Mathematics Domain P-10

Back to:

Frequently Asked Questions

Mathematics Online Interview logo

Students don’t appear in the Interview or student details are not current

  1. Confirm the students’ status in CASES21 is set to ‘active.’
  • If status is not active make that change in CASES21 and wait for overnight update of student details in the Online interviews
  • If status is already active, proceed to step 2
  1. Email the servicedesk@edumail.vic.gov.au
  2. Include in the subject line Manual import into Mathematics Online Interview
  3. Explain the issue
  4. Include a request to import the listed students into the school from CASES21
  5. Provide the school name, school number, campus number
  6. Provide the surname, first name, date of birth, CASES 21 ID of each student to be imported

I can’t log in to the Fractions and Decimals Online Interview. What am I doing wrong?

The Fractions and Decimals Online Interview uses information from the Edumail database to identify Victorian government education personnel and the schools, or offices, at which they are currently based. All users must have a current Edumail account to access this program.

It is essential that the Edumail database reflects all current information pertaining to users, including their current location of employment. If the Edumail details are out of date, users may be logged in incorrectly.

All users, including principals and teachers, log in using their T.O. number (e.g. 08200001) and their Edumail password.

If the program is having difficulty recognising your log in details you may be using the wrong password. The password required for the Fractions and Decimals Online Interview is the one that will give you access to your emails if you enter through EduM@il (https://www.edumail.vic.gov.au).

School Principals have the ability to reset Edumail passwords for staff located at their school. This means that the Edumail location details for the staff must be listed at the same location as the Principals location.

For a staff member's password to be reset, the school principal must login to the Edumail Account Administration Module.

  • Log onto: EduM@il Online (https://www.edumail.vic.gov.au/edumailonline)
  • Enter your Edumail User name and Password when prompted
  • Click OK
  • Click My Tools
  • Scroll down and click Account Administration. The Edumail Account Administration window will appear with a list of staff that you can manage. This list will display the staff name, UserID, and SMTP (Internet) email address
  • Find the name of the staff member who requires a password reset and click on their name
  • Edumail user details will be displayed
  • Click 'Reset this User's Password'
  • Confirmation screen will appear
  • Click 'Yes, Reset the Password'
  • A new password will appear on the screen. Note this password for later use
  • Click 'Go Back to User List' and exit program.

If you continue to have difficulty, please contact the DEECD Service Desk for support.

Back to Top

Who is the School Administrator?

The school Principal automatically has School Administrator access. This is the default setting for every Victorian government school.

The Principal may access this function and through User Management delegate School Administrator rights to another user at the school. This person is usually the school’s Numeracy/Mathematics Coordinator. It is recommended that 2 users have this access at each school for sustainability and ongoing support of the program.

School Administrators may access extra parts of the Interview, such as Manage Classes, Manage Students and Profiles for the whole school.

When I log in to the Fractions and Decimals Online Interview, I don’t see my class. What should I do?

When successfully logged in to the Fractions and Decimals Online Interview, the program will identify users by their school location, their T.O. number and their name. This information appears at the top of the screen. The first thing to do is to check that the school location listed is correct.

If any part of those details is incorrect, users cannot proceed. This information needs to be updated through the Edumail database. Go to EduM@il (https://www.edumail.vic.gov.au) to update your details. If you continue to have difficulty, please contact the DEECD Service Desk for Edumail support.

If user details are all correct, but there are no classes appearing in the dropdown “Class” list (at the top left of the screen) then teachers cannot proceed either.

When using the Fractions and Decimals Online Interview for the first time, the program may appear empty. Details of classes, students and groups may not have been entered, and interview records for students will not exist on the system.

The School Administrator, usually the Numeracy or Mathematics coordinator, must create classes for the school and assign teachers to those classes before any interviewing can begin. This happens through the Manage Classes function in Admin.

Back to Top

I can see my classes listed, but I don’t have any students in my class. What should I do?

If there are no students appearing in the dropdown “Student” list (at the top left of the screen) after a class has been selected by pressing “Select Class”, then teachers cannot proceed.

Students are added to classes by being transferred into the correct class by the School Administrator, if the students have already been added to the interview, but are not in the correct class.

The School Administrator, usually the Numeracy or Mathematics coordinator, populates the classes with students through the Manage Classes function in Admin.

When I go into my class on the main homepage my Year 6 students are still listed as Year 5. How do I fix this?

The Fractions and Decimals Online Interview program will not automatically change the student year levels from year to year. For various reasons, the program cannot make assumptions about student year levels.

Interviewing teachers will need to check the student details prior to any new interview and change the details that are incorrect, including the Year Level field. 

It is important that these student details are updated if schools want to filter their whole school profiles, e.g. by Year Level.

I’ve interviewed a student at the wrong session. What can I do to fix this?

The Fractions and Decimals Online Interview creates a number of interviews for each student, each in a different session (e.g. Year 5 and Year 6). It is critical that users select the correct session when interviewing and updating records. 

Note: If users interview using a session which already contains interview information, then this information is overwritten with the new session.

Fixing the error of interviewing in the wrong session requires the user to go back through the Interview and update the records.

Once the correct session has been selected on the main homepage and the Interview button has been pressed, each page will need to be revisited (students need not be present of course). By adding a comment in the comments field, e.g. “Changed session to Year 4” the question will be updated with the new session and fixed.

Having different sessions allows teachers to compare interviews from Year 4 to Year 5, for example.

Back to Top

When I go to view the student profiles there is no data showing, even though I have just interviewed a student. Where has the data gone?

If no data is appearing in the student profiles, or the data doesn’t show what you would expect from the results of the interviews conducted, this is more than likely the result of interviewing in the wrong session or selecting the wrong session to profile.

The Fractions and Decimals Online Interview creates a number of interviews for each student, each in a different session (e.g. Year 5 and Year 6). It is critical that users select the correct session when interviewing and updating records.

The easiest way to check this error is to view a Group Profile for each of the available sessions (one by one), and locate which session contains data.

For example: If after interviewing a Year 4 student, the profile for Year 4 is empty but the profile for Year 6 has data in it, teachers will need to check each of the questions to see which session the student was interviewed in.

This is best done by using the Question Summary for a Student profile. By choosing a question (Fraction Pie is a good place to start) and selecting all sessions, a snapshot of all answers for the sessions is shown, enabling the teacher to quickly spot if answers have been recorded, but in the wrong session.

Fixing an ‘interviewed in the wrong session’ error requires the user to go back through the Interview in Interview mode with the correct session selected.  Each page will need to be revisited (students need not be present of course). By adding a comment in the comments field, e.g. “Changed session to Year 4” the question will be updated and fixed.

Having different sessions allows teachers to compare profiles from Year 4 to Year 5, for example. However, this feature is only beneficial if the sessions have been correctly updated.

I can see a class and students that aren’t mine. How do I fix this?

Teachers should only have access to the classes which they currently teach.

It is important to understand that all students and classes for all schools will have their interview information stored in the same central database.  For this reason, it would be impractical for all teachers to be able to see lists of all students and classes in the system.  Rather, when teachers log in to the Interview, details of the classes shown in the class list, and of the students shown, should be restricted to those students and classes to which that teacher is linked.

The School Administrator should be made immediately aware of this error. Teachers may have been accidently assigned to incorrect classes.

I can see a class and students from the school where I worked last year. How do I fix this?

When successfully logged in to the Fractions and Decimals Online Interview, the program will identify users by their school location, their T.O. number and their name. This information appears at the top of the screen.

The first thing to do is to check that your school location listed here is correct.

If any part of those details is incorrect, users cannot proceed. This information needs to be updated through Edumail. Edumail tools have been developed to allow users to update and change their personal details.

  • Using your web browser log onto: EduM@il Online (https://www.edumail.vic.gov.au/edumailonline)
  • Enter your Edumail User name and Password when prompted
  • Click OK
  • Click My Tools
  • Select the fields that needs updating

Remember: you must click Submit Changes after you have made any changes so that it propagates via the Edumail system.

** All changes take up to 15 minutes to propagate throughout the Edumail Servers.

If you continue to have difficulty, please contact the DEECD Service Desk support.

If these details are correct, but users are still able to view classes and students that aren’t theirs a few questions need to be asked:

  • Was this teacher a user of the Fractions and Decimals Online Interview at another school?
  • Was this teacher removed from the Fractions and Decimals Online Interview class records at their old school by the School Administrator?

Whilst the program will identify when teachers change school locations (through updated information in the Edumail database), the program cannot automatically delete teachers from the class records at their previous school/s. For various reasons, the program cannot make assumptions about a teacher’s access to a class. The process of deleting teachers from class records needs to be carried out by the School Administrator at the previous school.

There is no ‘save’ button. How do I save the interview data for my students?

The Fractions and Decimals Online Interview operates through a central database that houses all student details and interview records. No information from the program is stored on school computers or teachers’ laptops.

When the program enters “Interview mode”, that means a user has pressed the Interview button, each question will be immediately updated to the central database as users move between them. Questions stop being updated and saved when the Stop button is pressed.

Back to Top

When I remove students from last year’s class, how do I assign them to their new class for this year?

Once a student exists in the program, they can be reallocated to classes through Admin. This needs to be performed by the School Administrator in the Manage Classes function. It is as easy as highlighting a student and pressing “Remove Student” or “Add Student” where appropriate.

Why isn't there a statement at the end of the Student Profile saying where the student is achieving in regards to VELS?

The Fractions and Decimals Online Interview looks at the big ideas in rational number. The interview questions do not cover everything that is identified within the Victorian Essential Learning Standards related to rational number. The interview is a snapshot in time to inform your teaching – Assessment FOR Learning. It shouldn’t be used for formal reporting purposes.

When should I do the Fractions and Decimals Online Interview?

The Fractions and Decimals Online Interview is primarily aimed at students in the middle years (4 – 9). It is a sophisticated interview with many challenging questions, and many students in year 10 will still find the tasks appropriate. Similarly, the interview will not be suitable for all year 4 students. It is important that teachers become familiar with all the questions before administering the interview to students for whom it is not appropriate.

The interview should be conducted once a year prior to the classroom focus on rational number. It should be used as a diagnostic tool to inform teaching to meet the individual needs of the students – Assessment FOR Learning. This may occur at different times of the year for different schools and/ or year levels.

Back to Top