Note: This document references views and actions that are only available to Echo Administrators
To ease the administration of Echo, districts can chose to sync Echo with their SIS. This process uses data from an SIS to automatically manage user accounts, courses and enrollments. As will any automated process, that can remove some flexibility in how Echo is used by teachers. Consider the following before syncing with an SIS:
- Individual Assignment Scores: In most cases, individual assignment data from Echo will not be synced with your SIS. The nature of the Multi-Outcome Scoring gradebook in Echo does not have an equivalent in most SISs. Only the current/final course grade will be transferred to the SIS.
- Integrated Courses: Many schools integrate courses (two ore more courses combined and treated like a single course). If these courses are separate in the SIS, you may have to create and manage the integrated courses manually.
- Master/Derivative Course: Many schools who want to take full advantage of Echo’s master and derivative course functionality may not wish to automatically generate courses based on the SIS course list. Users may want to have more flexibility than that approached would allow.
For schools that want to automate the management of accounts, courses and enrollments or want course grades to be automatically posted to their Student Information System (SIS), Echo provides three options:
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Option One: OneRoster
Echo's OneRoster Sync supports the rostering of users, courses, enrollments, and observers(parents) through the IMS OneRoster specification.
How It Works: If your school's student information system supports OneRoster exports, it can produce pre-formatted .csv files that can be used by Echo to update user accounts, courses, enrollments, and even parent accounts (observers). For many student information systems, this process can be automated to send the files via secure FTP so that Echo stays in sync with the latest information. The sync makes rostering easy, automated, and secure!
About OneRoster: OneRoster is an IMS Global Learning Consortium specification for exchanging data between systems. Commonly, this exchange will happen between the student information system (SIS) and the learning management system (LMS). Echo supports OneRoster 1.1.
Additional Notes
- only users with system Administrator permissions can set up and review SIS sync information
- currently, the OneRoster Sync doesn't allow for grades to be passed back to the SIS automatically, but it is possible to export course grades from Echo so that they may be imported into your SIS.
For instructions on how to sync your SIS data with Echo, click here.
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Option Two: Using .csv Files
If your SIS doesn't support OneRoster or if you wish to have more control over the data being synced with Echo, a second option is to use .csv files exported from your student information system and formated to be imported into Echo.
How It Works: In the Users tool, Courses tool, and Enrollments manager is a feature that allows you to import data into Echo from a properly formatted .csv file. By exporting data from your SIS, you can quickly create files to import users, courses and even course enrollments into Echo. To see a complete description of what data can be imported into Echo, see "How do I import data into Echo?"
Course grade data can also be exported from Echo into a .csv file so that grades can be uploaded into your student information system.
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Option Three: Custom Built Options
Echo is built on a platform with a robust API library. This means many possibilities exist for extracting and posting data to and from Echo. Districts have the option to build a custom sync tool tailored to their specific needs. These can be simple grade extractions or full blown integrations. If this is something your school/district is interested in, we can connect you with the right people to make sure your solution is successful.
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Echo is constantly being improved based on the feedback from users and we strive to keep our documentation up to date. If this document doesn’t match what you are seeing in Echo, please let us know.
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