Issue Resolved

Increased testing effort on Safari browser
We have increased testing efforts on the Safari browser. We are finding a few issues and are making fixes to improve Socrato on Safari. There are certain issues, specifically “frozen” screens or dropdown selectors which are not working,  which we are hearing from you but we are not able to reproduce in our testing.

• Please let us know if you are having these issues so we can learn more about how to reproduce the problems.

Improved performance for assessment result upload with progress bar
A couple of you mentioned having issues with machine freezing while uploading of student scores. And refreshing of page was resulting in double data entry of the scores.

• Now when you do result upload, a progress indicator will appear to show the system is processing the student scores. In addition we have number of hidden changes which will eliminate duplicate upload.

Ability to delete or update previously uploaded session results
People were having difficulty in deleting or modifying the uploaded user data that was loaded in error

• We made it easy to edit and delete the entire upload if you uploaded the wrong data. There is a ‘Delete All’ button on Edit sessions page, or you can delete results student by student.
• In session list drop down there is a unique identifier (timestamp) for all your uploads that indicates when it was uploaded

Updated scoring calculation for Open Response question
The system was treating any data entry in open response question as correct, including a score of zero.

• Now if you assign points (greater than 0) to a question it will be marked as correct, while zero will be marked incorrect (instead of correct). All empty score will be considered as ungraded.
• In future we are considering adding the concept of partially correct. Let us know you would find this helpful.

Question Distribution report now shows Open Response Questions

• In the Question Distribution report you will get to see the open response and short description questions as part of report. Currently we are not proving the score distribution (it’s on high priority list)

Temporary workaround for Printing large passages (more work in progress – see below)
Few users are having issues printing large passage. It shows correctly on the computer screen but prints only partial information from certain browsers. We are able to reproduce the issue and have a temporary workaround.

• For long ELA passages current workaround is to print on Safari. It’s not perfect but does the job.
• To make global fix we will have to cut the passage images in smaller chunks to fit page size. It will take time because there are 143 passages. Please let us know any passage you want expedited and we will fix those first. We apologize about this oversight.

Printing Icon does not do anything on IE
In Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) when a user clicks on the print button, nothing happens and they get a javascript error.

• We are able to reproduce the issue on IE. We believe it is because the pop-up blocker is turned on. The fix for this is to either temporarily disable the pop-up blocker or add www.socrato.com to your “allow pop-up from this site” list.
• You can do that by going to Tools à pop-up blocker à turn off pop-up blocker

Please give us call if you want us to walk you through.

Some other changes have been done as well, including a lot more help has been added at places. Please let us know if there are particular places that are confusing and we will add more help in those areas as well.

Open Issues on Hot List

• Show some type of “Grouping Indicator” for question from same passage on Search Question page and Question List
• Large passage text not printing completely on paper, where as it is available online.
  • This will require few days of effort. If you have request for particular content set please let us know. We will fix those first.
• In certain circumstances the test heading and description are interchanging (showing incorrectly) on Test List page
  • We have seen this once, but never after that. If you are seeing this we would be very grateful if you contacted us so we can learn how to reproduce it.
• Printing issue - keeping questions and answers together on same page
  • We are looking onto this and it may take some time
• Content upload made easy – Questions upload for various types of questions from outside to Socrato. We have work in progress which will make this very easy. Please stay tuned.

Once again, thank you for your support and please feel free to reach out to me any time for any Socrato related question.
Best Regards,

Socrato Team

New release streamlines MCAS Summative Evaluation and Formative Evaluation.

Thank you all for your patience, support, and feedback. We are pleased to share a few more updates to Socrato which we believe will make life bit easier.

Uploading of MCAS Test Results / Assessment Test Results is a lot smoother along with the real time reports

The issue of similar Test Names was causing confusion.

• That issue has been fixed. Pretty much all Test List pages now show a unique Test identifier (the Test Id #)
• On Enter Results page while selecting the Test for uploading results, the Test Id # and the description are shown in the selection box
• As soon as your test results are uploaded on the summary page you can click on the link for the Question Distribution report. A very revealing and helpful graphical reports shows up (my favorite report, and a recommendation from Sharon – thank you!)

Search MCAS Questions – Getting better, plus no more clicking to see question images.

There were few issues like ‘click here to see image’, or look into your printout to understand what taxonomy 7.D.3 means? Those issues are resolved.

• On ‘Search Question’ page the taxonomy description is available right in the search dropdown
• If the question search result has questions with images, you have an option to see the image right there (an option box to Show image). This fix is also available on ‘Question Preview’ page as well when you are creating / editing any custom test

 Create Custom Tests and Edit them any time.

The fix was requested to be able to modify the Test title and description as they were causing confusion

• Test Editing is now available for every one. If you have created the Test, you can edit the Test any time. Change the title, description, tags etc. You can even add or remove questions any time

If you are the creator of the Test you will see an Edit button.

 Cancelled or Rejected members are eliminated from process

Earlier the canceled/rejected group members (students) where showing up in the Enter Results, Attendance and other group screens.

• The attendance sheet does not show any cancelled members
• The Enter Results page also eliminates them
• They have also been removed from all group reports
• You can see which members are canceled/rejected on the Member List

 Invite your Students to join Socrato

• If your students are using Socrato un-officially, give them the registration code for your group. Invite and encourage them to join the group. When they do the practice in Socrato on their own you can track their efforts and get the Formative Assessment and other reports for no effort. Try it out!!

 Other Updates

• Number of other issue were resolved, as well few content changes were made to eliminate errors
• We also improved the performance of the group “home” page

 We are aware of a number of outstanding requests and issues. A number of improvements are already underway. We will love to hear from you, and get your feedback so we can prioritize the issues which are most important to all of us.

For any questions, suggestions, or ideas feel free to reach out to us via email, phone, or comments on the Socrato blog (http://blog.socrato.com).

Best,

Socrato Team

With this release Socrato also welcomes all new teachers supporting summer MCAS tutoring.

It’s inspiring to see how much effort, energy, and dedication goes in to help at-risk kids. We feel proud to be part of program, and we hope our efforts are making a difference for the teachers and students.

The focus of this release was to start supporting tutoring centers, schools, and classroom instructors by providing real time analysis and recommendations about student learning to teachers and students. In addition, we added about 1,100 more questions to the “question bank” to support MCAS test preparation. Key highlights are as follows.

• Search our large question bank by curriculum strands and standards, and create your own custom tests to print for students or assign to them online 
  • Share your test with other teachers.
  • Have your students take the tests on-line on Socrato, or off-line with printed quizzes.
  • The questions are mapped to the state curriculum, so you can quickly report on student and class performance according to the DOE standards.
• Vastly enhanced Group area
  • In addition to creating a simple group to collaborate, large or complex organizations like tutoring center, schools, districts or training organizations are supported. Groups are built to support easy sharing of test materials, and also provide reporting and detailed analysis at different levels of the group structure.
    
• Timesheet and attendance for group members
  • This feature was added based on the request from our key users. It allows full tracking of timesheet for instructor and electronic attendance submission for students. The time and attendance sheets are supported via user-configurable workflow for approval and processing.
• Assignments and sharable content libraries
  • Any content can be associated with groups along with comment for assignment and communication. Content can also be shared across multiple groups by putting leveraging the hierarchical group structure.
• Ability to load past MCAS TIA’s (Test Item Analysis Report) & Assignment Results
  • Teachers can upload data and run analysis for a group of students
• Exhaustive analysis and reporting
  • Students and Teachers can get real time analysis of their students and class. Example report are question response analysis, trends by students, trends by subject areas over time, and more.
• Sizable question bank
  • In addition a significant amount of content has been added into the question bank to support the full usage of all features.

Thank you for all of your feedback. It has been instrumental in shaping the new functionality and changes in this release.   We also have long list of enhancement requests. We are working on those.  Keep letting us know how we’re doing and what we can do to improve things.

 To all our users, thank you for your feedback and bug submissions. If you have any comments or questions please feel free to reach out to us.

 Best,

-Team Socrato

Mark Hendrickson, April 17, 2008

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | April 19, 2008

April 18, 2008 - Socrato, a Massacusetts-based company, is offering a free, crowd-sourced test-prep service online, TechCrunch reports. Educators can upload sample test questions and study guides in various formats, and students can then use them for practice at home.

The site currently has test-prep questions for national academic standardized tests (SAT, GRE, LSAT, etc.), as well as for the U.S. citizenship test and individual course exams. In an upcoming release, Socrato will “be able to track how students deliberate on questions by analyzing which answers they cross off first,” TechCrunch says. —Catherine Rampell

We always enjoy feedback and we use it to create new features like the ones listed below. Please don’t hesitate to let us know how we can improve things.

Highlights of changes in the latest release:

Better access to Content

Users can upload and share their own content 

Users can upload any type of content directly to Socrato. They can keep the content private, share it with their friends and colleagues, or with the rest of the world. For example, content can be old exam papers, answer sheets in document format or even individual questions and answers.

Better search and browsing

Users can find content using various criteria including: recently created, most popular, search by category or guided navigation. Users can also mark any content as personal favorites and enjoy quick access to favorites in the ‘My Stuff’ area.

Practice

Based on feedback we have received, we simplified the Session Start page. Users will still have access to a few of the additional settings during Take Test. Let us know what you think.

Groups and Collaboration

This is a brand new feature. Anyone can create groups. A group can be a study group managed by students, tutor groups, or a classroom group. The creator of the group can decide whether to keep the group private, protected or make it public. Groups allow users to work on–and report on–a common set of tests.

Reports & Analysis

There are new reports available which allow users to assess their strengths and weaknesses by curriculum subject strands. These are now available for MCAS practice tests.

Other

Lots of other improvements. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Cheers,

The Socrato Team

With Socrato’s innovative software, Students can practice entire tests or focus only on questions in specific areas of difficulty, which Socrato helps them identify. In addition to preconfigured tests, students can also create customized practice tests for specific needs saving time and energy by quickly focusing on areas in need of improvement. They can email or print questions to get help from teachers, or have teachers or parents review areas of difficulty online. Students and parents wishing to participate can sign-up at www.socrato.com.

Socrato can also be used by groups such as tutors, a class, or an entire school system. It allows teachers and administrators to manage shared testing content and track the progress of each student, class, or even a school district. Tutors and Schools interested in this option should contact Socrato at info@socrato.com for more information.

Gupta and co-founder Michael Oates, both veterans of Sapient Corp., combined have 35 years of experience delivering online solutions to some of the world’s largest and most innovative companies.

In addition to state tests, such as MCAS, Socrato plans to roll out testing tools for SATs and other standardized tests. For more information, call Marie T. Oates at 617-290-7795 or email her at marie.oates@socrato.com.

SOURCE Socrato