FAQ
Q: If I have year-long courses and semester courses in my dataset, do I need to make them 2 unit courses and 1 unit courses respectively, to be correctly defined?
Yes, we would indicate the year-long subjects as 2 unit courses and the semesterised subjects as 1 unit courses in the
Unit column in
Lines > Elective data > Courses. The number of units per course can be dependent upon the number of rotations in the file, so if we had termly courses, semesterised courses and year-long courses in the same dataset, we could indicate that by using 4 units for year-long courses, 2 units for semesterised courses and 1 unit for the termly courses. Refer to:
E10 - Elective data > Courses (edval.education)
Q: Am I able to construct the Year 12 lines first before the other year levels in a multi year dataset for Years 9-12?
Q: Does the order of the letters entered in the Block column in Lines > Elective data > Courses, have any effect on your line result?
Yes, the order of the letters entered does have an effect on our line result, especially if we want to half block two different subject types like Science and HSIE where there are an uneven number of classes. For example, when 'half blocking' the five Science classes and five HSIE classes, we could enter 'SH' in the
Block column in
Lines > Elective data > Courses for Science and 'HS'
in the Block column for HSIE. The two different letters 'S and H' mean that the classes of two different subject types will be spread across two blocks, and when we reverse the order of the two letters in the block column for the two subjects, the outcome would be 'SSSHH' classes placed in the one block and 'HHHSS' classes placed in the second block. Refer to: E10: Ways to block classes (edval.education)
Q: Can I enter four letters like MMEE in the Block column in Lines > Elective data > Courses to define the class placement in the blocks?
Yes, if you want to half block Maths and English and there are four classes required for each subject type, we could enter 'MMEE' in the
Block column in
Lines > Elective data > Courses for Maths and English. This could also be achieved by using 'ME' only. Each letter represents the block type, namely an English and Maths block type. The two different letters 'M and E' mean that all the classes of each subject type will be spread across two blocks, so the outcome, in this case, would be two Maths and two English classes in each of the two blocks.
Refer to: E10: Ways to block classes (edval.education)
Q: Can I enter four letters like ABCD in the Block column in Lines > Elective data > Courses?
Using 4 different letters e.g. 'ABCD' would mean that all the classes of the four different subject types would exclusively be placed across four blocks. No subjects other than those four subject types defining the blocks, can be placed on the four blocks. For example, all the classes of Maths, English, Science and HSIE will be exclusively placed across four blocks.
Refer to: E10: Ways to block classes (edval.education)
Q: Can generating Year 11 lines around Year 12 + 10 have a negative impact on the Year 11 lines as we would want to prioritise the Year 11 lines over Year 10?
It is not advisable to generate Year 11 lines in isolation, not considering the staffing and rooming of existing Year 12 and Year 10 lined classes. Neither do we recommend generating Year 11 lines only around existing Year 12 lined classes, ignoring the
the staffing and rooming required for the existing Year 10 lined classes. The new Year 11 lines must be generated to work around the existing Year 10 and Year 12 lines, so that we can be confident that all lined classes in Years 10, 11 and 12 can be timetabled without staffing or rooming clashes. A 'GOOD' set of lines does not just take into account student preferences, but also very importantly, school resources. When set up correctly, Edval will consider both student preferences and school resources, so that the set of lines produced is able to be staffed and roomed when timetable construction occurs. Refer to: E10 - Elective data > Courses Action: Generate lines around existing lines in other year levels using 'Timetable around' (edval.education) and E10 - Generating Lines in NSW (edval.education)