Tips for Maintaining Data Accuracy

Establish policies and procedures within your organization for updating individual profiles in the MAP system to keep profile information in sync without overwriting correct data. You might include protocols for communicating who is changing data, when they are allowed to make changes, and what data they are changing. Some school districts designate one person from each school or district to maintain and import profiles to minimize the amount of coordination necessary.

If individuals update profile data at the same time from different sources, the last data to be saved or posted is the latest data the MAP system displays. For example, you may be in the process of importing a roster file, which could take a few minutes to several hours to finish. If someone makes a change to an individual profile, that change appears immediately in the MAP system. If your roster file contains data that would change the manual update, the import process overwrites the manual change.

If you have multiple schools in your system and individuals at each school who are responsible for importing profiles, it is important to coordinate the organization-wide process. A better solution may be to assign users at the district level or main site to update individual student and user profiles.

You must complete an Import Profiles process in progress before another Import Profiles process can start. Any user with the data administrator role can log in to the MAP system and reconcile errors, post valid records, and finish or cancel an import in progress. This makes it possible for you to share tasks with other users. It also means you need to coordinate all communications about importing and reconciliation efforts.

For example, while an import is in progress, MAP system users with the appropriate role can change student data in Manage Students. Depending on what stage the import is in, one process (individual update or roster file import) can overwrite the other, and the result may be unintended.

Consider creating internal policies around file importing and team collaboration, such as:

• Establish restricted hours for completing a file import
• Create a schedule for shared importing responsibility
• Distribute contact information for users authorized to process file imports
• Publish procedures for how multiple data administrators are to reconcile errors
• Collaborate with other users before making changes to an import in progress

NWEA strongly recommends that you download and use the templates from the Information Center on the MAP Administration and Reporting Center home page. These templates use file formats created for use with the Web-based MAP system.

Instructors and classes define groupings so that your entire organization is not reported out in one group. For example, your roster file could define a set of classes that comprises all eighth graders.

Roster file organization is the key to quality reports definition. NWEA recommends taking time to think about the output you want to achieve in reports before you enter important groupings into the roster file.

Pay attention to detail, and sort information by School, Instructor, Class, and Class Period, for example.

NWEA recommends that you import profiles into the MAP system every term to keep data current. You may choose to do it more often to minimize efforts to synchronize data between your student information system and the MAP system.

When you import profiles into the MAP system, you have the option to replace existing class and program associations. This can pose a risk to your data if you are not importing both a roster and programs file, or if your files do not include all existing instructor, student, and program data that you intend to keep in the current term for the school included in your import file. Consider adding the import to existing data instead.

Establish a process for keeping data sources (such as instructor names in your LDAP server and student information system) in sync. Always update the roster file and your school sources when you update an individual profile in the MAP system.

Entering data quickly and taking shortcuts, such as entering placeholder information and made-up IDs, almost always leads to data errors. Avoid entering false data and placeholder information.