Final Scores

Final Scores

Different from Progress Reporting, this section is about final scores for permanent record reporting whether that means uploading them to an SIS, send to a state permanent record

Students' summative standards scores, organized by course, are calculated by Empower and verified by teachers and administrators before being considered final. This article discusses that process. 




Teacher Verification Report (TVR)

In the simplest terms, the TVR is how we determine final course scores in Empower.

TVR or Teacher Verification Report is the means by which Teachers post credit for course completion to a students permanent record.  In a competency system, seat time is not a vehicle for credit. Instead, course credit is based on mastery of competencies aligned to a traditional course. Administrators require a tight system to manage and ensure accuracy to the student records and the TVR process is this vehicle. 



  1. Go to the Reporting Tab
  2. Select Teacher Verification Report (TVR)
The TVR will pull up a report about the standards associated with the group. Generally the Course Playlist. 



TVRs and the columns present can vary from district to district. Here are explanations of a few of the tricky fields:

LT Average: A straight average of all of the standards in this course.
Rounded Lvl Avg: The straight average rounded to the nearest score in the scoring model. 
Grade Level: The student's grade level
Current/ Suggested Score: An average of the summative scores on standards in this course. A dash here indicates In Progress. The student was enrolled in the course but the student is not yet proficient or has not yet gotten a score.
Credit: By default uses what's called "the 80/100 rule" which means that in order to get credit for the course, the student needs to be proficient in 80% of the standards and 100% need to be at a 2 or higher. So everything must be attempted or begun and most standards need to be mastered. Those percentages can be adjusted by request.

Withdrawn students will appear in red at the bottom of the table. 

Granting a Final Score

Based on the information provided in the TVR, teachers will select a final score using the scoring tools in the toolbar and inputting scores in the Final Grade column. 

Expedite this process with the Push to Final button.
Pressing Push to Final will fill in the Final Score column with the suggest scores calculated by the report. These can still be adjusted using the pick and click scoring tools.

Post

Pressing post sends this score to the Admin TVR to be reviewed by the Administrators before heading, finally, to the transcript.

Once a teacher posts scores, the teacher cannot recall them. And admin would need to send them back from the Admin TVR by adjusting the score's Status in the TVR Admin Report.


TVR Admin Report

TVR or Teacher Verification Report is the means by which Teachers post credit for course completion to a students permanent record.  In a competency system, seat time is not a vehicle for credit. Instead, course credit is based on mastery of competencies aligned to a traditional course. Administrators require a tight system to manage and ensure accuracy to the student records and the TVR process is this vehicle. The Admin version of this report gives administrators a report to view course scores and the underlying data before validating that data themselves to be sent to the student's permanent record.

Only users with Admin rights will see this report in their tools menu. 
  1. Go to the Empower Tool Menu
  2. Open the TVR Report
  3. Set the filters for the data you want to see.
  4. Press Run Report
Some of the less intuitive fields...

Status: Select to view scores with certain statuses such as Posted, Not posted, Transcripted. 
Posted Scores: Select the score levels you want to include in the report. Perhaps you only want to see scores of 2.0 and below, for example.
Score Comparison: Here you can view instances of discrepancy between the scores calculated by Empower's settings and the scores posted by teachers.. 
Current Term: This populates a column in a spreadsheet when exported which can assist in uploading the data into an SIS. If unsure, set to 1. 


For there to be data in this report, courses must be set up and assigned and teachers must be using the TVR themselves to send data 






Final Grade Adjustment by an Administrator. 

To change any score in the TVR Admin Report, click into the Final Grade column and enter a new score. 

Export to Excel

All data in the TVR Admin Report can be exported to Excel by selecting the rows and clicking Export to Excel.

Transcript 

Selecting Transcript at the top of the TVR Admin Report will export the selected rows to a .CSV file.

The current fields in this extract are:
  1. Primary Key - used to create a unique identifier for each student and course. Often useful for awarding preventing duplicate credits in a SIS
  2. Student ID - synced from your SIS
  3. % of standards completed with scores of 0.0, 2.0, and 3.0 - This data is included in the TVR for teachers. It is included here as well to help admin teams monitor trends and consistent scoring across the school.
  4. Suggested score - This is the score that Empower has recommended for the student
  5. Awarded score - This is the score that a teacher enters for the student
  6. Date posted - the date the official score for the course was finalized by the teacher
  7. Grade level - synced from your SIS in the nightly imports
  8. Course name - set up in the Course Playlist for each course.
  9. School number - the numerical identifier that is used in Empower. Often passed to Empower from your SIS.
  10. Completion date - the date of the last related score a student received on a standard in this course.
  11. Term Current - identifies the term number that these posted scores are related to. 
  12. Terms Long - how many semesters the course was scheduled for
  13. Category - a numerical identifier that connects this score/credit to a particular content area or credit category
  14. Credits earned - The amount of credits is earned is based on the credits attempted, and the Awarded Score.
  15. Credits attempted - The amount to credits for each course is set up in the Course Playlist for each course.
  16. GPA Value - the value of the course score, after any weighting is applied
  17. Unweighted GPA - the value of the score without any weighting applied
  18. Is Weighted - a numerical value that identifies if weighting is being applied to the course's GPA. This is set up in the Course Playlist for each course.



Grade Passback

It is important to note that it can be often difficult to have any two systems share data. Data security concerns often mean that a SIS is tightly controlled, making it difficult to automate this process. Please make sure you have scheduled time to ensure all systems are able to receive your grade data. While Empower can provide guidance and will work with other systems, we are unable to modify and it is often difficult for us to fully troubleshoot other programs.

"Grade Passback" refers to the process of taking scores from one system and adding them into another system. In this particular case, final course scores from Empower can be exported though the TVR Admin Report then imported into your SIS.

There are three Grade Passback methods that are available for users of Empower. Based on your particular SIS not all options may be available:
  1. Manual
  2. Export/Import
  3. Syncing with an SIS

Manual

The manual grade passback process is considered the easiest to implement, and is often used while exploring the other two options. Some schools decide this method fully meets there needs and is the easiest to implement as a full solution.

Manual grade passback is simply having teacher enter final course scores as normal in Empower, then entering these final course scores into their SIS as needed. They often will enter the scores into the SIS from a paper copy of their TVR, or will open both programs at once to make it easier. While it does require double data entry, it is fairly minimal data to reenter and is only required to happen once a year (or course). 

Export/Import

Successfully manually exporting and importing final course scores is dependent on the ability of your SIS to be able to import a file that is created by Empower. Empower has worked to provide as many fields as possible when creating a transcripted file from the TVR Admin Report. Export this data from the TVR Admin Report. This file can be modified to fit your particular needs, removing or manually adding any fields that Empower may not have. The current fields in this extract are:
  1. Primary Key - used to create a unique identifier for each student and course. Often useful for awarding preventing duplicate credits in a SIS
  2. Student ID - synced from your SIS
  3. % of standards completed with scores of 0.0, 2.0, and 3.0 - This data is included in the TVR for teachers. It is included here as well to help admin teams monitor trends and consistent scoring across the school.
  4. Suggested score - This is the score that Empower has recommended for the student
  5. Awarded score - This is the score that a teacher enters for the student
  6. Date posted - the date the official score for the course was finalized by the teacher
  7. Grade level - synced from your SIS in the nightly imports
  8. Course name - set up in the Course Playlist for each course.
  9. School number - the numerical identifier that is used in Empower. Often passed to Empower from your SIS.
  10. Completion date - the date of the last related score a student received on a standard in this course.
  11. Term Current - identifies the term number that these posted scores are related to. 
  12. Terms Long - how many semesters the course was scheduled for
  13. Category - a numerical identifier that connects this score/credit to a particular content area or credit category
  14. Credits earned - The amount of credits is earned is based on the credits attempted, and the Awarded Score.
  15. Credits attempted - The amount to credits for each course is set up in the Course Playlist for each course.
  16. GPA Value - the value of the course score, after any weighting is applied
  17. Unweighted GPA - the value of the score without any weighting applied
  18. Is Weighted - a numerical value that identifies if weighting is being applied to the course's GPA. This is set up in the Course Playlist for each course.

Syncing with a Student Information System (SIS)

The most difficult method of moving final course score data from Empower to our SIS involves syncing between the two systems. This will often require the use of third party systems. While this often incurs an additional cost, this method would be more automated that the other two options. Many Student Information Systems currently charge for this interoperability if they even offer it at all. To discuss your needs, please contact us.



Print Transcripts

All teachers and staff can print progress reports at any time. These can be printed in batches or for a single student.


There are a lot of data and options on Empower's reports, so it is always wise to do a practice printing a few weeks before you want to send reports home. Be sure to check the above article to check that everything is as it should be. If you need help, be sure to contact our helpdesk.

Each report requires Empower to potentially fetch and organize a lot of data. This can be a drain on the processing power of the server and can slow Empower down. Therefore, we recommend that you
  1. Print in small batches (100 students at a time or so)
  2. Print after hours whens system usage will be lower



Transcripts are printed just like Progress Reports are. 
  1. Go to the Reporting Tab
  2. Select the Progress Report Printer (Report Viewer)
  3. Find the Progress Report Printer option and click Run Report
  4. Set the Filters
  5. For the Select a Report option, select "Transcript Report"
  6. Make sure to carefully look at the options. Do not for get to select Content Areas
  7. Select the student(s) you want to print for
  8. Press Print Reports
  9. The reports will process and present you with a link to view and download them. 

The below video shows the progress report printing process. The process is the same, except when you select the report to print, select the Transcript.




Importing Course Scores into Empower

It is possible to import existing course scores from a different system and load them into Empower via spreadsheet. 

Post a spreadsheet to the Helpdesk with the following fields and Empower will be able to load this data up.
  1. STUDENT_ID
  2. COURSE NUMBER
  3. SCORE
  4. DATE
  5. CREDIT ATTEMPTED
  6. CREDIT EARNED


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