Maine User and Student Management Guide

The Maine Through Year Assessment User

and Student Management Guide

2024–2025 Maine Through Year Assessment

Reading and Mathematics

August 2024

Contributors

The Maine Through Year Assessment is administered by the Maine Department of Education

(Maine DOE).

23 State House Station

Augusta, Maine 04333-0023

207.624.6600

The assessment contractor is NWEA. NWEA can be reached by calling Partner Support at

855.430.1777.

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by

any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright owner. Maine

school educators may reproduce any portion of this manual for non-commercial educational

purposes without requesting permission. All others should direct their written requests to the

Maine Department of Education at the above address or by email to [email protected].

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Table of Contents

Part 1—Navigating the Maine Through Year Management Platform: Acacia 4

Acacia management and reporting system requirements 4

Access Acacia 5

Profile, help, and logout 6

Part 2—User roles and permissions 7

Part 3—View organization information 9

Part 4—Manage users 11

Manage users in MAP 11

View a User in Acacia 11

Part 5—Student registrations 12

About registering students 12

Upload student test registrations 12

update a student registration via the Student Profile 13

Part 6—View and modify students 15

Add a new student 15

Search for a student 15

Add Accessibility Supports 15

Not Tested Codes (NTCs) 16

Transfer a student between schools 16

Part 7—Create New Student Groups for Reports of Assessment Sessions 18

Create New Student Groups 18

Search for and view student groups 20

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Part 1—Navigating the Maine Through Year

Management Platform: Acacia

Acacia Management and Reporting System Requirements

The management and reporting insights platform, known as Acacia, is supported on the latest

versions of the following browsers:

Google Chrome™

Mozilla

Firefox

Mozilla Firefox LTS

Microsoft

Edge™

Safari

Safari on iPad

The website is optimally viewed using a 1280 x 1024-pixel screen resolution. System functionality

and screens may display, operate, or appear differently in different browsers and operating

systems.

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Access Acacia

To access the Maine Through Year Assessment management platform, Acacia:

1. Log in to MAP at https://start.mapnwea.org using your MAP login credentials.

2. Select the Maine Through Year link in the top navigation menu.

3. Select Maine Through Year

Assessment Acacia Landing

Page.

You will be automatically

directed to Acacia.

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Acacia Home

Access the Acacia home page at any time by selecting Home at the top of the main menu on the

left. The following information is available on the home page:

1. Announcements: The Announcements section contains announcements from the state or

district.

2. Test Windows: A list of test window dates for this academic year.

3. Shortcuts: A set of links to commonly used functions in Acacia such as Add Student,

Monitor Test, or View Reports. The links available vary by user role.

Navigation Menu

To show or hide the menu, select the

Menu button at the top left. Menu

options will vary for users based on

their assigned user role.

Profile, Help, and Logout

At the top right of the Acacia home page are the Profile, Help, and Logout icons. Use the Profile

icon to view your profile. Use the Help icon to access help documentation. Use Logout icon to

close your current session and return to the login page.

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Part 2—User Roles and Permissions

In general, your School Administrative Unit (SAU) is solely responsible for keeping staff and

student data secure, in compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

You control access by assigning roles to each person’s user profile. A role defines what each

person can do and see in the test administration site.

Table 1: User Roles and Permissions below shows which roles have access to which functions in

Acacia. The district and school-level roles have the listed permissions for the district or school to

which the user is assigned.

Table 1: User Roles and Permissions

District School Other

MAP Roles

Sys

Admin

District

Assess

Coord

Data

Admin

District

Proctor

School

Assess

Coord

School

Proctor

School

Admin

Instr

External

State

Admin

External

Advanced

User

Announcements & Organizations

Create announcements

and edit or delete your

own announcements

Search and view

organization information

Users

Add, view, and edit user

accounts

Users cannot edit their

own accounts

Students

View student profiles

Create, edit, and delete

student profiles

Transfer students

Import student

registration files

Create, edit, or delete

student groups (testing

and reporting)

Online testing

View online test sessions

Create and edit test

registrations

Print online test tickets

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District School Other

MAP Roles

Sys

Admin

District

Assess

Coord

Data

Admin

District

Proctor

School

Assess

Coord

School

Proctor

School

Admin

Instr

External

State

Admin

External

Advanced

User

Apply not tested codes

(NTCs)

Operational reports

MAP Growth Errors

Report

Materials Order Report

NTC Usage Report

Organizations Report

Registration Report

Student Mobility Report

Student Score Data File

Summary Test Status

Report

Testing Status Report

Score reports

Student score reports

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Part 3—View Organization Information

Each SAU and school is categorized as an organization and has information associated to it, such

as an address. Permission to view this information is based on your role. For example, District

Assessment Coordinators can view information at both the district and school level, while School

Assessment Coordinators can only view information at the school level.

To view the organizations you have permission to access:

1. In the main menu, select Organizations > View & Edit Orgs.

2. On the View & Edit Organizations page, enter the search criteria (organization type,

name, or code).

3. Select Search to view the results.

4. To view organization information, select the Edit icon in the Actions column. A profile page

for the organization appears.

5. In the top right, four tabs are available: General Info, Addresses, Users, and Structure.

Select the tab containing the information you want to view. Functionality varies based on

your user role.

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General Info: View the

organization name, code,

type, and responsible

organization (for example,

the “responsible

organization” for a school

is an SAU).

Addresses: View the

mailing address and

billing address.

Users: View a list of users at the organization, including their email, role, and status.

Select the Edit icon in the Actions column to view more information about the

user. User accounts can be edited in MAP Growth.

Structure: View a list of child organizations (for example, a school is a “child

organization” of a district). Select the Edit icon in the Actions column to view a

child organization.

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Part 4—Manage Users

Manage Users in MAP

User accounts are managed in the MAP platform at https://start.mapnwea.org. User accounts are

synced daily from MAP to Acacia.

For details about managing user accounts in the MAP platform, refer to the following resources in

the MAP Help Center:

Manage Users—How to manually create and update user accounts

Add Staff and Roles in Roster Import—How to add or update user accounts via a bulk roster

import

View a User in Acacia

To search for a user:

1. In the main menu, select Organizations > View & Edit Users.

2. On the View & Edit Users page, enter the search information.

Note: Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*).

3. Select the Search button to view the search results.

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Part 5—Student Registrations

About Registering Students

Students are rostered in the Maine Through Year Assessment Acacia platform by the Maine DOE.

Students rostered by Maine DOE are automatically registered for the appropriate grade-level

assessments in Reading and Math.

The Register function in Acacia allows SAUs to assign accessibility supports and

accommodations to students in bulk.

Upload Student Test Registrations

Use the Upload functionality to make changes to student registrations such as test language,

accommodations, and NTCs. To register an individual student via the user interface, refer to Add

a new student on page 15.

How to upload student registrations

To upload students for the administration:

1. Download the Registrations Report from Reports > Operational.

2. Open this report in a spreadsheet editing program such as Excel and make any necessary

changes. Save the updated file as a CSV.

Each student has one line per assigned test, so most students will be listed more than once.

This allows you to make edits to a specific test (for example, assigning text-to-speech to

Math but not Reading).

3. In the main menu, select Students > Upload.

4. Set the Select Upload Type menu to Registration.

5. Under Upload a File, select Choose File.

6. In the File Upload window, navigate to the saved CSV file, and select Open.

7. Select the Upload Selected File button to import the file into the system.

8. Refresh the browser to update the status of the upload.

Note: Once the upload's status is Complete, changes appear in Acacia immediately.

Refer to Table 2: Upload Status Descriptions on the next page for details.

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Table 2: Upload Status Descriptions

Icon Upload Status Description

Processing.

Complete with no errors.

Complete with errors. Check the Status column.

Processing error. No records have loaded. Ensure the file is saved as a CSV and that

all fields have data consistent with the upload spreadsheet requirements.

Update a Student Registration via the Student Profile

To update a registration:

1. Search for and view the student's profile. Refer to Search for a student on page 15 for

detailed instructions.

2. Select the Tests tab in the upper

right.

3. Select the applicable test

administration from the drop-

down list then select View Registrations. A list of any existing registrations appears.

4. To edit a registration, select the

arrow next to the registration

and make any changes.

5. If a student is testing at a

different school, set the Testing

School field to the correct

school.

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6. Select Save Updates to save your changes.

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Part 6—View and Modify Students

Add a New Student

Note: Adding a new student must be done by the Maine DOE via a daily delta file upload. Student

enrollments need to be updated in Synergy for new students to be present in the delta file.

Search for a Student

To view a student who is already registered for an assessment administration:

1. In the main menu, select Students > View & Edit.

2. A student list appears. Use the filters to locate the student you want to view or edit.

Select the View & Edit icon in the Actions column.

4. The Student Profile page appears. In

the upper right, there are 3 tabs to

choose from:

Profile: Select this tab to view

information about the student

such as name, student state ID,

and demographics such as Economic Disadvantage, 504 plan, and ethnicity.

Note: You cannot modify a student’s demographic information. This comes from the

state-provided roster file.

Accessibility Supports: Select this tab to assign or remove accommodations to the

student. Refer to Add Accessibility Supports below for details.

Tests: Select this tab to edit registrations.

For details about editing registrations, refer to update a student registration via

the Student Profile on page 13.

5. To save your changes, select Save Updates at the bottom.

Add Accessibility Supports

Add Accessibility Supports to Multiple Students

The Register function in Acacia allows SAUs to assign accessibility supports and

accommodations to students in bulk. Refer to Part 5—Student registrations on page 12.

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Add Accessibility Supports to One Student Via the Student’s Profile

A convenient way to set up accessibility supports for individual students is via the user interface.

Accessibility supports may be added via the user interface at any time after students are

registered for the assessment. Some may even be changed while the student is taking the

assessment.

Note: Students must log out of any active assessments before supports can be added or

removed.

To add accommodations:

1. Search for and view the student profile. Refer to Search for a student on the previous page

for detailed instructions.

2. On the Student Profile page,

select the Accessibility

Supports tab in the upper right.

3. Select the applicable test administration from the drop-down list then select View

Supports.

4. Check the boxes for the accommodations you wish to assign to the students.

5. Select Save Updates. A confirmation window appears.

Not Tested Codes (NTCs)

Not tested codes (NTCs) are used solely by the Maine DOE to track special circumstances in

which students’ assessment data will not be included in an SAU’s or school’s aggregated data.

Note: Only Maine DOE will enter NTCs into Acacia. SAUs should not enter NTCs, and any

NTCs entered by SAUs will be removed.

The available NTCs are listed in Table 3: Descriptions of Available NTCs below.

Table 3: Descriptions of Available NTCs

Code Description Explanation of use

INV Invalid Student’s assessment was invalidated, such as due to a security breach.

EMW

Emergency

Medical Waiver

The student was not assessed because of an approved emergency medical waiver.

Special Considerations Exemption Instructions can be found on the Maine DOE

Assessment Team Resources webpage.

RMV Removal

Student appears in the Acacia platform but is no longer eligible for assessment, for

example due to moving out of state.

Transfer a Student Between Schools

When a student moves from one Maine public school into another, follow these steps:

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1. SAU: Update Synergy State Edition to reflect the student's correct school.

2. Maine DOE: Once the transfer is completed in Synergy, Maine DOE uploads an updated

roster file and the student's new school appears in Acacia within 36 hours.

a. Create a daily delta roster file.

i. Reporting School Code reflects the new attending school for the student

ii. Action Field = T (Transfer)

b. Upload the daily delta roster file directly to Acacia.

3. Receiving SAU: The day after the daily delta roster file is uploaded, the SAU for the

student's new school must update the student's registration:

a. Generate a Registration Report to confirm that the student is correctly registered.

b. Add any necessary accommodations or designated supports. Refer to Add

Accessibility Supports on page 15.

c. Update the student's testing school, if necessary. This is required for students that

are transferring between schools in the same SAU. Refer to update a student

registration via the Student Profile on page 13.

Note: The Testing School cannot be modified for tests that have already been

started or submitted.

4. Previous SAU: Remove the student's current term from the student profile in MAP.

5. Receiving SAU: Roster the student as normal in MAP.

6. Receiving SAU: To maintain historical data in MAP, refer to How to move students

between districts in NWEA Connection. This help article includes a link to a form you'll need

to submit.

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Part 7—Create New Student Groups for Reports of

Assessment Sessions

District Assessment Coordinators, School Assessment Coordinators, and Data Administrators

can create, edit, or delete student groups for reporting or online testing.

Online testing groups are not necessary for the administration of the assessment but do allow for

proctors to view only the students within their room.

Users with the Instructor role will only be able to see assessment results for students in the

reporting groups they are assigned to.

Create New Student Groups

Student groups can define online testing groups or reporting groups. If you need to create a new

group of students to appear in a report, or you need to create a new online testing group, you can

accomplish this by creating a group and selecting the desired group type.

Note: Student groups cannot be created via the Registration file.

To create a new student group:

1. In the main menu, select Students > Student Groups.

2. Above the search criteria, select the Create tab on the right.

3. Select the School, School Year, and Assessment Type from the drop-down lists.

4. Select Continue.

5. Select the appropriate settings for the group. If you choose a wrong setting, select the X

next to that setting to remove it.

Test Administration: Select all test administrations that apply.

Subject: Select Mathematics, Reading, or both. This option determines which test

will appear in reports for this group. Note that this does not change any student

registrations.

Group Name: Create a name for the group.

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Group Type: Choose Online Testing, Reporting, or both.

Online Testing: This option creates a test session for the group under Online

Testing > Manage.

Reporting: This option allows reports to be generated for this group.

User Access to this Group: Assign individual users to this group. Typically, you will

assign a teacher for a reporting group or a Proctor for an online testing group.

6. Select Continue.

7. Enter search criteria to find students to add to the group. The Grade field is required;

optionally enter last name, first name, or student ID. You may enter multiple grades.

8. Select View to see a list of students.

9. Select the check box next to the names of students you want to add to the group, then

select the Add To button to add students to the list of selected students on the right.

10. To remove students from the list of selected students, select the checkbox next to the

names of students you want to remove, then click the Remove button. The student names

will move out of the list of selected students.

11. Select Save Student Group to create the group.

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Search for and View Student Groups

Student groups define reporting groups and online test sessions. Users such as teachers or

proctors can be assigned to student groups, allowing that user to view reports or test sessions.

To search for student groups:

1. In the main menu, select Students > Student Groups.

2. On the Student Groups page, select search criteria using the School, School Year, and

Test Administration drop-down lists.

3. Select the Find button to view a list of groups matching the search criteria.

Select the Edit icon in the Actions column to update the group, or the Delete icon

to delete the group. Refer to Create New Student Groups on page 18 for information about

the available group settings.

5. After editing is complete, select Save Student Group to save the changes.