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How your school can manage student and teacher data

Wed, 7th Oct 2015
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Schools must develop efficient policies around how student and teacher data is managed, according to the Ministry of Education, who is offering advice on how schools can go about simplifying and automating tasks for running schools, and sharing data between students, teachers and schools.

Transferring data between schools

With Student Record Transfer, school administrators are able to electronically send student records from one school to another as the student moves, for greater accuracy, with less administration.

SRT allows administrators to transfer records between schools as well as between any kind of Student Management System, the Ministry says.

"There's no need to re-enter a student's record each time they move schools, and the records can contain much more information,"it explains.

"With SRT, you can transfer much more detailed records from your students' files such as their record from ENROL and the pre-enrolment register, their assessment records, information about their caregiver, and medical, assessment and attendance records.

Benefits include: •    saving administration time and cost •    earlier and better information about student transfers, for better decision making on matters like resourcing, staffing and timetabling •    secure, accurate transfer of data – all transfers are logged both in SRT and in the school's SMS.

The Ministry says it is important the school advises its community if it plans to use SRT to transfer student records. While a school doesn't need each caregiver's permission, a caregiver may not wish to have a record transferred electronically if it is sensitive.

SRT meets the requirements of the Privacy Act 1993 and the Education Act 1989, the Ministry advises.

Using ePortfolios The Ministry suggest schools use an ePortfolio as a digital record of work.

"Its holder – a student or a teacher – can securely share its contents for all kinds of benefits, whether in their learning or their career," the Ministry says.

MyPortfolio is an online folder for the user's digital media, for learning, collaboration and professional development.

An ePortfolio is a single online folder that gathers a user's digital media of all kinds, such as records of learning and teaching resources. It follows its owners throughout their school career, and beyond.

An ePortfolio can store any kind of digital media –pictures, videos, documents and assessments. Contents could be projects, goals, reflections, feedback and planning, assessments and teaching tools.

Teachers and students can use an ePortfolio for a variety of tasks.

ePortfolios are free for New Zealand schools through MyPortfolio, the ePortfolio funded by the Ministry for all schools until at least the end of 2015. It works with any Learning Management System (LMS) supplied by the Ministry's vendors.

Sharing data from your Student Management Systems

"Your School Management System is compatible with many systems for managing aspects of your school,"the Ministry explains.

"Different 'modules' help you with tasks like tracking attendance, enrolling students, and putting student logons into your data network.

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