NAVIANCE SUMMER INSTITUTE 2014 PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

NAVIANCE SUMMER INSTITUTE 2014 | PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

Everyday Data: Empower Yourself to be an Expert

Tips for setting up data in Naviance

Betsy Stangel College Coordinator

Mount Carmel Academy New Orleans, Louisiana

July 16, 2014

NAVIANCE SUMMER INSTITUTE 2014 | PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

How I became my own data guru.

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Our Story

Mount Carmel Academy is a private, all girls school for grades 8-12 with 1200 students. We were shut down for a semester in 2005 and started using Naviance as part of our emergency preparedness plan.

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Site Supervisor Designation

Because there were a lot of other things going on in New Orleans in 2006, I was in charge of the program because everyone thought it was just a college program to send transcripts. Based on experiences, I have learned that this happens to a lot of college counselors.

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Help me help you…

How many of you in this room currently use Naviance? •  highly skilled? •  medium skilled? •  new to Naviance? How many of you are site supervisors? How many of you have no right to import data?

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If you are not the supervisor, you need to…

•  Understand what you need as far as data so you can tell your supervisor what you need. •  Always ask for more data in the system that you think you may need. •  You will be surprised of ways that you can use the information.

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If you are the supervisor, lessons for you:

Do not panic. You do not have to be a technical person. Do not reach out to your IT person and tell them to set it up for you.

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Best way to learn is to network

Discuss, and if possible, teach what you do know and you will be surprised how you can really learn the system. The more I networked and volunteered to help others, the more I knew what to do, learned work around solutions, and somehow was even accused of being a secret Naviance employee.

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Networking in New Orleans & Beyond

Use regional ACAC meetings to test out your knowledge. Set up area counselor meetings to discuss how you use the program to learn from each other. Virtual networking – reach out to those you meet at NSI and other counselor meetings throughout the country or on webinars.

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Utilize Naviance Network & Call Center

I cannot stress enough how helpful the support call center can be at time of setting up data. Naviance Network articles provide guidance, and sometimes even handouts. Posting new ideas on the Naviance Network allows you to get feedback from others and tell Naviance at the same time.

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Naviance is not all things to all people

The way that your school uses Naviance may be different from other schools; however, the one common thing is that you all will be inputting data. Only through use of the program and conversations with others will you start to learn of ways that you need to adjust the data that you will need each year.

NAVIANCE SUMMER INSTITUTE 2014 | PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

Understanding Data

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Administrative Data base

All administrative database programs have the ability to export the data in the various fields to a commma separated value (csv) format. This does not require a computer science degree to understand how it works.

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What is CSV format?

A CSV file consists of any number of records, separated by line breaks of some kind; each record consists of fields, separated by some other character or string, most commonly a literal comma or tab. CSV files can be opened in Microsoft excel or the Mac program called Numbers.

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Some special things to know about CSV

The data will always be saved without special formatting. In excel, you can save a file as a CSV format: Save as Other formats CSV

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Exporting Data can be helpful

In addition to importing data for your setup, you may find that the export feature can also help you. At a minimum it can help you: If you have a mistake and have to “fix it,” and If you need data in a format that you cannot achieve in a report.

NAVIANCE SUMMER INSTITUTE 2014 | PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

Collecting Data

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Clarify with administration what you need

If you are not the one with rights to export the data, ask for the moon. Note: You may have to obtain the data from multiple sources.

Examples: •  Demograhic data •  Clubs & Organizations •  GPA •  Test scores •  Photographs

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Understand the importance of Unique IDs

All data must be associated with a unique ID. This number cannot change, ever.

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Clean history of what you do is helpful

Before you begin any import process, save the file with data as a read only or save a backup somewhere. Do not manipulate your original data. Mistakes sometimes happen and you can easily erase a mistake and start over, if you have that file.

NAVIANCE SUMMER INSTITUTE 2014 | PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

Other types of data beyond CSV

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Standardized Test Scores

Standardized test score data can be input several ways. •  Manual input •  CD’s or online data from test services •  Other text file with data

Importing from the test service is desirable, in our experiences.

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Photograph Data

Please check with the instructions for importing photographs. The JPG extension MUST BE IN ALL CAPS Once you have the data, it installs very easily

NAVIANCE SUMMER INSTITUTE 2014 | PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA

Why you need to be your Own guru

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Understand your own needs

This may not happen for a year or two, and may continually change based on what you use in the program. Our school started out not using the parent data, but we realized that we needed it. No one could have told us otherwise, we had to learn it on our own timeline. This may happen to you with various things along the way, and it is okay.

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Site Administrator vs. Team

With the various options, may need to delegate responsibilities, but one person in charge is key to not having data nightmares. Our nightmare story about unique ID’s….and why you do not want this to happen.

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One time import vs. Every Year

One issue that I have is that I have to re-import demographic data each year from our database. We have found that to modify addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, etc. was too difficult to modify in two different databases, so we update the main system and at the beginning of the school year I import the data. Issues that I see with this…

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Questions?

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Contact Information

Betsy Stangel College Coordinator Mount Carmel Academy New Orleans, Louisiana 70124 bstangel@mcacubs.org 504-288-7626, ext. 213 www.mcacubs.com