Grade Passback is available for districts who utilize Aeries as their Student Information System to transfer points-based assessments and scores nightly from Otus to Aeries. The following sections outline the steps necessary to successfully use Gradebook Passback:
Ensure Membership in the Aeries Grade Passback Group
Create a Points-Based Assessment
Assign the Assessment
Grade the Assessment
Additional Considerations
❗️ IMPORTANT NOTE: Grade passback is supported for unlinked Aeries gradebooks only.
❓ Are you an administrator interested in setting up this feature for your team? Click the button below for more information.
Ensure Membership in the Aeries Grade Passback Group
Ensure that you are a member of the Aeries Grade Passback teacher group in Otus. If you are not already a member of that group, please contact your district's Otus Admin to be added to the group:
💡 Tip from the Otus Team: In order for grades to passback to Aeries, the user who has assigned the assessment must be included in the Aeries Grade Passback teacher group in Otus. We recommend that any teacher, co-teacher, or administrator who may be assigning assessments are added to the Aeries Grade Passback teacher group in Otus.
Assessments assigned directly to a class from an Otus Administrator (who is not in your SIS) will not passback to Aeries. This assessment should be assigned to the class by the teacher or co-teacher who are a member of the Aeries Grade Passback teacher group.
Create a Points-Based Assessment
Create an Otus assessment using a Points Grading Scale. Only assessments created using a Points Grading Scale will passback. If you select a Standards Based Grading Scale for your assessment, the data will not passback to Aeries. The image below illustrates how to select the correct Grading Scale when creating your assessment.
💡 Tip from the Otus Team: the selected Assessment Type in Otus will be sent to a specific category in Aeries that has been defined by your administrators. Teachers can change the category in Aeries once the grade has been sent.
Assign the Assessment
Specify a Due Date when assigning the assessment, as Aeries requires a Due Date for the scores to transfer. If you do not specify a Due Date, the Due Date sent to Aeries will be calculated during the sync process by adding 7 days to the assessment creation or assigning date.
❗️ IMPORTANT NOTE: Assessments with Due Dates outside of the current grading period will not passback. Please keep this in mind when approaching the end of a grading period.
Select “Include Score in Final Grade” for the scores to passback to Aeries. If the box below is not checked, the score will not passback to Aeries.
➡️ Plus (+) Assessments: When adding Plus (+) Assessments to the Otus gradebook please note these slight differences from other assessment types:
The "Include Score in Final Grade" is a toggle which must be toggled ON for the scores to passback.
The Submission Date is used to calculate a Due Date to send to Aeries. The Due Date will be calculated by adding 7 days to the Submission Date. As you approach the end of a grading period, be sure to set a Submission Date at least 7 days prior to the end of the grading period (it is permissible to have a submission date in the past) if you would like the scores to passback within the current grading period.
For more information about assigning Assessments, click the button below.
Grade the Assessment
After the assessment is submitted by a student, questions that were set to auto-score will already have grades but be sure to grade any ungraded items so that the assessment has a status of “Graded” in Otus. If you see a status of “Turned In,” that assessment score will not passback until all ungraded items are graded.
After all items in your assessment are graded, you can expect scores to passback with a nightly sync and the scores will be visible in your Aeries gradebook the following day.
💡 Tips from the Otus Team:
It may be necessary to check the “Is Grading Complete?” box in your Aeries gradebook for an assessment after a nightly gradebook sync. Even if you checked this box already, you may need to check the box again after a sync.
Otus scores will not passback to a closed Aeries grading period. Make sure your Otus assessments are graded before the close of a grading period for your scores to passback.
A student will be missing in score in Aeries if any of these situations are true:
➡️ The student did not complete the assignment and therefore Otus has no score to passback
➡️ The assignment was not assigned to that student but was assigned to
another student in the same class/gradebook
➡️ The score did not post successfully to Aeries via the passback process
Additional Considerations
Otus appends a unique assessment identifier to the assessment title during the passback process. For example, an assessment titled "Mid Term Exam" in Otus will appear in Aeries with an identifier such as "Mid Term Exam (S130545)".
The Otus status of the assessment (e.g., Excluded, Excused, Missing, etc.) will not passback to Aeries. The assessment status will have to be manually adjusted in Aeries.
Any weighting of scores needs to be done in Aeries; weighting in Otus does not passback.
Assessments with decimal total score (e.g., 27.5 points) will not passback.
Certain adjustments to your assessment in Otus will cause the assessment score to resend to Aeries. Examples include:
➡️ If you edit the Assessment Title, Otus re-sends the score to Aeries.
➡️ If you edit the Assessment Type, Otus re-sends the score to Aeries.
➡️ If you edit a score in Otus, Otus re-sends the new score to Aeries.
➡️ If you adjust assessment settings to "Include Score in Final Grade" after it has been assigned, scores will be sent to Aeries after the sync.
If you edit a score in Aeries but not in Otus, Otus will not overwrite the score in Aeries.