BBS in a Box 7/BBS in a Box - Macintosh - Volume VII (BBS in a Box) (January 1993).iso/Files/Bus/N-Q/QuickGrade.cpt/QuickGrade/Q GRADE SHORT DOC..

Text File | 1987-08-31 | 12KB | 339 lines

                                     QUICK GRADE "SHORT DOCUMENTATION"



Notice :



 The accompanying software has been developed for personal use. It is
distributed as a tool to use in your teaching efforts.  I believe that the
software will perform as indicated, however, I can not guarantee it to be
error free. Please keep hard copies of all your grades and back up all your
files. Use this  software entirely at your risk.  Duplication, backup and
free distribution is allowed. However, please do not  make any changes in
this manual or the software.  Questions, inquiries and suggestions are
welcomed and should be addressed to Sam Drogo, 101 Juneway Drive,
Chittenango,  New York 13037. I will provide a disk containing complete
documentation (MacWrite File 20+ pages  illustrated), a sample section
and this application, Quick Grade, for $10. If you find this short
documentation adequate and find the program useful a donation of $7 would be
appreciated.



Introduction:



Quick Grade  is a  student grade keeping application. It was originally
developed  under the Microsoft tm Basic Interpreter  and  compiled with
the  Microsoft tm Basic compiler.  Minimum system requirements include
an Apple tm 5l2K Macintosh tm with an Imagewritertm Printer. Quick
Grade is ideal for sections of 50 students or less with each  student
limited to no more then 20 evaluations. If your grading needs typically
exceed these limits this application is not for you. However, within these
limits, I believe,  you will find Quick Grade  fast, easy to use, and quite
flexible. Quick Grade  loads an entire section into memory. Upon quitting or
changing sections changes are saved to disk at your discretion. This
approach is fast and allows experimentation such as grade adjustments
and dropping evaluations. You are allowed to assess the impact of these
changes before saving to disk. With Quick Grade  it is possible to create a
section or access an existing section.  Quick Grade  allows complete
editing of all section information including:  adding or deleting evaluation
types and point values; adding and deleting students and changing student
grades; linking a descriptive  message to an evaluation. The lowest grades
in any category can be dropped and section information and statistics can
be displayed on the screen or delivered to the printer for a permanent copy.
Also, special cases such as excused absences, non excused absences and
across the board adjustments of grades are easily accomplished .















HELP MENU:



 The HELP Menu simply list character codes recognized by the program
with their meanings. Most of these codes are  used to designate particular
types of evaluations . Some are symbols used when dealing with special
student grading situations.





TYPE   M/D    VALUE    FIELDS:



After the section information is provided, you will arrive at a screen
which contains 60 Edit Fields.  These 60 Edit Fields are divided into two
groups of 30.  There are l0 Edit Fields in each row.  The purpose of these
Edit Fields is to set the TYPE, M/D(month /date), and VALUE for each of 20
possible evaluations. The TYPE codes corresponding to different
evaluations can be viewed at any time under the HELP Menu.  For example,
if your first evaluation is a quiz, enter "QUI" in place of the "TYPE" prompt
in the first TYPE  Edit Field. Move to the corresponding M/D ( month /date)
Edit Field with the return key. You can now enter a month and a day in the
month/day format. Use the return key once more to reach the VALUE Field.
Enter a value for this quiz.  In general, you can move horizontally between
Edit Fields by the Tab key.  You can move vertically downward with the
return key. Of course, Edit Fields are also selectable via the Mouse.

When entering information in Edit Fields the program checks for invalid
entries. It is sensitive  to: improper TYPE Field codes, lower case and
spaces in TYPE Field codes,   designated TYPE Field without a
corresponding  VALUE Field entry, improper VALUE Field entry (see
Specifications Section for VALUE Field limits) and empty  Fields. When an
error is detected, it must be corrected before the Field can be exited. Any
Edit Fields that are not changed should be left intact with their prompts.
That is, the prompt's "TYPE", "M/D", and "VALUE" should remain if the Edit
Fields are not used for specific inputs .





 ENTER NEW STUDENT option under GRADEBOOK MENU:



Twenty one Edit Fields for a student's record are made available. Once the
student name is entered,  hit the tab key or using the Mouse to move to the
first GR Field. These Fields are for student grades. If you have no grade to
enter for a particular Field, simply leave the "GR" prompt in place.  If the
student is excused from a particular evaluation, enter the code "EX" in the
corresponding GR Field.  If a student is absent and you wish the absence to
count as a 0, use the code "AB". If you wish to record a grade but have it
ignored in this students total, that is, to treat it as a dropped grade,
precede it with an "*".  All of this information can be found  under the
HELP Menu.  To add another student to the section Click OK. When you finish
adding students simply Click QUIT. The record on the screen when QUIT is
clicked is not saved. Therefore, you should always QUIT from a prompt
record, never from an actual student you wish to add to the section.
Student records are saved alphabetically based upon the contents of the
NAME AND COMMENTS Edit Field. When entering student information in Edit
Fields the program checks for invalid entries. It is sensitive  to: improper
special GR Field codes including lower case and imbedded spaces, improper
numeric values for a GR Field (see Technical Specification and Capabilities
section for GR Field limits) and empty Fields. When an error is
encountered, it must be corrected before the Field can be exited. Any Edit
Fields that are not used for data  should be left intact with their prompts.





 UPDATE STUDENTS option via CHANGE OR ADD COURSE INFO MENU:



 This allows you now to access student records. Student records will
appear on the screen in alphabetical order by NAME AND COMMENT Field .
Section information is presented as a reference above each student record.
The first GR Edit Field which contains a "GR" prompt is automatically
selected.  A grade can be easily entered in this Edit Field simply by typing
from the keyboard.  Other Edit Fields can be accessed by the Mouse or by
the tab key.  To get to the next student record, Click OK.  To get to
preceding student records, Click REV for reverse.  To  search Click SELECT
and enter the three initial letter of the last name of the student you wish
to search. If students have similar names the search will select the first
student encountered that meets the criterion. If the search is not
successful, you are brought to the  student record active before the search.
Entering the search string "/T/" will bring you to the first record.

Once a student record is selected all Edit Fields can be selected and
changed.  Be careful when editing student names, as edited records are not
re-alphabetized.  Substantial name editing may require re-entering the
student to re-establish alphabetical order.  To delete a student select the
entire NAME AND COMMENT Field and backspace.  This erases the NAME AND
COMMENT Edit Field. Records with an empty NAME AND COMMENT Edit Field
are automatically deleted.   Clicking QUIT records all your changes. This
includes changes that you have made on the record that is currently active
when you select QUIT.











DROP LOWEST UNDER GRADEBOOK MENU:



  DROP LOWEST allows you to drop the lowest grade in any category of
evaluation.  The dropping is done by preceding that grade  with "*". Lowest
grades are determined by comparing grades for a student within a category
on a percentage basis. Therefore, it is possible to drop grades of different
values for different students if all evaluations within a category do not
have the same value.  Since an "AB" counts as a zero if the student was
absent for a particular evaluation, the "AB" designation will be preceded
by an asterisk.  If this option is used twice on the same TYPE of
evaluation, you would in essence drop the lowest two in that particular
category. If it were used three times, you would then in effect drop the
lowest three in that particular category.  That is, once an evaluation is
indicated as dropped, it stays dropped, even if a subsequently entered
grade of that TYPE  is a lower point value.  Therefore, this option is not
usually used until all of the grades of this particular evaluation TYPE  have
been recorded for all of the students in a section.









Technical Specifications and  Capabilities :



Section size is limited to  50 students per section. Sections larger then 50
may be accommodated by using blocks of 50 or less and designating each
block as a separate file. The number of files is limited only by the disk
space.

Each student can have up to 20 grades.

Section information Fields (SECTION NAME AND NUMBER, SEMESTER, TIME,
DAYS, ROOM, DROP DATE)  are  truncated at 25 characters.

Section information Fields (SECTION NAME AND NUMBER, SEMESTER, TIME,
DAYS, ROOM, DROP DATE) will allow a Nil value .

TYPE Field  categories are as follows:  "QUI" for quiz; "TES" for test; "FIN"
for final; "PRA" for practicum; "HW" for homework; "LR" for lab report;
"PAP" for paper; and "ASI" for assignment.  These 8 codes in upper case are
recognized by the application as indicators of the 8 different types of
evaluations. Nil values are not allowed in TYPE Fields.

 M/D Fields for each evaluation are limited to five characters. Nil is not
allowed in M/D Fields.

VALUE   Fields corresponding to  an indicated evaluation TYPE must be
numeric and  greater then 0 but less then or equal to 500. Nil is not
allowed in VALUE Fields.

NAME AND COMMENT Fields are truncated at 60 characters.

MESSAGE Fields are truncated at 60 characters.

 Nil values are not allowed in NAME AND COMMENT Fields for students being
entered into the section.



 Nil values in a NAME AND COMMENT Field for a student updates cause that
student record to be deleted.

GR Fields are limited to five numeric characters with values from 0 to
500.  GR Fields will also accept the following alpha character codes: "EX"
(excused),  "AB" (absent),  "*" (indicates dropped grade).

With the exception of a VALUE Field  corresponding to  an indicated
evaluation TYPE  all  Fields will accept their original prompt.

Averages and totals are rounded  to one decimal place.

Individual Student calculations ignore  GR Fields with   "EX ",  an   "*" and
the "GR" prompt.

Individual Student calculations evaluate "AB" in a GR Field as a 0.

Section calculations ignore  "AB",   "EX"   "*" and the "GR" prompt in GR
Fields.

Letter grade percent cutoff defaults are as follows:



             ≥ 89.5%                               A

             ≥ 79.5%    < 89.5                  B

             ≥ 69.5%    < 79.5                  C

             ≥ 59.5%    < 69.5                  D

                             <   59.5                F

Letter grade percent cutoffs as user supplied must be sequential i.e.
A cutoff>B cutoff>C cutoff>D cutoff

QUICK GRADE ADJ,Menu Option will not adjusted a grade to a value greater
then 500 or less then 0.

QUICK GRADE ADJ ,Menu Option will not adjust a  dropped grade or effect a
GR Field containing "AB" or "EX".

































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