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DOCUMENTATION FOR THE GRADE GUIDE Version 1.0 Copyright 1985, Jon Kane The GRADE GUIDE is a versatile program used for the storing, retrieving, and analyzing of students' grades. It does not require any special hardware but it will take advantage of color graphics cards, printers, and fixed disk drives when they are available. Its use on computers with less than 128K of memory may be limited. Some of its features include : displaying easy to follow menus showing users all available options. selecting any option by touching one keyboard key. listing student names in an optional grade book format for grade recording. separating grades into grade categories like EXAM, QUIZ, and so forth. recording grades either as number scores, letter grades, or both. giving grades of NONE to students whose grades might not yet be available. evaluating NONE grades as zero grades or as ignored grades, at your option. dropping the lowest or the lowest few scores in a category of grades. weighting each grade and each grade category when calculating averages. letting you change any of the student information that has been stored. having any stored information displayed on the screen or on a printer. printing student grades in a format convenient for handing to students. suppling statistical reports and graphs showing the students' performance. using colors to aid readability when a color graphics card is available. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = A NOTE TO USERS OF THIS PROGRAM = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The programmer maintains a copyright on this program, its displays, and its documentation. Any person may use this program and may make as many copies of it as desired. People should feel free to give this program to others as long as the copyright notices within the program, on the display, and in the documentation remain unchanged. If you find this program useful, you are asked to send $15.00 to the programmer : Jon Kane, 2814 Regent Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53705. You may use and distribute the program whether or not you send any money. If you have any suggestions on improvements, have found any bugs, or wish to have this program customized to your specific grading requirements, you may inquire about changes at the above address. This program has been written and tested with great care to try to insure data integrity and accuracy of results. On the other hand, the programmer will not be held liable for damages caused by use of the GRADE GUIDE. The GRADE GUIDE was designed to aid a teacher in the routine tasks associated with storing, reporting, and analyzing student grades, and was not designed to take grading or teaching decisions away from the teacher. The GRADE GUIDE has been designed to make it easy to use. It is, therefore, unnecessary for a new user to memorize the operating procedures described in this documentation. It may be a good idea to read or skim this documentation once to get an idea of what the GRADE GUIDE is capable of doing for you, and so you can see how the program operates. While using the GRADE GUIDE, you can always see what options are available to you, so you only need to be mildly familiar with GRADE GUIDE to use it. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = FILES FOR THE GRADE GUIDE PROGRAM = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The GRADE GUIDE program is stored on two files called "GRADEGID.COM" and "GRADEGID.000." Both of these files must be present on your default disk drive (either floppy disk or fixed disk) when the program is in operation. If you use subdirectories, then these two files must be in the default directory of the default drive. GRADE GUIDE stores information about each of your classes on a separate file. It allows you to assign an 8 character name to each class. The file that GRADE GUIDE creates for your class has a file name which is the same as your class name and a file extension of "GRD" . Thus, the information that you store concerning the class "MATH-001" will be stored on the file "MATH-001.GRD" . Whenever GRADE GUIDE updates a file due to changes you have made to the stored information, the old version of the file is kept as a backup and is given the file extension "BAK" . Thus, the backup file for MATH-001 will be called "MATH-001.BAK" . GRADE GUIDE can access any class file on any disk drive that your computer has. The class file does not have to be on the same disk as the program files. Again, if you are using subdirectories, each class file that the program accesses must be present in the default directory of its drive. If you, by mistake use GRADE GUIDE to make changes to a class file which you wish you had not made, the GRADE GUIDE can allow you to delete the current "GRD" file for that class and reinstate the old "BAK" file for that class. If you no longer need to have a particular class on file, you may simply delete the "GRD" and "BAK" files for that class by using the DOS delete or erase commands. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = WHAT THE GRADE GUIDE DOES = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The GRADE GUIDE operates by performing tasks which you can select from a menu of possible tasks. This documentation will describe those tasks in detail. The GRADE GUIDE lists all available options in easy to follow menus, and allows you to choose an option by typing a one letter command. The main choices you can make are listed in one of two menus, the FILE MENU and the MAIN MENU. The FILE MENU shows you the choices you have when selecting the class that you want the GRADE GUIDE to consider. If your computer has a color graphics card, the FILE MENU looks like this : ............................................................................ : FILE MENU : : : : A : Choose Drive D : Recover from a backup file : : B : Choose Class E : Display in monochrome : : C : Go on to the MAIN MENU Q : Quit the program : : : : Class Files Available : :..........................................................................: If your computer does not have a color graphics card, OPTION E is missing. The MAIN MENU shows you the choices you have when viewing or changing the contents of a class file. It looks like this : ............................................................................ : MAIN MENU : : : : : : A : add student names D : drop student names : : B : add student grades E : drop student grades : : C : add grade categories F : drop grade categories : : : : G : display/print/change student names : : H : display/print/change student grades : : I : display/print/change grade limits and weights : : J : display/print/change category names and weights : : : : K : display/print class statistics : : : : Q : quit and return to FILE MENU : :..........................................................................: The GRADE GUIDE allows you to enter information related to storing, retrieving, and analzing student grades. For each class that you have the GRADE GUIDE allows you to set up grade categories. All student grades are entered into these grade categories. This lets you keep different types of grades separate such as EXAM, QUIZ, HOMEWORK, THEME, PROGRAM, ATTENDANCE, and so forth. Whenever GRADE GUIDE reports a student's grades, it displays each category and all of the grades which have been entered into that category. It will display the student's average score in each category, and display a GRAND AVERAGE of all the student's grades. You can make each category determine a given percentage of a student's GRAND AVERAGE. For each class you may establish up to ten different categories, and for each student you may store up to 200 grades in each category. See the discussion about the MAIN MENU to learn how to establish new categories using MAIN MENU OPTION C, delete unwanted categories using MAIN MENU option F, and display or change category information with MAIN MENU OPTION J. As an example of how categories can be used, you might have set up three grade categories EXAM 75 % of the grade QUIZ 15 % of the grade HOMEWORK 10 % of the grade Perhaps you have entered 4 EXAM grades, 8 QUIZ grades, and 14 HOMEWORK grades for each student. When student grades are listed, along with a student's name and each of the grades, there will be listed an average grade for each of the three categories and a GRAND AVERAGE which is calculated from the category averages using the weightings of 75 %, 15 %, and 10 %. Suppose a student's 4 EXAM grades were 45, 100, 47, and 93 when the maximum possible scores for the 4 EXAMs were 50, 100, 50, and 100, respectively. Then along with the student's 4 EXAM scores would be listed the total score of 285 and percentage of 95 %. If the student had a 95 % average in EXAMs, an 80 % average in QUIZes, and a 70 % average in HOMEWORK, the GRAND AVERAGE for that student would be calculated as .95 * .75 + .80 * .15 + .70 * .10 which is 89.25 %. In addition to assigning percentage weights to each category, you can assign weights to each grade within a category. For example, if you have given 4 EXAMs worth 50, 100, 50, and 100 points as above and if you want each EXAM grade to contribute equally to the EXAM average, you could give the EXAMs weights of 2.0, 1.0, 2.0, and 1.0, respectively. If you wanted the last EXAM grade to be worth twice as much as the other exams, you could give that exam a weight of 2.0. Grade weights are assigned when grades are entered with MAIN MENU OPTION B and can be displayed or changed at any time with MAIN MENU OPTION I. GRADE GUIDE allows you to record grades in three different formats : NUMBER, LETTER, and NUMBER WITH CUTOFF. When you establish a category (MAIN MENU OPTION C), you select which method you want to use for storing grades. If you select the option LETTER, then all the grades that you enter into that category will be letter grades. The letter grades which are accepted by GRADE GUIDE are the standard letters from the 4.0 scale GRADE VALUE A 4 B 3 C 2 D 1 F 0 In addition, the following less standard grades are accepted GRADE VALUE A+ 4 1/3 A- 3 2/3 B+ 3 1/3 B- 2 2/3 C+ 2 1/3 C- 1 2/3 D+ 1 1/3 D- 2/3 F+ 1/3 F- -1/3 AB 3 1/2 BC 2 1/2 CD 1 1/2 DF 1/2 When letter grades are listed, the category average on a scale of 4.0 is listed rather than the total and percentage that are listed for number grades. If you establish a category and you want to record grades in that category as numbers, then you can select the option NUMBER rather than LETTER for that category. The third option, that of NUMBER WITH CUTOFF, allows you to store grades in a format similar to storing grades with the NUMBER format except that you will be allowed to enter for each grade in that category a set of four CUTOFF grades representing the lowest numeric score for the grades of A, B, C, and D. The only difference between this method of storing grades and that of the NUMBER method is that with the NUMBER WITH CUTOFF method, when student grades are listed the number score is listed and along with it, the associated letter grade. When you enter new grades into this category (MAIN MENU OPTION B), you can choose to enter grade cutoffs. If you do not elect to enter cutoffs, then grades will be listed without the associated letter grade. Grade cutoffs can be changed at any time with MAIN MENU OPTION I. If you had previously elected not to set the grade cutoffs and now you want to set them, MAIN MENU OPTION I will show you that the grade cutoffs are set at NONE and you can change these NONE values to any values you like. Note that each grade stored with the NUMBER or the NUMBER WITH CUTOFF method must be a whole number in the range from 0 to 250. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = ENTERING INFORMATION = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Often the GRADE GUIDE will ask you to enter information. Here are a few rules about entering such information. COMMANDS To enter a command, merely press the key for the letter corresponding to the menu choice for that command. The response may be in upper case or lower case and you do not need to press the <CR>. NUMBERS To enter a number just enter the digits for the number you want. The digits that you press will appear in reverse video on the display. Do not use a decimal point (".") when entering a whole number or a sign ("+" or "-") when entering any number. You may backspace over mistakes by using the backspace key. You may complete your input by typing a <CR> (enter key) or a <space>. If you are entering a student's grade and do not type any digits, then the grade will be entered as NONE. When entering weights for grades or precentages for categories, you may add up to 3 decimal digits to the number. Those numbers can have up to 3 digits to the left and 3 digits to the right of the decimal point. CHARACTER STRINGS Character strings can be entered the same way that numbers are entered except that the input is always ended with a <CR>, not with a <space>. In addition, character strings may not begin with a <space>. Student names, category names, class names, and letter grades are entered as character strings. CHANGE MODE There are several places in the GRADE GUIDE where you are given the opportunity to change previously entered information by entering CHANGE MODE. When this is done, you will be able see the information which can be changed being displayed on the screen in reverse video. You will be able to move to another item of information being displayed by pressing one of the cursor control keys. You can exit from CHANGE MODE by using the <Esc> (escape) key. If you move from one item of information on the screen to another or escape from CHANGE MODE without entering any new characters, then the old information will remain unchanged and will be redisplayed in normal video. If you wish to change a previously entered student grade to a grade of NONE, then enter an "N" (or "n") for that grade while in change mode. ILLEGAL CHARACTERS If at any time while running the GRADE GUIDE you press a key which the GRADE GUIDE was not expecting, the computer will beep to signal that the key was not expected. The key you pressed will not be recorded or displayed in any way, and you may continue by typing any legal key. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = USING THE GRADE GUIDE = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Whenever the "GRADEGID.COM" and "GRADEGID.000" files are both present on the default disk drive, you may run the GRADE GUIDE program by typing the name "gradegid" followed by a carriage return <CR>. The program will begin by displaying a welcoming message which will remain on the screen until you press the space bar. The GRADE GUIDE lets you know at all times what options are available to you. Options are usually displayed for you on the screen in a menu format allowing you to choose an option by pressing one keyboard letter (in either upper or lower case.) Often special instructions, reminders, or warnings will appear in a three line message display at the bottom of your screen. The next display which you will see is the "FILE MENU." Below the there will be a list of all the class files currently available for use on the currently chosen disk drive. Your options include : OPTION A -- Choosing a Disk Drive This option allows you to choose which disk drive you want GRADE GUIDE to be looking at to find your class files. After selecting OPTION A, just type the letter of the disk drive you want. GRADE GUIDE will then list for you all the class files available on that drive. OPTION B -- Choosing a Class File Select this option when you want to choose a class with which to work. You will be able to type the name of any class and the name you type will appear on the screen next to the OPTION B menu listing. Note that choosing a class with this option does not cause the GRADE GUIDE to proceed to the MAIN MENU. You must select OPTION C in order to be able to go to the MAIN MENU. OPTION C -- Moving on to the MAIN MENU With this option GRADE GUIDE proceeds to the MAIN MENU where you can choose to perform many functions with the class file that you have chosen. If you select OPTION C before any class has been chosen with OPTION B, then the GRADE GUIDE will request that you enter a class name before continuing. If the program cannot find a "GRD" file for the class you have chosen on the currently chosen disk drive, then it will ask you if the class is a new class. If it is a new class, respond Y and GRADE GUIDE will create a new file for your new class. Otherwise, answer N and check to see that you have spelled the name of the class correctly and have chosen the correct disk drive and diskette. OPTION D -- Recovering a Backup File If you have made changes to a class file which you do not want, this option will allow you to recover the backup file for that class. For example, you can have the "MATH-001.GRD" file deleted and replaced by the "MATH-001.BAK" file. OPTION E -- Changing Color Modes If your computer has a color graphics card, OPTION E will be displayed. It allows you to force the display to appear in black and white rather than in color. This option is provided for those users who might have a monochrome display or TV connected to their color graphics card which can be difficult to read when the screen displays in color. If the E option is chosen and the display is in black and white, then the E option will allow you to change back from black and white to color. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = THE MAIN MENU CHOICES = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= While the main menu is being displayed, you may choose to perform one of 11 grading functions labeled A to K, or you may press Q to quit and return to the FILE MENU. Briefly, options A, B, and C allow you to enter new information into your class file, options D, E, and F allow you to remove previously entered information, options G, H, I, and J allow you to display, print, or change any of the previously entered information, and OPTION K generates some statistical reports about your students' grades. OPTION A -- Entering New Names This options allows you to enter the names of students not previously entered into your class. Entered names are displayed on the screen. GRADE GUIDE will notify you if you enter a name which has already been entered into your class so that no duplications of names will occur. Names may be entered in any order; GRADE GUIDE will alphabetize them for you. When you are done entering the new names, enter one blank name (press <CR> without entering any characters.) If you enter new students into a class which already has some grades assigned, the new students will automatically be given grades of NONE for each of the previously entered grades. You may, of course, change these NONE grades by using main menu OPTION H. OPTION B -- Entering New Grades This option allows you to enter new grades for all the students in your class. Since all grades are entered into categories, there must have been some categories established (MAIN MENU OPTION C) before you can enter grades. If you have established at least one category, you will be asked to choose the grades you want to enter. GRADE GUIDE will show you a list of your categories, for example A : EXAM B : QUIZ C : HOMEWORK You could then decide that you want to enter a QUIZ grade, an EXAM grade, a second QUIZ grade, and a HOMEWORK grade. You would state your intensions by typing the letters "babc" (either upper or lower case) followed by a <CR>. GRADE GUIDE will respond by listing the grades QUIZ 1 EXAM 1 QUIZ 2 HOMEWORK 1 You may enter up to ten grades at one time. The number after the category name tells you which grade of the category you are entering. If you had previously entered three QUIZ grades, then the two new QUIZ grades would be numbered 4 and 5. It is legal to enter an empty list of grades by typing only a <CR> when prompted for the grades you want to enter. This is what you should do if you ever select OPTION B by mistake. After confirming that these grades are correct, you will be asked to enter the maximum possible score for each of the number grades, the A, B, C, and D cutoffs for each of the NUMBER WITH CUTOFF grades, and a grade weight for all grades. GRADE GUIDE will allow you to enter student grades which are larger than the maximum possible scores which you enter. The larger numbers will be treated as though there was extra credit given. For example, if the maximum possible score on an EXAM is 100, and you enter a grade of 110, then GRADE GUIDE will treat the grade as if it included an extra 10 points of extra credit and assign it a percentage of 110 %. If you enter a maximum possible score of zero or NONE, GRADE GUIDE will treat the corresponding grades as extra credit. Note that the use of maximum possible scores equal to zero or NONE can cause strange results when category percentages and GRAND AVERAGES are calculated. The GRADE GUIDE will print a reminder whenever a grade is entered which exceeds the maximum possible score for that grade. GRADE GUIDE will prompt you for each student's grades and will give you a chance to enter CHANGE MODE in case you make a mistake entering any of the grades. OPTION C -- Entering New Categories This option is used to enter new category names. Typically, you will use this option when you first establish each class file, although there is nothing wrong with establishing new categories later on. GRADE GUIDE will list for you information about each of the categories you have established so far and will wait for you to enter new information. For each new category you will enter a name for the category, select a grade format (NUMBER, LETTER, or NUMBER WITH CUTOFF), and a percentage of the GRAND AVERAGE. You signal that you are done entering new categories by entering a blank name for a category. OPTION D -- Dropping Students With this option you can choose to drop some students from your class. The GRADE GUIDE will ask you for a list of the students you want to drop. You are not required to enter the entire name of a student you want to drop. If GRADE GUIDE does not find a student whose name is the same as the name you typed, then it will look for the name of a student whose name CONTAINS what you typed. If it finds such a name, it will ask you if that was the name you wanted. If you say no (N), then it will keep looking. For example, if you want to drop the student "Smith, John" and you ask for the name "ith", GRADE GUIDE might ask you if you meant "Jones, Kennith" since that name also contains an "ith." If you respond N, GRADE GUIDE will find "Smith, John." Note that it is important to use the same upper and lower case letters as you used when entering the student's name because GRADE GUIDE does distinguish between upper and lower case letters. Before actually dropping any student from the list, GRADE GUIDE will ask you to confirm that you want that student dropped. OPTION E -- Dropping Grades Instructors sometimes want to drop the lowest grade or lowest few grades of a student before calculating final grades. GRADE GUIDE can drop the lowest grade or lowest few grades in any category with OPTION E. When you elect to drop students' grades with OPTION E, you are asked to choose a category and then to choose how many grades you want dropped from that category (for example, the lowest 1 grade or the lowest 3 grades.) Then the GRADE GUIDE will consider each student in the class and look at all the grades in the chosen category for that student. It will change the lowest grades in that category to NONE. If you now look at the grades for each student while treating NONE grades as zeros, each student's grand average will have decreased (since some non-zero grades have been replaced by NONE grades), but the new GRAND AVERAGEs can now be used to compare students' records on an equal basis. The dropped grades are the ones where the grade value multiplied by the weight for the grade come out the smallest. Grades which are already NONE will be given the value of zero so they will be the first candidates to be dropped. Note that if you drop the lowest 2 grades from a category once and then try to drop the lowest 2 grades again, the second drop will have no effect since each student will already have at least 2 NONE grades in that category. If you wanted to drop 2 MORE grades, you would have to ask for the lowest 4 grades in the category to be dropped. You may want to see the effect of your having dropped grades before committing yourself to dropping any. Therefore, at first, the GRADE GUIDE only TEMPORARILY drops the grades. This allows you to go and view the grades using any of the MAIN MENU options while the grades are still only TEMPORARILY dropped. In fact, if you return to the MAIN MENU while there are TEMPORARILY DROPPED GRADES, there will be a statement at the bottom of the screen reminding you that grades have been TEMPORARILY DROPPED. The only changes you can make to the stored information while there are TEMPORARILY DROPPED GRADES is to create more TEMPORARILY DROPPED GRADES. The GRADE GUIDE will never update the disk file while there are TEMPORARILY DROPPED GRADES. Before you will be allowed to make other changes to your file you must decide whether you want those grades PERMANENTLY DROPPED or whether you want to reinstate the old grades. You make that choice by re-entering OPTION E which will allow you to select between those two fates or to drop some more grades (TEMPORARILY.) GRADE GUIDE does this by making sure that the copy of your class file on the disk has been updated prior to your dropping grades. Then if you decide that you want to reinstate the grades the way they were before you created the TEMPORARILY DROPPED GRADES, the file can be read from the disk and the old grades will be restored. OPTION F -- Dropping Categories Occasionally, you may established a category which you never used or for which you have no further use. You can remove that category and all of the grades entered in that category by using OPTION F. You will be asked to select a category to drop and will then be asked to verify your choice before continuing. Note that if you ever establish a category to contain LETTER grades and you should have used NUMBER grades, then the only way for you to rectify the situation is to drop the category using OPTION F and then reestablish it using OPTION C. OPTION G -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Student Names This option allows you to have your students' names listed on the screen or on a printer. If there is no printer attached to your computer, GRADE GUIDE will not give you the option to print. If you select the option to list names on the screen, your students' names will be listed alphabetically, 40 at a time. Each time the screen fills with names, you can choose to enter CHANGE MODE by typing a C. Then you can use the cursor control keys to move to any name on the screen and change the name. When you escape from change mode, GRADE GUIDE will begin listing the names again from the beginning of the alphabet so you can view any changes you made. If you have more than 40 students in your class, then after listing the first 40 you can either press the space bar to continue listing more names or press Q to quit listing the names. If you select to print names, you can choose to have the names listed in one of three ways. Like This (no horizontal lines) 1. Able 2. Baker Or Like This (horizontal lines) 1. Able_______________________________________________________________ 2. Baker______________________________________________________________ Or Like This (horizontal lines and vertical lines) 1. Able___|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____| 2. Baker__|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____| The latter two methods produce lists which are convenient for recording grades by hand before they are entered into a class file. If you are printing names, you may stop the printer by depressing the <Alt> key and holding it down until the printer stops. Then you can continue printing by pressing the letter C or stop printing by pressing the letter Q. This is helpful if you want to insert form feeds in the middle of your list or to stop the list before the end. OPTION H -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Student Grades Choose this option when you want to view or print the grades of one or more of your students or when you need to change one or more grades. GRADE GUIDE will display options allowing you to display grades on the screen, print grades on the printer, or quit and return to the main menu. If there is no printer attached to your computer, then the option to print will be suppressed. GRADE GUIDE also lists the name of each grade category and the percentages which you assigned to each category when you established the categories using OPTION C. If for some reason the percentages you assigned do not add up to 100 %, GRADE GUIDE will try to adjust the percentages so that they do add to 100 %. These adjusted percentages are the values which are listed. No adjustments are made if all categories have been assigned a percentage of 0.0 %. After selecting the option to view or print grades, the GRADE GUIDE will ask you for the name of the student whose grades you wish to see. If you respond with a <CR> only, then GRADE GUIDE will list the grades of all the students in the class. You may enter student names in the same way that you enter names when dropping students in OPTION D. That is, you may use substring abbreviations for student names. When GRADE GUIDE lists grades, it gives the student's name, a list of each category into which grades have been entered, and a list of all the grades the student has earned in each category. In addition, it gives a percentage or average grade based on the student's performance in each category. For number grades, it gives a sum of all the number scores multiplied by their grade weights which you have entered when entering the grades in OPTION B and a percentage based on the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE scores which you have also entered. For letter grades, it lists an average (on the 4.0 grade scale) instead of a total. GRADE GUIDE also gives a GRAND AVERAGE score which is a percentage based on the percentages the student obtained in each category and the percentage weights you have assigned to each category. There are two different ways in which GRADE GUIDE can handle NONE grades. It can assign them a value of zero, or it can treat them as if that grade had never been assigned. For example, if the student "Smith, John" has been assigned quiz scores of QUIZ # SCORE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE WEIGHT ------ ----- ---------------- ------ 1 10 20 1.000 2 10 20 2.000 3 NONE 30 1.000 4 15 30 1.000 then, if NONE grades are assigned the value zero, the quiz total would be 10 * 1.000 + 10 * 2.000 + 0 * 1.000 + 15 * 1.000 = 45 and the total possible would be 20 * 1.000 + 20 * 2.000 + 30 * 1.000 + 30 * 1.000 = 120 giving "Smith, John" a quiz percentage of 45 / 120 = 37.50 %. On the other hand, if NONE grades are ignored, the total would be 10 * 1.000 + 10 * 2.000 + 15 * 1.000 = 45 and the total possible would be 20 * 1.000 + 20 * 2.000 + 30 * 1.000 = 90 giving "Smith, John" a quiz percentage of 45 / 90 = 50.00 %. Before listing any grades, GRADE GUIDE will ask you which way you want the grades evaluated by saying : "Do you want NONE grades given the value of ZERO (Y/N) ? " to which you can respond with a Y or N. GRADE GUIDE calculates the GRAND AVERAGE for each student by weighting the percentages the student gets in each category by the adjusted category percentages. If a category has no grades in it, then that category's average will be calculated either as a 0.000 % or a 100.000 % depending on whether NONE grades are treated as zero or not. If grades are being listed on the screen and there is not enough room to display all the grades, then GRADE GUIDE will list the grades using several entire categories at a time. It will wait until you press the space bar before it continues. When grades are on the screen, you may press the letter C and enter CHANGE MODE. Then you may use the cursor control keys to move a cursor which becomes visible to any grade on the screen. You may change any grade and when you do, the category totals and averages and the GRAND AVERAGE will be automatically updated for you. The <Esc> key can be used to escape from change mode. If you are viewing a list of all the students' grades, then you will see one student's grades on the screen at a time. You move onto the next student by pressing the space bar and can avoid seeing the remainder of the list by pressing the letter Q. If you are listing grades on the printer, you can stop the printing as in the listing of names (OPTION G) by pressing the <Alt> key until the printer stops. You can then choose to continue by pressing a C or quit the printing by pressing a Q. OPTION I -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Grade Limits or Weights With this option you may see or change any of the maximum possible grades or grade weights that you previously established. After selecting this option, GRADE GUIDE will display a list of all the grade categories that you have established for this class. You may choose any category whose grade limits and weights you wish to see. Having selected a category, GRADE GUIDE will display on the screen the grade weights that you have established for the that category. The weights will be listed in rows of 10 grades each, just as grades are listed in OPTION H. You may enter CHANGE MODE by pressing the letter C which will allow you to change any of the weights that you see. If there is a printer attached to your computer, you may print the information which is listed on the screen by pressing P. You may continue the program by pressing the space bar. If the category you have selected is for storing number grades, then GRADE GUIDE will list the maximum possible scores for each grade. Again, you may enter CHANGE MODE, print, or continue by pressing C, P, or the space bar, respectively. If the category you have selected is for storing number grades with cutoffs, then GRADE GUIDE will display the grade cutoffs which you have established. It will begin with the A cutoffs and continue to the B, C, and D cutoffs. Each set of cutoffs will be displayed on a separate screen, and with each set you may choose to enter CHANGE MODE, print or continue with a C, P, or space bar, respectively. After viewing one full category of information, you may choose another category or select OPTION Q to quit and return to the MAIN MENU. OPTION J -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Category Information Selecting this option causes GRADE GUIDE to display all the category information you have established for this class. For each category the category names, the type of grades (NUMBER, LETTER, or NUMBER WITH CUTOFF), and the percentage of the total grade is displayed. You again may select to enter CHANGE MODE by pressing C. This will allow you to change the category names and the category percentages but will not allow you to change the category grade type. If a printer is attached to your computer, pressing the letter P will cause the information on the screen to be printed. Pressing Q will quit this option and return you to the MAIN MENU. OPTION K -- Displaying or Printing Class Statistics This is a very powerful option which allows you to print several kinds of reports about grades for your class. You may choose to display a report concerning one particular grade (for example, EXAM 3), one particular category (for example, QUIZ averages), or the GRAND AVERAGES. Each report will have GRADE GUIDE calculate one value for each student. In the case of one grade, GRADE GUIDE will take that grade for each student. In the case of one category, GRADE GUIDE will take the percentage that each student obtained in that category. In the case of the GRAND AVERAGE, GRADE GUIDE will calculate the GRAND AVERAGE for each student. Then you will receive a report giving the number of students in the class, the maximum and minimum values obtained by the students, the mean and median scores obtained by the students, and the standard deviation of the scores. Next the GRADE GUIDE will display a list of all the scores obtained listed in increasing order. After that, a histogram of the distribution of grades is shown. As in OPTION H you will be able to choose to have the report sent to the printer if you have a printer attached to your computer. Also, GRADE GUIDE will ask you to choose whether or not you want NONE grades treated as zeros. When the report has been completed, you will have the option to select another report or press Q to return to the MAIN MENU. OPTION Q -- Quitting and Returning to the FILE MENU This option causes the FILE MENU to be redisplayed. If your file has been changed since the last time a copy of it was written to the disk, GRADE GUIDE will make a final updated copy of your file at that time. When the FILE MENU has been displayed, you may select any of the options available with that menu including choosing another class or quitting the program. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = MEMORY REQUIREMENTS = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= When GRADE GUIDE is working on one of your classes, it reads the entire file of information for that class into your computer's memory. This allows the GRADE GUIDE to execute very fast. If you try to read a file into memory which is too large for the memory of your computer, the GRADE GUIDE will display a warning message and will not allow you to continue processing that class. This could happen if you record information about a class using one computer and then try to process that class using another computer with less internal memory. GRADE GUIDE has been tested with a class which has 300 students with 400 grades assigned to each student. This worked fine on a computer with an internal memory of 256 K bytes. On a computer with only 128 K bytes, you might expect to store 300 students with 40 grades each or 50 students with 400 grades each. Since most classes do not have anywhere near much information to store, GRADE GUIDE will almost never run into memory problems. If you are processing a class with the GRADE GUIDE and you are pushing the memory capacity of your computer to the limit, the GRADE GUIDE will constantly check whether or not your computer has the capacity to continue processing. If you attempt to add one more new student or try to record a new set of grades and there is not enough memory in the computer to allow that, the GRADE GUIDE will stop you and prevent you from making those additions to your class. There are two MAIN MENU options which require some extra memory to be allocated in your computer. They are OPTIONS E (drop grades) and K (display statistics). If you ever try to use these options when your computer does not have enough available memory, a warning will be displayed and you will not be allowed to use those options. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = INPUT/OUTPUT PROBLEMS = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= When reading from or writing to the disk drives, there is always a possibility that problems will occur either due to hardware problems with the disk drive or the diskette, due to the diskette being full, or due to your removing the necessary diskette from its drive before GRADE GUIDE is done with it. GRADE GUIDE tries to catch each of these kinds of errors and will display a warning message whenever it does find a problem. It may ask you to choose to "A:abort, R:retry, or I:ignore ?" . Chose to abort if you want the program to stop. Choose to retry if you want to start the reading or the writing of the file over again. Choose to ignore only if you believe that the reading or writing of the file should continue from where it left off, having not corrected any error. Note that the GRADE GUIDE makes updated copies of your class file while you are working and changing your class information. This is done so that if you experience a power loss, there will be a fairly recent version of you file stored on the disk. It is recommended (as it is for all information stored on a disk) that after a session with the GRADE GUIDE, you use the DOS copy function to make backup copies of your class files. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = SUGGESTIONS = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= If you wish to use GRADE GUIDE for a class but do not want to separate your grades into categories, just establish one grade category and call it GRADES. If you have a category where you give two grades for each assignment, for example, you may assign one grade for form and one for contents, you could establish two categories like THEME-form and THEME-contents. Similarly, if you like to assign number grades and letter grades to the same assignment, and you do not assign letter grades strictly on the basis of a cutoff (that is, someone with a 93 gets a B while someone else with a 92 still gets an A), then you could have two categories for those assignments, one for the number score and one for the letter score. If you enter a grade and later decide that you do not want that grade to be counted, just use MAIN MENU OPTION I to change the weight for that grade to zero. If you like to analyze grades in more than one way--like a friend of mine who likes to either weight the midterm exam to be one half the value of the final exam or weight the final exam to be one half the value of the midterm exam depending on which way turns out better for the student--then you can analyze and print the grades using one scheme, you can use MAIN MENU OPTION I to change weights, and then you can analyze and print the grades using the other scheme. If you have more than one section of one particular course and you would like to have the two sections listed together because they have the same assignments and take the same tests, then you can establish one class file for all the sections. If you want the students from one section to be listed on your class list separately from those students in another section, just use a prefix for each student name when you enter the student name. Jerry Smith from your first section could be entered as 1 Smith, Jerry and Sally Jones from your second section could be entered as 2 Jones, Sally. In this way the names from your first section will be separated from the names from your second section when the names are alphabetized. If you like to drop grades at the end of a semester or year, but you would also like to show students how well they are doing before the end, you can TEMPORARILY DROP some grades, get a listing of grades to show the students, but do not make the TEMPORARILY DROPPED GRADES permanent. You can wait till the end to make them permanent so that if students receive lower scores later in the semester, the new lower scores can be dropped and the old scores will not be lost. If the time has come to assign final grades in a course, you may wish to get a listing of all your students' grades with MAIN MENU OPTION H, get a listing of the maximum possible scores and grade cutoffs with MAIN MENU OPTION I, and get one or more statistical reports using MAIN MENU OPTION K. Together, these lists will give you as much information as possible to aid in your final grade assignments.