Knowledge Base |
| Article 3838668 | |
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STAR Reading Renaissance Place Updates
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| Product: | STAR Reading Renaissance Place |
| Platform: | Macintosh, Windows |
| Last Updated: | 2011/02/02 |
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Issue: STAR Reading Renaissance Place Updates Resolution: STAR Installer/Components1) Renaissance Place 4.1 is
compatible with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. During a new install, SQL
Express will be installed if neither SQL Server 2000 nor SQL Server 2005 are
present. If you are already using the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine
(MSDE) and would like to upgrade to Express Edition, contact Renaissance
Learning Technical Support. 2) School Interoperability Framework (SIF) 2.0 certified. Renaissance Place 1) Import/Export functionality has been enhanced to allow you to select your matching criteria prior to the import, ensuring only appropriate students are automatically merged. Clicking the “Merge Candidates” button will show students that were not an exact match but have some matching information. 2)
Enhancements to student merge for students with
data for Accelerated Reader, English in a Flash, and MathFacts in a Flash. 3) Students and their records can be permanently deleted from the Renaissance Place database. This is helpful to remove students who have graduated or are no longer enrolled in your district. In previous versions of Renaissance Place, students with records could only be inactivated and their data remained in the database. Note: Before selecting the option to “Permanently remove students and their records” from the Edit Multiple Students page, be sure future access to their data is not required, as this feature will remove the students’ personal information as well as any application data from the database. Reports 1) Renaissance Place Consolidated Reports will show all students enrolled in an active application class on all reports regardless of whether a student has data. For example, if you select to run a STAR Reading report listed by class it will only list STAR Reading classes, not other application classes, and show all students within those classes with or without data. 2) To help you determine the state of a student’s data, we have implemented consistent rules across reports. If there could not possibly be any data, that column will be blank. If the student/group has no data at the time the report was run, but they are enrolled in the class, the report will show a single dash “-“. If there has been activity, but nothing passed, the score will be zero “0”. Students with a blank or “-“ will not be counted in totals, averages or means, but students with “0” will. 3) This release includes the updated STAR norms first made available in Fall 2008 as part of Renaissance Place 4.0 Cumulative Patch 2. Norms are used to calculate percentile rank, grade equivalent, and normal curve equivalent (NCE) scores. 4) An estimated oral reading fluency (Est. ORF)
score category has been added to the Diagnostic, Summary, Growth, and Test
Record reports. Please note that Estimated Oral Reading Fluency is only
reported on STAR Reading tests taken in grades 1-4. This change was also
included as part of Renaissance Place 4.0 Cumulative Patch 2. 5) Alternate Score and Alternate ZPD have been renamed to ATOS 2000 and ZPD 2000. 6) The
STAR Performance report was added for STAR 7) Student
and Group Performance reports were added in the STAR Application/User Interface 1)
Teachers and administrators have the ability to
manage the Monitor Password Preference. If the administrator chooses “All School
Classes” from the dropdown menu and changes the password, it will override all
teacher defined passwords. Teachers do not have the ability to change monitor
passwords for other classes. 2)
Because alternate scores have been renamed, the
preferences page has been updated. The Alt. Score option has been changed to
ATOS 2000 and the Alt. ZPD has been changed to ZPD 2000. This preference allows
users to rename these titles. 3)
A new
resource called RTI cut scores was added. This provides guidelines to help
teachers identify which students may need intervention. STAR Installer/Components1) Support for Microsoft .NET
Framework version 2.0. During the upgrade to Renaissance Place 4.0, release
0803, the web site used by Renaissance Place will be updated to use .NET 2.0. 2) Improved Active Directory Authentication Renaissance Place 1) School Year is updated for all schools when set by a district user. 2) Assign Products link has been added to the View Courses page to assign products to multiple classes simultaneously. 3) Provide Student Login Assistance option added to Set Security Options for Students and Parents page to allow users to hide the “Find User Name” link on the student login page. Reports 1) Progress Monitoring report has been added using a graphic display of a class or student’s reading progress compared to Literacy Skills levels or Risk Categories. 2) An estimated oral reading fluency (Est. ORF)
score category has been added to the Diagnostic, Summary, Growth, and Test
Record reports. It is currently blank, since we are still gathering
data. As soon as the data is available (anticipated Fall, 2008), Est. ORF
data will automatically be included in reports. STAR Reports Resolves a problem where some students are missing from the
STAR Application/User Interface Performance enhancements when STAR Student Application 1) Items deemed inappropriate have been removed from STAR Reading tests. 2) A resume feature has been added to the program, so if students stop taking a test because they lose connection to the server (Session Expired) or close the browser window, they will be allowed to log back in immediately and resume the test at the point they left off. The monitor password must be entered in order for a student to resume a test, regardless of whether the monitor password option is enabled. STAR Installer/Components Support for SQL
Server 2005, except Express Edition. Renaissance Place 1) Support for Macintosh OS X workstations
running on an Intel-based processor. 2) Support for Active Directory authentication
of Renaissance Place users. 3) Enhancements to the Client Application
Installers page, including better detection of required components. The
AccelScan client is now listed under the Scoring Software section, along with
the Renaissance Responder software. Renaissance Place Reports 1) Removal of the Read Now Status report, to
coincide with removal of the Read Now tab from the Renaissance Place home page. 2) Removal of the Implementation Index scores
from the Implementation Progress and Implementation Status reports. Application/User Interface 1)
To make report customization faster, clicking on a
report now takes you directly to the Customize page. 2)
The Diagnostic Report now allows you to include the
student ID number on the report. This
gives you another option for reports: generation by student ID. 3) When
students are in the process of taking a STAR 4) Numerous enhancements to software functionality. STAR Renaissance Place 1) Renaissance Place can be used with Mozilla’s Firefox browser (Macintosh and Windows platforms only), in addition to Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Safari. 2) The home page task menu has been simplified to make it easier to find what you need. 3) A
new and improved 4) Select multiple students to edit characteristics, grade, password information, or school enrollments. 5) New courses can be assigned to multiple schools simultaneously. 6) Report performance improvements make school-wide and district-wide reports run much faster. 7) The parent report can be printed in Spanish, as well as English. 8) There is now a Pretest Instructions link on the Home page above Reports for convenient access to the Pretest Instructions .pdf. 9) Tier 3 scores can be imported into Renaissance Place and the scores can be included on Customizable Status, Ranking, and Progress reports. 10) Renaissance Place allows you to export data in a text file format to be used in other applications. 11) Use Renaissance Update to download Renaissance Place software updates. 12) Renaissance Data Translator now allows you to match your Renaissance foundation imports with your SIS records by Student ID, assuring more accurate and complete matching. 13) SIF Agent has been updated to comply with the SIF 1.5r1 specifications and now includes two new StaffAssignment and Authentication objects. Student Application The student application is now browser-based. The new student application test environment is as close to the desktop application environment in appearance, timing, and behavior as possible. When the previous version of the program is launched, the user will be automatically redirected to log in to Renaissance Place. As with the other Renaissance Place browser-based student applications, students will log in with a username and password, rather than selecting their names from a list. However, login has been simplified for students that may have forgotten their user names by a “Find User Name” link. Students that are enrolled in more than one STAR STAR Installer/Components The installer automatically detects the IP address assigned to the selected web site in the install wizard. Renaissance Place Reports Addition of a new
School-to-Home report. This report will help keep parents informed
of student progress at school and provide teachers with a report that reflects
the key scores from the
Renaissance Learning programs they are using in their classroom. This report
will show information on a single student, with the wording and terminology
designed for a parent or guardian. It will report current information for any
Renaissance Learning programs selected by the user. Application/User Interface 1) Resolves an issue where Macintosh clients are not able to connect to the Renaissance Place server through certain proxy servers. 2) Resolves an issue where Macintosh clients do not automatically update after installing the next release of Renaissance Place on the server, when the web site is set up to use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). 3) Resolves an issue where unnecessary communication between the client computer and the server in between the practice and test may prevent the student from continuing on to the test. This may be an issue in certain high use environments. 4) Minor changes were made to the class and student selection lists in the STAR Reading Student program for Windows. STAR
Installer/Components The server application requires Microsoft .NET Framework version 1.1 (1.1.4322). This version of the .NET Framework will be installed during server software installation, if it’s not already present on the Renaissance Learning web server. Application/User Interface 1) Users must choose to log in to Renaissance Place as a Student, Teacher/Administrator, or Parent, and each user type will see a slightly different login screen. Students can search for their user names if necessary, although this version of the student program is not browser-based. 2) The consolidation log has been improved to itemize consolidation information by product. 3) The product registration page combines the main registration functions. This page has been updated to display information and usage on all products registered, and allows the user to sort registration by school or product. 4) Enhancements to the report generation process improve performance with large databases. 5) Improvements were made to increase performance during the student import process. 6) The STAR Reading Student application has been updated to improve performance during multi-user testing. The student application will automatically update to the new version the next time users access STAR Reading Student on their workstations. 7) A new Renaissance Place Software Manual contains information about management tasks such as adding classes and students. A revised STAR Reading Software Manual contains information about STAR Reading reports and STAR Reading preferences. The STAR Reading Software Manual, Technical Manual, Pretest Instructions, and Quick Reference Cards, and the Renaissance Place Software Manual, are available as .pdf files on the Download Manuals page. Report Changes Renaissance
Place Reports *Assessment Proficiency - Shows student achievement in one subject based on a proficiency level that is set by the user. Students are grouped as “Proficient or Above”, or “Below Proficient”. Customizable Progress - Compares student achievement on one or two assessments administered at different times. Customizable Ranking - Ranks student achievement in ascending or descending order for up to three products, subjects, score categories, and reporting periods. Includes an option to show students with scores above, below, or between certain values. Also includes lowest to highest and highest to lowest sorting options. Customizable Status - Shows student achievement for up to five products, subjects, score categories, and reporting periods. *Implementation Progress - Compares student achievement on up to seven reporting periods for Accelerated Math or Accelerated Reader. *Implementation Status - Shows students' comprehension of Accelerated Math objectives or Accelerated Reader results of reading practice for one reporting period. *ReadNow Status - Includes student achievement in the Read Now intervention program (Accelerated Reader, STAR Reading, and Fluent Reader) to help educators determine how to move forward with student instruction. STAR Summary - Summarizes student results on a STAR Math,
STAR *Indicates new report
to Renaissance Place version 2.0. NOTE: The Progress, Ranking, and Status
reports can now be customized to include Tier 1 (Accelerated Math, Accelerated
Reader, Fluent Reader) program data along with the current Tier 2
(StandardsMaster, STAR Early Literacy, STAR STAR Reading Reports Diagnostic - The verbiage within the report was updated to make it consistent with Reading Renaissance practices and recommendations. Student Capacity - This report is no longer available due to the new capacity metering system. STAR
1) STAR Reading Renaissance Place version 3.1 now includes the new Renaissance Place management and reporting system. a) The terms “Client/Server” and “Online Management” were changed to “Renaissance Place” in all menus, links, and references. b) New reporting capabilities – Renaissance Place enables you to sort and organize your data the way you want it in three new Renaissance Place reports: Status Report, Progress Report, and Ranking Report. You can also aggregate all your data school- and/or district-wide, and disaggregate it by any student characteristic. c) New reporting periods capability – You now have the ability to easily define any reporting period and bring in the matching STAR and StandardsMaster results for your Renaissance Place reports. d) New consolidation schedule – You can now set up a schedule for automatic consolidation of your STAR and StandardsMaster data, so your data is available when you need it. 2) ZPD ranges and reading practice time recommendations were updated to align with the new Reading Goal Setting Chart. 3) The STAR Reading Report Options page was enhanced for several reports, to allow selection of students by teacher. 4) Improvements were made to the Diagnostic, Student Detail, and Summary Reports. 5) The Registration page was enhanced to allow teachers to search for students by class and list their students at the selected school who are registered for testing. 6) The Student program was updated to address an issue on Macintosh OS X workstations, where tests were not getting written to the database. Please refer to article #3792208 for more information. 7) The
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| Keywords: | ZKBwhatsnew; ZKBClientServer |
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| STAR Reading Renaissance Place is a trademark of Renaissance Learning, Inc. and its subsidiaries, registered, common law, or pending registration in the United States and other countries. |
