX CRS Marks"
• Define the start/end date range. You want to import marks for all courses that have completed up until this point, excluding courses that you have already imported. In January, you may want to import courses that end January 1 - January 30, for example, and then in June import June 1 - June 30.
• Select the MCP to import marks from. This should be the MCP that contains final marks for courses that end in this date range. If you're selecting January 1 - January 30, you would probably pick Term 1 marks here, but courses ending in June should probably use the Final MCP. You should only import marks after the marks deadline has passed, as that way you should catch all changes done by teachers up until the deadline.
• Click the Dry Run button
• The import page will show you a list of all of the marks that will be imported. If there are some marks that shouldn't be copied, check the "Do not copy mark" box for that mark. If you have previously imported marks and a teacher has changed a mark, that change will be displayed in red and you can choose not to copy in the newer mark if you wish.
• Click the Import Marks button to commit the marks into the TRAX MCP

Migrating marks for XAM courses

• Expand Administration -> MOE, then choose "Migrate TRAX XAM Marks"
• Define the start/end date range. You want to import marks for all courses that have exams in the upcoming exam session. In January, you may want to import course have exams from January 1 - February 15 for example, and then in June import June 1 - June 30.
• Select the MCP to import marks from. This should be the MCP that contains final marks for courses that end in this date range. If you're selecting January 1 - February 15, you would probably pick Term 1 marks here, but courses ending in June should probably use the Final MCP. You should only import marks after the marks deadline has passed, as that way you should catch all changes done by teachers up until the deadline.
• Click the Dry Run button
• The import page will show you a list of all of the marks that will be imported. If there are some marks that shouldn't be copied, check the "Do not copy mark" box for that mark. If you have previously imported marks and a teacher has changed a mark, that change will be displayed in red and you can choose not to copy in the newer mark if you wish. If a student has no exam registration for that exam, that will be shown in red. You can still import the mark, but no XAM record on the current TRAX submission will be generated.
• Click the Import Marks button to commit the marks into the TRAX MCP

How to export TRAX files to submit to the Ministry

You must first ensure that your viewing date is set correctly.

The viewing date must be set to a day before the first examination of the exam period. The TRAX XAM export uses the previous and upcoming exam dates to determine whether a student is rewriting an exam or not. If the student only has exams in the past, the XAM record will include all historical data. If the student only has exams in the future, it will be treated as a standard exam registration. If the student has at least one registration in the past and one in the future, the "rewrite" flag will be set.

Regardless of the viewing date set above, the TRAX files are timestamped with the current actual date. You must generate all TRAX records for a school year during that school year. You may not, for example, generate a June TRAX submission in August, as August falls during the next school year.

A TRAX submission must be sent to the ministry in October, April, June, plus any exam sessions that the school participates in (usually January, not normally November).

Generating DEM records

Prerequisites: Students must be registered in courses for the year

A DEM file must be sent along with all submissions to the ministry.

• Expand Administration -> MOE, then choose "Trax Export"
• Click the "Generate DEM Trax Data" button at the top of the page
• The demographic data will be generated

If any errors are produced, you must fix them before submitting the data to the ministry. An error will usually cause the corresponding student's record not to be generated, resulting in an incomplete data submission. After fixing the data, click the "Generate DEM Trax Data" button again and repeat until no errors are found.

In the first few years of TRAX usage, the data administrator should manually verify several randomly selected rows in the data output to ensure that the TRAX feature is operating correctly. Switch to the Demographics tab to view the most recent generated data.

Once there are no errors and the data has been verified, switch to the "TRAX Download" tab on this page. Choose the TRAX report generation time for the DEM record and click the "Download DEM" button to receive a file that you can run through the TRAX verification software and submit to the ministry.

Generating CRS records

Prerequisites: TRAX CRS marks must be imported for all completed courses

A CRS file must be sent along with all submissions to the ministry.

• Expand Administration -> MOE, then choose "Trax Export"
• Click the "Generate CRS Trax Data" button at the top of the page
• The course data will be generated

If any errors are produced, you must fix them before submitting the data to the ministry. An error will usually cause the corresponding student's records not to be generated, resulting in an incomplete data submission. After fixing the data, click the "Generate CRS Trax Data" button again and repeat until no errors are found.

In the first few years of TRAX usage, the data administrator should manually verify several randomly selected rows in the data output to ensure that the TRAX feature is operating correctly. Switch to the Course tab to view the most recent generated data.

Once there are no errors and the data has been verified, switch to the "TRAX Download" tab on this page. Choose the TRAX report generation time for the CRS record and click the "Download CRS" button to receive a file that you can run through the TRAX verification software and submit to the ministry.

Generating XAM records

Prerequisites: MOE exam registrations must be complete for the entire year, TRAX XAM marks must be imported for all completed courses

An XAM file must be sent along with all submissions to the ministry.

• Expand Administration -> MOE, then choose "Trax Export"
• Click the "Generate XAM Trax Data" button at the top of the page
• The course data will be generated

If any errors are produced, you must fix them before submitting the data to the ministry. An error will usually cause the corresponding student's records not to be generated, resulting in an incomplete data submission. After fixing the data, click the "Generate XAM Trax Data" button again and repeat until no errors are found.

In the first few years of TRAX usage, the data administrator should manually verify several randomly selected rows in the data output to ensure that the TRAX feature is operating correctly. Switch to the Exam tab to view the most recent generated data.

Once there are no errors and the data has been verified, switch to the "TRAX Download" tab on this page. Choose the TRAX report generation time for the XAM record and click the "Download XAM" button to receive a file that you can run through the TRAX verification software and submit to the ministry.

How to deal with the Ministry's XAM file

After sending the TRAX data to the ministry, the ministry will reply later with a modified XAM file containing student provincial exam results. This file must be imported into the SDS so that the TRAX mark collection period will contain the provincial exam marks.

• Change viewing date to the date that you generated the TRAX XAM records (January in February, June in July)
• Expand Administration -> MOE, then choose "Trax XAM Import"
• Select the XAM file and click the "Upload" button

At SMUS, the exam marks can be viewed on the student's transcript or the PR labels. BCS will have to select the TRAX MCP for each course in the Select Transcript page in order for the marks to automatically appear on the transcript and PR labels. If BCS wishes to continue using the Final report mark instead, the exam and final marks will need to be read out of the TRAX file and entered into the Final report MCP manually.

Special Workarounds used by SDS for TRAX submissions

The SDS uses the Trevlac vendor code (T) in all TRAX submissions as it does not yet have its own vendor code. This will need to be corrected in the future. BCS, the school that owns the SDS code, must request a TRAX vendor code from Ross Brain, TRAX administrative officer, ross.brain@gov.bc.ca . Additional data storage or data export requirements may need to be fulfilled in order to obtain a vendor code from the ministry. The TRAX vendor code can be set in overrides/classes/class_trax.php. The vendor certification process must be started by June 1st in order to be available for the next school year.

Special marks that must be sent through TRAX

There are three special letter grades that must be sent through TRAX: SG (standing granted in case of illness), TS (transfer standing granted) and RM (requirements met). RM is only used for Graduation Transitions. To enter an "RM" letter grade, enter a mark of -1. To enter an "SG" letter grade, enter a mark of -3. TS can only be submitted from the edit_transfer_credits page. Simply type "TS" in the letter grade and leave the school mark, exam mark, and final mark fields blank.

Special considerations for Graduation Transitions

Because Graduation Transitions is supposed to be submitted to the ministry without a grade level ("GT " rather than "GT 12"), you must submit these as standard course registrations. If a transfer credit is entered without a grade level, it will not be submitted via TRAX because the TRAX export cannot determine whether the transfer credit is relevant to grades 10, 11, 12. Instead, graduation transitions must be set up as a standard course registration. The MOE subject should be "Graduation Transitions" without a grade level. The subject should be linked to this MOE subject, and MUST have a grade level of 12, so that the TRAX export finds it and adds it to the TRAX submission.

Other places in the SDS that use TRAX marks

Since the TRAX record is already a permanent archive of marks, and the MCP and mark caption structure is rigidly enforced, it is the ideal location to fetch Transcript and PR card data from. SMUS functionality has been updated to use the TRAX records for these functions.

Transcripts (SMUS only)

Prerequisites: TRAX marks must be imported for all completed courses, transfer and equivalency credits must be inserted for all transfers, standardized test results must be inserted, Midyear MCP must be set up correctly (see below)

A student's official transcript can be downloaded from the "Show Student Info" page under "Links and Reports" (the Transcript link). Even if TRAX data isn't fully complete, any data that is present will be displayed, along with interim courses (read from the Midyear MCP), standardized test results, and transfer credits.

Midyear MCP Prerequisites

Just as the TRAX MCP structure is enforced for all TRAX operations, the Midyear MCP structure must be correct in order for the Transcript function to work. There must be exactly one MCP of type "Midyear" and "Marks" and it must have the following mark captions:

• Mark caption 1: Name: Predicted Mark, Maximum value: 100, Caption type: Mark
• Mark caption 2: Name: Predicted AP Mark, Maximum value: 5, Caption type: Mark

Transcripts can also be batch printed using the Print Queue page (Advisor stuff -> Print Queue).

PR cards (SMUS only)

Prerequisites: TRAX marks must be imported for all completed courses, transfer and equivalency credits must be inserted for all transfers, attendance must be taken properly for all teachers (2009/2010 exception: SMUS junior and middle schools... this will not be the case for 2010/2011!!)

SMUS PR cards will display any TRAX marks for the current school year. They can be generated using Administration -> Canned Reports -> Print PR Labels -> (grade level). PR cards take a very long time to generate (several minutes) because accurate attendance must be calculated for the entire year for every student in the grade level.