This lesson will guide you through importing custom standards into Illuminate. By default, Illuminate provides clients with the standards most educators use (e.g., state content standards, national common core standards, etc.). This feature allows System Administrators to add custom standards to the system that are outside of the current standard sets.
Required Permission: Import / Remove Custom Standards
Download an Excel sheet pre-populated with the headers below (optional):
Follow this setup in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
- Document: Name of the standard set (ex: District name or Initials)
- Academic Year: Use the latter year in the academic year (ex: 2018 if referencing the 2017-2018 year)
- Subject Code: The subject of the standard
- Title: The subject of the standard
- Low Grade Level: The lowest grade level the standards can apply to
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High Grade Level: The highest grade level the standards can apply to
- Accepted values for Low / High Grade Levels: TK, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
- Grade Level Code: The specific grade level the standard applies to
- Grade Level Description: The grade level that appears in the Grade Level dropdown
- Parent Standard: The code for the parent standard a sub-standard falls under
- State Number: The unique standard code for each standard
- Description: Text describing the standard
When you are finished creating your file, save the Excel sheet as a comma-delimited (.CSV) or tab-delimited (.TXT) file.
Standard Hierarchy
Add parent standards to the file, followed by sub-standards. Any standard that falls under the parent standard will have a form of the State Number for the parent standard. The parent standard-state number will also be included under the Parent Standard column. This must be done for each new parent standard and sub-standard.
- Add Parent Standards: Add a code to the State Number column. Example: "BIO" is the parent standard (highlighted in green).
- Add Sub-Standards: Add the State Number for the Parent Standard in the Parent Standard column. Add a unique code for the sub-standard in the State Number column. Example: "BIO.1" is the sub-standard, and is referencing the parent standard "BIO" (highlighted in blue).
- Continue adding parent standards and sub-standards to your file as needed.
Where to Start
- Go to Assessments tab.
- Select Add Custom Standards.
Access the Import Page
- Select the file delimiter that matches your file (Comma, Tab, Semicolon, or Colon).
- Click Choose File. Find and select the file as it is stored on your computer, and click Open.
- Click Upload.
Map File Columns / Import
- Use the drop-down menus to select the column of information on the file that matches each description listed in bold.
- Click Import.
- Once the import has finished, you will see the above success message. Download the error file to make sure all of your standards imported successfully.
Review Imported Standards
Access an assessment and go to the Standards page.
- Use the Select a subject area dropdown to select the standard set you imported. It will be located at the bottom of the list.
- Use the Select Grade Level dropdown to select the grade level.
- Click Search.
- Click the Expand / Collapse button to review your standards.
Troubleshooting
Yes. Each standard should have a value in the Description column, including Parent Standards.
Yes. The Parent Standard should be defined and the State Number MUST be unique standard to standard.
You need to delete the custom standard set and re-import your corrected file. You can remove the file by going to Assessments > Manage Custom Standards > select the standard set to delete. Doing this will remove standards already tied to assessments.
The custom standards were imported with invalid Low and High Grade Level values. The accepted values for Low / High Grade Levels are: TK, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
Yes. If the Document, Academic Year, Subject Code, Title, Low/High Grade Levels, and Grade Level Description values are the same, new standards will be added to an existing set in Illuminate.
Next Steps
Now that you have successfully added custom standards, you can align them to your assessments. See Step 3 under the lesson Creating a Manual Assessment to learn more.