[schooltool-dev] Data import - my ideas

[Tom Hoffman]

Hi Gregor,

I think the bottom line is that there are at least two ways to
organize this information.  We're essentially parsing a list of class
rosters.  You're proposing, essentially, a list of students with a
list of class assignments.  Neither is inherently better in all cases
-- primarily it probably depends on how the school comes up with the
section assignment.

Having implemented one method, I don't think we're going to take the
time to implement another right now -- we've got a lot to get done
before April -- but really it is just a matter of writing some more
parsing code.  At this point I'm inclined to wait and see if more
people have the same complaint about the current system.

We're just on a tight schedule right now.

--Tom

On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Gregor Jacobs <gregor.jacobs at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi there,
> I am the German guy who has those ideas on how to make data import
> easier, maybe you heard about yet :-)
>
> I have no knowledge on any programming, except for HTML and LaTeX basics
> (so what a common computer user might want to know) but use ubuntu Linux
> as Operating System at home.
>
> At the moment, there is (as you already know) my idea of creating a data
> file which is easy to fill in for the end user. I had e-mails about this
> with Tom and got a reply from Ignas which was also sent to this list as
> copy, therefore I subscribed now. Hope that is OK with you.
>
> Now, the XLS import to SchoolTool is a major step to getting it easier,
> but as the sample data file has 47,000 entries for sections, I fear this
> might discourage some people, and my idea was to have ONE list with all
> students and all data about them (nothing new) but
> 1. one column with the grade the student is in (just one number, like 8,
> 9, 10, or a letter if your school uses letters)
> 2. the columns for subjects (one per subject): en (English), ma (Maths),
> ph (Physics), sp (Spanish), ch (Chemistry), mu (Music), ar (Art), etc.
> as abbreviations.
> 3. per subject for each student the course / section assignments, as a
> single letter or number to identify the subject's course for this grade.
>
> An example: student jacobsgr is in grade 9. All his courses / sections
> will be something like xx9_y where xx is the subject and y the course
> number.
> He is assigned to English B2, Maths C2, Physics A1, Spanish (none),
> Chemistry B, Music 1 and Art 2.
> The course / section IDs are then en9_B2, ma9_C2, ph9_A1, ch9_B, mu9_1
> and ar9_2.
>
> The tricky thing is to get this out of excel. Formulae's names differ
> from country to country, so I think the best is if some script extracts
> these data and creates a temporary file with the assignments, and
> SchoolTool reads that temporary file into the database.
>
> http://gregorjacobs.de/spreadsheet1.png <-- A screenshot of a very short
> sample file...
>
> The next step then is to make that the temp file with all the entries,
> line by line, kinda
>
> "assign student hartfl to en7_1"
> "assign student hartfl to ma7_C2"
> "assign student hartfl to ph7_A"
> ...
> Due to lack of knowledge, I have no clue on how to make that... But I am
> sure someone of you could to that in an instant =)
>
> I guess most schools in the world have in common that students are
> organized in grades, and students are taught in certain subjects. The
> bigger the school, the larger the number of courses, so I thought
> creating course / section IDs which can be read easily (and adjusted, if
> needed) might come in handy.
> Furthermore, schools can easily adjust the tables to their means (such
> as extra subjects or whatever sections they have).
>
> By editing the courses' names or the names for the grades, it's even
> possible to have more than one branch per grade (as Germany still has).
>
> The current sampla data lists each section (courses) and includes in the
> head lines information about location and time. I just thought what if
> there is a sheet with all rooms and then from Monday thru Friday the
> courses... Like, Room 101 in building A (roomID a101) has on Monday
> these courses: en7_2, ma8_A2, ge10_E, (none), hi5_2. That would become
> in the temp file
> "assign room a101 on Mon 1st to en7_2"
> "assign room a101 on Mon 2nd to ma8_A2"
> "assign room a101 on Mon 3rd to ge10_E"
> "assign room a101 on Mon 4th to empty"
> "assign room a101 on Mon 5th to hi5_2"
>
> This way, we ensure that no room is booked twice at the same time (which
> definitely would cause chaos).
>
> Same with teachers... Teachers' timetables as one large sheet.
>
> The problem I see among this is the fact that the rooms' table needs
> (with 6 lessons a day) 30 columns, and the teachers' table as well...
>
> So far for my personal suggestions. Handling lots of data is difficult,
> so if it can be made least difficult, this comes in handy... And with my
> suggestions I try to keep the chance of overlooking and easily detecting
> if everything is OK up.
>
> Gregor
>
>
>
>
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