BBS in a Box 4/BBS in a Box - Macintosh - Volume IV (January 1992) (BBS in a Box).iso/Files/Bus/F-G/Gradebook Docs

Text File | 1991-09-07 | 10.6 KB | 191 lines | [TEXT/MACA]

Information about Gradebook by Professor Jerry Keough
Department of Mathematics Boston College

Gradebook is written for teachers to track a class of students. It maintains up to 20
grades for each student (a fixed limit that now cannot be changed),and allows the
computation of weighted averages either in terms of raw scores or Z-scores, based
on those grades. Options to show or hide other pieces of information about a student
(an "alias", such as a social security number, and a "grade" which can be assigned
manually for record-keeping), plus the ability to select any subset of the recorded
grades for averaging purposes (e.g., you can choose "only the tests", or "only the
homework") yields a very useful utility. I've paid a lot of attention to Macintosh
conventions, although not completely at this stage, so you should find the
program easy to use despite this minimal amount of documentation.

How to use this program: you should find this program very much like a spread-
sheet program. You are allowed to type new names at any time by just clicking in
the "new" name box and typing. Pressing return adds the new name to the class
list. You create a column in which to enter new grades by choosing "Enter New
Grade" from the Organize menu. If you choose "Show Alias" from the Columns
menu, you can enter information such as a social security number for each
student. If you choose "Show Grades" from the Columns menu, you can record a
"semester grade", which is useful for record keeping purposes only.

When you enter a new grade, you are asked to enter (a.) a title for the new exam or
test; (b.) its maximum grade (must be in the range 0..9999), and (c.) a weight (a real
number > 0 - see below). Having done that, a new column is added on screen and
you can now enter grades as you would enter values in a spreadsheet.

You can show the average of students at any time (assuming that you've entered
some grades, of course) by selecting "Show Average" from the Columns menu.

You can sort either by average (select "Sort by Average" in the Organize menu),
by name, alias, or test grade by clicking in any of these columns and selecting "Sort
by (whatever)" in the Organize menu.  The (whatever) will always be the name of
the column where your current selection or cursor is located. You'll find that
sorting is reasonably fast even for large classes of students.

You can resize text in the window by making selections from the Font and Size
menus. All text in the window is limited to one font and one size.  However, You can
resize any column width in the window by pointing to its vertical separator line
and dragging it.

Under "Preferences" in the Columns menu, you can choose how name sorts are
done. For example, does "John Doe" precede "Fred Smith"? It does if you choose to
sort "by looking at the last name first"; otherwise it doesn't. By the way, sorts are
done without regard for capitalization and diacritical marks as Inside Macintosh
suggests should be the case. (technical note: the last name is found by looking for
the last interior space, if there is one. sorting doesn't properly respect abbrev-
iations such as Dr.) You also decide whether averages are calculated from raw
scores or Z-scores - see the section on weights below. Lastly, if you choose column
widths to be uniform, changing the width of one grade column changes the widths of
all grade columns.

Also under "Preferences", you'll find "Select Grades for Averaging ..." where you
can choose which subset of exams of tests you want to calculate averages for. This
will be useful if you put tests and homework into one class file.  You can choose
the tests and calculate an average, then choose only the homework and get a second
average.

Lastly, under "Preferences" is "Show Statistics" which puts up a window with the
computation of averages, standard deviations and weights for the exams entered.
(see program limitations, however).

That's about it. The items under File and Edit are self explanatory with one
exception. When you choose Print, you will be printing the current "data window"
in which you see the names of students and their grades. You are first presented
with a dialog which suggests that some combination of Names, Averages, Weights,
... , etc. will be printed along with this output. What you need to know is that (a.)
the printout will be faithful to existing column widths and which exams or tests
are currently shown in that window with proper font and size choices, and it will
properly lay out the data tableau over multiple pages if necessary; (b.) If the alias
column is hidden, you do not have the option of turning off names on the output.
However, if the alias column is shown, you may select NOT to print the names
as a column (useful for printing public listings of grades in the class); (c.) The
other options to print the averages, maxima, standard deviations and so forth HAVE
NO EFFECT ON THE PRINTOUT, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR SETTINGS. IN FACT, NONE
OF THESE VALUES WILL PRINT AT ALL. The reason is simple - I never wrote the
code to do it. The only way to get a hardcopy version of the statistics is to do a
window dump of the Statistics window, or, heaven forbid, write them down by hand.

Limitations & Restrictions:

Maximum number of grades per student: 20

Maximum number of students: limited by memory (but no explicit warnings if you
run out of memory entering too many names!). All data is kept in memory. Most
data structures are dynamic, and this runs very well on a 128K Macintosh, although I
don't have a maximum student number to submit.

Grade range: every grade must be in the range 0..9999

Maximum name length: 25 characters (no warning if you exceed this - extra
characters are dropped)

Maximum alias length: 10 characters (no warning if you exceed this - extra
characters are dropped)

Maximum grade field length: 2 characters (no warning if you exceed this - extra
characters are dropped)

Hints, hidden features and work-arounds:

Any exam title, maximum grade and weight can be changed by double-clicking on
the exam title. This brings back the original dialog box where you set these items.

Editable columns can be locked by clicking on their title to select that column
and by choosing "Lock" from the Columns menu. If a column is locked, its entries are
no longer editable until you choose to "UnLock" the column.

Student records can be selected as a whole by clicking on the record number at the
left.  Of course, record numbers must be shown from the Columns menu to do
this. Only one record can be selected at a time. Once selected, a student record can
be deleted from "Clear" in the Edit menu, or by pressing the BackSpace key.

Pressing Return or Enter advances down to the next record, and isusefel for entering a
long list of grades. Pressing these keys while holding the Shift key moves you UP
in the tableau. The Tab key moves you to the right; and Shift/Tab moves you to the
left.

Double-clicking on the record numbers, alias, grade or average column titles
hides these columns. You don't have to go to the Columns menu.

The Grades column has a use only for entering the "final" grade, such as A+ or F.
The field's value cannot be calculated for you automatically in any way.

The data window does not have horizontal scrolling; however, by making proper
choices from the "Select Grades for Averaging ..." item, you can bring any exam or
test into view for editing.

The Statistics window does not allow editing in any form, nor can its column widths
be altered. Its size is fixed by what ever is the current font and size of the data
window when the statistics window is opened. If you don't like the size, close it.
Make a new font and size choice from the font and size menus and then open the
Statistics window again.

Weighting and Average computation:

Exams can be weighted. The usual understanding goes like this. Suppose you give
three tests in a class, and decide that the first will count 30% of the grade; the
second 30% of the grade; and the final 40% of the grade. Suppose that the number
of "points" on the first test is 100; the number on the second is also 100; and the
number on the third is 150. When you enter the first test, enter a maximum of
100 and a weight of 30. Do the same for the second test. For the third, enter a
maximum of 150 and a weight of 40.

If Johnny scores grades of 80/100, 60/100, and 120/150, then Johnny's grades
are computed as the raw averages of 80%, 60% and 80%; and the weighting of the
exams will produce a grade of:

(80%*30%) + (60%*30%) + (80%*40%) = 74%

On the other hand, if you don't want to weight exams in this manner, but prefer to
just "total up the points", then the easy way is to MAKE THE WEIGHT OF EACH TEST
BE THE SAME AS THE MAXIMUM GRADE FOR EACH TEST. In this case, Johnny's
grade would be computed with weights of 100, 100 and 150 and would wind up
being:

(80%*100) + (60%*100) + (80%*150) = 260/350, or 74.28%

So, you decide how you want to use the weighting. If you choose to "Select Grades
for Averaging ..." and choose a subset of all the grades, the weighting gets a little
more interesting. For example, if you weighted the grades at 30, 30 and 40
percent as we did originally and choose to select only the first two grades for
averaging, then Johnny's average is:

(80%*30) + (60%*30) = 42% out of 60% of the grade = 70%

That's the right answer, by the way, because you weighted the tests equally. Each
grade now counts 50% of the average since they count equally, and that's what the
Statistics window will show in the "Percentage" box.

I'm not going to explain Z-scores here. However, suffice it to say that if you choose
to compute averages by Z-scores, the same weighting scheme takes effect on the
standardized Z-scores for each test, rather than its raw score in the form of a
raw percentage.

Lastly, if you choose not to enter a grade for a student (by simply leaving the entry
blank), then that student's average will appear in outlined form as an indication
that the student's average has been estimated. The specific way of treating the
student's missing grade is to not count the student in the computation of the class
average for that exam and to assume that the student's score on that exam WAS
THE SAME AS THE CLASS AVERAGE. This may not be what you want and you can, of
course, enter explicit zeroes for students if you wish. My reason for doing this is
that when students miss an exam, (a.) the class average is thrown way off to the
point that it's useless to me; and (b.) when the student asks "what grade do I have to
get to get such and such a grade?", I can now point out that if the student gets an
above average grade, he'll move up in the rankings and if he gets a below average
grade, he'll move down.

--- Jerry Keough