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VAR Grade
Grading Tools for Teachers
Version 6.0
MANUAL
Written by DENNIS REVIE
(c) Copyright 1993 by Dennis Revie
Distributed by VARed Software
1490 Calle Fidelidad
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360-6819
USA
(805) 523-7546
Compuserve: 73427,112
Internet: 73427.112@Compuserve.com
VAR Grade is COPYRIGHTED (C) 1987-1993 by Dennis Revie.
All rights are reserved.
VAR Grade can be distributed as SHAREWARE. It is not free.
VAR Grade is written in Borland International's Turbo
Pascal. The files that can be listed by the "DIR *.BGI"
(screen drivers) and "DIR *.CHR" (fonts) are copyrighted by
Borland International and are used in accordance with the
license.
The files that can be listed by the "DIR _*.BGI" (print
drivers) and other print driver files are copyrighted by
Fleming Software and are used in accordance with the
license. PKUNZIP.EXE is Copyright (C) 1989-93 by PKWare,
Inc. Product names from other manufacturers are mentioned,
and are copyright and/or registered of the respective
companies. These include Borland's Quattro Pro and Paradox,
IBM's OS/2, Microsoft's MS DOS and MS Windows, and DRI's DR-
DOS, Quarterdeck's Desqview, and Vernon D. Buerg's List.
VAR Grade is dedicated to VAR, without whom neither the
program nor the program author would exist.
Information
Information about licensing and registration can be found in
the SITELIC.DOC and REGISTER.DOC files. Please read them!
For dealer pricing, volume discounts, site licensing,
shipping of product, returns, latest version number, or
other technical information, contact us by calling (805)
523-7546, through Compuserve at ID 73427,112, through
Internet at ID 73427.112@Compuserve.com, or write to the
address listed above.
+---------+
+---------+ | (R)
--| |o |------------------
| +------+--+ | Association of
| | |-+ Shareware
+---| o | Professionals
------| | |--------------------
+----+----+ MEMBER
Last Revision: April, 1993.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................iii
I. INTRODUCTION TO THE MANUAL..............................1
A. Conventions Used in this Manual.....................1
B. Sample Classes......................................2
C. Requirements........................................2
D. Capability of the Program...........................2
II. INSTALLATION...........................................4
A. Files on the Disks..................................4
B. Required Files......................................5
C. Installion With INSTALL.............................5
D. Installation Without INSTALL........................9
E. Networks...........................................11
III. STARTING THE PROGRAM.................................13
A. Where Should the Program Files Be?.................13
B. Picking a Class....................................16
C. Classes Too Big for the Memory.....................18
D. Setting Up the Class...............................19
E. Entering Students, Tasks, Attendance, and Grades...22
F. Converting Old Classes Into New Classes............23
G. Reading the Manual from Within the Program.........23
IV. TUTORIALS.............................................26
A. Starting the Program...............................26
B. Using an Existing Class: Tutorial..................26
C. Starting a New Class...............................33
D. Entering Data......................................36
E. If You Are Lost....................................36
F. Starting Another Class.............................37
G. Advanced Mode......................................37
H. Exiting the Program................................37
I. Using a Mouse......................................38
J. How Special Keys are Used..........................38
K. How the Cursor Keys Work...........................39
iii
V. ENTERING STUDENTS......................................41
A. General Methods....................................41
B. Names and IDs......................................41
C. Typing in Names and IDs............................42
D. Importing Students from Files......................44
E. Sorting Students...................................52
F. Transferring Names to a New Class..................52
VI. DEFINING TASKS........................................56
A. The Define Task Menu...............................56
B. Regular Tasks......................................56
C. Special Tasks......................................60
D. Scaling Tasks......................................68
E. Memory Limitations.................................68
F. Manipulating Tasks.................................68
G. Examples of Task Definitions.......................72
VII. DATABASE ITEMS.......................................77
A. Defining a New Item................................77
B. Altering Database Definitions......................79
C. Database Operations................................80
VIII. ENTERING GRADES.....................................84
A. Entering Data for the Whole Class..................84
B. Entering Individual Student Data...................93
C. Saving Entered Data to Disk........................94
IX. ATTENDANCE............................................96
A. Defining Attendance Days...........................96
B. Changing Attendance Defaults.......................98
C. Entering Class Attendance..........................98
D. Entering Individual Student Attendance............100
E. Default Attendance Task Values....................100
F. Seating Charts....................................100
iv
Table of Contents
X. ANALYZING THE GRADES..................................104
A. Default Values for Printing.......................104
B. Defaults Values for Plots.........................106
C. Plotting the Scores of a Class....................109
D. Pie Charts of a Class.............................110
E. Calculating and Displaying Statistics.............111
F. Plotting the Scores of an Individual..............113
G. Correlating Different Tasks.......................114
H. Statistical Plots of the Classes..................115
I. Horizontal Class and Student Statistics...........116
J. Database Plots....................................117
K. Scaling the Tasks.................................117
L. Adjusting the Statistics of a Task................118
M. Setting the Fewest Allowed Points.................118
N. Cropping Graphics Screens.........................119
XI. ASSIGNING THE GRADES.................................120
A. Changing the Grade Names..........................120
B. Changing the Grade Values.........................122
C. Automatic Grade Cutoffs...........................123
D. What Ifs..........................................124
E. Manually Assigning Grades.........................125
F. Adjusting Grades..................................126
XII. PRINTING AND REPORTS................................127
A. Listing Data......................................127
B. Printing the Student Scores and Attendance........136
C. Exporting Data....................................143
D. Reports...........................................146
XIII. OTHER PROGRAM FEATURES.............................185
A. File Maintenance..................................185
B. Working With Other Programs.......................188
C. Running Other Programs from VAR Grade.............188
D. International Support.............................190
E. Macros............................................191
F. Extra Memory......................................193
G. Video Displays....................................194
H. Examples of VAR Grade Batch Files.................197
v
APPENDIX.................................................199
A. Program Parameters--Defaults and Limits...........199
B. Backup Files......................................199
C. Beeps or Noises...................................201
D. Menus.............................................201
GLOSSARY.................................................205
INDEX....................................................208
vi
I. INTRODUCTION TO THE MANUAL
VAR Grade allows you to both grade and record attendance in
your classes. This is a complete grading system, and will do
just about anything that you need to do. In particular, it will
allow you to record, print, and analyze grades and attendance.
There is a long list of features of this program, but, in
general, the program allows an almost unlimited number of
students, grades, attendance, database items, reports and
analyses. The program can do statistical analyses and plots,
allows you to manipulate and print the data in a myriad of ways,
and allows about any grading system you want. It is the only
grading program that doesn't constrain you to use any particular
grading system or method, the only one that lets you print data
any way you want, and is easily the most flexible and complete
system available.
This manual will give you information about VAR Grade. If
this is the first time you have tried out the program, you should
try the tutorials in Chapter IV. They will teach you how to use
the most frequently used features of the program. This manual
details all of the features of the program, both those in the
beginner mode and those in the advanced mode of the program.
Since VAR Grade was first released, the program has become
extremely flexible at handling grading chores. There are as many
grading systems as there are teachers. In that light, the
program allows you to alter how it works, both your input and the
program output. The plentiful features of the program can
sometimes intimidate the new user, hence the program starts in
the beginner mode. The beginner mode displays only the most used
features of the program. However, most teachers will need to use
the advanced mode of the program: there are features in it that
they may really need. You may, therefore, move back and forth
between the two modes at will. The purpose of this manual is to
explain those features that are not obvious to you when running
the program.
A. Conventions Used in this Manual
Names of files and programs are printed in UPPERCASE letters.
Warnings and notes are printed in italics.
1
Examples of what to type are in double quotes: "TYPE THIS".
MS-DOS prompts are usually listed as: A>. Anything after the
prompt should be typed.
Example: A> GRADE
The prompt is A>, and you should type "GRADE".
Special keys are those that do not print normal (ASCII) keys.
They are designated in the manual and program by bracketing
the key name with "<" and ">".
Example: <Esc> means the Escape key, <Rtn> means the Return
or Enter key.
B. Sample Classes
To look at the capabilities of VAR Grade, four sample classes,
called GSample, A, B, and C, have been included. Many of the
features of the program have been used to set up these classes.
To view them when starting the program, type "GRADE GSAMPLE",
"GRADE A", "GRADE B", or "GRADE C". These classes are used for
many of the examples in this manual.
C. Requirements
The hardware requirements are listed in the README.DOC file.
The major ones are: DOS 3.0 or later, 512K of memory (RAM), 1.3
megabytes of disk space, at least one disk drive of 720K or
more, and a monitor and printer that can display graphics. A
hard disk is highly recommended.
D. Capability of the Program
The standard version of this program allows you to have up to
16,000 students with up to one section or group per student,
200 database items per class, up to 8,000 tasks per class, 240
attendance days per class, and an unlimited number of classes.
In reality, the limitations are due to available memory.
In addition to regular memory VAR Grade takes advantage of any
EMS and XMS memory that your computer has. EMS and XMS memory
is memory above 640K. The program also automatically uses math
coprocessor chips (80x87 math chips).
2
Introduction
The program runs on networks, but does not use any special
capabilities of networks.
Should you desire "custom" versions of this program, they are
also available. When you register your current version, should
you desire a custom version, indicate so and we will try to
meet your requirements.
3
II. INSTALLATION
VAR Grade can be installed onto either a hard (fixed) disk
or onto floppy (removable) disks. The program INSTALL will
automatically install VAR Grade. You will need to answer some
questions and follow the instructions, but will not have to worry
about what files are needed where. If you prefer to install the
program yourself, directions are given below in Section D.
This chapter gives information on using the INSTALL program
to install VAR Grade, information on installing the program
yourself, and suggests some advanced methods of starting and
running the program.
A. Files on the Disks
The following files are located on the disks. At times, this
list might vary from the one in the README.DOC file. That file
will contain the most recent list of files included with the
program. Other files, all with the prefix "GRADE", are created
when you run the program.
Disk #1:
INSTALL.EXE Installation program for VAR Grade
PKUNZIP.EXE Unarchiver
VARGRA1.ZIP Archive of the following files:
README.DOC Introduction to VAR Grade
SITELIC.DOC Site license information
REGISTER.DOC Registration form
CHANGES.DOC Changes from the previous version
GRADE.DOC The Advanced Manual
GRADE.TXT The Beginner's Manual
GRADE.STR Required program file
GRADE.PIF PIF file for MS Windows.
*.CHR Screen and print fonts
FILE_ID.DIZ File for BBS's
*.BGI, *.INI, *.PS Print drivers
4
Installation
Disk #2:
VARGRA2.ZIP Archive of the following files:
VENDOR.DOC File for shareware distributors
GRADE.EXE This is the main program
GRADE.OVR This is the overlay for the program
*.BGI Screen drivers
*.FRM Sample report forms
GSAMPLE.PAR Sample class data
GSAMPLE.DAT Student data for the GSample class
A.PAR, B.PAR, C.PAR Sample classes
A.DAT, B.DAT, C.DAT Sample classes
B. Required Files
For the program to run, it requires:
GRADE.EXE (program), GRADE.STR (required text file), and
GRADE.OVR (overlay).
The following files are needed for graphs:
?.BGI (which ones depend upon your display adapter and
printers)
*.CHR (to change fonts for graphs--optional)
C. Installion With INSTALL
To install the program, you can run the program INSTALL.
Follow the instructions below. INSTALL will not modify any
existing files on your computer unless if you have a previous
version of VAR Grade. If you do have an older version, INSTALL
will replace some of the old program files.
1. Put disk #1 disk into a drive. The disk can be in any
drive. For the instructions below, it is assumed that the
disk is in drive A. If you use drive B, or any other drive,
replace the "A:" in the instructions with "B:" (or "d:",
where "d" is the letter of the drive).
2a. Installing to floppy disks: You will need three blank
formatted 720K 3 1/2", two 1.44 Meg 3 1/2" disks, or two 1.2
megabytes 5 1/4" disks. If the disks are not formatted or
not empty, they can be formatted during the installation.
NOTE: The program uses the MS-DOS format command for
formatting, and will only format disks of 1.44 Megabytes
capacity or less.
5
Put a blank disk into the drive used for installation.
2b. Installing to a hard disk: You need 1.7 megabytes of disk
space.
3a. Installing in DOS: Type "A:INSTALL". If the VAR Grade
installation disk is in another drive, type "d:INSTALL",
where "d" is the letter for the drive.
3b. Installing in MS Windows: Run a DOS program selecting the
Files menu when in the Program Manager, then "Run" to run a
DOS program. Then type "A:INSTALL". If the VAR Grade
installation disk is in another drive, type "d:INSTALL",
where "d" is the letter for the drive.
4. An opening screen will appear, explaining the hardware
requirements of VAR Grade and how to use the installation
program. If you have a monochrome monitor and the screen is
hard to read, you may need to type "A:INSTALL/b" to force
the program into black and white mode. Some monochrome
boards tell programs (erroneously) that they are color
boards. "A:INSTALL/c" will force the program into color
mode.
5. Note that you can exit the installation program at any time
by pressing the "Ctrl" and the "C" keys simultaneously
(<CtrlC>). If the program has not completely installed VAR
Grade, it will not run correctly, and you may have to redo
the installation.
6. After reading the opening screen and pressing a key, you
will be asked whether to install the whole program, parts of
the program, or whether to print the README.DOC or manuals.
Choose to install all the program installation (option "A").
7. You will then be asked where to put the program. INSTALL
will probably suggest the directory "\VARGRADE", but you can
specify any drive or directory. To type in a new directory
or drive, just type in a new name. For example, to change
it to drive A, type "a:". After you have specified the
directories and drives to place the program, press <AltS>.
8. The program will now install the program. If it does not
find the disks or ZIP files it needs, it will request them.
If the disk you are installing to does not have enough room
on it for the VAR Grade files, you will be asked what to do.
6
Installation
There are three options: (a) You can format the disk. (b)
You can tell the program to write the files to another disk,
or (c) You can tell the program to write the disk anyway.
Choose option c if you have changed to a new disk or if you
are installing VAR Grade over a previous version of the
program. If a previous version of the program is present,
the installation program will ask if the existing files
should be replaced (overwritten). Note that you will only
be asked this once: if you say yes, all the duplicate files
will be replaced. NOTE: INSTALL does not delete the old VAR
Grade files, but does replace those that have the same name
as the new files.
During the installation, the program will ask you to pick
your printer. To do this, you will need to know the name
and model number of your printer, and if it emulates any
other printers. Most dot matrix printers emulate the Epson
FX printer. Most laser printers emulate the HP LaserJet
printer. Use the <Arrow>, <Page up>, and <Page down> keys
to traverse the list and find your printer(s). Then press
"Y" to select it. You can repeat this process until you
have picked up to 5 printers. When you have picked all your
printers, press <AltS>. The program now asks if the listed
printers are the correct ones. To continue, press "Y". To
change the list, press "N".
9. You will return to the screen that asks whether to install
the whole program, or just part of it. If desired, you can
print the documentation from this screen. Press <Esc> or
"X" when you are finished.
10. When the installation has been completed, a message will be
displayed. If you installed onto floppy disks, the message
will explain how to label the disks and how to start VAR
Grade. If you installed the program from MS Windows, the
message may not be visible.
If you install onto floppy disks, when you run VAR Grade,
the disks containing the overlays (GRADE.OVR) and text
(GRADE.STR) must be in the drive at all times. Part of the
program is in "overlays", which means that some of the
program is on the disk and is read into the program only
when needed. NOTE: If you have removed the overlay disk,
the program will print a message asking you to reinsert the
overlay disk, as it needs the overlay file to continue.
Also, do not move the disk with the overlays from one drive
to another. It must always be in the same drive.
7
11. Installing in MS Windows: After installing the program, you
want to create a program icon. VAR Grade includes the file
GRADE.PIF, which suggests and standard conditions to use for
the program. To create a new group window, select the Files
menu when in the Program Manager, then select "New". Select
"Program Group", and then "OK". Next, enter a description
of the program, e.g., "VAR Grade". Next, move to the next
line, "Program File", and type "VARGRADE.GRP". You now have
a window, but no program in it. To add the program to that
group window, again select "Files", then "New", and "OK".
Select "Browse", then the directory where VAR Grade is
located, probably "C:\VARGRADE". Then select the filename
"GRADE.PIF". The icon should appear in the group window.
An alternative way to add the program to the group window is
to select "Files", then "New", and "OK". Then, type in a
program description, e.g., "VAR Grade, Version 6.0" and a
program command line, e.g., "C:\VARGRADE\GRADE.PIF".
D. Installation Without INSTALL
1. You need up to 1.4 megabytes of disk space, at least one
drive of at least 720K, and the program PKUNZIP 2.0 (if not
distributed with the program, it is available from disk
vendors and BBS systems).
2. The files you need for the program are:
GRADE.EXE, GRADE.STR, GRADE.OVR: Absolutely required. These
don't need to be on the same disk, however, the disk that
GRADE.OVR and GRADE.STR are on must always be in a drive.
A video adapter file: Which file is needed depends upon
your display adapter. The name of the file corresponds to
the display adapter (e.g., HERC.BGI is for Hercules
adapters). This and one of the following files are needed
to view graphs.
File Adapter
HERC.BGI Hercules adapter (Black & white, only)
CGA.BGI Color Graphics Array adapter (640x200)
EGAVGA.BGI Enhanced Graphics Array adapter (640x350) or
Video Graphics Array adapter (640x400)
A printer file: Pick up to five files with the initials
corresponding to your printer (or one your printer
8
Installation
emulates). If you have a dot matrix printer, it usually
would be _FX.BGI (or _LQ.BGI if it is a 24 pin printer).
For example, the Panasonic KX-P1124 printers emulate the
Epson FX, hence you need the _FX.BGI file. If you have a
laser printer, it is most likely _LJ.BGI.
Note: Some of the printers require more than one file.
File(s) Printer(s)
_FX.BGI Epson FX compatible (9 pin)
_LQ.BGI Epson LQ compatible (24 pin)
_CLQ.BGI Color Epson LQ
_LJ.BGI, _LJ.INI HP LaserJet II compatible
_LJ3R.BGI, _LJ3R.INI HP LaserJet III compatible
_PS.BGI, _PS.INI, GHEAD.PS Postscript
*.CHR files: To change fonts for the graphs, the CHR files
need to be with the program.
The above files can be extracted from the zip archives (as
listed above), by typing "PKUNZIP VARGRAx filename", where
VARGRAx is one of the GRADE archive files, and filename is
the name of the file. Section A, above, lists which files
are in which archive.
Example: to dearchive GRADE.EXE, located in VARGRA2.ZIP on
disk drive A, move to the directory and drive that you
want the program to be in, and type "A:PKUNZIP A:VARGRA2
GRADE.EXE".
3. Other files can be installed, as well.
The files GSAMPLE.PAR, GSAMPLE.DAT, A.PAR, A.DAT, B.PAR,
B.DAT, C.PAR, and C.DAT are examples of classes, and are
used in this manual.
The files that end in ".FRM" (e.g., "CLASS.FRM"), are
examples of report forms that you can use.
The files that end in ".DOC" and "*.TXT" are text files that
explain various parts of the program. See the file list,
above, to see short descriptions of each file.
The following files can be used by the program to write the
graphs to disk. These can then be imported into other
programs:
9
_PCX.BGI PCX. (e.g., PC Paintbrush)
4. The program files should all be installed to the same
directory. If they are installed onto two floppy disks, the
screen and printer drivers, CHR files, FRM files, GRADE.STR,
and the overlay file should all be on the same disk.
E. Networks
This version will run on networks (LAN). It will not, however,
take advantage of special features of the networks, such as
interactive mail or print queues.
To be able to use any video driver, you need to copy all the
video drivers onto your network hard disk. This can be done by
dearchiving all the files ending in "BGI" from the archive file
listed in section A (above). You can also install up to five
printers, and all the graphics output BGI files (see section B,
step 4, above).
You can turn on/off whether to use file attributes that allow
the program to work on networks. Some programs that do not run
on networks do not like the attribute to be set. The attribute
can be set on the Parameters Menu ("O" on the Main Menu), then
"O".
Network printers usually will "time-out" if nothing is sent to
it for a few seconds. In most parts of the program, the
printer files are sent without interruption. However, some
parts need to ask for information when in the middle of
printing. If you do not give the needed information quickly
enough, the printer may time out. One solution is to increase
the time that can elapse before the printer times out.
Turning off formfeeds to put more than one listing on a page
will not work for some or all networks, as the network resets
the printer after the print job is done. For some printers,
like HP LaserJets, an extra page may eject when printing on a
network. For these printers, you should delete the reset
printer string ("U" on the Printer Menu).
10
Starting the Program
III. STARTING THE PROGRAM
This part of the manual tells you how to start the program,
including where to place your files, where to put your class
grades, and how to locate class files from the program. It will
also explain how to access the manual from the program. There is
also a long tutorial that explains the basics of how to use the
program. To use this part of the manual, you should have
installed the program already (see Chapter II).
A. Where Should the Program Files Be?
1. For DOS beginners
Before starting the program, make sure that the program was
installed, and that you are in the directory where GRADE.EXE
is located (probably C:\VARGRADE).
At the DOS prompt, type: "GRADE"
If you are not a DOS expert, go to section B.
2. For DOS experts
The program will search the current environment for the
program files. This means that the search for the files are
in the following order:
(i) It searches the current directory first.
(ii) It then searches for the files in the directory where
the "GRADE.EXE" file was found.
(iii) It then searches the directories specified in the
DOS PATH command.
NOTE: The PATH command tells DOS which directories to
search for executable files: those ending in ".COM",
".EXE", or ".BAT".
(iv) If it still hasn't found the files, the program
searches the default directories on each drive of your
computer.
11
(v) If the needed program files are still not found, the
program will halt with an error message.
The required files, therefore, are best placed in one
directory of a hard disk or on two floppy disks, as is done
by INSTALL.
(a) DOS 3.0 or above
The program can be started from any directory by just
typing the directory and "GRADE". For example, if the
program is in the directory c:\vargrade, just type
"c:\vargrade\GRADE". If the program files are in the same
directory as the GRADE.EXE file, the program will find the
files it needs.
If you add the following line to the end of your
autoexec.bat file (and then reboot the computer), you can
start VAR Grade from anywhere by typing "GRADE":
SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\VARGRADE;
Note: this line assumes that VAR Grade is in the \VARGRADE
directory on drive C.
(b) Examples
(i) If the program is on the same drive as the class (the
"A>" is the DOS prompt):
For example, type:
A> GRADE
If the program is on a different drive, type the drive,
colon, GRADE.
For example, if you are on drive A, and the program
is on drive B, type:
A> B:GRADE
The program will find the overlay, print, and other
files if they are on the default directory or on any
directory specified by the path command.
12
Starting the Program
(ii) If you know the name of the class that you want to
use, enter it on the DOS command line:
A> GRADE classname OR
A> GRADE \path\classname
(iii) If you are using a hard disk, you may want to set up
a batch file that will do the typing for you:
Batch file example:
If GRADE (including the necessary files) is in the
directory, C:\VARGRADE, prepare a batch file that
says:
SET LASTPATH=%PATH%
SET PATH=C:\VARGRADE;%PATH%
GRADE %1
SET PATH=%LASTPATH%
OR
C:\VARGRADE\GRADE %1
Note: %1 can be replaced with the classname.
(iv) You can start the program by typing the directory and
"GRADE":
If VAR Grade is in the directory C:\VARGRADE, type
C:\VARGRADE\GRADE
OR
C:\VARGRADE\GRADE classname
(v) If you have a monochrome monitor and the screen looks
funny after you start the program, you may need to
start the program with:
GRADE/B classname
This will force the program into monochrome mode. Many
Hercules compatible display adapters erroneously tell
programs that a color monitor is attached. The results
are that some color combinations are invisible to you.
13
You can also force the program into monochrome mode
with a DOS SET command:
A> SET VMON=BW;
You can set up a batch file for VAR Grade as follows
(assuming the program is in the directory C:\VARGRADE):
SET VMON=BW;
SET PATH=C:\VARGRADE;%PATH%;
GRADE
SET VMON=
If you have a monochrome monitor, you probably want to
add the VMON command to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. This
file is executed every time you start your computer.
(c) Using one drive to run the program
You can start the program from one drive by putting the
program disk in the drive, and typing "GRADE". If the
program cannot find the overlay file, you will be asked to
put the disk containing the file into a drive. If you now
put it in the same drive that the program disk was in, the
program will continue and run correctly. This method is
not recommended, but will work.
B. Picking a Class
When the program starts, the first screen shows the program
name, a comment about registering the program, the class files
and directories listed on the directory from which the program
was invoked, and a prompt for the class.
If there are any files on the disk that have the extension
".PAR", they will be listed by the program on the opening
screen. The ".PAR" file contains the parameters of your class:
task names, default settings for the program, etc. To help you
find the right class, sub-directories are also listed.
You can either type in the name of the class, or you can use
the cursor keys to locate the class, or you can change the
directory and search for more class files.
14
Starting the Program
1. Using the cursor keys
One of the class files or a directory will be highlighted.
If you have a monochrome monitor and do not see a class
highlighted, try starting the program with "GRADE/B" to
force the program into monochrome mode. To pick the correct
class, use the cursor keys to move the highlight to the
correct class or directory. Then press <Rtn>. If you chose
a directory, a new listing of classes will be shown. Repeat
the above process until a class is chosen.
NOTE: If any characters have been typed on the prompt line,
the program will use them as the class name. You can
delete these by using the <F10> key.
2. Typing in the name
(a) If the class that you want is not listed, you can change
directories and search for the class. There are two ways
to change directories:
i) Press <F5>, then type in the name of the new drive or
directory. You can continue to change directories
until you find the desired class.
ii) Type the new drive or directory instead of the class
name. The program first tests to determine whether
what you have typed is a directory. If it is, the
directory is changed.
NOTE: The new directory must end in a backslash ("\"),
or the new drive must end in a colon (":").
Example: Type "C:\MATH\<Rtn>" to change the directory
to Math, on drive C.
(b) If and when your class is listed, just type the name in.
The ".PAR" is not needed, and any extensions, like .PAR,
are discarded. The program will read in the class
parameters, and, if a file with the same name with the
extension ".DAT" is also there, the student scores will be
read into the program.
3. Using a mouse to pick the class
Besides the cursor keys, or typing in the name, you can also
use a mouse to pick the class. When you start the program,
15
the mouse cursor will be in the center of the screen, and
look like a block. If you move the mouse, you will see that
the block moves, as well. Move the mouse cursor to a class
or directory, then press the <Left button>. This will
select that class or directory. You can move around
directories just like you can with the cursor keys.
4. Starting new classes
Type in the name of the class. When the program does not
find the ".PAR" file, it will create a new class.
Each class has two files. Each starts with the name of the
class (e.g. "BIOLOGY"). They have the extensions ".PAR" and
".DAT" (e.g. "BIOLOGY.PAR" and "BIOLOGY.DAT"). There may
also be backup files with the extensions ".PAX" and ".DAX"
(see the Appendix for further details).
5. Using the DOS command line
You may also enter the class name from the command line by
listing it as a parameter: e.g. if the class name is "MATH",
start the program by typing: "GRADE MATH". If the class
exists, it will be read into the program. If it does not, a
new class will be created with the name "MATH".
C. Classes Too Big for the Memory
After the classname has been entered, the program reads in the
class data and student information. If there are more students
than can fit into the available memory, the program warns you
and asks if you want to continue. If you continue, the program
will read ONLY as many students into the class as there is
memory.
WARNING: If you then use the program and save the data, the
students that were not read into the program will be lost.
To find out approximately how many students can be read into
the program, enter a "O" when on the Main Menu. At the top of
the second menu you will see how many students are currently in
the class and how many could be in the class if all the
available memory is used and if the current tasks are not
increased. There are essentially an unlimited number of
students and tasks allowed. The limitations are that all the
data must be able to fit into the available (RAM) memory.
16
Starting the Program
The regular version puts part of the program in overlays. This
means that part of the program is on disk, not in memory. When
the program starts, it leaves a certain amount of memory free,
and uses the rest for overlays. For the regular version, you
can change how much of the program is in memory with a DOS SET
command. If you need more memory, enter the following command
at the DOS prompt:
A> SET OMEM=0;
This command will shrink the program to its minimum size.
Conversely, to put as much of the program into memory as
possible, use the command:
A> SET OMEM=400000;
Values between 0 and 400000 will put varying amounts of the
overlays into memory.
NOTE: If you have enough EMS memory, the program will put the
overlays into it. The OMEM command, then, will have no
effect.
You can add the SET commands to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that is
executed when you start your computer. This way, the program
will always use the amount of memory you want.
If you have more than 640K of memory installed in your
computer, you may be able to use that extra memory as EMS or
XMS memory. The regular version of VAR Grade can use these
types of memory for some parts of the program. If you are
short of memory, this will let VAR Grade have more room for
students, grades, and graphics. More memory issues are
discussed in Chapter XIII, Section F.
D. Setting Up the Class
After entering the program, the first screen you see is the
Main Menu. This lists the major things you can do when in the
program. After starting the class for the first time, you may
want to set several program settings. The more important ones
are listed below. Anytime that you want to change some of the
current settings of the program, you can go to the "O" option
on the Main Menu. If this is the first time you've used the
program, you should go through the tutorial in Chapter IV
before continuing.
17
1. Using multiple sections
The number of sections in the class is initially set at 1.
You might have several identical classes, however. For
example, if you teach 3 English classes that have nearly
identical exams and assignments, you can call them different
sections of the same class. You can then compare the
different classes as "sections". Each section uses the same
set of tasks, but the program can do statistics on any
combination of sections. The program keeps track of what
sections you last used, and will, by default, use whatever
sections that were last used by you.
To allow more than one section, go to the "N" option of the
Main Menu, then "U". The program automatically determines
which sections have students.
2. Colors
The colors of the program can be changed on the "O" option
of the Main Menu, then "C" (colors). There are several
colors used, designated:
(i) Normal colors: The text is in this color.
(ii) Background color: The background is this color.
(iii) Highlight color: Foreground color used for
plotting scores.
(iv) Highlight background: This color is the background
corresponding to the highlight.
(v) Error colors: Foreground color for error messages.
(vi) Error background: This color is the background for
the error messages.
(vii) Help colors: Foreground color used by the Help
screens.
(viii) Help background: This color is the background for
the help screens.
Some of these colors are used in pop-up menus and messages,
as well. You will be asked for the new colors. The bottom
lines of the screen show what the colors would look like.
Needless to say, if you are using a monochrome monitor, you
will only see black and white colors. Some monochrome
adapter boards tell the program that they are color boards.
This results in some things becoming invisible or not
highlighted when they should be. If this is the case for
you, you can force VAR Grade into monochrome mode by either
of two methods:
18
Starting the Program
(a) Start the program with "GRADE/B". The /B tells the
program that you are using a black and white monitor. You
can force the program into color mode with "/C" when
starting VAR Grade.
Example: C> GRADE /B GSAMPLE
This will force the program into monochrome mode and load
the data from the class GSample into the program.
(b) Set a DOS command: "SET VMON=BW;". At the DOS prompt
(e.g., "A>"), type the above statement. This tells the
program you are using a black and white monitor. This
command can also be put into your AUTOEXEC.BAT file that is
run when your computer is turned on.
In some cases, even these commands won't do the job, hence
you will still have to set the colors to new values.
After changing the colors, you are asked if you want to make
these new colors the default colors. If you press "Y"
(yes), all future classes will have the new colors as their
initial colors. Finally, the program keeps two sets of
colors, one for monochrome monitors (black and white), the
other for color monitors. This feature is for those who
switch back and forth between color and monochrome monitors.
3. Printers
You can tell the program which printer you are using. In
fact, to be able to print graphs and plots, you need to pick
a printer during installation or in the "P" section of the
"O" option of the Main Menu. Most printers are now
supported by VAR Grade for printing graphs and plots. Most
are also supported for printing files in pica, elite, or
compressed printing (if your printer supports them), and
bold and high quality.
4. Setting up a grading system
Although some schools don't use letter grades, most do. You
can set up a grading system by pressing "G" on the Main
Menu. Then press "N". You can use the pre-defined grading
systems that are listed, or type in your own. Note that
each letter grade has a value. If you mix letter and number
grades, you may want to set the letter grade equivalents to
19
numbers from 0 to 100, rather than the ones the program has
predefined. See Chapter XI, Section B for more details.
5. Passwords
If many people have access to your computer and its disks,
you may worry about someone's altering your class files. To
greatly reduce the chances of this happening, you can
require that a password be used for your class. To define a
password, use the "W" option in the "O" section of the Main
Menu.
NOTE: The default value is to not have a password. The
password can have up to 15 characters, numbers, and/or
punctuation characters. Should you forget your password,
you can contact us at the address at the beginning of the
manual to get instructions on how to defeat the password.
The password is not foolproof, but greatly reduces the
likelihood of snooping.
E. Entering Students, Tasks, Attendance, and Grades
There are two kinds of prompts in the program. The first, like
the prompt asking for the classname, asks you to Enter the name
and then type a <Rtn> to signify the end of the data. The
second type only asks for one key--this option is usually used
for the menu selections. To save keystrokes, the program will
respond immediately when the key is pressed--no <Rtn> is
necessary. When you are presented with a list of choices, you
can use the cursor keys to move to the desired choice, then
type <Rtn> to select that choice.
NOTE: In many parts of the program, if you enter a <Rtn> with
no data entered, the program will assume either that: (a)
you did not want to enter data--the program will continue;
or (b) you want to exit this section and go back to a higher
level menu; or (c) the number to be entered is zero.
In general, if the program asks you to enter data, you should
end with a <Rtn>. If you are choosing a menu option or between
two alternatives, press only the appropriate key. When you
have to enter a long list of numbers, such as designating Task
80 as the sum of Tasks 1 to 79, the program will allow you to
enter them with an inclusive colon: "1:79" would be 1 through
79, rather than requiring you to enter all the numbers from 1
to 79. This situation arises in four places: when entering
lists of tasks, as noted in the example, when entering lists of
20
Starting the Program
sections to use, when entering lists of database items, and
when entering attendance days. Colons can be used to enter a
list of numbers from high to low, as well. Entering "79:1"
will tell the program to use tasks 79 down to 1.
Example: To enter tasks 1 through 5 and 8, type:
"1:5<Rtn>8<Rtn><Rtn>".
NOTE: When entering a list of separate numbers, you can
separate them with <Rtn>, commas, or spaces. For the above
example, typing "1:5,8,<Rtn>" or "1:5 8 <Rtn>" will give the
same result as the example above.
Later chapters in this Manual will tell you how to enter
students, tasks, attendance, and grades.
F. Converting Old Classes Into New Classes
If you want to use the same exams and class information for two
different classes, one simple way is to just copy the
"CLASSNAME.PAR" file to a new classname (e.g., copy
"BIOLOGY.PAR" to the file "MATH.PAR" by typing, at the DOS
prompt: "COPY BIOLOGY.PAR MATH.PAR". Math will now be set up
exactly the same way as Biology). The new class is now set up
the same as the previous class, except that no students will be
in the new class. This feature can allow you to set up your
class once and use the set-up for many classes in the future.
There are other, and probably easier, methods to set up new
classes (see this chapter, Section D, or Chapter IV, Section
F).
G. Reading the Manual from Within the Program
If the file GRADE.DOC was installed with the program, then you
can read it from within the program. There are three ways you
can read the manual from within the program.
(1) When the program is on the Main Menu, type an "H" for help.
(2) The manual can also be reached from anywhere in the program
by typing <AltH> (press the ("Alt" and the "H" keys
simultaneously). The manual reached from <AltH> is context
sensitive. This means that VAR Grade will try to find the
relevant material. You can browse at will through the file
by using the cursor keys. When in Help, typing <AltK> will
show you a list of the keys and features supported. If
there is not enough memory to display the file, an error
21
message will appear. To view the file, you would then have
to reduce memory usage (See Chapter XII, Section F).
(3) Press <AltV> anywhere in the program. However, you must
first go to the "O" option on the Main Menu, then "F" to
designate an editor. If you do this, you can use whatever
editor you want to view the manual, otherwise the command
works just like <AltH>.
To locate text:
Key Movement
<AltF> Find a string
<AltN> Find the next matching string
<AltB> Find the previous matching string
<AltK> Show the supported keys
<AltJ> Jump to the previous screen
Moving with the keys when viewing the Manual:
Key Movement
<Up Arrow> Up one line
<Down Arrow> Down one line
<Page Up> Up one screen
<Page Down> Down one screen
<Ctrl-Home> Up one-half screen
<Ctrl-End> Down one-half screen
<Home>, <Ctrl-Pg Up> Beginning of the file
<End>, <Ctrl-Pg Down> End of the file
22
Starting the Program
Key Movement
<AltL> GO TO LINE: The top line will be
the line that you designate. In
the center of the screen a box will
appear that will ask for the line
number. At the bottom right of the
screen, you can see which line you
are on and how many lines there are
in the file.
Example: type "<AltL>4<Rtn>" to go
to line 4.
<AltP> GO TO PAGE: Moves to a page in a
file. It assumes there are 60
lines per page (like in GRADE.DOC).
In the center of the screen a box
will appear that will ask for the
page.
Example: type "<AltS>22<Rtn>" to go
to page 22.
<AltS> GO TO SCREEN: The top line will be
the first line of any screen that
you enter. In the center of the
screen a box will appear that will
ask for the screen. The total
number of screens and the screen
that you are currently on are shown
at the bottom right corner of the
screen.
Example: type "<AltS>8<Rtn>" to go
to screen 8.
23
IV. TUTORIALS
This chapter is in the Beginner's Manual. It goes through
some exercises designed to show you how to use VAR Grade, and is
highly recommended.
24
Entering Students
V. ENTERING STUDENTS
One of the first things to do when starting a new class is
to enter the names of students into the program. This chapter
tells you how to enter new students into the class, add IDs,
change the names of students, and sort and list the students.
A. General Methods
You can type the names into the program, or you can import
(read) names into the class from flat files ("F" and "A") or
comma and quote files ("Q"). Each student must have a name.
They do not need to have an ID, or anything else entered.
B. Names and IDs
Initially, the student names can be up to 20 characters long,
and can include spaces and punctuation. You can change this to
a number between 5 and 30 characters long, if desired.
The program can sort the students alphabetically by their names
for printing out scores, so it is usually better to enter the
names last name first. Spelling is retained exactly as you
enter it, except that leading and trailing spaces are ignored.
When sorting, however, lower and upper case letters are not
distinguished, so "Sue" is considered to be the same as "sue".
When printing, you can print the names either as is, or you can
"flip" them. To flip is to reverse the first and last names.
"John Smith" would become "Smith, John". "Johnson, Anna" would
become "Anna Johnson". However, to warn you, if you flip "John
Standing Tree", you would get "Tree, John Standing", instead of
the correct "Standing Tree, John". You could get the last
example to flip correctly if you entered it "John
Standing_Tree".
ID numbers or other names (nicknames, etc.) can be entered as
"IDs". At some colleges and universities, students are given
their grades by student IDs rather than by name. You can use
IDs for first or last names and the "name" for the last or
first name. You can change IDs, or add them later in the
several sections of the program. IDs are initially set to 15
characters long, and can include spaces and punctuation.
Again, like names, this value can be changed to any number
25
between 0 and 30 characters. If you do not use ID numbers,
setting the length to 0 will stop the program from asking you
about IDs.
The program can sort by IDs as well as names. Spelling is
retained, but, as in sorting names, sorts do not distinguish
between lower and upper case letters. Note that database items
can also be added, which can include things like nicknames.
C. Typing in Names and IDs
1. Names only
You add names on the "N" option on the Add Students Menu.
If you have multiple sections of students, pick which
section to use. The sections numbers can range up to 65530.
To enter names, you just need to type in the name, ending
with a <Rtn>. If the name is already present in that
section, it is NOT reentered. However, the same name could
be entered in two different sections of the same class. To
delete the letters you have typed, and hence remove that
name, type an <F10>. The <F10> command works in all parts
of the program to delete the current cell (string or
number). Names can be changed later in several parts of the
program (see below), so unnoticed errors can be fixed at a
later time.
If you added the previous name in error, you can delete it
by using the cursor keys to move to it, then retype or
delete the name. When you have added all the names, press
<AltS> to save them. If you have multiple sections, a
message will pop up again, asking you for a section. You
may enter a new section of students by entering a new
number, like 2, or you can exit by pressing <Esc> or
entering section 0.
2. Names and IDs
Option "I" on the Add Students Menu is used to add names and
IDs, and works the same as above. The only difference is
that you are asked for the ID, as well as the name. IDs are
entered in the second column. Deleting an ID or a name that
has been entered can be done by making it blank.
26
Entering Students
3. Adding, changing, and deleting names and IDs
Names, IDs, and notes can also be added, changed, or deleted
in four other places of the program. The details are
described in later chapters. The four places are: (i) "I"
on the Main Menu: Individual students; (ii) "D" on the Main
Menu: Data entry for tasks of the class; (iii) "A" on the
Main Menu, then "I": Attendance of individual students; and
(iv) "A" on the Main Menu, then "C": Data entry for class
attendance.
(a) When individuals are listed
In the attendance by individual students, or tasks by
individual students, all the tasks or attendance for a
single student are listed. If you press the <AltI> key
(insert student), you will be presented with a blank form
to enter the new name. Entering anything for the name
will add the student to the class. An "Empty" or blank
name will not be entered into the class, or is deleted
from the class.
NOTE: when a student has been deleted, his or her name and
all associated data are deleted.
Changing the spelling of the name, or ID, or changing the
section number for the student, is also possible here.
(b) When the whole class is displayed
If you need to add a new name when in parts ii or iv
(above), use the key <AltI>. A new line will be displayed
on the screen. As above, removing a student name will
remove that student and the associated data from the
class. Blank names are removed from the class when you
leave this part of the program.
A second way to delete the student is with the <AltD> key.
The student will be deleted immediately, and the rest of
the class moved up one line.
NOTE: when a student has been deleted, his or her name and
all associated data are deleted.
You can also change the names, IDs, or sections for a
student by using the cursor keys or a mouse to move to the
cell, and then typing in the new data. If you have too
27
many students to see them all on one screen, use the <Page
Down> or <Down Arrow> cursor keys or mouse to move down.
To use the mouse to move down, move the mouse cursor to
the right side of the screen, then press the <Left button>
on the stippled area. This will move you to that relative
spot in the class--pressing in the middle of the stippled
area will move you to the middle of the class.
(c) Recovering deleted data
Data that has been changed or deleted is normally lost.
There are, however, two ways to recover the data if you
immediately decide to "undelete" it:
(i) quit the program without saving the data to disk. Any
data entered in this session of the program will not be
saved.
(ii) if you have already saved the data from the class,
use the backup files to recover the data from the
previous session. More information on how to do this
is located in the Appendix.
(d) Removing groups of students
The Add Students Menu ("N" on the Main Menu) has two
options that can be used to remove groups of students.
You can remove all students from one section with the "S"
option, or you can delete all students from the class with
the "D" option. Be careful when you use these options, as
all the data for the students that were removed is lost
(although they could be recovered by using the methods in
part c, above).
D. Importing Students from Files
You can enter names via standard text files (also called ASCII
files). VAR Grade will import data that is written by many
other programs, including most spreadsheet and database
programs.
When data is imported into VAR Grade, either a student name or
an ID must be included for each line. If a student name is
included, the program will check whether the name is already
present (as well as whether the section is correct, if used).
If the name is present, the new data will included with that
students' data. If the name is not present, the program will
28
Entering Students
add the data as a new student. If you do not include a name on
each line, the program will check the ID to see if it matches a
student in the class. If so, the new data will be added.
Otherwise, the data is discarded--you cannot add students only
by ID, as a name is required. If a student name and ID is
included, the name only will be checked. If the student
exists, the old ID will be changed to the new ID. Each line
that is imported can have 512 characters.
For tasks and database items, the program will try to match the
task number, task name, or database name. If it matches them
as being identical to one already defined, the new data will
replace the old data. Otherwise, a new task or database item
will be defined and added to the class.
1. Importing flat files
Many spreadsheet and database programs can export (write)
data into a flat file. A flat file is one where the data is
listed in columns. All the names of students are in one
column, all the IDs in another, etc. In the "F" option of
the Add Students Menu, you can pick a flat file for
importing of student names, IDs, sections, database items,
and/or task scores. You tell VAR Grade which columns the
name, IDs, sections, and tasks are in, and the data will be
automatically loaded into the class. Header lines that do
not have student names should be deleted, as the program
will try to load those lines as well. An example of a flat
file is listed below:
Jones, Fred 123 1 34.5 23.5 B 44
Smith, Ann 321 2 43.5 18.3 B 43
To load new students into the class, go through the
following steps:
(a) The program first asks for the filename of the flat
file. You can pick the file from a list, or move to another
directory to pick the file.
(b) The program then displays the first few lines of the
file across the top of the screen, along with a ruler. You
need to tell the program where the data is located, by
column number. First, the beginning and ending columns of
the student names is entered. A column of 0 means that the
piece of data is not in the file. Second, you enter the
location of the IDs, sections, database items, and tasks.
29
When describing where the tasks are located, you also must
enter the task number. Data is then read into the program.
If the task data is numeric, it will be read into a number
task; if it is not numeric, the data will be read into a
letter task.
In the above example, suppose the first column is names, the
second IDs, the third sections, and the next four are tasks.
The sixth column (third task) would be read in as a letter
task. The tasks would be numbered as the first four unused
tasks in your class, and given names (e.g., Number task 1,
Number task 2, Letter task 3, and Number task 4).
2. Importing comma & quote files
Many spreadsheet and database programs also can read in data
from files where the data is not in columns, but is instead
separated by commas. Data that has commas in it, e.g.,
student names, are kept together by double quotes ("").
The "C" option of the Add Students Menu lets you import data
from these files. An example of data in the file might be:
"Jones, Fred", "123", 1, 34.5, 23.5, B, 44, "Junior"
"Smith, Ann", "321", 2, 43.5, 18.3, B, 43, "Senior"
(a) Program determination of fields
For the above data, the program will determine that the
student names are in the first field, the IDs in the next,
the next five are tasks, and the last is a database item.
For the tasks, the fourth one will be a letter task; the
others will be number tasks. As in the flat files, the
names of the tasks will be made by the program, and the
first five unused tasks will be used for the new tasks.
If this is not what you want, you have another option.
You might include this as the first line of the file:
"Name", "ID", "Section", "One", "Two", 8, "#4", "Year"
This line would tell the program that the first field is
the name, the second is the ID, the third is the section,
the fourth and fifth are number tasks (they are numbers)
with the names One and Two, the sixth is a Letter task 8,
the last task is a number task with the name #4, and the
last field is a string database item with the name Year,
and a length of 6 (the length of "Junior", above).
30
Entering Students
NOTE: Whether they are letter or number tasks, or database
items, is determined by the student data on the second
line, not from the first line.
On the first line, "Name" tells the program that field is
student names, "ID" tells it is IDs, "Section" refers to
sections. Other words are treated as tasks or database
items, depending upon the data on the second line. The
three predefined words above need to be the entire label
for the fields, but whether the labels are in upper and/or
lower case letters is not important. For the tasks,
anything that is a number (like 8) is taken as the desired
number of the task (the program will make up a name for
the task), and anything that is not a number will be taken
as the name (with its number being the first unused task).
Whether the tasks are made number or letter tasks are
determined by the data on line two (the first student).
(b) Forcing data types
Since the program can guess incorrectly about which type
of data is in each field, you can tell the program what
each type of data is in each field by using the method
outlined below.
"Name", "ID", "Section", "One\n", "Two\n", 8\l, "#4\n",
"Year\s10"
Replacing the line in part a with the above line will
force the definitions of One, Two, and #4 as number tasks,
8 is a letter task, and Year is a string type database
item of length 10. The backslash ("\") at the end of the
data type on the first line, then a letter, tells the
program what data type the item is. The list of data
types is below.
Command Definition
\l?? Letter grade. ?? is any number from 1 to
10000. The number is the task number of
the data.
\n?? Number grade. ?? is any number from 1 to
10000. The number is the task number of
the data.
Command Definition
\a Attendance item.
31
\s?? String database item. ?? is any number from
1 to 255. If the length is over 40, it is
called a Memo item.
\b Boolean database item.
\w Word database item.
\i Integer database item.
\c Character database item. Any characters are
accepted when reading in the data. If you
read in data with a Character type, it is
suggested that you "redefine" the item to
pick allowed characters. Otherwise, you
may not be able to change the data.
Examples:
(1) In a comma and quote file, the item
"Telephone\s13" will set the item to be a String
database item, of length 13.
(2) "Grade in school\w" will set the item to be a
Word database item.
3. Automatic flat file imports
The "A" option on the Add Students Menu works like the
previous one ("Q"), except that the fields are separated by
one or more spaces or tabs, not by commas. You are first
asked if the data is separated by tabs or spaces. Then you
are asked for the file name. The method of determining the
type of data is the same as that used for the comma and
quote files, so you can force the data to be certain types,
if needed. One word of caution, however. If the fields are
separated only by spaces, names will usually end up in two
different fields (one for the first name, one for the last
name). Therefore, given a choice, either comma and quote
files or flat files separated by tabs are better. Note that
most spreadsheet and database programs can export data as
comma and quote files.
4. Entering scores of one task
The "G" option on the Add Students Menu is designed to be a
simple import of grades from one task. The main purpose of
this option is for instructors in large classes. They can
easily import grades on an assignment from their teaching
assistants. Either names, ID's, or a database field are
matched with students in the class, then the new grade will
replace the previous one. The files imported need to have a
name, ID, or database item listed first, then a tab or
32
Entering Students
spaces, then the task score. The method works like the flat
files import method. When you enter this part of the
program, you are asked for the file name, the task number,
and whether to match names or ID's. If the teaching
assistants use VAR Grade, it is easier to export and import
via a comma and quote file, as the import is done
automatically.
The file format should have names or ID's like the following
example (listing ID's, then the task score), and there
should be no first line header, as you are asked for the
details before importing the data:
A1234567 66
Z6543210 44
5. Importing data from Paradox
Described here is how to export data from Paradox in a
format that VAR Grade can understand. Because comma and
quote files work best, they are used for the example.
i) Start Paradox. If the first line of the table you want
to export does not give the names of the columns, you
probably want to name them before exporting. Student
names should have the header "Name", IDs should be named
"ID", and section numbers should be titled "Section".
Only names are required to add new students. IDs or names
can be used if you are updating data for students already
in the VAR Grade class. For VAR Grade to locate the
correct student, the spelling must be the same as the
student name in VAR Grade.
ii) Select Tools (at the top of the screen)
iii) Select ExportImport
iv) Select Export
v) Select Ascii
vi) Select Delimited
vii) Paradox asks for a table name. Type in the name of the
table (e.g., the name of the class).
viii) Paradox asks for a filename, type in the name. Write
down the name.
Paradox now exports the table to a comma and quote file.
To import the file into VAR Grade, press "Q" on the Add
Students Menu. Then, enter the name of the file you wrote
33
down in step viii, above. It is a good idea to check the
data that was imported to see if any problems occurred.
6. Importing data from Quattro Pro
Described here is how to export data from Quattro Pro in a
format that VAR Grade can understand. Because Quattro Pro
2.0 only exports flat files, they are used for the example.
i) Start Quattro Pro, and the spreadsheet that has your
data.
ii) Press "/P" (Print)
iii) Select the Block to export ("B", then type in the range
of cells, e.g., "A1..I21").
iv) Select the Destination ("D") as a File ("F"). Type in
the name. Write down the name.
v) Select Spreadsheet Print ("S").
Quattro now exports the data to a flat file.
WARNING: You may have to adjust the page layout and cell
widths before writing the data. Page layouts are adjusted
with the "L" (Layout) option on the Print Menu. Cell
widths are adjusted with the "C" (Column width) on the
Style Menu.
To import the file into VAR Grade, press "F" on the Add
Students Menu. Then enter the name of the file you wrote
down in step iv, above. You will have to enter the starting
and ending columns for each column of data, and the database
or task numbers. It is a fairly tedious operation. It is a
good idea to check the data that was imported to see if any
problems occurred.
An alternative for importing the data is to use the "A"
option on the Add Students Menu. This will automatically
determine what the data is. However, names or database
items that have spaces in it will be split into two (or
more) items in the program.
34
Entering Students
7. Large classes
(a) Transferring scores between classes
For classes with many sections, teaching assistants often
grade the sections. You can have them export grades from
their section as a comma and quote file, then import them
into the program (again as a comma and quote file). To do
this, you need to make sure that (a) the section numbers
are exported along with the grades, and that (b) the task
(exam) names that the teaching assistants use are
identical to the ones you use. So, for example, they must
all use "Midterm #1" and not "Exam #1" or "Midterm 1",
etc. Another potential problem is that the new scores
replace the old ones. In other words, the imported scores
will supersede any you have for that task. Other ways to
export and import scores are suggested above in parts 1
through 5.
(b) Moving students between sections
You can move all the students from one section to another
one by pressing "M" on the Add Students Menu ("N" on the
Main Menu). You will need to enter the old and new
section numbers. Every student in the old section will be
moved into the new section.
You can move individual students from one section to
another in the "I" option or "D" options on the Main Menu,
by just changing the section number. To change the
section numbers in the "D" section you need to tell the
program to list the section numbers of students (you do
this with the <AltC> option).
(c) Deleting Sections
You can remove one or more sections of a class by pressing
"N" on the Main Menu, then "S". Every student in the
section or sections that you choose will be removed from
the class. All students in the class can also be deleted
from this menu.
35
(d) Memory issues
If you have large number of students and tasks, you may
start to run out of memory. There are a couple of things
you can do with the regular version of the program.
First, Chapter XIII, Section F of this manual describes
how you can alter the way the standard program uses
memory. This can free up memory for other uses. Second,
when in the "D" option of the Main Menu, you can use
<AltZ> to specify which sections to list. If you list
only one section of students at a time, you should be able
to list all students in the section, and entering and
leaving this part of the program will also be much faster.
Also, if you use the <AltC> to change what columns to
list, and specify only one or two tasks rather than twenty
or thirty, again, more students can be listed, and
entering and leaving this part of the program will be much
faster.
E. Sorting Students
Students can be sorted by a variety of methods, including by
name, ID, by the scores of any defined task (high to low
score), by database items, by no sorts at all, or even
randomized. In addition, you can sort using or not using
sections. For example, you can sort by name, or by name and
section. By default, the program sorts by name and section.
You can change the method of sorting in the "G" option of the
Main Menu, then "L" (alter the method of sorting the class).
The program will continue to use the sorting method was used
and will continue to use that method until told differently.
Sorts are not done until you are finished altering data, so if
you add new students, the names will not be alphabetized or
sorted until you exit back to the Main Menu.
After you designate how you want the class to be sorted, You
can have the program list the students via their names OR by
their IDs. In most cases, you want to list by names. For some
cases, like some Law Schools that do grading by ID (to keep
things anonymous), you want to choose ID. This choice only
affects how the students are listed when you see lists of
students on the screen. When printing data, you are always
asked how to list the scores.
36
Entering Students
F. Transferring Names to a New Class
If you have entered names into one class, and need to have the
same list of students entered into a second class, there are
several ways it can be done.
1. Export to new classes
The easiest way to export students is an option on the Write
Data Menu ("W" on the Main Menu). You can export students
to a new VAR Grade class ("V"). Before you do so, however,
you may want to pick the database items to list (option
"D"). If you choose to pick database items, you just type
in the numbers of the items you want to export. Next, when
on the Write Data Menu, press "V". You will be asked for
the name of the class to export to. Choose a class, or type
in the name of a new one. The data will then be written to
the new class. If the class already exists, the old class
will have the new students added. This option exports the
names, IDs, and section numbers of the students, as well as
whatever database items you choose. It will not export task
scores. If you want to also export scores, use the "W"
option. One caution should be made when exporting task
scores: only the scores are exported, not the task
definition. If you export an Average task, the new class
will import it as a Number task. In other words, the scores
are sent to the new class, but the type of the task is not.
The task name and total points for the task are sent to the
new class.
2. Saving with a new name
If no task scores have been entered, you can simply save the
data of the first class, then save them again with a different
name. Saving is done in the "S" option of the Main Menu. When
you save the class, it first lists the name of the current
class. To save it to a new class, just change the name to the
second class name.
Example: If your first class is "MATH", when you save the
class, "MATH.PAR" will be listed as the suggested name of
the class. Press <F10>, to delete the old name, then type
in the new one, e.g., "ENGLISH". You will now have both the
Math and the English class files.
WARNING: When you change the name of the class, the program
assumes that the new name is the one you are using. So if
37
the first class was English, and the second Physics, the
program will use the Physics name as the class currently in
memory.
3. Saving with a new name, part 2
If tasks have been entered into your class, you can do the same
procedure as the previous one, except that you then need to
remove all the tasks from the second class. When in the second
class, go to the "T" option of the Main Menu, then "C" (Change
Task Menu), then "R" (remove tasks). You will be asked for the
numbers to remove: type an <F1> (all). The program then asks
if you really want to remove the tasks, say "Y" (yes).
4. Export as a comma and quote file or flat file
You can export the class names as either a comma and quote file
or as a flat file. The comma and quote files are the best
choice. Then you can read the names back in to the new class.
This method is the most complicated, but the most flexible, as
well.
First, go to the "W" option on the Main Menu (Write Data Menu).
Next, for exporting to a comma and quote file, type "Q". You
will be asked how to export the data: First, you need to
choose which tasks to export. In most cases, it will be none.
Next, you need to choose whether to export by name, ID, or
both. Finally, you will be asked for the new class name. A
suggestion will be CLASS.TXT, where CLASS is the current name
of the class. You can export to any name, but is suggested
that you do not use the extensions ".PAR" or ".DAT".
NOTE: to export database items, you must choose which database
items you want exported before you write the comma and quote or
flat file.
The next step is to import the data into a new class. First,
go into the class you want to import the data ("X" on the Main
Menu, then enter the class name). Next, go to the "N" option
on the Main Menu to add new students. Next, choose "Q" to
import students from a comma and quote file. Enter the name
you just exported (e.g., CLASS.TXT). The data will
automatically be imported into the program.
For exporting to flat files, then importing into a new class,
you export with the "P" option (plain text/flat file), and
38
Entering Students
import with the "F" option on the Add Students Menu (flat
file).
Example: To export students from the English class to the
Physics class, do the following: When in the English class,
save the class as a comma and quote file in the "W" option
of the Main Menu, then "Q". Next, exit the English class
("X" on the Main Menu), and choose the Physics class. Then,
in the "N" option of the Main Menu, tell the program to
import a comma and quote file ("Q"), and choose the file you
have just written.
39
VI. DEFINING TASKS
Tasks are graded assignments for students. They can be
homework, exams, tests, papers, or anything else that is graded.
There are twelve different predefined types of tasks in VAR
Grade. The tasks are divided into two categories: (1) Regular
tasks are assignments: those into which you enter grades. There
are three types of regular tasks: letter, number, and extra
credit. (2) Special tasks are mathematical manipulations of
other tasks. These include sums, averages, percentages, etc.
There are nine types of special tasks. Defining, removing, and
redefining tasks can be done from the Task Type Menu, the "T"
option of the Main Menu.
A. The Define Task Menu
Pressing "T" on the Main Menu will get you to the Task and
Database Menu. From this menu, you can define or change both
tasks and database items. If you then press "T", you will
reach the Define Task Menu.
At the top of the screen are listed some or all of the tasks in
the class. At the bottom is the Define Task Menu and it's list
of options. If you cannot see all the tasks on the screen, you
can press <PgUp> to move up one screen of tasks, or <PgDn> to
move down one screen. <Home> moves to the first screen of
tasks, <End> to the last, <Ctrl-Left arrow> moves one column to
the left, and <Ctrl-right arrow> moves one column to the right.
From this menu, you can define all the tasks. You can also
delete them, or see how they are defined. The Change Task
Menu, the "C" option of the Task and Database Menu, lets you
move, copy, delete, etc. the tasks.
B. Regular Tasks
You can enter tasks as numbers (Number tasks), you can enter
them as letters (Letter tasks), or you can enter them as extra
credit (Extra credit tasks). These can be defined in the "T"
section of the Main Menu, then "T". They can also be defined
in the "D" option of the Main Menu, then <AltT>. A task needs
a name, and, if it is a number or extra credit task, the total
possible points for that task.
40
Defining Tasks
1. Number tasks
Number tasks are ones in which you enter numbers as the
grades. The maximum possible points for any regular task is
one million! The program checks the scores of every student
when you put in the scores to make sure they do not exceed
the maximum possible points. If the score does exceed it,
that score is rejected, and a new score must be entered.
When a score is rejected, a minor beep is emitted by the
computer (the beep can be turned higher, or off, see below).
This validation of scores reduces the number of errors made
while entering student scores. However, you can also turn
off this data validation (see below). Tasks that have 0 or
fewer total points are ignored by Special tasks.
(a) Defining
When on the "T" option of the Main Menu, type "T" (Define
a new task). A list of tasks that have been already
defined are listed. Type an "N" (number task). The
program will ask for the number of the task. If you type
an <F1>, the next available number is chosen, otherwise,
you can type in any other number. You can also select a
task by moving the mouse cursor to the task and pressing
the <Left button>. If another task already has that
number, you are asked if you want to replace the old task,
or insert the new one. Inserting moves all tasks one
number later until an unused number is encountered.
Next, you are asked name of the task. You can enter a
name of up to 25 characters. If you are replacing an old
task, the old name will be suggested.
Last, the program will ask for the total possible points.
It will suggest 100 points (or whatever the old task
points were, if one already existed). Note that the
program will assume that a task has 100 total points
unless you alter the number. The task is now defined.
You can enter grades into this task.
(b) Quick defining of number tasks
You can also "quick define" a sum task by pressing <F1>.
The next available task number will be defined as a Number
Task having 100 points. All you need to enter is the name
of the task. The next available task number means that if
you have defined tasks 1 through 10, the new one will be
41
11. If you have defined tasks 1 through 5 and 10 through
15, the new one will be task 6 (not 16).
(c) Changing the total points
If you decide to increase or decrease the total points of
a number task, you can do so without changing the student
scores. You need to redefine the task, as described
above. However, when you reach the total points, enter a
new number. If you are replacing an old task, you will be
asked whether to blank out the scores, or leave them at
their current scores. If you say leave them, the scores
will be unchanged, but the task will have a new point
total.
For example, if task 5 is worth 50 points, and you want to
change this to 100, you define task 5 by pressing "N" on
the Define Task Menu. You will be asked for the name of
the task (with the old name shown), just press <Rtn>. You
will then be asked for the total points (enter 100, then
<Rtn>). Finally, you will be asked if the student scores
should be deleted. At this point, say "N" (NO). The new
total points will be 100, and the student scores will be
the same.
WARNING: If you decrease the total points, student scores
greater than the new total will be reduced to that new
total.
(d) Data validation
When task data is entered, it is checked to see if the
score is less than or equal to the total points of the
task. If the number is too high, the program makes a
small noise. This feature catches many typing errors.
However, in some cases, you might want to let a student
have more points. To do this, you can turn off the data
validation. Press <AltO> when on a screen that allows you
to enter task scores. On this options screen is the
option that allows you to turn this beeping off. The
noise only occurs when the score is too high for the task.
On the options screen, you can also change the level of
that noise. It can be turned off, or made louder.
42
Defining Tasks
2. Letter tasks
Letter tasks are ones where the scores are entered as
letters. The program converts them to numbers, but the
scores can be entered, printed, and manipulated as letter
grades. The standard or default grading system is an A is
4.0, a B is 3.0, a C is 2.0, etc. Pluses are 0.3 points
higher (except A+), and minuses are 0.3 points below the
grade (e.g. B- = 2.7; C+ = 2.3). You can, however, define
any grading system that you want, including the names and
points for each grade, as long as the total grade types do
not exceed 50. In fact, you should change the grading names
before you define any letter tasks. You may also want to
change the grade values (see Chapter XI, Sections A and B).
If you do change the grading system, you should do it before
you enter any letter grades. The program stores the grades
as numbers, not as letters. Thus, changing the names of
letter grades after some letter grades have been assigned
can result in incorrect scores. You can change the grade
values for the letter grades at any time (see Chapter XII,
Section B).
If you mix letter and number grades, you may want to change
the letter grade values. If an A is 4 points, a B is 3
points, etc., an A is 100%, a B is 75%, etc. Some people
redefine them as A = 90% (or 95%), B = 80% (or 85%), etc.
You define a letter task by pressing "L" on the Define Task
Menu. You are asked only for the number and name of the
task, not the total points. Otherwise, the method of
defining it is the same as described for number tasks.
3. Extra credit tasks
Extra credit tasks are ones where the points can be added to
a number task, but the total points of the number task are
not altered. Extra credit tasks are treated in special ways
by the program. The extra credit tasks need to have the
total points be specified, just like number tasks, to check
for incorrect data input. However, this number is used only
to check data entry. As far as the special exams, described
below, are concerned, extra credit tasks have 0 total
points. The student scores are used in the calculations for
special tasks.
WARNING: In the case of discarding the lowest of a list of
tasks, if the extra credit score is one of lowest scores,
43
it may be discarded. This may not be what you want, so
you should consider this potential problem before you
include extra credit tasks in the definitions of Highest
Tasks.
Extra credit tasks are defined by pressing "E" on the Define
Task Menu. Otherwise, the definition is done exactly the
same way as number tasks are defined.
C. Special Tasks
The second major type of tasks are called special tasks. These
are defined in the "T" section of the Main Menu, then "T".
Special tasks are sums, averages, highest, percentages, etc.,
of other tasks. You do not enter scores into special tasks.
Instead, you define the task as the sum (average, percentage,
highest, etc.) of other tasks. The program then calculates the
scores for you. These scores will be recalculated each time
you change student scores.
Note: Unentered tasks can either be ignored by special exams or
they can count as 0 total points. Which of these the
program will use can be set on the Options Menu ("O" on the
Main Menu, then "O"), or by pressing <AltO> when entering
data. Scores less than the fewest allowed points will
always be ignored, regardless of how you set this program
option.
Example: At the end of the term, you probably want to add up
all the task scores in the class. You can specify a task,
e.g. #30, as the sum of all the previous tasks (#1 through
#29). Task #30 is a special task called a "Sum task".
Since any of the possible task numbers can be either a
special or regular task, you can, for example, define one
Sum task as the sum of all the quizzes, another as the sum
of all the tests, and a third as the sum of all the
homework. You can define another task as the sum of the
previous three sum tasks to therefore sum all the scores.
One limitation for defining special tasks is that they can be
defined only as tasks acting on tasks with lower numbers.
Allowing you to add or sum tasks with the same or higher
numbers could result in circular definitions that could confuse
the computer and produce nonsense or variable results. A
second limitation applies only to sums of tasks. The total
points allowed for a "Sum task" (like task #30 above), is
9,999,999 (less than 10 million points).
44
Defining Tasks
NOTE: Tasks can be removed by using the "R" (remove) option on
the Define Task menu or by redefining the task as a new
task. To remove, choose the "R" (Remove) option. Then
choose the task number or numbers at the prompt. Since all
student data for the task(s) is also removed, you will be
asked again to make sure that you want to remove the
task(s).
1. Sum tasks
These are tasks that are the sums of other tasks. Tasks can
be summed multiple times.
Example: Task 5 can be the sum of task 1 + task 2 + task 3.
Example: Task 5 can also be the sum of task 1 + task 1 +
task 1. This would be the equivalent of multiplying the
task by 3.
Tasks that are not yet entered can be included in the list
of tasks that will be summed. When the tasks are then
defined, they will be included in the sums. Note that the
total points possible for each student on a sum task
includes only those tasks in which scores have been entered.
Example: Task 12 is the sum of tasks 3, 5, and 7. Each has
100 possible points. Mary had 90 points on task 3, and 85
on task 5. She has 175 of 200 points. When her score for
task 7 is entered, there will then be 300 total points
possible for her.
NOTE: The sums of all the tasks in a Sum task must be less
than 10 million points.
(a) Defining Sum tasks
To define a Sum task, type "S" on the Define Task Menu.
Next, pick a task number, or <F1> for the next free task
number. Next, enter a name for the task. Finally, you
need to enter the numbers of the tasks to sum. After
entering the last one, you will see a list of the tasks,
and be asked whether this is correct.
2. Averaged tasks
These are tasks that are the numerical average of other
tasks. Task 5 can be the average of tasks 1 through 4. If
you use letter grades, the averages are done using the point
45
values of the letters, and are reported as numbers, not
letters. Any tasks that have not yet been entered are NOT
averaged, so the averages reflect only those tasks for which
the student has had scores entered. Averaged tasks are
defined the same way as Sum tasks, except that you start by
pressing "A" instead of "S".
3. Percentage tasks
These are tasks that average other tasks, and then convert
those averages to percentages.
Example: If task 10 is the percentage of tasks 5 and 6
(which each have 100 points), the program adds up the
scores from 5 and 6, then divides the scores by the total
points of 5 and 6 (200 points). The score is then
converted to a percent by multiplying by 100. Hence, the
scores range from 0 to 100 percent.
Like sum and average tasks, any tasks that have not yet been
entered are not used in the conversions, so the percentages
reported for the students are only for those tasks that have
already had scores entered. Percentage tasks are defined
the same way as Sum tasks, except that you start by pressing
"P" instead of "S".
4. Highest tasks: Throwing out the lowest scores
These tasks will throw out one or more of the lowest scores
of a special task.
Example: You can throw out the lowest two out of ten tasks.
If Task 11 is the sum of tasks 1 through 10, you can
define task 12 as the highest 8 of the tasks in task 11.
Highest tasks discard the lowest one or more scores of a
sum, averaged, or percentage task. The special task that is
used must have a number lower than the highest task.
For a highest task, the program will find the lowest scores
of a list of tasks and add up only the highest of those
scores. You need to tell the program how many tasks to
discard (the lowest 1, the lowest 5, etc.). Scores that are
unentered are discarded first, then the lowest scores that
have been entered are discarded. For weight tasks, scores
that have the lowest percentages are discarded first, not
those with the lowest points.
46
Defining Tasks
Example: Suppose you have a weight task worth 65 points,
and defined as the weight of tasks 1 through 5, with
weights of 10, 10, 15, 20, and 20, respectively. If a
student scores a 70% on task 5, and an 80% on the other 4,
the score from task 5 will be discarded. The student
would end up with 80% of 65 points (52 points). No matter
which task the student scored a 70% on, if all the others
are 80%, the score would end up as 52 points.
NOTE: You can throw out scores on any sum, average, weight,
or percentage task. The "highest" task will report the
score with the same type. Therefore, if you discard the
lowest of an average task, the scores will be reported as
an average.
(a) Defining a Highest task
To define a Highest task, you need to have already defined
one or more sum, averaged, weight, or percentage tasks.
Type "H" on the Define Task Menu. Next, pick a task
number, or <F1> for the next free task number. Next,
enter a name for the task. You will see a list of all the
sum, averaged, weight, and percentage tasks. You need to
pick one of these tasks, either by typing it in, or
selecting it with a mouse. You are asked how many tasks
to discard. You can discard up to one less than the
number of tasks used in the definition. For example, if
the task is the sum of tasks 1 through 6, you can discard
up to 5 tasks.
5. Weighted tasks
You can define a task as the sum of other tasks, each times
a weight. For example, you can define task 20 as the sum of
task 10 with a weight of 0.2, task 11 with a weight of 0.3,
and task 12 with a weight of 0.5. This will give "true"
weighting of tasks. If unused scores are not counted as 0
points, unentered scores are ignored by weight tasks, and
the weights adjusted. You will first be asked for the total
points the task will be worth, after weighting. Then, you
will be asked which tasks to weight. Last, you will be
asked for the relative weights for each of those tasks. The
relative weights can be percentages or arbitrary numbers.
Example: If you have three exams in your class, each worth
100 points, and want to weight them 30%, 30%, and 40%, you
47
can define task 4 as the weight of task 1 with a final
weight of 30, task 2 with a weight of 30, and task 3 with
a weight of 40.
The calculation for the weights is done by taking the
weights you give for each task and dividing them by the
total points for each task. These numbers are then added up
and adjusted so that the maximum possible points is equal to
the total points of the weight task. For the example above,
assuming you want the total points to be 100, the students
scores are calculated as:
100 * (((Task #1 score) * 30 / 100) + ((Task #2 score) *
30 / 100) + ((Task #3 score) * 40 / 100))
The parentheses denote calculations that are kept together.
In the example, "*" means "multiplied by".
(a) Discarding scores
When entering the weights for the tasks, at the bottom of
the screen is an option to discard one or more scores. If
you discard scores in a weight task, the other weights are
adjusted accordingly. The first tasks discarded are the
ones with the lowest percentage scores.
Example: If you weight tasks 101 through 106, each with a
weight of 10, and discard one task, the other five are
each worth 20% of the total score.
(b) Defining a weight task
To define a weight task, type "W" on the Define Task Menu.
Next, pick a task number, or <F1> for the next free task
number. Next, enter a name for the task. You then enter
the total points for the task. Up to here, it is like
defining a number task.
Next, however, you need to type in a list of tasks to use
for the weights. You can also use a mouse to select the
tasks. After you have selected the tasks, the Weight Task
Menu appears. It lists the task number, the task name,
the total points for each task, and the weights. The
weights are suggested to be 1, but can be changed to any
other number. In most cases, you will want the weights to
add up to 100 or 1.00, but they can add to anything. In
addition, at the bottom of the screen is an option to
48
Defining Tasks
discard one or more of the tasks. When you are finished
entering the weights and discard number, press <AltS>
(save).
6. Final task
You can define a task as a final task. This task will
assign letter grades based upon scores of another task.
These scores are only assigned after cutoffs have been
designated. Cutoffs are designated either by defining
automatic cutoffs in the "G" option of the program before
you define the task, or by assigning new cutoffs, also in
the "G" option, after you have defined the task. The final
grades are recalculated each time new scores are entered.
If you don't want the grades recalculated, you can either
change the task to a letter task after the assignments, or
you can transfer the scores to a new letter task.
(a) Final task problems
If the student grades are all A's, I's, or F's, the
cutoffs for the grades were probably not defined before
the final task was created. You can either define them
for that task only with the "G" option on the Grading Menu
("G" on the Main Menu), or you can define cutoffs with the
"C" option on the Grading Menu, then redefine the final
task. Note that when you define a final task, it inherits
the current cutoffs. Changes to the cutoffs made after
you have defined a final task do not affect it.
(b) Defining a Final task
To define a final task, type "F" on the Define Task Menu.
Next, pick a task number, or <F1> for the next free task
number. Next, enter a name for the task. Finally, you
need to enter the number of the task that is to be used to
calculate the final grades. Although the name is "final"
task, you can define any number of them.
7. Attendance task
If you use attendance in your classes, you can define a task
that will automatically calculate a score based upon a
student's attendance. To do this, you first designate how
many points the task will be worth. Next, you need to pick
which attendance days to use. Last, you can assign the
relative weights for each type of attendance (there are
49
thirteen different types of attendance), and how many days
to ignore (for example, if you allow two absences per
grading period, you can tell the program to discard the
lowest two attendance scores). For assigning the relative
weights for the different types of attendance, you can
assign "default" values on the Attendance Menu ("A" on the
Main Menu). NOTE: if no attendance has been defined, you
cannot define an attendance task, and that option won't be
listed on the Define Task Menu.
(a) Defining an Attendance task
To define an attendance task, type "B" on the Define Task
Menu. Next, pick a task number, or <F1> for the next free
task number. Next, enter a name for the task. Next, you
need to enter the total points for the task. Up to now,
it is just like defining a number task.
Next, you need to enter the numbers of the attendance days
that are to be used to calculate the scores. You can
enter numbers of tasks that are not yet defined. Last,
you enter the values for each type of attendance, and how
many days to discard. Values shown on this menu are the
default ones, defined on the Attendance Menu. They can be
altered any way you want. Save the changes by pressing
<AltS>.
8. Attendance extra credit task
This task is defined just like the attendance task, but
treated like an extra credit task, and counts as 0 total
points to other special tasks.
9. User-defined task
This task lets you enter a mathematical formula that is used
to calculate student scores. This gives the user task a
spreadsheet-like quality.
(a) Defining a User task
When defining a User task, you are asked for the name,
then the definition of the task. Common mathematical
symbols are used, as are parentheses. In addition,
percentages can be designated.
50
Defining Tasks
For the following, N1 and N2 are any numbers, and T is any
task.
Command Definition
N1+N2 Add the items N1 and N2
N1-N2 Subtract two items
N1/N2 Divide N1 by N2
N1*N2 Multiply N1 and N2
[T] Task score, e.g., [1]+[2] adds the scores
from tasks 1 and 2
[%T] Percentage of a task, [%1] is the percentage
of task 1.
The order of precedence is parentheses first (from left to
right), then the other commands. The numbers are
calculated from left to right. You can have any number of
parentheses.
Examples:
2*10-1 will give 19 as the result.
2*(10-1) will give 18 as the result.
2*[1]+5*[5] will double the score on task one, then add
five, then multiply that total times the score on
task five.
(2*[1])+(5*[5]) will add two times the score on task
one and five times the score on task 5.
2*[1]+(5*[5])/2 will double the score on task one, then
add five times the score on task five, then divide
that result by two.
2*[1]+(5*[5]/2) will double the score on task one, then
add to it five times the score on task five divided
by two.
2*([1]+5)*[5]/2 will add five to the score on task one,
double that number, then multiply it by the score on
task 5, and divide the result by two.
2*[%1]+(5*[%5]) will double the percentage score on
task one, then add five times the percentage score on
task five.
NOTE: If there are other types of special tasks that you would
like to have the option of using, send a note to us and
explain how this type of task would be calculated. We will
try to accommodate you.
51
10. If task
This task lets you enter require an assigment or type of
assignment. The task has a criterium that must be passed
for a score to be used. For example, you can require that a
student receive 60% or more in order to pass an assignment.
Students that don't meet the criteria receive zeros.
(a) Defining an If task
When defining an If task, you are asked for the task
number, then it's name. Next, you are asked for the task
that is to be checked. Last, you are asked for the
criteria to use. You can "pass" all scores above, below,
or equal to a number (or letter grade). If the task that
is checked is a task that uses letters, the If task will
also contain letter grades. Otherwise, the task contains
numbers.
If you list scores of an if task, students that meet your
criteria will keep the scores of the task that is checked.
Othewise the score will be a 0 (or a failing letter grade).
To require an assignment, you need to define an If task
that checks the required assignment. Then, use the if
task to calculate scores (the calculated task must be a
Weight, Average, Sum, or Percentage task). If you then
use the calculated task in a Final task and a student
doesn't meet the criteria the student grade will be a
fail. The required assignment must be one of the grades
used in the calculations for the task used to assign final
grades. To further explain how this works, examine the
examples below.
(b) Examples of If definitions
Example A: Students in my class have two tests, one term
paper, and one creative writing assignment. The
student must receive a term paper grade of a C or
better to pass the class. The tests each count for 30%
of the grade, the term paper 30%, and the other
assignment is worth 10%. How do I set up a class to do
this?
Answer A: Define four tasks. Task #1 is test one, task
#2 is test two, task #3 is the term paper, and task #4
is the writing assignment. Next, define an If task as
task #5. Make it check task #3, select a criterium of
">=", and a letter grade of "C". Next, define a Weight
67A
task as task #7. For the weight task, use tasks #1,
#2, #4, and #5 (the If task, not task #3). Assign
weights of 30, 30, 10, and 30, respectively. To assign
final grades, define task #8 as a Final task that uses
task #7 to assign grades. Any student that received a
grade below a C on the term paper will be assigned a
final grade of an F.
Example B: Sometimes I assign book reports on a pass-fail
basis. In other words, in addition to tests, etc.,
students must do two book reports to pass the course at
all. Is there a way to do this?
Answer B: Define the book reports. Make the reports
worth one point each. Next, define a Sum task to add
up the scores. Next, define an If task, using the Sum
task, and requiring ">=" 2 points. Next, define a
Weight task, using the book reports as well as any
other assignments. When assigning a weight to the book
reports, assign it a weight of "0". Last, define a
Final task, using the Weight task. If a student did
not turn in two book reports, the student will receive
a failing grade.
Example C: If example A, above, a student receives a
failing grade if the assignment does not have a "C" or
above. How do you do define the tasks if you want a
student to receive a failing grade on the term paper if
a "C" isn't earned, but not have the student
automatically fail the class?
Answer C: The difference would be to define one extra
task (#6), that would be the Sum of task #5 (the If
task). Next define the Weight task as above, except
use task #6 in the definition instead of task #5. A
student will receive a failing grade on task #5 only if
the score was lower than a C.
(c) If tasks and What-ifs
If you are calculating what-ifs, having either an If or
User task in the definition will force the program to
estimate the required grades. The estimates calculated
are a maximum of 0.1% above the minimum score required, so
if a student requires 70% to acheive a grade, the program
may report a needed score as high as 70.1%. Again, if
more than one assignment is missing, the scores required
are an average that is needed. If may be possible for a
student to score below that average and still make the
desired grade if an If or High task score is part of the
grade.
67B
D. Scaling Tasks
In the "G" option of the Main Menu, there is an option, "S",
that lets you add any number of points to a number or extra
credit task, or multiply the scores of them by a number (which
can be above or below 1). Since the primary purpose of
scaling scores is to adjust the scores before giving final
grades, further details are given in Chapter X, Section K:
Scaling the Tasks.
E. Memory Limitations
Each task that is defined takes up space. In cases where
memory is limited, you may find that you cannot define a new
task. You may need to delete an old task to be able to add a
new one. A second option to increase your memory is by
removing any TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs from
memory BEFORE running the program. A third option is to tell
VAR Grade to use less memory for overlays (See Chapter XIII,
Section F). A fourth option is to shrink the size of the ID's
and/or student names. This last option only saves a little
memory. VAR Grade uses very little memory per student, so, for
example, classes of 30 students with 30 tasks or of 90 students
and 10 tasks would take up less than 15K of memory over and
above that used by the program. If you are having memory
problems, contact us at the address below for possible
solutions.
F. Manipulating Tasks
Tasks can easily be moved, copied, removed, and so forth. You
can also transfer scores to a database item or from a database
item to a task score. Most manipulations are best done from
the Change Task Menu. The Change Task Menu is reached from the
Main Menu by pressing "T", then "C". Some of these options are
also on the Define Task Menu.
1. Copying tasks
Tasks may by copied to new tasks that have higher task
numbers. To do this, go the Change Task Menu, then press
"C". You are asked which task to copy. Enter a number.
You then need to specify where the new task will end up. If
you specify an existing task number, it will replaced by the
copied task.
52
Defining Tasks
The definition of the task is copied exactly, even if the
task is a special task. The students scores are copied as
well. You will be asked for a new name for the task,
however.
Example: If the task to be copied is a number task, the new
task will have the same total points and student scores as
the first task.
Example: If the task to be copied is defined as the
percentage of tasks 1 through 3, the new task will also be
defined as the percentage of tasks 1 through 3.
2. Transferring tasks
Task scores may be transferred to a new task. When tasks
are transferred, the student scores are transferred but the
task definition is not. The task where the scores are
transferred to will be defined as a number or letter task,
depending upon the definition of the task to be transferred.
The student scores are copied from the first task to the
second. Note that if the task you are transferring to
already exists, you are asked if you want to redefine the
task.
You transfer task scores by pressing "T" on the Change Task
Menu. You are asked for the number of the task that is to
be transferred. Next, you are asked for the place to
transfer the scores. Since the place will be redefined as a
number or letter task, if the old task already exist, you
will be asked whether to replace it. Finally, you will be
asked the name of the new task.
3. Transfer one task definition
You can transfer the definition of a single task, but not
any student scores (which will be set as not yet entered).
This is done with the "Y" option on the Change Task Menu.
You just specify the task definition to use, and where to
put it, as well as the new name of the task. This is
equivalent to copying the task, then clearing all the
student scores.
4. Transfer a group of task definitions
You can also transfer the definitions of a group of tasks,
instead of one at a time. The group is specified by
entering the beginning and ending numbers of the tasks, then
53
specifying where to transfer them. Like the previous
option, the task definitions will be transferred, but no
student scores will be transferred. If any of the tasks
that are transferred are special tasks, their definitions
will be adjusted as follows: if the special tasks include
any tasks that are also transferred, the new tasks will be
redefined to include those tasks rather than the original
tasks. Transferring a group of task definitions is done by
pressing "J" on the Change Task Menu.
The major purpose of this option is for teachers that give
the same types of tests from week to week. This lets them
quickly and easily make a new group each week, with a
minimum of effort.
Example: Task 6, Week 1 average, is the average of tasks 1
through 5 (Monday through Friday grades). You decide to
transfer the definitions for Week 2. You transfer tasks 1
through 6 to 11 through 16. Task 16 will now be defined
as the average of tasks 11 through 15 (not 1 through 5).
5. Moving tasks
You can move one or more tasks. To move one task, press "M"
on the Change Task Menu. To move a group of several
consecutive tasks, press "G". When a task is moved, the
task is renumbered, and all the special tasks that use that
task are redefined to refer to the new number, as well.
When you move a group of tasks, you are asked for the first
and last numbers of the tasks to move. All the tasks
between and including those two numbers are moved. Student
scores, of course, move along with the task.
The major purpose of this option is to give you room to put
more tasks. If you originally let tasks 1 through 10 be
used for quizzes, 11 through 30 be used for homework, and 31
through 40 be used for exams, and ended up with 11 quizzes,
you would like to make task 11 a quiz. Moving tasks 11
through 40 to tasks 21 through 50 will give you up to 10
more task numbers for quizzes.
6. Copy a database value to a task
If you have an item defined as a database item, you can
transfer the value to a task score. The transfer only makes
sense if the item contains numbers, but any database item
value can be transferred to a task. Since the database
54
Defining Tasks
value is converted to a number, any item that contains
characters that are not in numbers are transferred as
"unentered".
To transfer, press "D" on the Change Task Menu. You select
the database item, then the task. The task must be a
regular task, not a special task.
7. Clearing student scores
To redefine all student scores for a task as unentered, use
the "K" option on the Change Task Menu. The task remains
defined the same way as previously. You can clear only
regular tasks, as the others are recalculated each time
scores are entered into the class.
After pressing "K", you will be asked for a list of tasks to
use. After you finish, you will be asked whether you really
want to zero the student scores.
8. Removing tasks
You can remove one or more tasks from the class. The "R"
option on both the Change Task Menu and the Define Task Menu
asks you for a list of all the tasks to remove. After you
specify the tasks to be removed, the program will ask you if
you really want to remove them. If you say "D" (delete),
the task and the student scores will be deleted from the
class. Using the option with the <F1> key to select all
tasks will remove all the tasks.
If you have the same students from one grading period to the
next, removing all the tasks will start the class over for
you, while keeping the students in the class.
9. Change the points of a number task
To change the total points, but nothing else, you need to
redefine the task. This is done on the Define Task Menu.
If it is a number or letter task, you will be asked whether
to delete the old grades, just say no (almost sounds like an
anti-drug campaign). The new definition will be there,
along with the old grades.
55
10. Show task definition
To help you remember how you have defined tasks, the "V"
option on both the Define Task Menu and the Change Task Menu
will list the current definition of a task.
11. Print task definitions
The "O" option on the Define Task Menu and the Change Task
Menu will print one or more task definitions on your
printer. They will be formatted to look the same as seen in
the show task definition.
G. Examples of Task Definitions
Example #1: I gave three tests. The first was worth 100 points,
the second was worth 130 points, and the third was worth 211
points. I want the exams to be worth 25%, 25%, and 50%,
respectively, and the total points to be 100.
Solution: Define the tests as Tasks 1 through 3, all number
tasks. Define task 4 as a Weight Task. For task 4, make the
task worth 100 points. Then pick tasks 1 through 3, and assign
task 1 a weight of 25, task 2 a weight of 25, and task 3 one of
50.
Example #2: For each test, I give two versions to my students.
Half the students take one version, half the other. I want to
keep track of each version separately, yet calculate the final
averages for the students in my class.
Solution: For each test, define three tasks. The first two are
the two versions of the tests. The third one is an Average
Task, which averages the first two tasks. The third task will
be the average of one task that has an entered score and one
that is unentered, hence equivalent to the entered score.
Example #3: I give a homework assignment, then give students
extra credit for turning it in early. At the end of the
semester, I discard the lowest homework assignment. However, I
don't want the extra credit discarded, just the lowest
homework.
Solution: When the homework is graded, define the homework task,
the extra credit task, and a third task, the sum of the
homework and extra credit. When you discard the lowest
homework assignment, use the third task in the definition, not
the first two tasks.
56
Defining Tasks
Example #4: I want to distinguish between unentered grades and
excused grades. How do I do it?
Solution: The program keeps track of the lowest allowed score.
When the program is first run, the lowest allowed score is 0.
You can, however, enter scores less than 0. You can always
enter scores down to -1,000,000. NOTE: You can tell the
program the lowest score to use for statistics in the "O"
option on the Main Menu, then "O", or by pressing <AltO>
whenever you are enter task scores. The program, when
calculating statistics, assumes that scores less than the
fewest allowed points are unentered scores. The scores you
entered, however, are displayed correctly (as scores less than
the fewest allowed) when printing or entering scores. Hence,
if you enter a -100, it will be ignored for the plots,
printing, etc., but written as a -100 when entering data.
Example #5: I want to assign grades to students halfway through
the semester. I then want to assign final grades at the end of
the semester.
Solution: Define a final task at the half way point that assigns
grades based on the first half scores. Then assign grades in
the "G" option of the Main Menu. Define a second final task
that assigns grades based on the grades for the entire
semester.
Example #6: I defined a number task as having 100 points. I
entered grades, then decided to redefine it as having 110
points. Yet, I do not want to lose the previously entered
grades.
Solution: When you redefine a task, the program asks whether to
delete any previous grades. If you say no, the grades will not
be changed. The only exception is if you decrease the number
of points, and a student has more than that number. That
student score will be decreased to the new maximum points for
the task.
Example #7: I give three quizzes each week. Then I define a task
as the sum of these three scores. It's tedious to keep
defining the tasks each week. Is there an easier way?
Solution: Define the tasks for the first week. Thereafter,
transfer the task definitions (section F4, above). If the
first week tasks were 1 through 4, transfer the group to tasks
5 through 8. The new task 5 through 7 definitions will be the
same as tasks 1 through 3, and task 8 will sum tasks 5 through
7.
57
Example #8: Halfway through the semester, I like to give the
students a handout that tells them their current grades,
including a tentative final grade.
Solution: Define a task that sums, averages, or calculates the
percentages of the scores on the tasks. Define the automatic
cutoffs in the "G" option of the Main Menu. Use your standard
grade cutoffs. Then define a final task, using the previous
task. This task will now calculate final grades based upon
only those scores that have been entered.
Example #9: I set up my class so that tasks 1 through 10 are
quizzes, 11 through 20 are tests, and 21 through 40 are
homework. I just gave my eleventh quiz. What do I do?
Solution: Move tasks 11 through 40 to higher numbers. For
example, move them to tasks 21 through 50. This is done with
the "M" option on the Task Menu (see section F5, above).
Example #10: I gave three exams, each worth 100 points. However,
the third exam should have been worth 150 points. How can I
fix this?
Solution: Scale the task, "S" on the Grading Menu, by telling the
program to multiply the scores by 1.5. The new scores will
each be 1.5 the original scores, and the exam total points will
be 150.
Example #11: I used one class for the fall semester ("Fall"), and
another for the spring semester ("Spring"). I want to
consolidate the grades from the two classes so and calculate a
final grade for the year. How can I do this?
Solution: One way is to define a third class, "Year". Export the
task scores you need for the final grades to another class with
the "W" on the Main Menu, then "W". Export the task scores
from each of the two classes "Fall" and "Spring". Make sure
that, before you export the tasks to the "Year" class, the
names of the tasks from the two classes are different.
Example #12: I want attendance to count for 20% of the grade in
my class, tests 40%, and homework 40%. In addition, I allow
three absences in the semester. How do I do this?
Solution: First, define a task that totals the homework (e.g.,
#20), and one that totals the tests (#21). Next, define an
attendance task (#22). Make the task worth, for example, 100
points. Pick which days to use for the attendance. Then,
specify three days of attendance to be discarded. Last, assign
weights for each attendance type (e.g., 2.0 for present and
excused, 1.0 for late, and 0 for the rest). Next, define tasks
that total the homework and tests. Last, define a weight task
58
Defining Tasks
(#30), and assign the attendance task (#22) a weight of 20,
homework (#20) a weight of 40, and tests (#21) a total of 40.
To assign final grades, define a final task that uses the
scores of the weight task (#30). Whew!
Example #13: I gave one test worth 10 points, another worth 20
points, another worth 100 points, and another worth 500 points.
At the end of the semester, I want to count each of them
equally. How do I do this?
Solution: Define a weight task, that gives weights for each of
the four tasks the same number. For example, weight each of
them with a weight of 1.0.
Example #14: I want to mix number and letter grades. However,
when I do so, the letter grades don't count right. I want an A
to count as 95 points, a B as 85, a C as 75, etc. How do I do
this?
Solution: Redefine the grade values ("G" on the Main Menu, then
"N"). When you do this, instead of an A counting as 4.0, make
it count as 95. Make a B count as 85, etc. Make the total
points count as 100.
Example #15: I want to get an average of four tasks. However,
they are worth 10, 20, 50, and 100 points. I want them to
count equally in the average.
Solution: If you want the average to be on a 100 point scale,
define a percentage task for each, then average them. For
example, if the four tasks are numbers 1 through 4, make task
#5 the percentage of task #1. Make task #6 the percentage of
#2, etc. Then average tasks 5 through 8. It will now be an
average.
Example #16: I have tasks that have 10, 20, 50, and 100 points.
I want to discard the (relatively) worst score of the four
tasks.
Solution: Like the solution to #15, define four tasks as the
percentages of the four tasks. For example, define tasks #5
through 8 as the percentage of tasks #1 through 4. Now define
an average (or percentage or sum) task that is the average of
tasks 5 through 8. Finally, define task #9 that is a highest
task of #8: discarding one task.
Note: For examples #15 and #16, you could also define a weight
task to do what you want. In the first case, weight each task
equally. In the second, weight each task equally, and discard
one of them.
59
Example #17: Sometimes I assign book reports on a pass-fail
basis. In other words, in addition to tests, etc., students
must do two book reports to pass the course at all. Is there a
way to do this?
Solution: To do this, define each book report as a number task,
worth one point each. Next, define a Sum task that sums all
the book reports. Next, define a High task that discards all
but two of the book reports. The grades should run from 0 to 2
points. Next, define a User task. Make the task definition as
whatever your other grades totals (averages) are, then times it
by the (High task score - 1). For example, if you average your
grades, and call it task #50, and the High task is task #40,
make the User task definition: "([40]-1)*[50]". Scores less
than or equal to 0 are ones that didn't meet the requirement
(fails). You may need to set the fewest allowed points to a
number less than zero (found on most of the option screens,
e.g., press <AltO> when entering numbers to locate this
option).
If you don't like negative grades, you can add an extra task
instead: Define a Final task (e.g., #41) that uses the High
task (#40 in the example). Next, assign grades to the task,
using 2 as the top grade, 1 and 0 as failing grades. Then
replace ([40] - 1) in the example above with ([41] / 4). This
assumes that your top grade is "4" (an A in the default
grades).
NOTE: Chapter X, Analyzing the Grades, gives more examples.
60
Database Items
VII. DATABASE ITEMS
Besides names, IDs, section numbers, and tasks, you can
enter database items. VAR Grade allows a limited database of up
to 200 items, which can be up to a total of 16K in size. These
items can include any type of data about a student, including
year in school, birthdate, address, sex, age, major, school, etc.
There are six different types of items that can be defined.
These database items can be altered, printed, sorted, used to
filter plots or printouts, and used to define which grading
system a student needs.
Database items can be used in all parts of the program.
Student names, IDs, and sections are actually special types of
database items, and cannot be added or deleted (although names
and IDs can be resized).
A. Defining a New Item
To define a database item, you press "T" on the Main Menu, then
"D" on the Task and Database Menu. The next menu is the Define
Database Items Menu. The current database items are listed on
the top of the menu, and example of some database items are
then listed, and then a menu of types of database items. There
are six types of database items: String (up to 40 characters),
Word (ordinal numbers from 0 to 65534), Integer (ordinal
numbers from -32767 to 32767), Character (a character of any of
15 possible characters), Boolean (yes or no), and Memo (strings
of over 40 characters). Note that Memo items are treated a
little differently than the other items due to their length.
You need to choose a type for an item that you want to define.
Then, you need to specify the name of the database item. If
you choose to define a String or Memo database item, you also
need to specify the maximum number of characters in the item.
If you choose a Character database item, you need to specify
the allowed characters (up to 15 can be entered).
Database items are easily defined. They can have a name of up
to 20 characters.
String: This type can be used to enter small amounts of data
(since you can enter up to 40 characters). This data can be
61
any characters. Examples of types that you would want to be
string items are addresses, phone numbers, and nicknames.
The memory used by each string type takes 1 byte in addition
to the allowed number of characters.
Defining a string: On the Define Database Menu, press "S".
You are asked for the name of the item. Next, you are
asked how many characters are in the string. Enter a
number from 1 to 40. The item is now listed at the top of
the screen, along with it's type.
Word: This type can be used to enter numbers above zero
(cardinal numbers). It might be used to enter items like
the grade level of students. Word type items each take up
two bytes of memory.
Defining a word: On the Define Database Menu, press "W".
You are then asked for the name of the item.
Integer: This type can be used for numbers above and below
zero. It could also be used for grade levels, or any item
that can be less that zero. Word type items each take up
two bytes of memory.
Defining an integer: On the Define Database Menu, press
"I". You are then asked for the name of the item.
Character: This type can be used for entering one character.
For example, sex (allowed characters: M and F). The program
checks when you enter data to make sure the correct allowed
characters are entered. Character types each take up one
byte.
Defining a character: On the Define Database Menu, press
"C". You are then asked for the name of the item. You
then are asked for the valid characters. You can enter up
to 15. If you want to use more than 15 characters, you
should define a string of length 1 instead of a character.
Boolean: This type can be used for yes or no data. For
example, if they met a certain requirement (e.g., they gave
an oral report). Boolean types each take up one byte.
Defining a boolean: On the Define Database Menu, press "B".
You are then asked for the name of the item.
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Database Items
Memo: This type is for entering lots of information about a
student. Because the lengths of the Memo item can be more
than the width of the screen, the Memo items must be handled
a little differently. This means that, unlike the other
items, you enter data into this field into popup fields that
wrap words, etc. Each Memo type takes up one byte in
addition to the number of characters it has.
Defining a memo: On the Define Database Menu, press "M".
You are asked for the name of the item. Next, you are
asked how many characters are in the memo. Enter a number
from 41 to 254.
B. Altering Database Definitions
You can change a definition of a database item, or rearrange
them on the Change Database Items Menu ("T" on the Main Menu,
then "R" on the Task and Database Menu). Just as tasks can be
moved and rearranged, so can database items. You can also
transfer a task score to a database item.
1. Move an item
After you define a database item, you may want to move it
around. This is especially true because listing and
printing the items is frequently done in numerical order of
their definition (when entering data by student, or writing
the data by student).
To move an item, you specify the item number, and where it
should be placed (i.e., the new number of the item). The
other database items are moved back.
Example: To move item 4 to place 2, press an "M" on the
Change Database Items Menu. You then pick the number of
the item to move: "4". You then pick the number of the
place to move it: "2". You will see that the old #4 has
moved to #2, with the old #2 now called #3, and the old #3
called #4.
2. Alter a definition
This option lets you redefine an item without losing the
data. If you made an item a Word type, then decide to make
it an Integer type, the program will convert the data from
one type to another. Note: data that is not valid may be
63
changed or blanked. Any type of data can be converted to
another!
To alter the definition, press "A" on the Change Database
Items Menu. You then are asked for the item number to
change. You are then asked for the new database type. Any
of the six types are allowed. However, if you convert a
memo with 254 characters to a character item, only the first
character will remain.
3. Clear student data
This option clears all student data from that item. The
item is still defined the same way, the student data just
disappears.
To clear the data, press "C" on the Change Database Items
Menu. You are then asked for the item number to change.
4. Delete a database item
This option removes an item from the database. All student
data is deleted for that item, as well as the item
definition.
To delete a database item, press "D" on the Change Database
Items Menu. You are then asked for the item number to
change.
5. Copy task values to a database item
This option transfers task scores to database items. The
numbers can be transferred to any type of database item,
however, transferring to types like boolean will result in
all values being "N". Transferring to string or memo items
will cause the value to be converted to a string. The
number will have the number of decimal places you have
specified. Transferring to an integer or cardinal number
(word) will cause the number to be rounded. Transferring to
a character item will cause the first number in the score to
be transferred. Unentered scores will be transferred as
blanks for all items except booleans.
C. Database Operations
Database items can be used in most parts of the program. Below
are some examples of this.
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Database Items
1. Entering and changing student data
For the options below, you need to have defined some
database items, see Section A.
(a) You can enter database data in the "I" (enter individual
data) option on the Main Menu. All the database items
except Memos are listed at the top of the screen. Memos
can be popped up over the student by pressing <AltM>. If
you have more than one Memo item, you can move between
them with <AltN> (next memo), or <AltP> (previous memo).
(b) Data can be entered in the "D" (data for the class)
option on the Main Menu. Press <AltC>, and you will see a
list of the database items in addition to student names,
IDs, and sections. Choose Y or N for each database item.
Next you will see the list of tasks. Choose whichever
ones you want. The database columns will be listed before
the tasks when entering data. To enter data into Memos,
press <AltM>. The Memo for the current student will be
shown. The current student is the student row where the
cursor is located. If more than one Memo is defined, you
can move between them with <AltN> (next) and <AltP>
(previous).
(c) Database items can also be entered by reading in data
from files. This works for both comma and quote and flat
files. If an item has a name, but no numbers or letter
grades in the data, it is assumed to be a database item.
The default item is to make it a string (large enough to
hold the first student's data). You can force the program
to add database items of particular types by appending any
of the following items to the database item name:
Command Definition
\s?? String database item. ?? is any number from 1
to 254. If the ?? is over 40, it is called a
Memo item.
\b Boolean database item.
\w Word database item.
\i Integer database item.
Command Definition
\c Character database item. Any characters are
accepted when reading in the data. If you read
in data with a Character type, it is suggested
that you "redefine" the item to pick allowed
65
characters. Otherwise, you may not be able to
change the data.
Examples:
(1) In a comma and quote file, the item "Birthdate\s8"
will set the item to be a String database item, of
length 8.
(2) "Age\w" will set the item to be a Word database item.
2. Sorting
You can sort the class by any database item. Go to the
Grading Menu ("G" on the Main Menu), then "L".
3. Printing database items
Database items can be printed from all the standard printing
menus. The database items are listed before the student
grades, except for the Memos, which are listed after the
student grades. Memos cannot be printed by class, as they
are usually too long to fit on one line.
4. Statistics and plots
You can specify that all students not only meet task score
criteria (above/below certain scores), but also they must
meet database criteria. For example, if you have a
character field for sex (M or F). You can specify that only
males, or only females be plotted. This can be done for any
database item, as you can specify the criteria! See Chapter
X, Analyzing Grades, for more details.
5. Filtering printouts by database items
When printing students, you can use database items to select
or deselect certain students. For example, if you want to
print out scores for only male students, and have a database
character item called "Gender", then you can specify that
all students with the value "M" be used.
The filtering is done on the Write Data Menu ("W" on the
Main Menu). Both printing by section and printing
individual students can be "filtered". However, when
printing individual students, the filtering only works when
you press the <F1> key (all students). For either type of
printing, you need to specify the database item to use, and
whether to match the item, use values above the item, or
66
Database Items
values below the item. If you match the item, if any part
of the student's database value matches the string you enter
that student will be selected. After you select the item
and the selection criterium, the menu will state that
filtering is "ON".
6. Writing data for another program
Data that is written to comma and quote or flat files will
include the database items you specify. On the Write Menu
("W" on the Main Menu), you can change which items will be
written. This must be done before you write the scores.
Therefore, to write database items to files, you first
specify which ones, then you tell the program to write to a
file. By default, no database items are written unless
first specified.
67
VIII. ENTERING GRADES
Grades can be entered into the program in either of two
ways. Either the whole class can be listed for a set of tasks on
the "D" option of the Main Menu, or every grade for an individual
student can be listed in the "I" option on the Main Menu.
A. Entering Data for the Whole Class
The "D" option of the Main Menu lets you enter task data for
all students in the class.
1. Moving around the screen
Students, IDs, sections, database items, and tasks can be
listed on the screen. To enter scores into the class, the
tasks must have already been defined. Defining a task can
be done in the "T" option on the Main Menu, or by pressing
<AltT> when entering data by the whole class. Although all
task scores can be displayed, only number, letter, and extra
credit tasks can have scores entered. The others are
calculated by VAR Grade. Note that special tasks at the end
of the list to display may, at times, not be visible. If
you need to see them, make sure the last task you tell the
program to list is a regular task.
A cell is a datum. It can be a task score, a name, etc. To
move between cells, either the cursor keys, <Tab> and <Shift
Tab>, or a mouse can be used. The cursor keys are the ones
on the keypad, including the arrows and the <Home>, <End>,
etc. keys. The current cell is highlighted, and the name of
the student on the left is also highlighted (but in a
different color).
If you "use" cursor keys, then you use <Ctrl>-cursor keys to
move between cells, while the left and right arrow keys move
within the cell. Otherwise, use the <Left arrow>, <Right
arrow>, etc. keys to move between the cells. You can change
between "using" and not using cursor keys for editing by
pressing <CtrlE> at any time. If you move past the right
end of the screen, the tasks are scrolled to the left. The
leftmost column, student names (or IDs), however, always
stays listed on the screen. If there too many students to
68
Entering Grades
fit on one screen, the list will scroll up as you move down
the screen.
The <Tab> key will move you to the next cell, while the
<Shift Tab> moves you to the previous cell.
If you have a mouse, you can move between cells by moving
the mouse cursor to a cell and pressing the <Left button>.
If there are more students than can be seen on one screen, a
stippled area on the right of the screen can be seen ("mouse
bar"). There are arrows at the top and bottom of the area.
If you press the <Left button> on the arrows, you move up or
down one name. Holding the button down on the arrow
repeatedly moves the cursor. If you press the <Left button>
on the stippled area, the cursor will move to the relative
area of the class. For example, if you press the <Left
button> in the middle of the stippled area, you will move to
the middle of the class. If there are more columns than can
fit on one screen, you will see a similar stippled area on
the bottom of the screen (another "mouse bar"). This works
just like the one on the right, except it moves the cursor
horizontally between columns instead of vertically between
students. The <Middle button> (for three-button mice),
deletes the data in the current cell. The <Right button> is
equivalent to pressing <Esc>.
The top of the screen lists some special keys. They are:
Key(s) Movement/action
<AltB> Move to the beginning, left hand column.
<AltC> Change columns. This changes what task scores and
database items are shown on the screen.
<AltD> Delete the student where the cursor is. This
immediately deletes the student.
<AltE> Move to the end column (the farthest right).
<AltF> Fill unused scores in the column with a grade, or
fill a database item with a value. You are asked
for the grade or value.
<AltI> Insert a new student before the student where the
cursor is. If the cursor is at the end of the
line, insert the new student after the current
one.
<AltL> Locate an item in the current column. You are
asked for the value to match. The next item that
has that value in it is located.
<AltM> Popup memo.
69
Key(s) Movement/action
<AltO> Options. These change how the current screen
works.
<AltP> Plot. If the cursor is on a task, that one is
plotted. Otherwise, you are asked for the task to
plot.
<AltR> Recalculate the current student's scores.
<AltS> Save the data to memory. It is not saved to disk.
To do that, use the <AltW> option, or the "S"
option on the Main Menu.
<AltT> Define a new regular task.
<AltU> Restore (undo) the data in that cell. This works
only if you have not left the cell.
<AltW> Writes the current class to disk.
<AltZ> Change sections for entering data. This is only
shown if there is more than one section in the
class.
<F10> Delete the data in that cell.
2. Changing the items listed
To change which data is listed on the screen, use the key
<AltC>. This can be used to change the database items and
tasks that are listed, as well as whether the names, IDs,
and section numbers are listed.
After pressing <AltC>, you are asked (a) whether to list the
student names, IDs, section numbers, and database items.
Each has a Y or N next to it. A "Y" means list the item, an
"N" means don't list it. Press <AltS> when you are finished
choosing. (b) Next, you pick which tasks you want listed on
the screen.
These options are saved by the program, so that the next
time you use the program, that same list is shown. Any time
you define a regular task, it will be added to the end of
the list of tasks. Often, only the first characters of the
task name are listed. How many characters depends upon the
total points for the task. The task numbers are also listed
at the top of the columns. If you need to see more
characters, you can change the minimum width by pressing
<AltO> to reach the options screen, then specifying a new
width.
If you decide to list special tasks, the numbers cannot be
altered by you. However, you can tell the program to
recalculate the numbers by pressing <AltR>. This key causes
70
Entering Grades
recalculation of the scores for the student where the cursor
is located. Automatic recalculations are not done, as they
could slow down the data entry very significantly.
Each item you want listed takes up memory. If you are low
on memory, you should list only one or two tasks and
database items, rather than all of them. This will save
memory. If you have more than one section of students, you
can also save memory by entering data with only one section
at a time, rather than all the sections. Changing sections
is done with the <AltZ> key.
3. Enter the data
You can use the cursor keys or mouse to move around the
class and screen. Unentered scores are left blank. You can
enter the new scores in the appropriate places. To keep the
same score, type only a <Rtn> or use the <Tab> or cursor
keys to move to the next cell.
When you type in new data, the previous data will disappear.
After entering a cell, if you first type a number or letter,
the old data disappears. If you type a special key (a
<Backspace>, cursor, or function key), the data is retained.
To slightly alter the old data, press a special key, then
edit the data. If the data disappeared, and you want it
back, press <AltU> (undo). The undo must be done before you
leave that cell.
If you don't want the old data to disappear when a normal
key is pressed, you may turn this off by pressing <AltO>.
When it mentions "blanking a cell" on the first normal
character, say "N".
To enter a new number score, put in a new number between the
minimum allowed points and the total possible points of that
task. Numbers that are too high are normally rejected with
a chirping sound. You can turn off the sound, or make it
louder, by pressing <AltO>. You can allow more points than
the possible points by turning off error checking on that
same menu.
The minimum allowed points are -1,000,000, while the maximum
for any task is 1,000,000. You can use decimal points in
number scores. To enter a zero, you must type a "0". Cells
for tasks that are left blank revert to unentered scores.
NOTE: Scores will be listed be the number of decimal places
71
that you designate. The default is one decimal place, but
you can change it to 0 (if you don't use decimals) or up to
5 decimal places. The minimum allowed points and the
decimals listed can be changed by pressing <AltO>.
NOTE: Scores higher than the allowed points for the task
will not be accepted. A noise will occur when you leave
the cell. The noise can be altered by pressing <AltO>,
and error checking can be turned off on the same screen.
If you are entering letter grades, only letters that are in
the names of the grades are allowed (e.g., for grades from A
to F, only the letters A, B, C, D, and F are allowed).
You can also alter the student name, ID, and section
numbers. To delete a student, delete the name (e.g., with
<F10>), or use <AltD>. To insert a new student, press
<AltI>. The student will be added to the line where the
cursor is located. You can protect changes to the student
names by pressing <AltO>, then setting the appropriate
option. This is highly recommended.
Press <Esc> or <AltS> to stop entering scores. With <Esc>,
the data in the current cell is discarded and you can quit
without saving any of the changes, while <AltS>
automatically saves it to memory, but not to the disk.
If you are low on memory, you might not be able to enter
data for all the students. You can make the program use
less memory by either:
(a) Pressing <AltC> to change what columns are listed.
Not listing ID, section number, database items, or
listing fewer tasks will save memory.
(b) If there is more than one section of students in the
class, press <AltZ> to have the program list fewer
classes (e.g., list only section 2).
(c) Reduce the amount of memory the program uses for
overlays (see Chapter XIII, Section F).
4. Quick filling in of scores or database items
On some assignments, most of the students receive the same
grade, or need the same value on database items. You can
fill in the needed values very quickly by moving to the
desired column and pressing <AltF>. If you are on a column
with a grade, you are then asked for the new grade to enter.
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Entering Grades
If the column is for a letter grade, you may enter a letter
grade, otherwise enter a number. All unentered scores in
the column will receive that grade. Students that have
already had grades entered are left unchanged. If you are
on a database item, empty database values are filled with
the new value.
5. Listing sections
If you have more than one section in the class, you can
change which sections are listed by pressing <AltZ>. Enter
a new list of sections. If you are short of memory, or if
the program is slow in entering or leaving this section, you
should list fewer sections to speed things up.
6. Inline calculator
VAR Grade sports an inline calculator. If you have used
computer calculators, you have seen them pop up and look
like a hand-held calculator. This isn't necessary. VAR
Grade does the math calculations without popping up. It
doesn't look as fancy, but requires less work to use.
The main purpose of the inline calculator, which is
available whenever floating point (decimal) numbers are
entered, is to let you add up point totals for a student's
exam. One way to do this is to define a different task for
each question in the exam, enter the numbers, then calculate
a sum. The inline calculator is much faster and easier, but
doesn't save the numbers from each question.
It is called an inline rather than a popup calculator
because you only need to press a "+", "-", "/", or "*" to
activate it. The "*" means multiplication.
If you are entering scores, and haven't added up the points
on the exams, the inline calculator is ready to be used.
Type in the first score, then a "+". The first score will
be moved one cell to the left, and a "+" sign is shown. You
then type in the next score. The score will be
automatically calculated. You can then enter another "+",
and another score, etc. When you are finished, you can end
with a "=", or by using any cursor key. The finished score
will be automatically pasted into the original cell.
Example: You have a student test. The student received a 10
on the first question, 23 on the second, and 13 on the
73
third. To calculate the score, type in a "10", then a
"+". The inline calculator is now visible. Then type in
a "23", and another "+". The calculator show a "33 + ".
Next, type in the "13" and an "=". The calculator will
disappear, and "46" will appear in the cell. You could
also have ended the calculation by typing in a <Down
Arrow> instead of an "=".
NOTE: The calculator keeps track of decimal places. It will
paste in a number that has at least as many decimal places
as the numbers you use. If you divide a number, it will
retain a minimum of two decimal places.
7. Popup memos
If you have defined a database memo, and press <AltM>, a
popup memo field will appear. It will be for the student
who is on the line where the cursor was when <AltM> was
pressed. You will be able to type in up to the number of
characters that you specified as being in the memo field.
The lines are "word wrapped" like most word processors. To
exit the popup memo, press a <Rtn> or <AltS>.
If you have defined more than one memo field, you can move
between them by pressing <AltN> for the next one, or <AltP>
for the previous one.
8. Plots
You can plot the current grades of any task while entering
data by pressing <AltP>. If the cursor is on a task, that
task will be plotted. Otherwise, you are asked for the task
to plot. You can plot to the screen, to disk, or to a
printer. Note that the Plot Menu, "P" on the Main Menu, has
many more types of plots.
(a) Options
The following options are all specified by the <AltO> key,
then the option changed.
You can specify the type of plot to do when you press the
<AltP> key. The default is to plot with 3D bars.
However, you can plot with 2D bars, or you can plot pie
charts instead of bar charts, or you can have the program
just list the scores (no plot).
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Entering Grades
In addition, you can make the program always ask you for
the task to plot, instead of picking the one where the
cursor is located.
You can specify whether the program plots all the scores,
the ones you choose, or divides the scores into grade
categories. This is done on the Plot Menu, "P" on the
Main Menu, then "O".
9. Recalculations
Automatic recalculations are not done by the program.
However, you can force an individual student's scores to be
recalculated by pressing <AltR>. Some of the options, like
<AltW>, will force recalculations of all the scores.
10. Locating a value
If you have lots of students in a class, you may have
trouble locating a student or value of a cell. You can
press <AltL> to locate an item. The program asks for the
value to locate. It then starts at the next student and
searches for the value. The search only is done for the
column where the cursor is located. If that student or
value is not what you wanted, you can repeat the search. If
you want to search through all students, move to the first
column first by pressing <Ctrl-PageUp>, then press <AltL>.
11. Options
You have a large amount of control over how the program
works. Pressing <AltO> will show you many of the options
you can change. A quick synopsis of them is listed below.
Most of these are discussed in other parts of the manual.
Alteration of names: you can prevent names from being
altered when entering data.
Column width: you can widen the columns to get longer names
of the tasks at the top.
Blank cell: the program normally blanks a cell if you type a
character. You can turn this off, and make the old value
stay there.
<Rtn> moves right: normally, a <Rtn> moves you to the next
cell to the right. You can make a <Rtn> move you to the
next cell down.
75
Verify entered values: normally, the program verifies typed
in number grades for valid scores. You can turn this off,
allowing scores above 100%.
Noise when errors: If values are too large, the program
chirps at you. You can change the noise level.
Plot numbers: you can make the program always ask for plot
numbers when <AltP> is pressed.
Plot type: you can change from 3D bars to any of three other
types.
Unentered as zero: used in recalculating grades. Unentered
scores can be ignored or set to 0 points.
Truncate scores: scores can be truncated or rounded. If
truncated, 89.96 will truncate to 89.9, while it will be
rounded to 90.0 (if rounding to 1 decimal place).
Minimum allowed points: normally scores below zero are
always ignored by the program. You can set this value to
a negative number, if needed. If you assing T-scores or
Z-scores, you should set the minimum to a negative number
like -10.
Decimals separator: needed for some countries that don't use
periods, and can be set to any character.
Decimal places: you can specify how many decimal places to
use in printouts and calculations.
11. Hints
(a) When entering data for the whole class, only the
beginning of the task names is listed. It is helpful to
give the beginning of names unique labels. The names can
be up to 20 characters long, but only the first few
characters are displayed. You can enter scores into any
defined task whether or not the task name exists.
However, unique names will help you make sure you are
entering scores into the correct task. Alternatively, you
can change the display widths by pressing <AltO>.
(b) Besides the inline calculator, VAR Grade can be used to
add up points on any task. To use VAR Grade to add up
scores for questions on a test, for example, you can
define Task 20 as question 1, Task 21 as question 2, etc,
in the "T" option on the Main Menu. Then, define Task 22
as the Sum of Tasks 20 and 21. Voila! You used the
program to add up the points on questions 1 and 2 of the
task. You could then also use VAR Grade to do statistics
on each individual question. If you have a large number
of questions on the task, this could get a little tedious,
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Entering Grades
as you need to define each question and enter the grades
for each one.
B. Entering Individual Student Data
The "I" option of the Main Menu lets you enter task data for
all tasks of individual students. The program will list all
the tasks for one student, as well as all the database items.
The only tasks you can alter are the number, letter, and extra
credit tasks. Use the cursor keys to move around the screen.
You can alter the student names, IDs, sections, or database
items. Unentered scores are left blank. To delete a score,
make the cell blank (e.g., with the <F10> key). To keep the
same score, type only a <Rtn> or use the cursor keys to move to
the next cell.
To enter a new score, put in a new number between the fewest
allowed points and the total possible points. The minimum
allowed points are -1,000,000, while the maximum points are
1,000,000. To enter a zero, you must type a "0". Press <Esc>
or <AltS> to stop entering scores. With <Esc>, you can quit
without saving the changes, while <AltS> automatically records
the changes. You can also alter the student names, IDs, and
section numbers. To delete a student, delete the name (e.g.,
with <F10>), or press <AltD>.
The top of the screen lists some special keys. They are:
Key Movement
<AltB> Move to the first student in the class.
<AltD> Delete the current student. This takes immediate
effect.
<AltF> Find a student. You will pick from a list of all
the students in the class.
<AltI> Insert a new student before the current student.
<AltL> Move to the last student in the class.
<AltM> Database memo.
<AltN> Move to the next student.
<AltO> Options for this screen.
<AltP> Move to the previous student.
<AltR> Recalculate the scores of the current student.
<AltS> Save the data to memory. It is not saved to disk.
To do that, use the "S" option on the Main Menu.
The inline calculator, described in Section A5, above, also
works in this section of the program. The popup memos, reached
77
by pressing <AltM>, work exactly the same in this section as
described in section A6, above.
The <AltO> option allows you to change how data is entered into
the program. Most of these are discussed in section A10,
above. The one specific to this part of the program is listed
below:
List all the tasks: you can tell the program to list only
the input tasks. The normal way lists all the tasks. If
you have lots of tasks, listing only the input tasks is
more likely to fit them all on one screen.
C. Saving Entered Data to Disk
It is strongly recommended that you save the data you have just
entered as soon as possible after entering it. Although the
program won't let you exit without saving changes, in case of
power failures or computer failure, you will have a copy on
disk of your new data. You save entered data in the "S" option
on the Main Menu. You will be asked for the filename to save
the data to. The filename for the current class is listed on
the line, and just pressing <Rtn> will do the trick. If you
want to change the filename, change it, then press <Rtn>. If
you change the name, further updates will be made with the new
name.
WARNING: When you "save" data in the "D" or "I" options of the
program with <AltS>, you are saving it to memory, not to a
disk file.
NOTE: The file that contains your student data is normally
made a "read-only" file. This means that you cannot delete
it with the DOS del or erase commands. You can tell the
program to write your files "read-only", as "hidden" (the
DOS dir command will not even list the file), or "normal".
Normal files can be deleted in DOS. The program also makes
backup files "normal", hence they can easily be deleted.
Details on how to change the way the program saves the class
data are in Chapter XIII, Section A.
1. Backing up data
It is also recommended that you keep two copies of your
class data on disk. To encourage this practice, the "F"
(file) option on the Main Menu has a backup ("W") option to
write the class to another directory or disk. The program
will suggest writing the file to either drive A or B, so
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Entering Grades
that the data will be on floppy disks. If you are using
drive A for your class, the program will suggest drive B,
otherwise it will suggest writing to drive A. You can, of
course, pick any other drive or directory.
2. Previous versions of VAR Grade
Some people use VAR Grade on two different computers. If
one of these has limited memory (less than 400K), versions 4
and above of the program will not be able to fit into
memory. You can save your data in a format that earlier
versions of the program will understand. To do so, when on
the Main Menu, press <Alt2> (simultaneously press the "Alt"
and "2" keys) to write the data in a way that is
understandable to version 2, or <Alt3> to write version 3
files, <Alt4> for version 4 files, or <Alt5> for version 5
files.
WARNING: If you use this option, some of the information in
your class may be lost. Specifically, any task types that
do not exist in the previous versions will be converted to
ones that are understandable to that version, which may
not be what you want. If you use this option, use only
features in this version that exist in the previous
version.
79
IX. ATTENDANCE
Attendance dates can be defined and attendance entered for
up to 240 different days. The attendance is entered either by
the whole class, or by individual students in a manner analogous
to entering data for tasks. You can also prepare up to two
different seating charts for each section of a class. Attendance
and seating is found in the "A" option of the Main Menu.
A. Defining Attendance Days
You define attendance days in the "D" option of the Attendance
Menu. There are three methods by which you can define a new
attendance day. First, to choose the next undefined day, press
<F1>. Second, you may type in the number, from 1 to 240, of
the day. Third, you can press <F2> to use a calender to define
a whole series of attendance days.
1. Typing in the days
In the first two cases, you need to give the day a name or
date. In fact, it is required that you enter a name or date
before the attendance is defined. To make it easy to enter
dates, the function keys <F3> through <F8> can be used to
automatically enter the dates. The keys are defined as the
following:
Key Meaning
<F3> The date two days ago.
<F4> The date yesterday.
<F5> The date today.
<F6> The date tomorrow.
<F7> The date in two days.
<F8> The date any number of days from todays date, up
to 365 days away. Enter the days.
Example: To enter the date one week earlier,
enter a -7.
The dates that are entered are in whatever format you have
chosen. The date format can be changed in the "O" option on
the Main Menu, then "D". Changing the format affects how
dates will be printed on documents as well as how they are
entered in attendance.
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Attendance
2. Using the calender
The third option uses a calender to define dates. After
pressing <F2>, you are asked what days of the week the class
is held. You enter the number of the day: 1 for Sunday, 2
for Monday, etc. When you have listed all the days, press
<Rtn>.
Example: If the class is held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and
Fridays, press "246<Rtn>"
You will then see a calender. The calender will have from
six to eighteen months, depending upon the current screen
mode. Today's date is highlighted. At the bottom of the
screen, you enter the numbers of the first month and day of
the class, and the numbers of the last month and day of the
class. The program then defines attendance days and makes
the names for the dates. All the days between and including
the two dates you have entered and that are the same days of
the week as your class are made into attendance days. If
you have a mouse, you can pick the starting and ending days
by moving the mouse cursor to the day and pressing the <Left
button>.
When you enter the number of the month, the program picks
the first month with that number starting with the first
month shown on the screen. In other words, if you show
February through July, 1993 on the screen, and type in "1"
as the month, January of 1994 is the selected month. If you
want January of 1993, press <Page Up> to show January on the
screen, then type a "1".
Note: Since schools have holidays on different days, and
this program is used throughout the world, the program
cannot know which days are holidays.
The format used when defining dates is the one currently
defined by you. You should define the date format before
you define the days.
3. Removing days
If you accidentally define some days, you can delete them.
When defining days, press <AltD>. Next, select the days to
delete. You are then asked if you really want to delete the
days. Then, if you continue, the days will be deleted. You
can also remove blank days. If, for example, you have
81
defined days 1 through 5, and 9 through 12. If you type
<AltC>, days 9 through 12 will be moved down to 6 through 9.
The combination of these two commands, <AltD> and <AltC>,
therefore, can remove and revise your attendance.
B. Changing Attendance Defaults
By default, when attendance days are defined, the student
attendance is made "Present". There are thirteen categories of
attendance: Present, Excused, Unexcused, Late, Not Entered,
Other, Present 2, Excused 2, Unexcused 2, Late 2, Other 2,
Activity 1, and Activity 2. These use the characters " ", "E",
"U", "L", "_", "O", "P", "C", "N", "T", "Y", "A", and "B",
respectively. The default student attendance and the
characters associated with them can be altered on the "A"
(Attendance) option of the Main Menu, then "O". In addition,
the names of the attendance categories can be changed, as well.
If you want to change the defaults, the Attendance Defaults
screen will list the current values. The default new student
attendance will be highlighted or, if you have a monochrome
monitor, underlined (unless you've changed the default colors).
Use the cursor keys or a mouse to move around the menu. To
select a new default student attendance, move to the type and
then press <Rtn>. The new value will now be highlighted. To
change the letters for the different types of attendance, move
to the type and pick the new key or keys. You can use up to
two keys for an attendance day. To simplify matters, lowercase
letters are converted to uppercase letters. The allowed keys
are all the letters, except the lowercase letters, as they are
automatically converted to uppercase letters.
One aspect of attendance should be mentioned. The program can
add up attendance of various types. One method of adding them
up is total days present and total days absent. For these
calculations, present includes the attendance types of present,
present 2, late, late 2, activity 1, and activity 2. Absent
includes excused, excused 2, unexcused, unexcused 2, other, and
other 2. Not entered isn't included in either category. If
you change the attendance names, try to keep in mind how they
are treated with respect to being present or absent.
C. Entering Class Attendance
To enter attendance for all students in your class, use the "C"
option of the Attendance Menu. This option works like the "D"
option of the Main Menu for entering task data.
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Attendance
1. Choose the dates
When entering data, both the students and days are listed on
the screen. Just as in entering task scores, to change the
days in the columns you use the key <AltC>. You can then
pick which days to list on the screen, as well as whether to
list the names, IDs, and sections. See Chapter VIII,
Section A for more details. If you define new attendance
days, they are automatically be added to the end of the list
of days to display (if the list has fewer than 20 days).
When entering data, the top of the screen lists valid keys
and key codes for the attendance. Below the keys, the days
are listed by name and number. The names are listed by the
first several letters of the date, just as tasks are in the
"D" option of the Main Menu. Student names and/or IDs are
on the left of each row. If you have numerous days you want
displayed, not all of them may fit on the screen at once.
If you move to the right, more may be displayed. The names
or IDs in the leftmost column are always displayed, and the
current student is highlighted.
2. Enter the data
You can use the cursor keys or mouse to move around the
class and screen. The valid keys are listed at the top of
the screen. Only those keys will be accepted. To delete a
student, delete the name (e.g., with <F10>), or use <AltD>.
To add a new student, type <AltI>. If all the keys used for
the attendance types are only one key, you only need to
enter one key. However, if two keys are used by any
attendance type, you can enter up to two characters per day.
When quitting this section, any changes made to the screen
are saved by pressing <AltS>.
3. Options
Like the screens for entering scores, the attendance screens
have <AltO> options. On the option screen are several
options that affect entering of data. The options are
described below.
Alteration of names: you can prevent names from being
altered when entering data.
Blank cell: the program normally blanks a cell if you type a
character. You can turn this off, and make the old value
stay there.
83
<Rtn> moves right: normally, a <Rtn> moves you to the next
cell to the right. You can make a <Rtn> move you to the
next cell down.
Column width: you can widen the columns to get longer names
of the attendance days at the top.
You can also change the keys for the attendance types, and
the default attendance type, like on the Attendance Defaults
screen ("A" on the Main Menu, then "O").
D. Entering Individual Student Attendance
To change attendance for just one student, use the "I" option
of the Attendance Menu. The program will list all of the
currently defined attendance days for a student. You can alter
the attendance for any day, as well as the student name, ID, or
section. To keep the same attendance, type a <Rtn> or use the
cursor keys to move to another day. To enter a new attendance
value, put in a new letter (from the list near the top of the
screen). Press <Esc> to erase the data or <AltS> to save it
when finished. To delete a student, delete the name (e.g.,
with <F10>), or use <AltD>. To add a new student, type <AltI>.
To change how this screen works, press <AltO>. The options are
identical to those described above for attendance by class.
This part of the program works just like the "I" option of the
Main Menu. For more details, see Chapter VIII, Section B.
E. Default Attendance Task Values
When you define an attendance or attendance extra credit task,
the program will suggest value for the number of days to
discard and the weights for the various types of attendance.
Although you can change these when you define the attendance
tasks, you can change the default values on the Attendance Menu
(the "V" option). The number of days you can discard is one
less than the number of attendance days used to define the
task. The weights that you can use may be any number greater
than or equal to zero.
F. Seating Charts
Seating charts can be defined from the Attendance Menu, option
"A" on the Main Menu. There are two types of seating charts:
rectangular and drag 'n drop. For regular charts, in general,
what you need to do is to define how many rows and columns of
seats that you have in your classroom, and then enter numbers
to tell the program where each student is sitting. For the
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Attendance
drag 'n drop charts, you use a mouse or cursor keys to move the
desks around the room. The seating chart printouts will list
both the teacher and where the students sit, viewed from where
the teacher sits or uses the seating chart.
You can have two different seating charts for each section of
students in your class.
1. Defining a regular (rectangular) seating chart
To define a rectangular seating chart, press "S" (Seating)
on the Attendance Menu. If a previous seating chart has
been defined, you will be asked whether to delete a previous
chart or to redefine chart one or two. If you redefine a
chart, the previous student seat numbers are kept, but the
desks can be rearranged.
Next, you will be asked to choose how many columns (width of
room) and rows (depth of room) there are in the classroom.
It is assumed that the seats are arranged in a rectangular
position. The maximum allowed values are 10 rows and 10
columns.
2. Placing students on a rectangular chart
After defining a seating chart, you need to specify where
each student sits. There are four methods. First, you can
place them alphabetically. Second, you can place them
reverse alphabetically. Third, you can randomly place them.
Fourth, you can choose where each student sits by picking
seat numbers.
To choose a seat number, the numbers are listed at the top
of the screen, with the position of the instructor listed
(when viewing the chart). It doesn't matter whether the
instructor is at the front, back, or side of the class--
position the desks so the chart will be written from the
perspective of where the instructor is positioned (at the
top). To add the seat numbers to the students, just move
the cursor to each student and type in the number of the
seat. It is not required that each student have a seat,
however, those that don't will not be listed on the chart.
If more than one student occupies a seat, only one will be
listed on the chart--the first one found by the program.
85
3. Drag 'n drop seating charts
The other type of seating, drag 'n drop, lets you place each
desk. Choose option "N" on the Attendance Menu. If a chart
exists, you are asked whether to revise or delete an old
chart, and whether to use chart 1 or 2. After choosing, you
see a graphic screen showing the students with associated
desks.
(a) Using a mouse
The easiest method is to use a mouse to move the desks.
Move the mouse cursor to a desk that you want to move.
Press the <Left button>. That desk should become filled
in. While still holding the button down, move the mouse
and associated desk until it is in the correct position.
Then release the mouse. Repeat this for each desk. You
cannot move the desk off the screen or above the line near
the top of the screen.
When finished, use the mouse to move to the "OK" or
"CANCEL" buttons on the lower right of the screen. Press
the <Left button> on the desired choice. "OK" saves the
new seating chart, "CANCEL" doesn't.
(b) Using the cursor keys
The solid desk is the current desk. To change to a
different desk, press the <Tab> or <Shift Tab> keys.
<Tab> moves to the next student, <Shift Tab> moves to the
previous one. When the correct desk is highlighted, use
the arrow keys to move the desk. The <Up>, <Down>,
<Left>, and <Right> arrow keys move the desk. When all
the desks have been moved, press <AltS> to save the
changes, or <Esc> to quit without saving the changes.
(c) Reverse image desks
For a highlighted desk, pressing <AltR> will reverse the
student name and desk. The student name will now be
printed before the desk instead of after. Pressing <AltR>
again will reverse the desk back to the original version.
4. Printing a chart
To print the chart, press "P" on the Attendance Menu. If
you have more than one section of students, you are asked
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Attendance
for the section to print. Next, you are asked what type of
names to use for the seats. If you have defined a drag 'n
drop chart, you are then asked whether to print a
rectangular or drag 'n drop chart.
(a) Rectangular charts
The chart must have already been defined, but students
need not have desks assigned: empty desks are also listed.
The names are listed behind the desks (as seen from the
instructor). If the names are too long to fit onto one
line, they will be printed on up to 5 lines per row of
desks. The start of the student name is positioned at the
left side of the desk (if more than one line is used to
print the student names for a row of desks, the first
student will be on one line, the second on the next, the
third on the first or third line, etc.). The desk is
written as a small "square", so it can be used to check
off if the student is present or absent.
(b) Drag 'n drop charts
The chart is printed with graphics, and using the
currently defined font. The instructor is placed at the
top of the chart, where the line was when you defined the
chart. When you define the chart, both first and last
names of the students are shown. When printing the chart,
you can print just first names, if desired. If you have a
lot of students, this may allow you to better fit the
students on the chart.
5. Removing the chart
To remove a rectangular chart, press "S" (seating) on the
Attendance Menu, then "D" (delete chart 1), or "E" (erase
chart 2). The chart and all seating numbers for the
students will be deleted.
To remove a drag 'n drop chart, press "N" on the Attendance
Menu, then "D" or "E".
87
X. ANALYZING THE GRADES
Grades can be analyzed a great variety of ways. The methods
are listed in the sections below. Furthermore, all the
statistics and plots listed below can be printed on a printer or
sent to a disk file. Chapter XII, Printing and Reports, explains
the printing. The analyses in this chapter are generally from
the Grading ("G") and Plot ("P") options of the Main Menu.
A. Default Values for Printing
Some of the program options cause a screen to appear that asks
how you want to proceed, this is the Print Menu. Several
options may be listed, including: (a) which printer to use; (b)
what sections to use; (c) whether to print to the screen or to
a printer or disk file; (d) whether to temporarily drop
students from the statistical analysis. Options are only
listed when they are relevant to the current operation.
Picking a printer and deciding where the data should be
displayed are discussed in Chapter XII. The others are
discussed here.
1. Sections
If you have only one section of students in your class, this
option is not displayed. Otherwise, the most recently
selected sections will be listed. Each time you enter the
program, the program will default to using all of the
current sections in the class. If you change the list of
sections, this new list will be used only during the current
session with the program. If there are no sections on the
list, an error message will result, as there can be no
usable data.
2. Temporarily dropping students
You can tell the program to temporarily drop (ignore)
students from the calculations for statistics and/or plots.
This option can be used for students that have incomplete
data. The number of students currently ignored is shown on
the Print Menu screen. Note that these students are ignored
only for statistical purposes. You can still enter data,
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Analyzing the Grades
write scores to printers, etc., unless statistical measures
are needed (e.g., all plots).
When you need to increase or decrease the numbers of
students to ignore, a lists of students will be shown: those
students who have been temporarily dropped from the
statistics calculations are highlighted. You change the
student's status by using either the cursor keys or by using
the mouse <Left button> to toggle their status. The
highlighted students will be ignored for any further
statistics with the program or until their names are removed
from the list of ignored students.
3. Print student numbers
When lists of students are printed, a number can be printed
along with them. These numbers are the sorted order of the
student in the class. If your students are sorted
alphabetically, the numbers would be their alphabetical
order. If you don't want those numbers to be printed, you
can turn this feature off on the Print Menu by typing an
"N".
4. Decimal places
Task scores are decimal numbers, and are written using
decimal numbers. You can specify the number of decimal
places to use in the several of the option screens in the
program in addition to the Print Menu. You can print from 0
to 5 numbers after the decimal point. The number of
decimals to use can be specified for regular tasks and for
special tasks. A lower number will allow more numbers to be
printed on a page. Note that special tasks are more likely
to have decimal numbers, as they are calculated. For
example, averages would most likely have fractions of a
number. You can specify the number of decimal places to use
for these tasks separately from the regular tasks. The
number of places specified for special tasks is also used to
print statistical measures, like means, medians, and
standard deviations.
5. Truncating or rounding numbers
You can choose whether you want numbers to be truncated or
rounded. A truncated number just lops off the end of the
number, while a rounded number checks the last digit before
89
it removes it, and add one to the last remaining digit if
the number is 5 or above.
Examples: If you print with 2 places after the decimal
point, 11.111 will be truncated to 11.11, and rounded to
11.11. 15.317 will truncated to 15.31 and rounded to
15.32.
Truncating and rounding affect printing data and assigning
final grades.
6. Percentiles
When printing student scores, you can also calculate and
list the percentiles for the students. Press "R" on the
Print Menu. Percentiles are the relative place of a student
in the class. More about percentiles is discussed below, as
you can also assign percentile scores to tasks.
7. Where to print
You can print to the screen only, or to a disk file or
printer in addition to the screen. In addition, you can
print preview the data with the "V" (view) option. After
listing the data, a menu pops up that asks whether and where
to print the data you have selected.
B. Defaults Values for Plots
1. Font selection
You can change fonts by pressing "F" when on the Plot Menu.
Font files end with the extension ".CHR". For some
printers, you can also use internal printer fonts. When you
choose a font, you are first asked for the directory where
the font files are located. This will list all the font
files in the directory that you choose. To select the font,
move the cursor to the desired font and press <Rtn>.
WARNING: Some fonts will not look good on some video
monitors or printers.
If you have a laser printer, you can also use printer fonts
for printing plots (but not printing plots to the screen).
When you choose a font, and have a laser printer, you will
be asked whether to use internal (built-in) fonts or the
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Analyzing the Grades
fonts specified in the CHR files. Internal fonts are
specific to a printer, so the ones that are available differ
according to which printer you use.
2. Font size
You can select the font size to use for plots. The default
size if 12 points (pica). If you want to change the size,
go the the Plot Menu ("P" on the Main Menu), then "O"
(options). You can select any size from 6 to 16 points.
3. Assigning a graphics file format
If you print plots to a disk file, they are written in a
format that can be read by other programs. There are
several formats that have been published, and therefore are
commonly available, that can be used. Most of these can be
read by many different programs. Listed below are common
programs that use these formats.
Format Example Programs
BMP MS Windows Paintbrush
CGM Computer Graphics Metafile
IMG Image graphics (GEM)
Format Example Programs
PCX PC Paintbrush
TIFF Tagged Image File Format
WPG Word Perfect
WMF Windows Metafile
The TIFF format supports up to 300 dpi (Laser resolution).
The others are at VGA screen resolution. Therefore, if you
have a choice, pick TIFF. Most major word processors,
desktop publishers, and paint programs support most or all
of these formats.
For the TIFF format, you can select low, medium, or high
resolution. The others all print only one resolution (VGA).
4. Picking plot intervals
For most of the plots, you can select the high and low
values to plot. You can tell the program to ask for these
values, to automatically select all the scores, or to use
predefined grade cutoffs for the plots. The default is to
use predefined grade cutoffs (if you have defined them,
otherwise the program automatically selects all students).
91
You can change to one of the other three choices on the Plot
Menu, the "P" option of the Main Menu, then "O". The
choices are, "A" (all scores), "C" (select your own
cutoffs), and "G" (use the grade cutoffs).
(a) Grade cutoffs option
If you use predetermined grade cutoffs, such as 90% for an
A, 80% for a B, etc., this is the option you probably want
to use. For each task, the scores will be put into grade
categories and plotted. You therefore know how many
students earned each grade on that task.
If you use the grade cutoffs option, the grade cutoffs
will also be used in the listing of the descriptive
statistics on the "G" option of the Main Menu.
(b) Pick your own cutoffs option
With this option, you must specify the range of scores to
plot (the high and low scores). The program will ask for
these numbers each time you plot or correlate scores. If
you type <Rtn> when asked for the high and/or low scores,
without having typed in a number, the program chooses the
highest or lowest score in the class, whichever is
appropriate. If there are no students in the range of
scores that was chosen, an error message will result and
no scores are plotted.
By picking different ranges of scores, you can zoom in on
various groups of students to see how they have done,
rather than seeing scores only for the entire class. One
of the most useful features of picking the low range is to
prevent a very low score from skewing a plot.
(c) All scores option
This option will plot all scores above the minimum allowed
points, but will not separate the scores into grade
categories, like the grade cutoffs option.
(d) What you see
If you select your own cutoffs, let the program do it, or
plot percentiles, the program will plot by separating the
scores into 10 to 25 groups of students, and then
mathematically calculating the plot intervals.
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Analyzing the Grades
If you use letter grades or use grade cutoffs, you will
see the scores plotted as grades, not numbers. If
appropriate, the corresponding cutoffs are listed on the
right of the graphs. Since the grade cutoffs are not
necessarily evenly spaced, the plot intervals are
therefore also not necessarily evenly spaced
mathematically (but will look evenly spaced). This option
affects the plots, pie charts, and correlation plots.
5. 2D versus 3D plots
Some plots can be done either with bars that look two
dimensional (2D), or with bars that look three dimensional
(3D). The plots are otherwise the same.
C. Plotting the Scores of a Class
By selecting the "P" (plot) option on the Main Menu, the scores
for any of the tasks can be plotted. The program lists the
tasks and asks which task should be plotted. On the Plot Menu,
"P" will plot the scores, and "T" will give the same plot with
3D bars. Plotting the scores follows the sequence below.
1. Choose a task
You will see a list of all the tasks. To see any that are
not listed on the screen, use the cursor keys or a mouse.
If you pick task zero or <Esc>, the program exits this
section without plotting. Otherwise, the task is plotted.
2. Score ranges
The plot uses the method you have specified to pick the
range of scores (see section B3, above). Student scores not
yet entered or lower than the fewest allowed points are not
used for the plots.
3. Defaults
As discussed above, after picking the task and a range of
scores, you can pick which section(s) of students to use and
where to print the scores. See sections A and B of this
chapter for more details.
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4. Plotting the scores
The plot separates the scores into up to 25 categories of
scores. It also shows the mean, median, and standard
deviation of the scores for the task (see the section on
"Calculating Statistics" below for a more complete
explanation of what these statistics mean). If there is a
mode, it is plotted, as well. The numbers of students in
each of the score intervals is plotted. The statistics
calculated and printed are for those scores in the chosen
range of scores. If the high or low range of scores are
changed, these statistical measures will, therefore, also
change.
The mean, median, and mode are shown on the plot with
arrows. The description is above or to the right of the
arrow. At one standard deviation above and below the mean,
there are additional arrows (listed as "+1", "-1"). If the
standard deviations fall outside the range of scores
plotted, they will not be displayed.
5. Listing the scores
If you want to see the list of students' scores on a task,
you choose the "L" option on the Plot Menu. The program
lists the scores in two columns: (a) class order (dependent
upon your method of sorting students) and (b) by scores on
that task, from high to low score. The rank order of the
students is also printed, if that option was chosen.
The listing is generated the same way as the plots,
mentioned above. You can therefore both plot and list
students used in the plot for any tasks that you want.
D. Pie Charts of a Class
This plot will divide the class into intervals, then plot them
as a pie chart. In this sense, it is similar to the plots
discussed above, except in pie shape rather than a histogram.
However, too many intervals in a pie can cause overlapping of
titles. Therefore, if there are over 15 grades when plotting
letter grades, they will be combined until there are 15 or
fewer plot intervals. When plotting numbers, only 10 intervals
will be charted. The percent of students in each interval is
also shown. In general, the only difference between the pie
charts and the plots is how the data is presented.
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Analyzing the Grades
E. Calculating and Displaying Statistics
You can calculate statistics without having to plot the scores.
They can either be calculated and printed, or calculated and
the values assigned to tasks.
1. Explanation of statistical terms
(a) Mean, median, mode, standard deviation
The median is the score for the person exactly in the
middle of the class, i.e., exactly half the scores are
above that number and half are below that number. The
mean is the number calculated by adding up all the student
scores and dividing by the number of students in the
class. If you have a "normal" or "bell-shaped"
distribution of scores, the mean and median should be the
same number. In practice they are usually different. The
mode is the interval with the largest number of students.
The standard deviation is a measure of how the scores are
dispersed. The larger the standard deviation, the greater
the range of the scores. A score that is equal to the
mean plus the standard deviation (called "one standard
deviation above the mean") is approximately in the top 16%
of the scores. For a normal distribution, two thirds of
the scores should be within one standard deviation of the
mean. How many standard deviations away from the mean a
student has scored, therefore, is a measure of how the
student did on the task in relation to everyone else. You
can compare scores between tests by comparing the
deviations from the means for each student.
(b) Percentiles
Percentiles are calculated by ranking the students in
order of their scores. These ranks are then converted
into percentages by dividing the rank by the number of
students in the class, subtracting the resulting number
from 1.00, and multiplying the result by 100. So, if
there are 100 students in the class, and a student is the
30th highest score, you would divide 30 by 100, obtaining
0.3. Next, subtract 0.3 from 1.0. The result, 0.7, is
multiplied by 100 to get 70. The student is in the 70th
percentile: he or she did better than 70 percent of the
students in the class.
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(c) T-score
T-scores are an estimate of the standard deviation of a
population. It is also called a Student's t-distribution.
It does not assume a normal distribution, like a standard
deviation does, but instead "samples" the mean.
2. Displaying statistics
Rather than plotting each task to calculate the mean,
median, and standard deviation, you can pick the "G" option
on the Main Menu to reach the Grading Menu, then pick the
"M" option. The mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and
high and low scores are calculated. In addition, a simple
non-graphic histogram is shown.
You can see these statistics for any combination of tasks.
To calculate statistics, you need to choose the tasks to
use, and pick which sections of students to use. The data
is calculated only for those sections that have been
selected. This allows comparisons between different
sections or combinations of sections. Statistics are not
calculated if a task has not been defined or if the task has
less than the fewest allowed points.
3. Assigning statistics
Z-scores (standard deviations), T-scores, and percentiles
tell you how a student did in relation to the other students
in the class. You can calculate these statistical measures
of a task for the class, and assign these numbers to a task.
This is done on the "G" option on the Main Menu, then "T".
On the Assign Statistics Menu, press "S" for standard
deviations (z-scores), "P" for percentiles, or "T" for T-
scores.
You will be asked which task to use for the calculations,
and which to assign the new scores. WARNING: The new task
will be redefined as a number task. If you assign z-scores
(standard deviations) and T-scores, approximately half of
the scores will be below zero. Make sure that you change
the fewest allowed points to a number below the lowest
standard deviation or T-score (see section M, below). A
value of -10 or so is usually sufficient.
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Analyzing the Grades
F. Plotting the Scores of an Individual
You can follow how a student is doing in your class by plotting
the scores for that student on a set of tasks. By selecting,
on the Plot Menu, option "I" for 2D bars or "B" for 3D bars,
you can plot trends for scores of any of the tasks of an
individual student.
1. Picking the tasks
The program lists the tasks and asks you to pick which
one(s) to plot. You can pick as many as you want. Further
explanations of the statistical measures listed below are in
section E1 (above). The following plots can be done:
(a) Scores
This causes the scores on each task to be plotted. One
potential problem with this is that, if each task has a
different number of points, it may be difficult to see
trends and compare scores.
(b) Percentages
This will cause the percentages on each task to be
calculated and plotted. This tells you how well a student
did on each task.
(c) T-scores
The T-scores are calculated for each task, and the
student's T-scores plotted. T-scores are a standard
statistical measure that is discussed above. This tells
you how a student did compared to the mean score of all
the other students.
(d) Percentiles
The percentiles of the student on each task are calculated
and plotted. The best percentile is 99, as that student
did better than 99% of the other students. This ranks the
students in order of their scores, and will tell you the
rank of the student compared to the rank of the other
students.
(e) z-scores (standard deviations from the mean)
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The standard deviations (SD) are calculated for each task,
and the student's SD plotted. SDs are discussed above.
This tells you how a student did compared to the mean
score of all the other students.
2. Listing the scores
The program will plot the task scores and calculate the
statistics. The program assumes that the student trend is a
straight line: either the scores increase or decrease. Note
that this is frequently not the case, hence, these results
should be interpreted with caution. The program then
calculates the best-fitting line for that trend, and plots
it on the graph. The correlation coefficient for the task
scores, as well as the mean, median and standard deviations
are also calculated. These may or may not be useful for
understanding how a student is doing in the class. The
statistics are also listed on the graph. If you choose more
tasks than fits on one screen or page, the list will be
printed on two or more screens or pages.
G. Correlating Different Tasks
By selecting the "C" or "3" options on the Plot Menu, you can
plot the scores for any of the tasks against the scores for any
of the other tasks. This helps you determine if there were any
problems on one or both of those tasks. If the tasks are
measuring different things, the scores will be widely
scattered. This may be an indication that one or both of the
tasks did not measure what you hoped it would. If the tasks
are measuring similar abilities, the scores will tend to
cluster near the diagonal.
1. 2D or 3D plots
In contrast to the other plots, the two different plots for
correlations look quite different. In the 2D plot, the
scores are shown as x's. If two or more x's are on the same
place, the x becomes thicker. For the 3D plot, 3D bars are
plotted. The more students on a point, the higher the bars.
To make the plot easier to interpret, it is slightly skewed.
This makes it easier to tell the difference between tall
bars and bars at different points on the graph.
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Analyzing the Grades
2. Choose the tasks
You must choose the tasks to plot for each of the axes. Any
task can be plotted against any other task. To help in your
selection, the program lists the tasks. If you pick task
zero for either axis, the program will give an error message
and asks again. To exit this section without plotting, type
an <Esc>.
3. Pick a range of scores for each task
If you grade with number grades, for each task that you have
picked, and you have set the program to pick your own
cutoffs, you can pick the high and low scores to plot.
Otherwise, the program selects the intervals for you. If
you just type <Rtn>, the program will pick the highest or
lowest score in the class (whichever is appropriate). If no
students are in the ranges of scores that you pick, no
scores will be plotted and an error message will result.
4. Correlation plot
The plot shows a 20 X 20 matrix of the distribution of the
scores. The correlation coefficient is calculated and
shown. The coefficient ranges from 1.0 (the scores on the
X-axis predict exactly the scores on the Y-axis) to 0.0 (the
scores on the two axes are completely random with respect to
each other) to -1.0 (the low scores on the X-axis predict
high scores on the Y-axis, and vice versa). The closer the
coefficient is to 1.0, the more closely the two tasks
measured the same parameters or abilities (and hence the
students scored more nearly the same on both the tasks). If
the correlation coefficient is close to 0 or below it, then
students who did well on one task did poorly on the other.
If you decide that this result indicates a flaw in one or
both of the tests, the program will allow you to delete one
or both tasks. For the 2D plot, two or more scores on the
same point will show up as a thicker "x", while on the 3D
plot, the bars will get higher and higher with each score.
H. Statistical Plots of the Classes
This type of plot shows plots of the range, mean, median, and
standard deviations of the class for one or more tasks. You
can also show how an individual student scored on those tasks
compared with the entire class. These plots are the "S" and
"1" options on the Plot Menu.
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1. Pick the tasks
You first pick the tasks to plot. You can choose to plot
from one to forty different tasks. If you want to plot an
individual student against the scores, you will also be
asked to choose a student to plot.
2. Plotting the statistics
The program will show the range of scores as wide bars. The
mean is a wide line all the way horizontally across the bar.
The median is a thin horizontal bar all the way across the
wide bar. The mean is a horizontal bar with some vertical
lines in it. The standard deviation is shown as the
vertical line, extending one standard deviation above and
below the mean (which is halfway between the two). At one
standard deviation above and below the mean are horizontal
lines extending halfway across the bar.
If you are plotting the scores of a student as well as the
class, that student's scores are shown as horizontal bars, a
little wider than the wide bar showing the range of scores.
If you plot tasks that have a wide range of scores, some or
all of these measures can end up compressed. Note that, if
you choose, you can pick the score intervals to graph.
The range of scores plotted range from the lowest to the
highest obtained scores on any of the tasks. The widths of
the bars depends upon how many tasks are plotted; the more
tasks, the narrower the bars. The X-axis shows the numbers
of the tasks that were plotted.
I. Horizontal Class and Student Statistics
Section H described one way of plotting the class statistics.
Option "H" on the Plot Menu is another way to plot the same
statistics.
1. Pick the tasks and student
You first pick the tasks to plot. You can choose to plot as
many tasks as you want, but only two can be shown per
screen. You then pick the student to plot versus the class.
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Analyzing the Grades
2. Plotting the statistics
The horizontal plot shows the range of scores as the X-axis.
A wide line shows the high and low student scores on the
task. The mean, median, and standard deviations are shown
on the plot. Below the plot, the student's score is shown.
J. Database Plots
With the exception of the individual plot (section F) and
horizontal plots (section I), you can do all the plots
mentioned above in the "D" (database) option of the Plot Menu.
For these plots, you make the students meet some database
criteria. For example, you could plot all the seniors in the
class separately from all the juniors. What the Database plots
do is filter out those students that don't meet your criteria,
and plot the rest. You can plot students above, below, or
equal to some criteria.
Database plots open up a wide range of possibilities for
analyzing your students. You can check how students of
different ages, sex, year in school, colleges, cities, etc.,
affect how they did on a particular task or set of tasks.
1. Pick the database item
First, you choose which database item to use for the
selection criteria. You can use any database item. Next,
you need to choose the type of criteria. You can choose
students above a value, below a value, or equal to a value.
For strings and characters, these refer to alphabetical
order, where above is later in the alphabet. Next, you are
asked for the item to test. For example, if you are using
age as the criterion, you would enter a number.
2. Plot
You will next be asked the task(s) to use, and continue on
just like the normal plots. Since each plot needs different
criteria, refer to the section on the appropriate plot,
above.
K. Scaling the Tasks
If you grade using number grades, you can scale the regular
tasks differently. Pick the "G" (grade) option of the Main
Menu, then the "S" (scale) option in the Grading Menu. You may
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add any number of points to an task, or multiply the task by
any positive number.
The total points for the task, after scaling, will not change.
If desired, you can readjust the total points manually in the
"T" section of the Main Menu either before or after scaling the
task. Point totals less than the allowed scores are summed as
the lowest allowed score, while scores greater than the total
task points are set at the total points. Students with scores
that have not been entered are not changed (the score is still
undefined).
Scaling allows you to conveniently change point totals for any
number task. It also allows you to add points to one section
and not to others, as the scaling occurs only for those
sections you choose. You cannot scale letter or special tasks.
L. Adjusting the Statistics of a Task
In unusual circumstances, you may want to manually adjust the
mean, median, and standard deviation of a task. The "A" option
on the Grading Menu lets you do this. The "D" option lets you
remove those adjustments.
To adjust the statistics, you need to pick the task to use.
Student scores are adjusted by changing the standard deviation
and the mean. The current values are then displayed. You can
change one or more of these values to any numbers you want.
The student scores are adjusted to reflect the new mean and
standard deviation. These numbers are then used by all the
other parts of the program that calculate these values. To
return to the true values, use the "D" option on the Grading
Menu. Note that, if you revert to the original scores, they
may be slightly different than the true original value due to
rounding off errors.
M. Setting the Fewest Allowed Points
When you first use the program, the fewest points that a
student can have on a task is 0 points. If you want to enter
scores below 0, you can set the fewest allowed points to be
less than zero. It can be set either in the "O" option of the
Main Menu, then "O" again, or by pressing <AltO> when entering
task scores. You can reset the fewest allowed points to as few
as -1,000,000 points.
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Analyzing the Grades
Even though the fewest allowed points may be 0 (or any other
number), you can still enter scores lower than the fewest
allowed points. Students with scores lower than the fewest
allowed points will always be ignored for statistical tests,
and are always considered to be equivalent to unentered scores.
The difference from unentered scores is that unentered scores
can either be ignored or set to 0, while numbers below the
fewest allowed points will always be ignored. When you print
the numbers, both types of scores will be blank or print as
"Not submitted". If you set unentered scores to zero, numbers
below the fewest allowed points will print as "*Not submitted".
This will let you distinguish between the two types of scores.
N. Cropping Graphics Screens
If you print to screen, you can still print the graphics to a
disk or printer file. When you are asked to "press any key to
continue", if you press <CtrlD>, <CtrlP>, or <CtrlF>, you will
be able to select what portion of the screen you want to write.
<CtrlP> will print the graphic directly to a printer, while
<CtrlD> and <CtrlF> will print to a disk file called
"class.xxx", where "xxx" stands for the graphics format (e.g.,
PCX if you are using PCX format). If the extension is already
used, the third character is replaced with a number from 0 to
9. After you press one of the above three keys, the screen is
surrounded by four solid lines. Whatever is within the lines
is printed. NOTE: Since the graph is printed in a different
resolution than the screen, the lines are only approximately
what are printed. To move the lines, move the cursor keys.
They work as shown below (Ctrl-keys move faster):
Key Action
<Right arrow> Moves the leftmost line to the right.
<Ctrl-Right arrow> Moves the leftmost line right 10 pixels.
<Home> Moves the leftmost line to the left.
<Ctrl-Home> Moves the leftmost line left 10 pixels.
<Left arrow> Moves the rightmost line to the left.
<Ctrl-Left arrow> Moves the rightmost line left 10 pixels.
<End> Moves the rightmost line to the right.
<Ctrl-End> Moves the rightmost line right 10 pixels.
<Down arrow> Moves the top line down.
<PgUp> Moves the top line up.
<Ctrl-PgUp> Moves the top line up 10 pixels.
<Up arrow> Moves the bottom line up.
<PgDn> Moves the bottom line down.
<Ctrl-PgDn> Moves the bottom line down 10 pixels.
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XI. ASSIGNING THE GRADES
Just about any grading system can be used with VAR Grade.
Each class can have up to four different grading systems. This
chapter explains how to design your own letter grading system,
how to assign grades, and how to print assigned grades. Each
letter grade has a name, a value, and a cutoff that is used for
assigning grades. Grade values are the numbers used for
calculating averages or percentages, while cutoffs are used for
assigning scores to letter grades in final tasks.
A. Changing the Grade Names
When you start a new class, one of the first things you need to
do is to change the letter grading system to the grading system
you need to use.
The program defaults to the grading system commonly used in the
United States: A through F, with + and - scores. In some
other countries, the program defaults to their most common
grading system. However, you can define any grading system
that has up to 50 different letter grades (plus an "unentered"
or "incomplete" grade). Each grade can have a name of up to
three characters long. You can also assign point totals to the
grades. The grade names and values should be defined and
listed in numerical order. You can also have up to four
different grading systems for one class. For example, you can
have A to F, S and U (satisfactory/unsatisfactory), and P and
NP (pass/not pass).
1. Defining new grade names
To change the grading system, go to the "G" option on the
Main Menu. Choose the "N" option on the Grading Menu.
Next, you are asked whether to use one of a few pre-defined
grading systems, or to define your own system. There are
several predefined grading systems.
If you decide to define your own grading system, you are
first asked how many grading systems to use. If you use
more than one grading system, you need to have defined a
database item to use to specify which grading system a
student uses. You are asked which database item to use, and
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Assigning the Grades
what values are used for which grading system. If a student
has a value that doesn't match any of the grading systems,
it is assumed the student uses grading system 1.
Next, you will be asked to enter the grade names and the
grade values for the grades for each of the grading systems.
Keep in mind that the first grading system is the primary
one, the others are secondary ones. When plotting letter
grades, or doing statistics on letter grades, only the first
system is used. For all other parts of the program, the
grading system doesn't affect the results. These grade
values are for the grades, not the scores that are needed to
obtain the grade (see Section C to define grade cutoffs).
The current grade names and values are listed. To clear
them all, press <AltC>. Enter your own grades and point
values in numerical order. Grade names and point totals can
be changed at any time. However, if you have defined any
letter or final grades, the new grade names may make the old
grades incorrect, as the program converts all letter grades
to numbers and stores the numbers. You are strongly urged
to change the grading system when you define a new class.
You can change the grade values at any time (see Section B).
WARNING: If you change the grading system after assigning
letter grades, the new numbers may translate into a
different grade than you want.
Press <AltS> to save the new grade system. If there is more
than one grading system, you are then asked to enter the
next ones until all have been entered. If you changed any
grades, you are asked for the maximum value of a grade (see
below). You are then asked for the grade name of unentered
scores. In the US, this is usually called an incomplete
("I").
(a) Multiple grading systems
When using multiple grading systems for a class, there are
two things to keep in mind. First, the first grading
system is the primary one. This is the system that is
used for plotting and statistics. In addition, it is the
system used when the program doesn't match the database
item. Second, a database item is used to select the
grading system for the student. If no match of the
student value and the grading system occurs, the student
is assumed to be using grade system 1.
105
For example, you can define a "Grade Options" database
item, with the values 1, 2, and 3. For each of three
grading systems. Then, when you define the multiple grade
systems, tell the program to use a value of 1 for the
first grade system, etc. If a student has a value of 4,
since there are only three systems defined, grading system
1 would be used.
2. Mixing letter and number grades
The previous section described how to assign grade names and
point values. This section describes some of the
considerations that go into making grade values.
The common definition of an A in the US is to assign it a
point value of 4.0. A B is 3.0, and so forth. Some
instructors like to assign letter grades to some things, and
number grades for others. If you then average the grades,
you are averaging a 4.0 with a 100, and getting 52. This is
probably not what you want. If you calculate a percentage
of a B, you would get a 75%. This also may not be what you
want. An alternative is to assign point values on a scale
of 100. One possibility is to assign an A a value of 95.
Assign a B a value of 85, and so forth. Assign a total of
100 points as the maximum. Averaging a 100 and a 95 would
give a 97.5, probably better than the above 52. A percent
of a B would give an 85%, again more what you might expect.
Another possibility is to assign an A+ = 100, an A = 90, a B
= 80, etc. The variations are endless. Changing grade
values is described in Section B. Note that grade values
and grade cutoffs are different..
B. Changing the Grade Values
Grade values are the values of letter grades used in the
calculations of percentages, averages, etc. They are not the
values used to assign grades. Those values are the grade
cutoffs. The preset values for the letter grades are 4.0 for
an A, 3.7 for an A-, etc. You can redefine the grade values at
any time and as often as you want.
Every time you do change them, the grades are recalculated to
reflect the new letter grade values. To do this, go to the "N"
option of the Grading Menu. Option "V" lets you enter new
values, while option "C" uses the cutoff values you have
already entered (option "C" is not available if cutoffs have
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Assigning the Grades
not been defined, see Section C). Before you change the grade
values, you might want to read Section A2, above.
C. Automatic Grade Cutoffs
Cutoffs are used for assigning final task grades. Note that
these are different from grade values. If you always use the
same grade cutoffs, you may want to set that system in the "C"
option of the Grading Menu. For instance, you can tell the
program that 90% is an A, 80% is a B, etc. Alternatively, you
can tell the program that 90 points is an A, 80 points a B,
etc. When you assign grades, VAR Grade will use these values,
either as percentages or points, as the point system to use
when assigning grades. You can change the cutoffs at any time.
However, when final tasks are defined, they inherit the current
cutoffs. If you change the cutoffs after the final task is
defined, the task definition keeps the old cutoffs. To use new
cutoffs, you would have to reassign grades with the "G" option
on the Grading Menu.
To remove the cutoff points needed for various grades assigned
in the "C" option, use the "R" (remove) option of the Grading
Menu.
1. Assigning cutoffs
After pressing "C" on the Grading Menu, you will be asked if
you want to assign percentage values, or point values. If
you pick percentages, the total points of each task are
multiplied by the percentage to obtain the cutoffs. If you
pick points, no matter how many points the task is worth,
the student will need to obtain these points to get the
grade.
You next enter the minimum scores (percentage or points) to
obtain each grade. Listed at the top of the screen are the
range of scores possible. The cutoffs must be listed in
numerical order. If you leave a cutoff blank, no students
will obtain that grade. If you use multiple grading
systems, each system is listed separately. When you have
finished, press <AltS>. You are then asked whether to use
the cutoffs for the grade values. NOTE: The grade values
can be changed at any time.
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2. Considerations
If you define cutoffs before defining a Final task, the
values of the cutoffs are used to compute the grades. If no
cutoffs have been assigned, you must manually assign cutoffs
for the final task. This is done in the "G" option of the
Grading Menu.
If you change or remove the cutoffs, this will not change
the grades in any final tasks that have already been
defined. Any final tasks defined after you change the
cutoffs will use those new cutoffs.
To change the cutoffs of final grade tasks that have already
been defined, use the "G" option of the Grading Menu to
reassign new grades.
D. What Ifs
"What ifs" are calculations of what a student needs to obtain a
particular grade. This is a question that students frequently
ask instructors. VAR Grade can answer their questions.
What ifs will calculate the average grade(s) needed by a
student to achieve any and all letter grades for a final task.
Sometimes an exact solution is possible (e.g., when only one
score hasn't been entered). Sometimes the score must be
estimated (e.g., when you discard more than one task). In
either case, the score is an average for the missing scores.
When scores are discarded, it may be possible for students to
get below the average and still get the desired grade.
Therefore, the calculated score can be regarded as the average
score that guarantees the grade, not the minimum average needed
to achieve a grade.
What ifs are calculated by pressing "W" on the Grading Menu. A
final task must have been defined before you can calculate the
what ifs. After picking a final task, you are asked to pick a
student to use, then where to print the calculations. If grade
cutoffs have not been assigned, you are asked for them before
the what ifs can be calculated.
The what if printout contains a lot of information. The
current points for the student, the total points for tasks that
have been taken, the points left to be recorded, and the
maximum points possible. Each grade is listed, along with the
points or score needed for the grade, and how much the student
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Assigning the Grades
needs on the remaining tasks to achieve each grade. If the
student has already achieved a grade, that is also indicated.
The percentage of the remaining points needed for each grade is
also listed.
E. Manually Assigning Grades
To manually calculate and print grades on a task (or final
grades) use the "G" (grade) option on the Main Menu, then "G"
on the Grading Menu. Read the section on automatic grade
cutoffs, above, before using this option.
1. Manually assigning grades
First, pick which task to grade. Letter tasks cannot have
grades assigned, as they are already letter grades. If you
choose a final task, the grades will be assigned to it.
Otherwise, the grades are printed, but no permanent record
is made of the grades.
You then choose how to display the grades. This includes
whether to print names or IDs and where to print it.
2. Plot and cutoffs
If no grade cutoffs have been specified (see above), you are
asked to select the low cutoffs for each grade. Depending
upon your grading system, up to 49 cutoffs can be entered
for each grading system. If you leave a cutoff blank,
nobody will receive that particular grade.
3. Listing the grades
The program lists the points, percentages, and assigned
grades, by section, for the task. A tables of numbers of
students with each grade and the cutoffs are then listed.
Only grades that students can earn are listed at the end of
the class: if the cutoff is blank, it will not be listed.
If you have just entered cutoffs for this task, the program
asks whether the grades are acceptable. If you choose no
("N"), the plot and cutoffs will continue to be repeated,
until they are acceptable.
When the data is printed out, the classname, section, task,
and date are also printed. If you have picked a task
defined as a final task, the program will save the grades
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for the students on that task, as well as the new cutoffs.
The grades for a final task are recalculated each time you
enter scores, but will use the cutoffs you chose. If the
task is not a final task, the assigned grades and cutoffs
are not stored.
F. Adjusting Grades
If you do not like the grades that have been assigned, you can
adjust them. This is frequently done when students have
extenuating circumstances that has adversely affected their
grade. Adjusting can be done on the Grading Menu, then "H".
Adjustments are only done on final tasks.
First, pick the final task to adjust. The program then lists
both the final grades and the scores used to compute them, each
in it's own column. You can adjust either or both scores. The
scores are then saved as new tasks (with new names: "Adjusted"
is prepended). These new tasks are defined as letter or number
tasks, whichever is appropriate. Although you could do these
adjustments manually, this is much simpler. If you don't like
the names to have "adjusted" in them, you can change the names
on the Task Menu ("T" on the Main Menu, then "T" and "C").
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Printing and Reports
XII. PRINTING AND REPORTS
You can print out the grades and attendance of a class by four
methods:
1. List the scores of a task. The program will list the
student scores for that task in numerical order and in
sorted order (see Section C of Chapter X).
2. Print grades or attendance for any combination of tasks and
sections or names with the "W" (write) option on the Main
Menu--discussed below.
3. Assign and print the grades with the "G" (grade) option on
the Main Menu. This method is discussed in Section E of
Chapter XI.
4. Write a report form, then use the "W" option on the Main
Menu to select the form to write the data. This option
allows virtually unlimited types of reports.
You can also export student data in a format that another
program can use. This is done on the "W" option of the Main
Menu.
A. Listing Data
When you want to list data, a menu will appear that asks how
you want to proceed. This is the Print Menu. Listed on the
menu will be several options, including: (a) which printer to
use; (b) what sections to use; (c) whether to print to the
screen or to a printer or disk file. The options listed will
vary in different parts of the program. The options involved
with what data to display are discussed above, in Chapter XI,
Analyzing the Grades. The ones involved with printing or
displaying grades are described below.
1. Choosing a printer
When you install the program, you are asked which printer
you will be using. If you want to change which printer will
be used or how to print (single or double spacing; pica or
elite; etc.), press "Q" on the Print Menu to get to the
Printer Menu. The Printer Menu can also be reached in the
"O" option of the Main Menu, then "P".
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NOTE: Any time you are printing text to a disk file or a
printer, you can stop the printing by pressing <CtrlS> or
<Esc>. You will be asked whether to stop printing. If you
answer yes, printing will then stop.
(a) Installation of a graphics printer
To install a new printer, press the number listed for it
on the Printer Menu. All the currently installed printers
are listed. To install more, rerun the INSTALL program,
and choose to install the new printer. Up to five
printers can be installed.
Pressing the number of the printer will install the
graphics printer codes. If yours is not listed, your
printer manual should list the printer(s) that it
emulates. Most 9-pin dot matrix printers emulate the
Epson FX printer. Most laser printers emulate the HP
Laserjet, and those that don't are usually Postscript
printers.
NOTE: The list of supported printers will be continually
updated. If yours is not supported with the version that
you have, an update may be available that will explicitly
support your printer.
(b) Text printer codes
For most of the printers, the text printer codes will also
be automatically installed. These are used to print bold,
elite, and compressed print. For others, however, you
also need to tell the program which printer codes to use.
To do this, pick the "T" option on the Printer Menu.
Listed will be several different printers that are
frequently emulated. Most printers emulate the Epson FX
printer. If yours does, pick that. If not, the printer
may emulate one of the other printers listed below. Some
printer manufacturers and the printers they usually
emulate are listed below. If your printer is not listed,
or if you want to change the printer codes for your
printer, use the "U" option on the Printer Menu to put in
the printer codes. The program will keep track of the
text printer codes for each of the five printers that can
be installed.
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Printing and Reports
Text Printer Definition Printers Supported
Epson FX-80 Most Epson printers, including the
EX, FX, MX, and RX series. Also,
many printers from Brother,
Citizen, Panasonic, and others.
IBM Graphics Printer IBM dot matrix, Okidata with IBM
emulation, Star Micronics, and
others.
HP Laser Jet HP LaserJet, Plus, Series II,
DeskJet, PaintJet, and most laser
printers.
NEC P-2200 Most NEC printers.
Okidata 92 Okidata 84, 92, 93, 192, 193, 292,
and others.
Note: Text printer codes for Postscript printers cannot be
changed.
(c) Printer problems
If you use the "T" option to select printer codes, and the
printing is still not right, one option is to remove all
printer codes. This is done by pressing "T" on the
Printer Menu, then "Z" (zero). You can now print only in
pica (10 cpi) type. Another option is to enter your own
printer codes (see Section 1d, below).
(d) Entering your own text printer codes
To change the printer codes, press "U" on the Printer
Menu. Listed will be the current printer codes. To
change them, use the cursor keys to move to the code that
you want, then press the correct codes. Your printer
manual will list the codes needed to use pica, elite, etc.
printing. These are usually called escape codes, as <Esc>
is the first key code sent to the printer. Codes can be
entered either as hex numbers (base 16), or as regular
base 10 numbers. Some printer manuals print both, some
only one. Pressing <AltE> will switch between listing and
entering the codes as hex numbers or as text.
NOTE: Some of the keyboard keys work differently in this
part of the program, as you need to be able to enter any
possible printer code. To enter escape (#27), press the
<Esc> key. The backspace key will enter <CtrlH> (#8).
The <Enter> or <Rtn> key will enter <CtrlM> (#13). To
enter codes below 32 or above 127, hold down the <Alt>
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key, then use the keys on the numeric keypad to enter the
number.
Not all codes need to be entered, just the ones you want
to use. You can enter up to 10 characters for each of the
codes. To remove the previous character, use the <F2> key
(not the <Backspace> key). After you exit with <AltS>,
the new codes will be in effect.
(e) Printer errors
If there are problems with your printer (not turned on,
out of paper, etc.), the program will put out error
message on the screen. Sometimes the error message may
mistakenly state that the error is a "disk" error instead
of a printer error. In either case, try to correct the
error before telling the program to continue. If the
error is not correctable, output to the printer will stop.
In most cases, the printing is just turned off.
(f) Changing the printer ports
The program assumes that you are using the first parallel
printer port, called LPT1 (also called LST or PRN). To
change this, you can pick either of several parallel or
serial ports as the destination of the printing for each
of the five allowed printers. No checking is done by the
program for the presence of the port, so if the port you
choose does not exist, you will not print any data. If
you try to print and nothing gets printed, you may have
set the wrong port.
2. Printer options
Several options about how you want the printer to print the
data are listed on the Printer Menu.
(a) Graphics quality
Graphics quality can be set by pressing "G" on the Printer
Menu. The graphics can be printed at low, medium, or high
resolution. Below is a list of the resolution for each of
the types of printers. In all cases, the resolution is
better than screen resolution. The main reason for
printing at lower resolution is speed. The lower the
resolution, the faster the printing. A second reason is
memory. Higher resolution takes more memory. In most
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Printing and Reports
circumstances, memory should be sufficient for all
resolutions.
Driver Printers Low Medium High
_CANON Canon LBP/8 560x750 1120x1500 2240x3000
_DIC Kodax Diconix 150560x7501120x1500 2240x3000
_FX Epson FX 448x720 896x2160 1792x2160
_LQ Epson LQ 448x600 1344x1800 2688x1800
_PP24 IBM Proprinter 448x720 1344x1800 2688x1800
_IBMQ IBM Quietwriter448x600 896x1200 1792x2400
_TSH Toshiba 24-pin1296x1800 1296x1800 1296x1800
_LJ HP LaserJet 560x750 1120x1500 2240x3000
_LJD HP LaserJet IID560x750 1120x1500 2240x3000
_LJ3R HP LaserJet III560x750 1120x1500 2240x3000
_LJ3RD HP LaserJet IIID560x750 1120x1500 2240x3000
_DJ HP DeskJet 560x750 1120x1500 2240x3000
_DJC HP DeskJet C 560x750 1120x1500 2240x3000
_OKI92 Okidata 92
_PJ HP PaintJet 672x904 1344x1808 1344x1808
_PS Postscript 5401x7201 5401x7201 5401x7201
_XRXINT Xerox 4045 Int 560x750 1120x1500 2240x3000
_XRXUS Xerox 4045 US 560x750 1120x1500 2240x3000
Notes: (1) The _LJD and _LJ3RD drivers print text in
duplex mode only. If your printer supports duplex, you
can print simplex with the _LJ or _LJ3R driver. (2)
Only some of these drivers are included with the
shareware version of the program.
(b) Text quality
You can set some printers to draft (low) or correspondence
(high) quality. Press "Q" on the Printer Menu. For most
printers, high quality is the best way to print. However,
for some printers, high quality is much slower.
(c) Character size and fonts
You can print with characters that are pica (12 point),
elite (10 point), or compressed (8 point). Printing with
smaller type lets you print more characters per line. You
can also adjust the value of how many characters on a line
(see Margins, below). For some laser printers, including
the HP LaserJet III and Postscript printers, you can pick
both fonts and sizes for the fonts that range from 6 to 16
points. For these laser printers, both regular and
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proportional fonts are supported. For all other printers,
only non-proportional fonts are supported (e.g., Courier).
WARNING: In some parts of the program, printing with
characters larger than 12 points (pica) may cause problems
with spacing on the printouts.
(d) Line Spacing
Single, double, and even greater spacing of lines can be
printed. Changes from single line spacing occur when
output is sent to a disk or the printer, never on the
screen. Line spacing can be changed on the "O" option of
the Printer Menu.
(e) Margins: Dot matrix printers
You can set up the left, right, top, and bottom margins of
the pages. The left margin is the number of characters to
leave blank on the left side of the page. The right
margin is set indirectly: you specify the number of
characters on a line. If you decrease the number of
characters, the line is shorter, hence you have a larger
right margin.
The header and footer set the lines at the top and bottom
of the page. The page numbers are written in the footer,
while the running head on the top right of the page is
written in the header. Setting either to 0 will prevent
them from being written.
You can also specify the number of lines on a page. A
typical 8 1/2" by 11" page in pica mode has 80 characters
on a line and 66 lines. Laser printers, however, usually
only print 60 lines. Elite has 96 characters and 88
lines, while compressed has 136 characters and 110 lines.
Most laser printers print 60 lines in pica, 80 in elite,
and 100 in compressed.
(f) Margins: HP and Postscript printers
For laser printers that support fonts and point sizes, you
specify the page margins in inches. Instead of being
asked the characters on a line, header lines, etc., you
are asked for the left, right, top, and bottom margins in
inches. The minimum margins are 0.25".
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Printing and Reports
(g) Margins: Problems
This flexibility in setting margins can also cause
problems. If you have set the number of characters on a
line or margins set to a very small number, you can
truncate some of the data that is sent to the printer. If
only the part of the data has been written, check the
margins that you have set to see if that is the problem.
If the program doesn't break the pages in the correct
place, try increasing or decreasing the lines on a page.
Example: You print a page of text, but the page number
ends up on a second page. You need to decrease the
number of lines on the page, probably to 60 lines.
(h) Landscape vs Portrait mode
Some printers can print text both in portrait and
landscape (sideways) modes. Most laser printers can do
this, for example, while few or no dot-matrix printers
can. If your printer supports landscape mode, in some
parts of the program you can print in landscape mode. The
most likely place you'd want to do this is when you print
all the tasks in your class. Printing in landscape mode
gives you about 30 more characters on a line when printing
pica size, but 12 fewer lines. You can set the number of
characters on a line and lines on a page when in landscape
mode on the "O" option of the Printer Menu.
(i) Form feeds and page numbers
On the "O" option of the Printer Menu, you can change
whether page numbers are written on a page, and whether to
send formfeeds at the end of each page.
(j) Decimal places
When printing data, you can specify how many decimals to
print the scores. There are two numbers that can be set.
First, the number used by regular tasks can be specified.
Many teachers do not use decimals in their grades, so
setting this value to 0 will save space when printing.
You can also set the number of decimal places to be used
when printing calculated numbers. These numbers
frequently end up as decimals. You can change either set
anywhere from 0 to 5 decimal places in the "O" section of
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the Main Menu, then "O". In addition, the values can be
set on the data entry screens by pressing <AltO>.
3. Disk files
When you print data to disk, they are printed as plain text
(ASCII) files. This means that you can then use a word
processor to alter them in any way that you want, or use the
word processor to print the files. If you pick the "D"
(print to disk) option, you will be asked the name of the
file. Any name can be used, as long as it is a valid DOS
filename. A name is suggested, and pressing <Rtn> will
cause that name to be used for the disk file; pressing <Esc>
when you are asked for the file name will turn off the
printing.
In case of a syntax error in the file name, the program will
ask for a new name. The program checks to see whether there
is enough space on your disk and also to see if a file with
that name already exists. If there is not enough space on
the disk, the program will stop sending files to the disk.
Plots and drag 'n drop seating charts are written in a
graphics format, and are not ASCII files. You can choose
which graphics format you want, on the Plot Menu ("P" on the
Main Menu). When you installed the program, the graphics
formats were also installed. The one included with the
program are listed below. After you choose the one you
want, any plots that are sent to disk are sent with that
graphics format. Most word processors, painting programs,
and desktop publishing programs can import some or all of
these graphics formats.
File(s) Name/Examples
_BMP.BGI Bitmap (e.g., MS Windows Paintbrush files)
_CGM.BGI Color Graphics Metafile
_IMG.BGI Image graphics
_PCX.BGI PCX. (e.g., PC Paintbrush files)
_TIF.BGI TIFF files
_WPG.BGI Word Perfect graphics files
_WMF.BGI MS Windows Metafile
The TIFF supports up to 300 dpi (Laser resolution). The
others are at VGA screen resolution. Therefore, if you have
a choice, pick TIFF.
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Printing and Reports
You select which graphic file format to use on the Plot Menu
"G" option). For the TIFF, you can also select low, medium,
or high resolution. The others all print only one
resolution. Note that you can set the font size for
graphics on the "O" option of the Plot Menu. The size can
be set from 6 to 16 points, just like for text.
4. Other options
When data is printed, either to a disk file or to a printer,
information identifying the data is also printed. These
include the date, class name, and sections. Student names,
IDs, and database items may also be printed. In addition,
other identifying information is printed. These are
discussed below.
(a) Class name
When VAR Grade prints data to a printer or disk file, it
also prints the name of the class. Renaming the class
will override the default name (which is the one used when
starting the program).
On the Write Data Menu, the "W" option of the Main Menu,
option "T" can be used to rename the class with up to 30
characters for printing data. The name the program
automatically chooses is the one you typed in as the class
file name. Changing the class name on the Write Data Menu
will change it for printing only, and will not change the
file name of the class.
Example: The class is called "BIO" when you tell VAR
Grade to use it. The default name for printing would
be "BIO". You can change it to anything else, e.g.
"Biology 100", for printing purposes, but the file
name(s) will still be BIO (plus the extensions ".PAR"
and ".DAT").
(b) Instructor name
You can list your name when data is printed. On the "W"
option of the Main Menu, then "T", you can specify the
instructor's name. If a name is entered, it is printed.
Otherwise, nothing is printed.
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Also on this menu are "automatic comments". These are for
printing comments specified in the report forms. Reports
and automatic comments are described below in Section D.
(c) Section names or comments
If you use more than one section of students, you can
specify comments or names on printouts. This is on the
same screen as the instructor and class name. The comment
is written after the section number. If there is only one
section of students, the comment is not printed, as the
section number is not printed.
Example: To write "MWF 9:00 to 10:00 AM" after the section
number on printouts, press "W" on the Main Menu, then
"T". The comment is added on the line with the correct
section number.
(d) Date
The current date is written when data is printed. If you
have failed to set your clock, the date will not be
correct. You can change the format of the dates on the
"O" option of the Main Menu, then "D". The date format
also affects how attendance days are defined by the
program.
To change the date format, press "D" on the Parameters
Menu. You are now on the Dates Menu. There are six types
of dates, two each from American, European, and Japanese
methods. One of each set is numbers only, the other
prints the month names. Note that you can also change the
names of the days of the week and the names of the months
on the Dates Menu. If you press "I", you can enter new
three letter abbreviations for each of them.
B. Printing the Student Scores and Attendance
If you want to print out a list of the students and their task
scores, select the Main Menu choice "W" (write). This is the
Write Data Menu. You can print out all the task scores or
attendance for one student ("by name") or for whole sections of
students ("by section"); you can print a grid for entering
scores; or, you can export data in formats that can be read by
other programs. In addition, you can specify a list of classes
(subjects) to use when you print scores.
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1. Write options
On the Write Data Menu, if you select "O" (options), you can
change how the program prints the student data. These
options can also be changed in other parts of the program.
The options are:
Print numbers: You can change whether numbers are printed
next to the student names when listing students by
section. The numbers are listed in the sort order.
Keys: You can choose whether to print a key of tasks,
database items, or attendance names at the top of the
page, then list the items by number, or whether to print
the name above the columns of data. Printing keys will
allow more data to be printed per page, however, not
printing them makes the printout easier to read.
Percentiles: Besides printing the task scores, you can also
print the percentiles for those scores.
Unentered scores: You can choose whether to ignore
unentered scores, or to set them all to 0 points.
Truncate: You can choose whether to truncate or to round
scores when calculating and printing grades.
Minimum points: You can choose the lowest scores the
program will count as entered scores. Scores that are
below the minimum are always ignored by the program.
Decimals: You can choose how many decimals to use for
printing of scores.
2. Grades for individual students
From the Write Data Menu, you can select "N" (by name), or
"L" (by name, select the tasks). Each of these options can
print the task, database, and attendance scores for a
student. The "L" option lets you pick which tasks to list,
while the "N" option just prints all the student task
scores.
(a) Selecting a student
After you select one of the above options, you will see a
list of students in the class. If there are more students
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than fit on one screen, you can use the cursor keys to
locate the desired student. You can also press the <Left
button> on the stippled line below the students to page
through the names. The highlighted name can be chosen by
typing <Rtn>, or you can select a student by moving the
mouse cursor to him or her, and pressing the <Left button>
of your mouse. You can also pick a name by typing it in
at the prompt. If you are searching for a student in the
class, you only have to type in the first characters of
the name that match the desired name and that do not match
any other names.
Example: if you type "ken" when picking a student, the
first student with the letters "ken" in the name will
be found. "ken" would find "Kravitz, Ken" in the
GSample class. However, it could also find a name like
"Kendrow, John".
If you type in the name, and there is more than one
section of students in the class, you must enter the
section number for the student (or <F1> to search for the
section--note that the program will find only the first
occurrence of the name).
(b) Selecting all the students
If you want to print scores for all the students, press
<F1> when the program asks for the student name. If you
print to a printer or disk file, you will be asked whether
to print them one student per page. If you answer "y", a
new page will be started for each student. If you answer
"n", the program will fit as many students on a page as it
can.
(c) Selecting what to list
There are up to six options listed on the Print by Name
Menu. You can print task scores, attendance, an
attendance summary, both task scores and attendance, pick
database items to list, and pick subjects to list.
i) Change database items to list
The program prints only those database items that you
pick. Some items you may want on your printouts, some
you don't. The "C" option of the Print by Names Menu
lets you choose (they can also be changed from the
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Write Data Menu: option "D"). To change the list,
press "D". A list of the database items is then shown,
with their numbers. You need to pick the numbers of
the ones you want shown in the order you want them
printed. Note that due to their length, memos are
always listed at the end of the data, otherwise the
database items will be listed in the order that you
specify.
ii) Subjects
Elementary school teachers usually teach several
subjects to the same set of students. Option "C" of
the Print by Names Menu lets you designate up to 10
different subjects to be printed. These subjects are
other VAR Grade classes.
To select a new class, either type in the name, or
press <AltF> to see a listing of the current classes.
The program will print data from these classes in
addition to the current class. The current class is
printed first, then the other classes in order of their
listing.
The list of subjects is kept for that session of the
program. After you exit the program, no subjects are
retained for the next session. Also note that subjects
are only used for tasks, not for attendance.
iii) Tasks and attendance
You can print task scores, attendance, an attendance
summary, or task scores and attendance or attendance
summary. If you print task scores and select option
"L", you are asked for the list of the tasks to print.
If you also picked subjects, you are also asked which
tasks to print for each subject.
(d) Printing
The program first lists the name of the student, the ID,
the section, and the date the data was printed (i.e., the
current date). It will then list the database items, in
the order that they were chosen (except for memos). It
will then list the defined tasks by number and name as
well as the scores for the student, the total points for
the task, and the percentage of the total points for the
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student score. If you use letter grades, the total points
and percentages are not listed, since they are
meaningless. If no score was entered for the student, it
is listed as "Not submitted". If a score is excused (by
being below the minimum allowed points), it is listed with
"*Not submitted". Note that the "Not submitted" can be
changed to whatever term you'd like on the "O" option of
the Main Menu, then "T". For attendance, VAR Grade will
list all the dates and attendance. For the attendance
summary, a list of the totals for each attendance category
will be printed, along with the totals for absences and
present. Note that present, for the totals, includes the
attendance categories present, present 2, late, late 2,
activity 1, and activity 2. Absent includes the
categories excused, excused 2, unexcused, unexcused 2,
other, and other 2.
If you list the scores to a printer or to a disk file, VAR
Grade will break the listing into pages. You can change
such things as margins, type styles, etc. before you print
the class from the Print Menu (see above).
3. Printing sections
This option lets you print task scores, database items,
attendance, or attendance summaries for one or more sections
of your class. Except for the attendance summaries, you can
choose which items to list. In addition, if you have
designated subjects (classes) to list, the program will
cycle through each subject on the list and print what you
specify.
(a) Choose what to list
First, you need to choose whether to list task scores,
database items, attendance, or summaries of attendance.
In all cases, the data is broken into columns and pages
automatically.
i) Tasks
You can choose which tasks to list in any order. The
program "fits to print" the data. At the top of the
printout is a list of the tasks and their numbers.
When the data is printed, to save space the columns are
listed by number.
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ii) Database items
You can choose which database to list in any order,
except for memos, which cannot be printed. The program
"fits to print" the data. At the top of the printout
is a list of the database items and their numbers.
When the data is printed, to save space the columns are
listed by number.
iii) Attendance
You can choose which attendance days to list in any
order. The program "fits to print" the data. At the
top of the printout is a list of the days and their
numbers. When the data is printed, to save space the
columns are listed by number.
iv) Attendance summary
Each of the attendance categories is printed if there
is at least one student that has that category. Since
there are up to 13 categories, there are up to that
many columns of numbers.
v) Brief summary
This option prints only the sums of the presences and
absences. Present includes the categories present,
present 2, late, late 2, activity 1, and activity 2.
Absent includes excused, excused 2, unexcused,
unexcused 2, other, and other 2.
vi) Database and summary
This option combines the database items and attendance
summary results.
(b) Selecting the items
You can select the items by entering the numbers for the
items, or by using the mouse. <F1> can be used to pick
all the items.
Next, you are asked whether to print by names, IDs, or
both. In addition, you can print names either the way you
entered them, "flipped" (where the first and last name are
reversed), or only first names. Names or IDs are printed
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in the leftmost column. If you choose to print both,
names are printed in the leftmost column, then IDs.
NOTE: If there are too many items to print on one screen,
the program will print out as many as fits across the
page for a whole section, then another set, etc., until
all the items and students have been printed.
After specifying what to print, you reach the Print Menu.
If the wrong section, printer, or other options are
listed, change them before specifying where to print the
data.
If you are printing more than one set of items, or more
than one section of students, the program will ask if you
want to print them one set per page. If you answer "y",
the program will start a new page for each new set of
tasks or section of students. If you answer "n", the
program will fit as many on a page as it can.
It is recommended that you print data that you have
entered on your printer or to a backup disk file
immediately after entering the data, just in case there is
a computer or disk malfunction.
If you print the scores on your printer, using elite or
compressed type and single spacing will allow more scores
to be printed per page than pica printing. If your
printer supports it, you can print in landscape mode
(sideways), to get more items per width of the page. As
mentioned above, you can set decimal places, margins, page
lengths, characters per line, etc. from the Printer Menu.
Although you may have entered scores using several decimal
places, they will be printed using the number of places
that you specify. NOTE: The program keeps grades using 15
significant digits, but will not print that many. When
printed to the printer, page lengths are calculated and
the printing formatted accordingly. The date is also
printed so that you know when you last printed your class
data.
4. Printing grids
For entering student data, it is often useful to list the
students with a blank grid. You can then use it to record
the grades. The grid can make it easier to enter the
student grades into the computer. The program will list all
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the students in the class and empty boxes (grids) for
entering student data. Attendance grids have twice as many
boxes as regular grids. These grids are for recording data
on paper, which can then be easily transferred to the
computer.
C. Exporting Data
You can export data from a VAR Grade class in two different
formats. Other programs, like spreadsheet and database
programs, can then read import the data. VAR Grade can also
read the exported data.
For all the methods of export, you can specify whether to write
names, IDs, and sections, as well as database items and any
combination of tasks. You export data from the Write Data
Menu, "W" on the Main Menu.
1. Selecting database items
Before you export data, you need to choose which database
items to export. To do so, press "D" on the Write Data
Menu. A list of the defined items is shown at the top,
along with the numbers of the items. Enter a list of the
numbers to use. <F1> selects all the database items.
2. Picking the export method
Next, you can choose between the different methods of
export. These are comma and quote files and flat files.
Comma and quote files are files that have the data separated
by commas. Any data that has commas in it is surrounded by
quotes. Flat files are one where the data is in columns,
like a spreadsheet. The columns can be separated by spaces
or <tabs>.
3. Selecting the data to export
First, you need to have selected database items to export.
Next, you need to select whether to export names, IDs, or
both. Last, you need to select the tasks to export.
For data that is to be exported, the suggested order of
export is: the name, ID, section, database items, tasks,
and, finally, memo items. Note that section numbers are
only exported if there is more than one section in the
class.
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Next, you are now asked for the order that the data should
be in when it is exported. Some programs require a specific
order for the data. By default, the data is written with
the following order: Names, ID, Sections (if there is more
than one section in the class), Database items selected,
then Tasks. You can change it to any order. Three things
should be kept in mind: (1) Entering a blank or zero for any
item will prevent that item from being exported. (2) If
numbers are duplicated, only the first one will be exported-
-the others will not. (3) You can only enter numbers as
large as the number of items. For example, if there are
five numbers, the program will only accept order numbers
from 1 to 5.
4. Comma and quote file
To export data to a comma and quote file, press "Q" on the
Write Data Menu. A quote and comma file is a plain text
(ASCII) file where strings (names) are enclosed in double
quotes (""), while numbers are not. Cells of data are
separated by commas. Many spreadsheets can import this type
of file. Each set of data (or cell) will be imported into
one cell in a spreadsheet or database file. Each line in
the file ends up as one line in the spreadsheet.
Example: a comma and quote file would look like the
following:
"Darwin, Charles", 10.3, 20, "A", 30
"Crick, Francis", 20, 15.5, "B", 35
In the above example, the file has two students, the first
set of data is their names, the second through fifth are
grades. The fourth column is letter grades, the other grade
columns are number grades.
The first line of an exported comma and quote file contains
the names of the student data. For example, if you exported
student names, the first column on the first line will read
"Name".
5. Flat file
To export data to a flat file, press "P" on the Write Data
Menu. A flat file is a plain text (ASCII) file where data
is separated into columns. The columns are separated by
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spaces. Many spreadsheets and database programs can import
data in this format.
Example: a flat file would look like the following:
Darwin, Charles 10.3 20 A 30
Crick, Francis 20 15.5 B 35
One caution about flat files: the above lines may cause the
first and last names of the students to end up in different
columns! Whether this happens or not depends upon the
program used to import the data.
The first line of an exported flat file contains the names
of the student data. For example, if you exported student
names, the first column on the first line would read "Name".
When you export flat files, you are asked whether to
separate the fields with <Spaces> or <Tabs>. Some programs
require data to be separated by <Tabs>, while others don't
care.
6. Exporting data to Borland's Paradox
Below is an example of how to export data, then import it
into Paradox 4.0. Importing into other databases or
programs may work differently, but the general idea is the
same.
(a) Export as a comma and quote
First, export your class data, as explained in parts 1
through 4, as a comma and quote file. You will need to
select a name for the file. Any name will do, but write
down the name.
i) Go to the Write Data Menu ("W" on the Main Menu)
ii) Press "D", and select the database items to export.
iii) When back on the Write Data Menu, press "Q".
iv) Select the tasks to export.
v) Choose whether to export names and/or IDs
vi) Select a file name. A name is suggested, CLASS.TXT,
where CLASS is the name of the current class file.
Write down the file name and directory.
The data has now been written. Next, you need to exit VAR
Grade, and start up Paradox.
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(b) Import into Paradox
The following steps explain how to import the data into
Paradox. It is assumed that you know the basics about the
program.
i) Start Paradox.
ii) Select Tools (at the top of the screen)
iii) Select ExportImport
iv) Select Import
v) Select Ascii
vi) Select Delimited or AppendDelimited (if you are adding
this data to an existing table).
vii) Paradox asks for a filename, type in the name you
wrote down in part a.
viii) Paradox asks for a table name. Type in a name
(e.g., the name of the class).
Paradox now shows the table. The first line of the table
will have the names of the items (Name, ID, etc.). The
other lines have the students and their data.
7. Exporting data to Borland's Quattro Pro
First, export to a comma and quote file exactly as described
in part 7a. Next, follow the steps below to import the data
into Quattro Pro. Other spreadsheet programs may work
differently.
i) Start Quattro Pro
ii) Press "/T" (Tools)
iii) Press "I" (Import)
iv) Press "C" (Comma and "" Delimited)
v) Enter the filename you wrote down.
The data is then read into the program. The first line of
the data will have the names of the items (Name, ID, etc.).
The other lines have the students and their data. You may
need to change the width of the columns by pressing "/S"
(Style), "C" (Column Width).
D. Reports
A simple programming language, named VRL (VAR Grade Report
Language) has been added to VAR Grade so that you can write
reports that include your class data. The language will allow
you to write just about any report that you might need. The
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reports are written in plain text (ASCII characters) that are
called report forms. These forms are translated by VAR Grade
into complete reports. Included with the program are several
forms that can be used by you for your classes, or used as
examples to help you write your own reports. The language used
for the forms can be used to emulate any of the types of output
that VAR Grade already does. It also lets you write reports
that can include data on students from more than one class, so
that you can have the program write reports that will
consolidate the grades for your students that are taking more
than one of your classes.
1. Overview of the VRL language
The purpose of VRL is to let you access just about any piece
of data of your class. It is also a forgiving language, in
that if you make a mistake, the program will not blow up or
go into computer heaven. Instead, mistakes will show up as
reports that do not look how you want them, and will usually
result in the incorrect commands appearing in square
brackets in the output. Each command in the VRL language
starts with a left square bracket "[", and ends with a right
square bracket "]". The only exception to this are non-
printing commands, which start with a left curly bracket "{"
and end with a right curly bracket "}". The form that tells
VAR Grade what to do is read line by line. This means that
commands must be entirely on one line. You can have as many
commands on one line as will fit. Each line in the form can
have up to 512 characters, with no limit on the number of
lines.
The commands can be broken down into several categories.
First, there are comments. The comments are ignored by VAR
Grade, but are useful for commenting on what you have done.
Second, there are printer and format commands. Printer
commands tell the printer to do something, such as print the
next part with bold type. Format commands tell the program
to change the way things are written, such as to go to the
next page (called a "formfeed"). Third, there are commands
that let you write class data. These let you write student,
task, and attendance data. Fourth, there are commands that
tell the program to change something. These are used to
change or switch data, like changing the class, to switch to
a different task, and so forth. Fifth, there are commands
that tell the program to repeat things. These allow you to
easily write lists of students and tasks. Last, you can
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write out text. Anything that is not in brackets is written
exactly as it is in the report form.
Commands can also be formatted. This means that you can
specify not only to write a particular score or name, but
also how to write it (spaces, how many decimals, etc.).
Different commands need different types of formatting, so
the relevant formatting will be discussed with each command.
Commands need to have square brackets around them.
Subcommands, like those in the Print command, need to have
both the command and the subcommand between the square
brackets. Although spelling is important for the commands,
they can be in any mixture of upper and lower case letters.
If you want to write a left square bracket in your text, you
can do so by writing two consecutive square brackets ("[[").
Extraneous material that is written after the commands, but
inside the brackets, is usually ignored.
2. Writing report forms
Before writing report forms, you should do three things.
First, read the following sections on what the commands do.
This will let you know what types of things you can do, as
well as what some of the funny looking commands mean.
Second, browse through some or all of the forms included
with the program. This will help you see how somebody else
has accomplished what you might want to do. Feel free to
copy, modify, and discard anything in the forms. Last,
write the form in plain text (also called "ASCII"
characters). Most, if not all word processors and all text
editors can write what you have written in plain text. Word
processors usually write files with their own proprietary
formatting. To write files in plain text, you generally
have to specifically tell the program to do so. If your
word processor cannot print plain text files, there are a
number of good shareware word processors that can.
In the "W" (write) option of the Main Menu, there are
several options for writing and editing forms.
(a) Designating an editor
The "E" option on the Write Data Menu will let you
designate whichever editor or word processor you want to
use to edit or view report forms. The editor should be
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capable of writing plain text (i.e., in ASCII characters).
You should call the editor with whatever command you use
to invoke the editor. For example, if you are using Word
Perfect, enter "WP", or "C:\WORDPERF\WP".
If you have a hard disk, any word processor can be called
from VAR Grade. If you do not have either, only word
processors or editors that take up little memory can be
called from the program. If your word processor takes up
too much memory to be called from the program, you will
not be able to edit report forms from inside VAR Grade.
You could, however, exit the program and then edit the
report forms. Then go back into VAR Grade to print them.
(b) Editing forms
The "F" option on the Write Data Menu will invoke the
editor you have designated. VAR Grade will invoke your
editor so that you can edit or view report forms. Forms
can have any name. However, it is suggested that you use
the extension ".FRM" for the forms. The forms included
with the program all have that extension. If you use a
consistent ending for the forms, it will be easier to find
the one that you want. When the editor is invoked, it is
invoked with: "editor *.FRM", where 'editor' is the name
of your editor or word processor that you specified in the
"E" option of the Write Data Menu.
(c) Class reports
This option, "C" on the Write Data Menu, is intended for
using forms that write reports for all the students in
your class. It will ask you for the name of the form to
use, then will ask where to print the class data. If you
use this option to print a form intended for individual
students (see the next section), the first student in the
class will be used as the "correct" student. Examples of
class forms are listed below. At the end of the report
writing section there are examples of how the printouts
for these forms look. Note that the registered version
has additional forms.
Form Use
Attend.FRM Prints attendance totals for all the students
in the class.
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Consolid.FRM Lists all the students grades on one task in
each of three classes. This shows the
capability of the report writer in being able
to find and write the grades of students
(having identical names) from different
classes.
Flat.FRM Emulates flat files. This writes all the
students' names, IDs, and sections as a flat
file.
Filter.FRM Shows how to use filters to print out
students below/above certain values on task
scores and database items.
MailAll.FRM Mail list that prints the addresses of all
students in a class. For the form to work,
the fields must be "Street 1", "Street 2",
"City", "State", and "Zip".
Section.FRM Lists all the grades for all the students in
the class. This emulates the "Write students
in sections" option of the Write Data Menu.
Stats.FRM Lists the total points, high, low, mean,
median, and standard deviation for the first
five tasks in a class.
(d) Individual reports
This option, "I", is intended for using forms that write
reports on individual students. A second menu will
appear, asking if you want to write a report on one
student, all students below a designated score on a task,
or all students above a designated score on a task. If
you choose to write a report on one student, you will be
asked for the name of the student. If you pick either of
the other two options, you will be asked for the task and
the cutoff score. Each student in the class that is above
or below the cutoff (whichever option you chose), will
have the form printed for him or her. This will let you
write a report telling the low students to shape up and a
different report praising the top students, each listing
the relevant grades for the student. Examples of
individual forms are listed below. At the end of the
report writing section there are examples of how the
printouts for these forms look.
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Printing and Reports
Form Use
Attexamp.FRM Prints many of the attendance commands.
Database.FRM Uses some of the database capabilities to
print a form.
Elem.FRM Prints grades from several classes for one
student. This shows how to write a report
that consolidates the class data for one
student into one report. This type of form
is frequently needed for elementary schools.
Low.FRM This is an example of a report that will tell
the parents of students that their child is
not doing well enough in your class.
Name.FRM Lists all the grades and data for one
student. This emulates the "Write data for a
student" option of the Write Data Menu.
Progresp.FRM The same as progress, but works with printers
that cannot print elite and compressed sized
type.
RCElem.FRM Form that prints out a sample reportcard for
a student. It includes the student's average
on the listed tasks.
Report.FRM This shows the capability of writing a free
form report that tells the students in your
class how they are doing.
Rprtcard.FRM This form shows possible ways to do a report
card, and is a modified Elem.FRM.
3. Non-printing commands
Non-printing commands are words bracketed by "{" and "}"
(see example 1, below). When the form is printed, these
commands are removed from the form. The purpose of these,
therefore, is to let you state what you have done in plain
English so that the next time you look at the form, you will
remember why you wrote it. These non-printing commands can
be anywhere in the form. However, they cannot be nested
(see example 2, below). If you want to put a left curly
bracket into your text, put it in as two consecutive left
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brackets ("{{") (example 3). Note that if the right curly
bracket is not present, the rest of the line is not printed
(example 4).
Examples:
# Statement in Form Program Output
1 {This is a comment}
2 {This is {a} comment} comment}
3 {{This is a comment} {This is a comment}
4 {This is a comment
NOTE: For comments that take up an entire line, like example
4, that line will not be printed.
4. Printer and format commands
(a) Printer Commands
Printing will use the setup you set on the Print Menu.
However, there may be cases where you want to temporarily
change the printer setup. Printer commands tell your
printer to do special things. You can tell your printer
to print things in bold type, or even enter printer
commands directly into your forms. These commands have
the form: [Print"subcommand"] or [Print'subcommand'],
where subcommand is one of the subcommands listed below.
SubCommand Description
'' Anything between the single quotes is sent to
the printer. The purpose of this command is
to send any special printer codes to the
printer that you want. A "#" tells the
program to print the next number as an ASCII
code. Example: [Print'#100'] means to print
ASCII character 100 ("d"). A "@" tells the
program to print the following characters
exactly as they are listed. Example:
[Print'@100'] means to print "100" (not "d").
NOTE: All the commands listed below start and end with
double quotes ([Print"command"]).
BoldOn Sets the printer to start printing with bold
characters.
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Printing and Reports
BoldOff Turns off bold printing.
Chars=# Sets the number of characters on a line,
where "#" is a number. Example:
[Print"Chars=50"] tells the program to set
the number of characters on a line to 50.
Compressed Sets the printer to print in compressed text
(17.1 characters per inch, 10 lines per
inch).
Courier For proportional printers, puts them into the
Courier font (non-proportional). If you have
forms written for a non-proportional printer,
they can be printed on a proportional printer
without change if you use this command.
Elite Sets the printer to print in elite text (12
characters per inch, 8 lines per inch).
High Sets the printer to high quality text.
Lines=# Sets the number of lines on a page, where "#"
is a number. Example: [Print"Lines=44"] sets
the number of lines on a page to 44. For
printers that print proportional type, this
command only works until you change the type
size.
Normal Sets the printer in draft (normal) quality
text.
Offset=# Sets the number of 1/10" spaces to be printed
at the beginning of each line, where "#" is a
number. The higher the number, the further
from the left side of the page the document
is printed. Example: [Print"Offset=6"]
prints one-half inch of spaces at the
beginning of each line.
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SubCommand Description
Pica Sets the printer to print in pica text (10
characters per inch, 6 lines per inch).
Points=# For proportional printers, sets the font to
that size type, in points. Pica = 12, elite
= 10, and compressed = 8. You can set any
value from 6 to 16 points.
SubCommand Description
PropOff Prints a proportional font non-
proportionally. This is a way of printing a
form written for a non-proportional printer
on a proportional printer. The output will
probably look a little odd. Courier font is
probably a better choice.
(b) Format commands
These commands alter how the printed form will look.
Command Description
CJust Centers strings on a line. For a string to
be centered, it must have a width specified.
It complements the RJust and LJust commands.
CtrJust Centers strings on a page. CJust centers
within a width, CtrJust centers on the entire
line of a page. See Attend.FRM or
Progress.FRM to see the difference.
EndOfPage Write a formfeed (end of page character).
This starts a new page on the printer. Any
forms longer than the number of lines on a
page are automatically broken into pages.
The EndOfPage command lets you pick where
the pages will break if you want certain
items to end up on the same page.
Exscore=# Sets the word(s) to be printed when a student
score is excused (below the minimum points).
If [exscore], then it is set to "*Not
submitted", if [exscore=***], then "***" will
be printed, if [exscore=], then nothing will
be printed (also, see NoScore).
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Printing and Reports
Command Description
Just Left justify strings. Names, dates, etc. can
be written with a defined length (e.g., you
can have the student names written with 25
characters). Left justification will write
the names starting with the first character.
Example: "Student Name............." (the
periods are there for illustration purposes,
only). This is the standard way of writing
names, etc.
Landscape Prints landscape mode (sideways). This works
only for laser printers.
NewLine Causes a new line to be started.
NoLine Prevents a new line (the next line will be
written on the same line).
NoScore=# Sets the word(s) to be printed when a student
score is unentered. If [noscore], then it is
set to "Not submitted", if [noscore=ugh],
then "ugh" will be printed, if [noscore=],
then nothing will be printed (also, see
ExScore).
NotOnePerPage More than one student or set of students
per page (default setting). See
"OnePerPage".
NoWay=# For what-ifs, sets the word(s) to be printed
when a student score is not possible. If
[noway], then it is set to "Not possible", if
[noscore=oops], then "oops" will be printed,
if [noscore=], then nothing will be printed.
OnePerPage One student or set of students per page of
output. Page breaks will be inserted after
each student or set of students.
PageNum Print page numbers on the pages.
Portrait Prints portrait mode (normal). This is the
default mode.
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Command Description
RJust Right justify strings. Names, dates, etc.
can be written with a defined length (e.g.,
you can have the student names written with
25 characters). Right justification will
write the names from the rightmost character.
Example: ".............Student Name" (the
periods are there for illustration purposes,
only).
TwoPerPage After two forms are printed, this starts a
new page. This command works like
OnePerPage, except starts a new page after
every other student instead of after every
student.
Zeroscore=# Sets the word(s) to be printed when a student
score is unentered and set to zero. If
[zeroscore], then it is set to "0", if
[zeroscore=zero], then "zero" will be
printed, if [zeroscore=], then nothing will
be printed.
5. Commands to write or switch data
There are quite a number of commands for accessing or
switching data. These are listed below in several groups:
student data, task data, and class or generic data.
For most of the data, you can tell the program how to format
the output. For almost all of the commands, you can tell
the program how many characters to write the data. This is
useful for formatting columns. Example: [Name:25] tells the
program to write the student name 25 characters wide. Since
the name is less than 25 characters, the rest will be
written with blanks. [Name] will write only the name, with
no extra blanks. For numeric data, you can tell the program
how many numbers should be written after the zero. Example:
[TaskScore:10:3] will write the data 10 characters wide,
with 3 numbers after the zero: xxxxxx.xxx, where x is any
number (notice that one space is taken by the period). If
you specify a length that is less than the required spaces,
the entire piece of data is written. Example:
[TaskScore:0:3] will write the data with as many spaces as
needed, but including three numbers after the decimal.
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Printing and Reports
NOTE: Formatting of commands, which are the ":#" seen after
the commands listed below, are optional.
(a) Class or Generic Data
These commands access class data, switch between classes,
or access things like the current date.
Command Description
"":# Anything between the double quotes ("") is
printed. The only reason you will probably
need to use this command is to specify the
width of headers, etc. when formatting
tables. It is commonly used when writing
forms for proportional printers.
AddSect:# Adds # to the list of sections to use.
AttTotal:# Prints the total number of class days.
Class=# Switches the class to another one. The "#"
must either specify a valid filename of a
class, or specify nothing. It is specifies
nothing, the original class will be used as
the current class. Up to 7 classes in
addition to the original one can be kept in
memory at once (unless you run out of
memory). If you have the same students in
several classes or subjects, this can let you
write one report form that will put all their
data onto one printout.
ClassName:# Prints the name of the current class. Note:
This command does not print the file name,
but instead the name you specify for
printouts in the "O" option of the Main Menu.
Currchart:# Changes the seating chart to use to the #.
The number must be 1 or 2.
Currsect:# Changes the section to use to the #. It
removes any other sections from the list of
sections to use.
Date:# Prints the current date.
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Command Description
SectComm Prints the section comment for the current
section. Section comments are set in the
program on the Write Data Menu ("W" on the
Main Menu, then "T").
Teacher:# Prints the teacher's name. The name must
have been entered in the program on the Write
Menu.
(b) Student Data
These commands access the student data, including grades
and attendance.
Command Description
AtSeat#:# Prints the name of the student at that seat.
AttAct:# Prints the number of days the student has had
an "activity".
AttA2:# Prints the number of days the student has had
an "activity 2".
AttAllA:# Prints the total number of days the student
has been absent. Absent includes excused,
excused 2, unexcused, unexcused 2, other, and
other 2.
AttAllP:# Prints the total number of days the student
has been present. Present includes present,
present 2, late, late 2, activity, and
activity 2.
AttChar:# Prints a character that corresponds to the
type of attendance the current student had on
the current attendance day (AttDay). e.g., if
the student was late, it prints: "L".
AttExcused:# Prints the number of days the student has had
an "excused" absence.
AttE2:# Prints the number of days the student has had
an "excused 2" absence.
AttLate:# Prints the number of days the student has
been "late".
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Printing and Reports
Command Description
AttL2:# Prints the number of days the student has
been "late 2".
AttNotPres:# Prints the number of days the student has
been absent from the class.
AttOther:# Prints the number of days the student has
been "other" from the class. Other can be
used for any meaning by you.
AttO2:# Prints the number of days the student has
been "other 2" from the class. Other can be
used for any meaning by you.
AttPresent:# Prints the number of days the student has
been "present".
AttP2:# Prints the number of days the student has
been "present 2" in the class.
AttString:# Prints the name of the attendance type for
the current student on the current attendance
day. e.g., if the student was late, it
prints: "Late".
AttUnex:# Prints the total number of "unexcused"
absences by the student.
AttU2:# Prints the total number of "unexcused 2"
absences by the student.
Comment Prints automatic comments. The comment is
picked from the student score of the current
task. For comments to be printed, the
automatic comments must have been entered
(which is done on the Write Menu). See
section 7, below.
Comment? Asks for the comment, then prints it. There
are several choices. You can pick an
automatic comment, you can print blank lines,
underlined lines, or you can type in lines on
the keyboard. A menu appears that lets you
choose which.
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Command Description
Currchart:# Sets the seating chart to #. The value must
be 1 or 2.
DBVal:# Prints the database data of the current
student for the current database item.
Firstname:# Prints the first name of the current student.
A first name is either the first word in the
student name, or everything past the comma.
FName:# Prints a flipped name--where the first and
last names are reversed.
ID:# Prints the ID of the current student.
Lastname:# Prints the last name of the current student.
A last name everything before a comma, or the
last word in the student name.
Name:# Prints the full name of the current student.
Seat Prints the seat number of the current
student.
Section:# Prints the section of the current student.
TaskPer:#:# Prints the percentage score that the current
student scored on the current task.
TaskPts:#:# Prints the total attempted points of the
student on the current task. If all the task
scores have been entered, it will be the same
as TaskTotal, below.
TaskScore:#:# Prints the score on the current task for
the student.
Note: the following are analogous to the WhatIf part of
the program (Grading Menu).
WhatIf"xx" Set the grade xx, where xx is any valid
grade. Example: WhatIf"A" sets the current
WhatIf grade to an A.
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Printing and Reports
Command Description
WhatIf"ptsleft":#:# Points left to achieve the grade
set by the WhatIf"xx" command.
WhatIf"ptsneeded":#:# Points needed to achieve the grade
set by the WhatIf"xx" command.
WhatIf"%needed":#:# Percent of the points needed to
achieve the grade set by the WhatIf"xx"
command. It is equal to 100 * (ptsneeded /
ptsleft).
WhatIf This prints all the grades and the needed
points and percents, just like in the Whatif
section of the program.
(c) Task, attendance and database data
These commands are used to change or specify the tasks,
attendance, or database items to use. In general, you
want to change or specify the current task with Task or
DTask, then print the data with the other commands.
Command Description
AttDay# Changes the current attendance day to #.
AttName:# Prints the name of the current attendance
day.
AttNumber:# Prints the number of the current attendance
day.
AttTotal:# Prints the total number of class days.
Currsect:# For seating charts, sets the current section
to the value. It also removes any other
sections from the list of sections to use.
DBName:# Prints the name of the current database item.
DBNum:# Prints the number of the current database
item.
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Command Description
DB"" or DB'' If a name is between the quotes, the first
database item that includes that name is made
the current database item. To make sure you
have the right item, it is usually best to
put the entire item name between the quotes.
DB# Makes the # the current database item.
DTask Defines a task as the current one. No data
is printed. The task can be specified many
ways:
(1) [DTask#x], where x is the number of the
task.
(2) [DTask@x], where x is the xth task you
have defined.
(3) [DTask(x)], where (x) is the total number
of tasks in the class /x. Example: If there
are ten tasks defined, [DTask(2)] is the
fifth task.
(4) [DTask?]. "?" means that the program
will ask you to select the task when it
reaches that point.
(5) [DTask+]. The "+" can be added to any of
the first three definitions, and tells the
program to increment the number by one.
[DTask+] will increment the current task by
one. [DTask(2)+] will, if there are 16
tasks, make the current task the ninth one
(16/2 = 8, then add one).
(6) [DTask"name"], where name is any word or
characters, will select the first task that
matches the characters. So [DTask"First"]
will select any task with first in the name
(e.g., "First Exam" or "The first test").
(7) In some circumstances, like the [Loop]
command described below, just a plain
[DTask], without any designation of a number,
is required. When [Loop] is used, the plain
[DTask] is modified to have the required
number for the loop.
Task:#:# This works like DTask, except that, after the
current task has been changed, the score for
the current student on that task is printed.
TaskName:# Prints the name of the current task.
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Printing and Reports
Command Description
TaskNum:# Prints the number of the current task.
TaskTotal:#:# Prints the total points of the current
task.
6. Repetitive commands
These are commands that are used to write lists of students
or tasks. There are three commands that repeat through a
series of items: repeat, loop, and students. There is also
a related command, header, that prints a header at the top
of a page. Last, there are items that filter values, so
that only ones that meet a condition are printed.
Command Description
AttRepeat:#:# Repeats the attendance days from the
first # to the second #. If the #'s are not
included, the first is set to 1, the second
one is set to the last attendance day. It
can also be used with the [IFAtt] commands to
print only certain types of attendance.
DFilter This command sets a value to test for a
database item. The values needed to be
passed can be above (">") a value, below
("<") a value, between two scores ("^"), or
equal to a value ("="). A "?" will make the
program ask for the value. If equal is
chosen, any matches to the value qualify as
equal. If between is chosen, the two values
are separated by a comma. When testing,
lowercase values are converted to uppercase
ones.
Examples: [DFilter?] makes the program ask
for the filter to use. [DFilter<K] passes
values below "K". [DFilter=the] passes any
database value that has "the" in it.
[DFilter^C,T] passes any values from D to S.
Header For the following repetitive commands,
[Header] will print whatever is on the header
line at the beginning of any new page. This
command will let you write long lists of
students or task scores, each with a header
on the top of any new pages.
147
IfAttx These commands are used with AttRepeat. If
the current student has that attendance, the
line is printed, otherwise, the attendance
day is incremented. x can be: A (activity),
A2 (activity 2), E (excused), E2 (excused 2),
N (not found), L (late), L2 (late 2), O
(other), O2 (other 2), P (present), P2
(present 2), U (unexcused), or U2 (unexcused
2).
Example: [AttRepeat][IFAttU] [AttName] will
print out the dates for all unexcused
absences for the current student. Example:
[AttRepeat][IFAttL2] [AttName] will print out
the dates for all late 2 days for the current
student.
IfStudentExists Prints what is left on the line only if
the student exists. It's use only makes
sense when the "Class=" command is used. If
the student doesn't exist, a line feed is not
done.
IfDFilter If the student does not pass the filter value
for the current database item, the rest of
the current line is skipped. The filter
value is set with "DFilter".
IfTaskExists Prints what is left on the line only if the
current task exists and the current student's
score on the task is at least the minimum
allowed. If the task doesn't exist, or the
score is not entered, a line feed is not
done.
IfTFilter If the student does not pass the filter value
for the current task, the rest of the current
line is skipped. The filter value is set
with "TFilter".
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Printing and Reports
Command Description
Loop Repeat more than one line. Any lines between
[Loop] and [Loopend] will be repeated. Note
that the lines containing [Loop] and
[Loopend] are not printed. Tasks specified
with the commands [Task] and [DTask] that are
found between the [Loop] and [Loopend]
commands are incremented between repetitions.
Note: [DTask#1], [Task@1], etc, will not be
incremented within Loop, so use plain [DTask]
and [Task]. The [Loop] command can be
modified by telling the program how to
increment the Tasks. [Loop:#:#] is used
specify, in order the beginning task to use
and how much to increase the task numbers
each loop. Example: [Loop:3:2] will print
tasks, starting with the third task and
increasing the task numbers by 2 each time
the loop is repeated. If the "#" numbers are
omitted, it is assumed that the loop should
start at the first task and increment them by
one each time. [Loopend] can also be
modified. In [Loopend:#], the "#" is the
number of the last task to be printed.
Example: [Loop:3:2]
[Task]
[Loopend:7]
will print out the scores for the third,
fifth, and seventh tasks. The loop will end
when the last task in the class is reached.
So, in the above example, if there were only
five tasks in the class, only scores for the
third and fifth tasks will be printed.
Repeat# Write the information on the line, but
increment the task numbers on the line by one
each time the line is repeated. "#" is a
number. If "#" is not present, the line will
be repeated once for each task in the class.
If "#" is a number, the line will be repeated
that number of times. If "#" is a number in
parentheses, like "(2)", the line will be
repeated by the quantity: the total number of
tasks in the class / that number.
Examples: If a class has 16 tasks that have
been defined, [Repeat] will repeat the line
16 times; [Repeat(2)] will repeat the line 8
149
Command Description
Repeat (cont) times; [Repeat5] will repeat the line 5
times. Note that, in each case, any task
numbers on that line will be incremented by
one each time the line is repeated. If "#"
is a question mark, you will be asked,
whenthe form is printed, for a list of the
tasks to write. The line will be repeated
enough times to write out that list.
Students Write the information on the line for each
student in the class, from the first student
to the last one. The purpose of this command
is to easily write out a list of students'
data.
Example: [Students][Name] will write the
names of all the students in the class, one
per line, starting with the first student
and ending with the last student.
TFilter This command sets a value to test for a task
score. The values needed to be passed can be
above (">") a value, below ("<") a value,
between two scores ("^"), or equal to a value
("="). A "?" will make the program ask for
the value. If between is chosen, the two
values are separated by a comma. All values
must be numbers. If you want to test letter
grades, use the grade values for the testing.
Examples: [TFilter?] makes the program ask
for the filter to use. [TFilter>90] passes
values above "90". [DFilter=100] passes any
score that is 100. [DFilter^70,90] passes
any values above 70 and below 90.
7. Statistical commands
These are commands that calculate and write various
statistical values, like averages, means, medians, and
standard deviations. The "Avg" commands, below, are used to
print averages of student scores listed on the printout.
The form RCElem.FRM gives an example of their use. The
other statistical measures are seen in Stats.FRM.
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Printing and Reports
Command Description
AvgPct:#:# Prints the percentage for the student scores
between AvgStart and AvgStop.
AvgResume Resumes averaging without restarting. With
AvgStop, this command allows you to skip some
student scores.
AvgShow:#:# Prints the average of all the student scores
between AvgStart and AvgStop.
AvgStart Starts averaging task scores.
AvgStop Stops averaging task scores.
AvgSum:#:# Prints the sum of the student scores between
AvgStart and AvgStop.
Highscore:#:# Prints the high score for the current
task.
Lowscore:#:# Prints the low score for the current task.
Command Description
Mean:#:# Prints the mean for the current task.
Command Description
Median:#:# Prints the median for the current task.
StdDev:#:# Prints the standard deviation for the current
task.
8. Comments and automatic comments
On the Write Data Menu, you can enter "Automatic Comments"
(option "T"). These are comments that can be printed for
students if they have achieved certain grade cutoffs. You
specify the command [Comment] on the form. The program then
selects the comment for the appropriate grade.
Enter automatic comments by typing in the comment and the
minimum score needed for that cutoff. This can be done for
up to 9 items. The minimum scores are absolute numbers, not
percentages. If you use the command [Comment?], the program
will ask you for the comment. You either pick one of the
automatic comments, or type in your own comment. You can
also print blank or underlined lines and write them on by
151
hand. The report form Progress.FRM shows the use of the
[Comment?] command.
9. Proportional printing
Proportional printing is supported for some printers. If
your printer is supported, and you want to use proportional
fonts, some forms may need to be changed. One easy thing
you can do is add the command [Print"Courier"] to the
beginning of the forms. They will then print in Courier--a
non-proportional font. Otherwise, to convert to a
proportional font, you need to specify the width of the data
and headings. Information that doesn't need to line up
needn't be changed. See the included forms for examples, as
all of them will print the same on proportional and non-
proportional printers. Commands for proportional printing
include Print"Courier", Print"PropOff", and Print"Points=x"
(where x is a number from 6 to 16). The proportional
printers also support landscape (sideways) and portrait
(normal) mode, and the commands Landscape and Portrait.
10. Designing a form
To design a form, you should first read sections 1 through
9. Second, you should look at and study the report forms
that are included with the program. These are detailed
below in section D11. Then:
i) Write, using a word processor, what you want the form to
look like. Just type in what you want.
ii) Put square brackets around those parts that are
changeable and need to be put in by the program--the data
you previously entered into the program.
iii) Replace what you have in the square brackets with
commands.
iv) Put in format commands (widths, decimal places, etc).
v) Write the form to disk as a plain text (ASCII) file.
vi) Test the form from the program. Make a note of the
problems and errors, then repeat steps i through v until
it looks how you want. It may take a couple of iterations
to make it look how you want.
Example
If you want to design a form to print the second grade for
all students in a class. How do you do it?
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Printing and Reports
i) Use a word processor or text editor to write the
following:
Class: Test class
Date: xx/xx/xx
Name Task #2
first name 100.0
second name 90.0
ii) Next, notice that there are five types of data
present: the class name, the date, the task name, the
student names, and the task scores.
iii) Replace the fake data in part i with brackets:
Class: [Test class]
Date: [xx/xx/xx]
Name [Task #2]
[first name] [100.0]
[second name] [90.0]
iv) Now, look up the commands to replace what is inside
the brackets. For the student names, you want a
repetitive command. For the taskscores, you should
also specify the digits and decimal places.
Class: [Classname]
Date: [date]
Name [dtask#2][taskname]
[students][name] [taskscore:5:1]
v) Next, specify formatting for the student list. To make
sure things line up, you can specify a width for
"Name", as well.
Class: [Classname]
Date: [date]
["Name":20][dtask#2][taskname:25]
[students][name:20][taskscore:25:1]
vi) Last, save the form as plain text and test it in the
program. If changes are needed, repeat these steps.
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Other Program Features
XIII. OTHER PROGRAM FEATURES
A. File Maintenance
VAR Grade has a complete file maintenance section: "F" on the
Main Menu. The intention of this section is to allow you to
copy, move, delete, recover, etc. any or all of your class
files.
1. Alter the current class file name
This option ("A") will change the file name of the class
that is currently in memory. Both the class files and the
backup files, if present, are renamed to the new name. Note
that this is different than changing the class name for
printouts. The name listed on printouts can be changed in
the "O" option of the Main Menu.
2. Write the class to a backup disk
This option ("B") will write the current class to a
different directory or, preferably, drive. This will allow
you to keep a copy of the current class on another drive.
It is highly recommended that you keep copies of your class
on at least two different drives. In the unlikely case of
disk failure, you will have another copy of your class data.
It is also advisable to keep a printed copy of your grades.
3. Maintenance of one or more classes
The next five options can be used for file maintenance of
any and all your classes, not just the current class as in
the above two options. For each option, you can specify one
or more files, and can use the DOS wildcard characters * and
? to help specify the files. You can also specify files on
any drive or directory of your computer.
The DOS wildcard character "*" means all files, while the
character "?" means any character can be in that position of
the filename. DOS extensions, the characters after the
period (e.g., .PAR), are ignored. Instead, all class files
associated with that name are renamed.
155
Example: If you specify "*", this would mean to do a
particular operation on ALL class files.
Example: If you specify "ART??", it would mean all classes
starting with the letters "ART" and then having up to two
more characters, like "ART10" or "ARTS".
When you use one of the five options, you can use the cursor
keys or mouse to move to the desired class, or use them to
change directories or drives, or move the cursor to the line
"Files to use:" and type in the file specifications.
Whichever field is highlighted when you press <Rtn> will be
the field that will determine what action is taken. The
options and their actions are listed below.
(a) Rename class files ("R")
This option can be used to rename one or more files. You
are first asked for the file(s) to rename, then are asked
for the new name(s). The file that matches the listed
filename will be renamed.
(b) Update class files ("U")
This option will look at all class files in the first
directory or drive that you choose, then copy them to a
second directory or drive if they are more recent than
those in that second one. If you have more than one class
in a directory, this will let you update (or backup) all
those files at once, rather that one at a time as in "W",
above.
(c) Copy class files ("C")
This option will copy all class files that you specify to
new drives or directories. This differs from update in
that update only copies classes that are also in the
second directory or drive, while copy copies them whether
or not they already exist in the specified directory or
drive.
(d) Move class files ("M")
Moving class files will copy the specified classes into
the new directory or drive, then delete them from the
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Other Program Features
first. This option is useful for archiving classes after
the semester or year is finished.
(e) Delete class files ("D")
This option will delete all the specified class files.
WARNING: This option will remove whatever class files you
specify. Be sure you have picked the ones you really want
to delete. Note that you are asked if you are sure that
you want to delete those classes before the program
actually removes them.
4. Write/Not write backup files ("B")
Backup files are normally made of your grades. These
backups contain the data from the previous time that you
saved your data, and are this program's equivalent to the
BAK files your word processor probably produces. The backup
files have the same name as the class, but have the
extensions ".DAX" and ".PAX". NOTE: The appendix gives more
information on these files. No matter which type of file
the class data is written (read-only, hidden, or normal),
the backup files are made normal files. This means that
they can be deleted should you not want to clutter up your
disk with them. However, if you prefer not to have the
program make backup files, you can use this option to
prevent backups. It is strongly recommended that you let
back-up files be made and that you let the program write the
class files as read-only. The combination of these two
options will give your data much greater security.
5. Recover backup classes ("V")
As mentioned in section 4, backup files are normally made.
If you have backup files, and accidentally delete or damage
your class, you can use the Recover command to restore your
class. Note that the class is restored from the previous
time the data was saved.
Press "V" on the Alter Files Menu. All backup classes are
listed, and you are asked for the class(es) to recover.
Enter the name of the class. The old backup files (".DAX"
and ".PAX") are renamed to the correct class extensions.
157
6. Change class protection ("P")
The class grade files are, by default, written in what is
known as "read-only" files. This means that if you are in
DOS and ask that the files be deleted, they will not be
deleted by DOS. The program does this to prevent accidental
deletions of the data, but this can sometimes cause problems
with other programs, most notably some backup programs. You
can change the way files are written by specifying that they
be written normally (they can be deleted by DOS), as read-
only files, or that they be "hidden" files (DOS will not
even list the files on a "dir" command). Hidden files will
still be seen by VAR Grade, but not by anyone casually
snooping around your disk.
B. Working With Other Programs
1. Multitasking programs
Programs like Desqview can be used to switch back and forth
between more than one program. VAR Grade can detect these
programs and change it's video output to account for it. To
turn this option off, go to the "O" option of the Main Menu,
then "O".
2. Video
Text can be written through BIOS calls or directly to the
screen. Most programs write directly to the screen, as it
is much faster. If VAR Grade is causing conflicts with
other programs, however, it can write to the BIOS.
C. Running Other Programs from VAR Grade
1. DOS shell
If necessary, you can use the "R" option on the Main Menu to
run other programs from VAR Grade. This feature was put into
the program to allow you to delete files or format disks
without exiting the program.
With this option, however, if you have enough memory you can
run any program. You should be warned that certain
programs may cause problems. The major problems can come
from programs that are memory resident or that will
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Other Program Features
(inadvertently) stall ("hang") the computer. Because there
is no reasonable way for VAR Grade to prevent you from
running these types of programs, it is advised that you save
your data before running programs other than those of the
DOS operating system (del, format, dir, etc.).
When you press "R" on the Main Menu, you are shown a fake
DOS command line. You can type in the command you want to
run, or leave it blank. Then press <Rtn>. If you run a
command, the command will run, then you will return to the
program. If you leave a blank line, you will remain in DOS
until you type "EXIT" at the DOS command line. To remind
you that you are still in VAR Grade, the prompt will be
preceded by a message: "To return to VAR Grade, type EXIT."
VAR Grade keeps track of the last ten commands you have run.
You can move to any of them, edit it, and then press <Rtn>
to select the new command.
When running other programs from VAR Grade, or when viewing
files (below) or editing reports forms, VAR Grade will try
to free up as much memory as possible. It will therefore
try to move itself into EMS memory or onto a disk (if you
have a hard/fixed disk), and will give a message to you as
to what it is doing (e.g., "Swapping to disk") when it is
doing so. This will free up much more memory for running
these other programs. In fact, VAR Grade will use less than
10K of memory when running other programs if it is able to
swap itself to either EMS or a hard disk.
If you do not want VAR Grade to swap the data in memory to a
disk file, you can prevent this. On the Parameters Menu
("O" on the Main Menu), you can tell the program not to use
a disk file to save memory.
2. Viewing files while in the program
Pressing <AltV> will let you see the disk manual from
anywhere in the program. Since <AltH> will also do this,
VAR Grade will let you change how <AltV> works. If you go
to the "O" option of the Main Menu, then "F", you can
specify what program will be run with the <AltV> command.
If you want to view the manual from your word processor, you
would enter the command to start your word processor,
followed by a space and the "@".
159
Example: To use the shareware program List to view the
manual when in VAR Grade, type "list @".
You don't have to view the manual with <AltV>. In fact, you
can run any DOS program with this command. If you add "@",
it is replaced with the location of the manual. If you
leave it off the line, the manual will not be viewed.
Example: To see the files in the current directory when in
VAR Grade, type "dir" when in the "F" section.
D. International Support
There are several features in VAR Grade that make it easier for
users outside the United States. Some of these have been
mentioned previously, like defining your own grading system.
Two more are discussed here.
1. Dates
You can redefine the method of writing the date. You can
write dates a variety of ways, including American, Japanese,
and European style dates. This can be done in the "O"
option of the Main Menu. These dates are used for writing
data and in defining attendance days. In the same part of
the program, you can also change the abbreviations for the
months and days of the week.
2. Other output
You can now change any output strings. These strings are
the ones used for printing data. Some of these strings also
affect the screens in the program. For example, changing
the names of the month names, described above, changes the
names on the calendars. The main purpose is to let non-
English speakers translate the output strings into their own
language. However, if you dislike the titles or names of
some of the output, you can change it!
The strings can be changed on the International Menu ("O" on
the Main Menu, then "T"--Titles).
The types of strings you can change are broken into several
categories. Many of the strings affect most or all output
(e.g., "Name", "ID", etc), while others are specific to
particular parts of the program. Hence, it is hard to put
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Other Program Features
them into categories based upon this report or that graph.
Instead, they are put into general categories.
After you have changed any of the strings, they are written
to a file called GRADE.INT. Every time VAR Grade starts, it
searches for the file. If it finds it, it uses those
strings in preference to the default ones. You can return
to the defaults by deleting or renaming GRADE.INT.
If the file GRADE.INT is not found, it searches for a file
called GRADE.xxx, where xxx is the international phone code
for your country. For example, to phone the US, you would
dial 001, then the US area code and phone number. If you
are using the program in the US, VAR Grade will search for
GRADE.INT, if it doesn't find that, it will search for
GRADE.001. If it doesn't find that, it uses the program
defaults. In the future, we plan to send out translations
for non-English languages as GRADE.xxx files. You can make
your own GRADE.xxx file by translating the strings, then
renaming GRADE.INT to the appropriate GRADE.xxx file.
E. Macros
Macros allow you to assign a sequence of keyboard actions to a
single key. For example, you could use a macro assigned to the
<AltP> key to type out "print". Spreadsheets and word
processors frequently have this capability. VAR Grade also has
macros. Macros are best for making repetitious tasks simple by
assigning one key to do all the work. They are also useful for
reassigning keys used by a program. For example, if you would
rather the <F1> key be reassigned to the <AltA> key, a macro
could be defined to do this.
Up to 10 macros can be defined. Each can have up to 50 keys in
the definition.
1. Defining a macro
You start recording a macro by typing <CtrlR>. Every key
you type while you are recording will produce a slight
"chirp". This reminds you that you are recording. To stop
recording a macro, type <CtrlR> again. You then assign a
key to the macro. WARNING: the first key you type will be
assigned to the macro, including the regular keyboard
characters. Choose carefully. After picking a key, you
will be asked for the name of the macro. A name is useful,
as you may want to delete the macro at a later time.
161
If the key you selected for assigning the macro is already
used by another macro, you will be asked if you want to
replace the old macro. If you answer "N" (no), you will be
able to type in a new key for the macro.
When you exit the program, the macros are written to a file
named "GRADE.MAC".
2. Viewing and Deleting a macro
To see what macros are defined, go the "O" section on the
Main Menu. Then "M". A list of the current macros is
shown. You can delete any macro by selecting it. You can
also delete all the macros by pressing "C" (clear).
3. Macro Examples
1) Using a macro to add 10 points to a task of a student:
Go to the "D" section of the program. Go to a number
task. Type <CtrlR>. This starts the recording. Next,
type "+10". This will add 10 points to the score. Next,
type <DownArrow>. This will move to the next student.
Last, type <CtrlR>. This ends the macro recording.
Assigning it to a key, e.g., <AltA> (add), and type in a
name of the macro: "Add 10 points". You can now type
<AltA> to add 10 points to any student score.
2) Printing all the scores on all the tasks for a class from
a macro: Go to the Main Menu. Type <CtrlR>. Next, type
"W" (write), "S" (section), "T" (tasks), "<F1>" (all the
tasks), "P" (print). Then type <CtrlR>. Assign the macro
to a key, e.g., <AltP>, and give it a name. You have
printed all the tasks in the class to a printer. When you
are in the Main Menu, typing <AltP> will print out all the
scores.
3) Assigning a commonly typed number to a macro: If you
have a lot of student scores that are always the same,
like "10", assign a macro. Type <CtrlR>, "10", <CtrlR>.
Assign the macro to a key, give it a name, and you have
made your work easier.
Again, macros are great for things you frequently type over
and over. There are two cautions, however. First, some
macros will only work from certain places in the program.
For example, #2, above, works only from the Main Menu.
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Other Program Features
Second, if you assign a macro to a key that is used by the
program, the macro will take precedence. For example, if
you assign the <F1> to popup the help screens, pressing <F1>
will not select all the tasks (attendance days, etc.). In
this case, before you assign the new Help key, you could
assign another key to <F1>, like <CtrlA>, that would select
all the tasks.
F. Extra Memory
VAR Grade can run without problems if you have 512K of memory
in your computer. In some cases, however, you would like more
memory. If you have large classes, extra memory may be
required. Students and tasks take up memory, so if you have
hundreds of students or tasks, they may not all fit into
conventional memory. A second reason for more memory is speed.
The overlays can be put into expanded (EMS) memory, which
speeds up the program. In addition, the more memory you have,
the faster the graphics plots are done.
Regular or conventional memory is memory up to 640K. If you
have more than 640K of memory installed in your computer, you
may be able to use that extra memory as not only EMS memory,
but also extended (XMS) memory, or even hard disk memory.
Unless you do one of the following, the program will use either
XMS or EMS for student data, whichever is more plentiful.
Overlays and printing graphs can only use EMS or regular
memory. The following commands can control what types of
memory the program uses.
VMem: specifies how much XMS or EMS memory to use, in K bytes.
At the DOS prompt (or in the autoexec.bat), enter: SET
VMEM=x;
where x is the KB to use. If this command is not used, the
default is to use up to 448K XMS or EMS memory.
VType: specifies what type of memory to use. You can specify
"EMS", "DISK", or "NONE". At the DOS prompt, enter: SET
VTYPE=x;
where x is one of the three words, above.
If this command is not used, the program will prefer to use
XMS memory. If there is not enough XMS memory, but there is
enough EMS memory, the program will use EMS, instead.
If you specify "DISK", the program will slow down a lot!
Use it only if that is your last resort.
163
OEMS: specifies whether to use EMS for the overlays. Default
is yes. If OEMS is N, the overlays are not put into EMS.
At the DOS prompt, enter: SET OEMS=N;
this will turn off EMS use by the overlays. Having the
overlays in EMS memory speeds up the program, as it reduces
disk access.
OMem: specifies how much memory to use for the overlays.
Setting it to 0 gives you the maximum amount of memory for
student data, while specifying 400000 puts as much of the
overlays into memory as possible.
Examples:
1) To let the program use 10 megabytes of XMS memory, type,
at the DOS prompt (or put into a batch file):
SET VMEM=10000;
2) To free up as much regular memory as possible, type:
SET OMEM=0;
3) To use EMS rather than XMS memory, type:
SET VTYPE=EMS;
4) To use a minimum of memory, type:
SET OMEM=0;
SET OEMS=N;
SET VTYPE=NONE;
G. Video Displays
VAR Grade supports all standard displays. There are some
points below that may help you.
1. Monochrome displays
Some monochrome display adapters tell programs that they are
color boards. This causes the program to write data to the
screen that looks funny or unreadable. If you have a
monochrome board and the opening screen has a lot of
underlined characters, there are two things you can do to
improve the display.
(a) Start the program with a switch
Instead of starting the program with "GRADE", start it
with "GRADE/B". The /B is a switch that tells the program
164
Other Program Features
that you have a black and white display. This has to be
done each time you run the program. An analogous switch,
"GRADE/C" will force the program into color mode.
(b) Set a DOS environment variable
Rather than typing /B all the time, you can set a DOS
variable, instead. Before running the program, type "SET
VMON=BW;". This tells the program that you have a black
and white display. The best thing would be for you to set
this variable in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that DOS reads when
booting the computer.
Example: You can do this by typing, at the DOS prompt,
"COPY CON AUTOEXEC.BAT" then <Rtn>. Then type "SET
VMON=BW;", then <CtrlZ>. This will add one line to
your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.
Alternatively, set up a batch file that starts VAR Grade:
Example: Prepare a file called G.BAT the has the following
lines:
SET VMON=BW;
GRADE
SET VMON=;
This will set the variable, run the program, then remove
it from the environment. Some suggested batch files for
use with VAR Grade are given later in this chapter.
2. EGA
If you have an EGA board, you can display 43 lines on the
screen. Go to the "O" option of the Main Menu, then pick
"V". You can pick whether to show 25 or more lines.
3. VGA and Super VGA
For VGA boards, you can display 50 lines. For most super
VGA boards, you can display even more lines.
If you have a Video 7, Paradise, Orchid, Tseng Labs, ATI
Technologies, Chips and Technologies, Genoa, or Trident
super VGA video adapter board, the program will allow you to
have more than 80 characters on a line.
165
If the program doesn't correctly recognize your board, you
can set a DOS variable to tell the program which board you
have. You can have up to 132 characters per line and up to
60 lines per screen, depending on the board. For Video 7
boards, type the following line (or put it in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file): "SET VMON=VIDEO7;". If you have a Video
7 board and black-and-white monitor, add the line: "SET
VMON=VIDEO7;BW;". For the Orchid boards, replace "VIDEO7"
in the above examples with "ORCHID". For the Paradise
boards, replace "VIDEO7" with "PARADISE", and for the Tseng
Labs boards, replace it with "TSENG". For Genoa boards, use
"GENOA", for ATI Technologies, use "ATI", for Trident
boards, use "TRIDENT", and for Chips and Technologies, use
"CHIPS". Many video boards from other companies use the
chips from one of these manufacturers. For example, EMK
boards use the Paradise VGA chips. NOTE: If the screen
looks funny after changing the display, your board will not
go into the mode you chose. You need to set the display
back to one that your board is capable of using by pressing
"V" and then "1". Some mouse drivers also cannot support
video modes other than 80x25 and 80x50. If the program
hangs or aborts right after changing video modes, it is
probably a faulty or old mouse driver.
4. Other Graphics
Some video adapters are not detectable by VAR Grade. In
those cases, you will get funny looking plots. To let you
use the correct BGI driver for your adapter, an additional
command has been added. Type "SET BGI=x;", where x is the
name of the BGI driver, at the DOS prompt before using the
program. If you need this command, you will probably want
to add it to your Autoexec.bat file so that you don't have
to type it in each time you use your computer.
Example: A> SET BGI=Herc;
This example will tell the program to use the Hercules video
driver (Herc.BGI).
H. Examples of VAR Grade Batch Files
If you are familiar with MS-DOS, the following are examples of
how to set up batch files to do what you want with VAR Grade.
For all the examples, it is assumed that you are using DOS 3.0
or later, and that the program is in the directory C:\VARGRADE.
Classname is a name of any valid VAR Grade class.
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Other Program Features
Preparing Batch files:
The easiest way to prepare the following files is to use a
word processor that will write the data to disk files in
plain text (ASCII) format.
To prepare the batch files from MS-DOS, type the following
(A> is the DOS prompt, the material between the [], below,
tells you what to do):
A> COPY CON batchfilename<Rtn>
[type in one of the batch files listed below]
<CtrlZ> [simultaneously press the <Ctrl> key and "Z"]
A>
GR.BAT: Batch file to run VAR Grade from any directory. Put
it in your directory where DOS is, or in one specified by
the PATH command. Start it from DOS by typing "GR
Classname".
@ECHO OFF
@REM CALL WITH "GR Classname"
IF %1Z == Z GOTO ERR
SET LASTPATH=%PATH%
SET PATH=C:\VARGRADE;%PATH%
C:\VARGRADE\GRADE %1
SET PATH=%LASTPATH%
GOTO END
:ERR
ECHO ERROR! RUN GR WITH: "GR Classname"
:END
You may want to add parts of some of the following batch files
to GR.BAT to fit your needs.
GM.BAT: Batch file if you have a monochrome monitor. Put it
in your directory where DOS is, or in one specified by the
PATH command. Start it from DOS by typing "GM Classname":
SET VMON=BW;
C:\VARGRADE\GRADE %1
GMin.BAT: Batch file to reduce the memory used by VAR Grade.
Put it in your directory where DOS is, or in one specified
by the PATH command. Start it from DOS by typing "GMin
Classname":
SET OMEM=0;
167
C:\VARGRADE\GRADE %1
GMax.BAT: Batch file to increase the memory used by VAR
Grade, thereby reducing the disk accesses, and increasing
the speed of parts of the program. Put it in your
directory where DOS is, or in one specified by the PATH
command. Start it from DOS by typing "GMem Classname":
SET OMEM=400000;
C:\VARGRADE\GRADE %1
168
Appendix
APPENDIX
A. Program Parameters--Defaults and Limits
The default values are those that are there when the program
starts.
Parameter Default Maximum
Students 0 16000
Sections 1 16000
Tasks (total) 0 2000
Total points for a number task 100 1000000
Total points per sum task - 9999999
Attendance Days 0 240
Database items 0 200
Lines per page 60 30000
Characters per line 80 255
Left margin 0
Lines in header 5
Lines in the footer 5
Page numbers printed Yes
Form feeds to separate pages Yes
B. Backup Files
1. Preventing Data Loss
It is very important to prevent data from being lost. There
are several things that the program does to prevent this
loss.
a) You cannot exit the program without telling it whether
you want your data saved.
b) You cannot accidentally exit the program (e.g. disk drive
door open, printer not turned on), except from a power
failure or by rebooting the computer.
169
c) Files are written in read-only format by default. You
cannot delete or erase these files in DOS. The default
can be changed to "normal" (if you do not fear deleting
your class grades), or "hidden".
d) When files are written to disk, the program checks to
make sure the files were written with the correct size
(hence were probably correctly written).
e) When files are written to disk, the previous class data
is turned into backup files. The file CLASSNAME.PAR is
changed to CLASSNAME.PAX. The file CLASSNAME.DAT is
changed to CLASSNAME.DAX. These backup files are not
read-only, and can be deleted by DOS. Should you want to
delete old class files, use the DOS 3.x command Attrib to
change the file attribute to "normal", then delete the
file.
Example, type:
A> ATTRIB -R CLASSNAME.*
A> DEL CLASSNAME.*
You can tell the program to stop making backup files, but
we recommend that you do this only if disk space is at a
premium.
f) If a fatal error occurs during program execution, VAR
Grade will try to save any new data put into the program.
Success depends upon the nature of the fatal error. A
fatal error is one that prevents the program from
executing correctly. Although great care has been taken
to prevent such errors, they may still occur. Therefore,
it is suggested that you immediately save your data to
disk when you have entered new data. It is also
recommended that you also print the data on your printer
to have another copy of it.
2. Recovering Old Data
To recover the information in the backup files, you can use
the recover command on the Alter Files Menu. Press "F" on
the Main Menu, then "V". Chapter XIII, Section A5 describes
how this command works.
Alternatively, you can do the recovery yourself. First, you
must first exit VAR Grade. When in DOS, rename them so that
170
Appendix
the file that ends in ".PAX" ends in ".PAR" and the file
that ends in ".DAX" ends in ".DAT". Both files must have
the same classname. At the MS-DOS prompts (A>), type:
A> RENAME ACLASS.PAX ACLASS2.PAR
A> RENAME ACLASS.DAX ACLASS2.DAT
ACLASS2 will have the data from the PREVIOUS update of the
data--NOT the most recent update.
C. Beeps or Noises
If the computer beeps or makes a noise, there are two possible
reasons. First, you could have entered a number too high or
low for the task. This warning can either be changed to a
louder pitch or turned off in the "O" section of the Main Menu,
then "O". Second, the memory may be quite low, so that the
information in a screen window could not be saved. When the
current window is finished, it probably will not be able to
redraw the underlying window correctly. Pressing <AltR> will
usually redraw the screen. The program should run correctly
when memory is low; however, not all students, tasks, or
attendance days may be listed when memory is low. If you get
one beep, more will probably occur due to the limited memory.
Since memory is low, you should probably exit the program, free
up some memory, and then re-run VAR Grade.
One way to free up memory is by setting a MS-DOS variable
OMEM=0, then reentering the program.
Example: At the DOS prompt (A>), type:
A> SET OMEM=0;
D. Menus
The following is a list of the major Menus in VAR Grade. They
are arranged in a hierarchy, so an indent is one menu down in
the hierarchy. Those marked with asterisks (*) are only in the
advanced mode. Those marked with plus signs (+) are dependent
upon your class.
171
Add Names Menu Data Menu (continued)
Type in names Designate editor*
Type in names and IDs Edit reports*
Change size of names or Export to new class
ID's Export quote and comma
Use multiple Sections file*
Import flat files* Export flat file*
Import flat files Change database list*
automatically* Plot Menu
Import comma and quote Plot the scores in 2D
files* bars*
Import one task* Plot the scores in 3D
Move section+ bars*
Delete section+ List scores on a task*
Delete all students Pie charts*
Individual Task Form Database plots*
Class Task Form Plot trends in 2D bars*
Task Type Menu Plot trends in 3D bars*
Define tasks* Correlate two tests*
Change tasks* Correlate with 3D bars*
Add database item* Plot class statistics*
Change database item* Plot an individual versus
Attendance Menu class statistics*
Class Attendance Form Horizontal individual
Individual Attendance plot*
Form Plot options*
Define new attendance Change fonts*
dates Assign graphics format*
Change attendance values Grading Menu
Make a seating chart Scale tasks
Make a drag 'n drop chart Descriptive statistics*
Print a seating chart Assign statistics*
Attendance options Adjust statistics*
Save Class Data Delete adjustments*
Write Data Menu What if calculations
View by section Assign grades
View by name Adjust the final grades*
Pick tasks, view by name* Change grade names or
Print grids values
Print attendance grids Assign cutoffs
Designate database items* Grading Menu (continued)
Write Options Remove cutoffs
Write individual reports* Help
Write class reports*
Teacher & class name and
section comments*
172
Appendix
File Maintenance
Alter class file name
Write backup file
Rename classes
Update classes
Copy classes
Move classes
Delete classes
Recover classes
Toggle backups
File protection
Parameters Menu (Options)
Sections to list
Passwords
Sorting and listing
Options for the program
Date and time
Titles (output)
Printer Menu
Printers (up to 5)
User defined line codes
Printer Codes or
Fonts
Text printer codes
Page options
Text character size
Text quality
Graphics quality
Set the printer port
Color
Editor for viewing
Macros
Video display lines
Beginner/Advanced mode
DOS shell*
Quit the class
Get another class
173
Glossary
GLOSSARY
Archive Files that have been compressed so that they
take up less space on the disk. They need to
be unarchived to be used.
ASCII A standard code that translates normal
characters and symbols into 7 bit binary
computer code.
Autoexec.BAT When you start your computer, it looks for this
file to get information about the operating
environment.
Bars Squares used to depict student scores in the
plots. They can look two dimensional or
three dimensional.
Batch One of three types of files that DOS can
execute. Batch files are written in ASCII
characters, with each line telling DOS what
to do.
Cell A highlighted area of the screen that holds one
piece of data.
Comma & Quote Files Files that have strings of characters between
double quotes (""), and commas separating
pieces of data. Numbers are separated only
by commas.
Cursor Keys Keys that move the position of the cursor on the
screen. They include the arrow keys, the
home, end, page up, and page down keys.
Database Data kept by a program in a structured way. The
data can then be sorted, abstracted, graphed,
or otherwise manipulated.
Default The value when the program starts.
Directory Group of files on a disk. Files on hard disks
are usually grouped together in directories
to make it easier to find the file you need.
Drives are also directories.
Display Adapter A card in the computer that controls the
monitor. It can be a Hercules card, CGA,
EGA, or VGA card, as well as other cards.
Edit Keys When edit keys are used, the left and right
arrow cursor keys move within a cell instead
of between cells, and the home and end keys
move to the beginning and end of the cell.
To "use" edit keys means that you can use the
175
left and right arrow, home, and end keys to
move around a cell. To move between cells
when "using" edit keys, you need to use
<Ctrl>-arrow keys.
EMS memory Expanded memory. Memory above 640K. If you
have 1 megabyte or more memory and a program
that can map this memory, like EMM.SYS or
EMM386.SYS, programs like VAR Grade can make
use of the memory.
Fixed Disk A disk that cannot be removed from the computer.
Flat Files Files that have data in columns, separated by
spaces.
Floppy Disk A disk that can be removed from a drive.
Hard Disk A disk that cannot be removed from the computer.
Install Put the files needed by a program onto new disks
such that the new disks have the program
files in the places needed by that program.
Macros Macros allow you to assign a sequence of
keyboard actions to a single key. They
generally are used for repetitive tasks.
Main Menu The menu that lists the major sections of the
program.
Menu-driven Uses menus to let you reach all parts and
features of the program.
Monochrome Black and white.
Overlay The part of the program that is in memory only
when needed. It is read in from a disk when
it is needed.
Path A list of directories that tells MS-DOS where
executable programs are. The path is set by
typing "SET PATH=directory1;directory2;" at
the DOS prompt, where directory1 and
directory2, etc., are names of directories.
Ports Printers are connected to either serial or
parallel cards in your computer. Each card
has a different designation for its address.
These addresses are the ports.
Printer Codes Codes sent to the printer to control how it
prints data.
RAM Random access memory. This is memory the
computer uses to run programs. Most
computers have 640 kb or more of RAM, and VAR
Grade needs 512 kb of RAM to run. Memory on
floppy or hard disks is not RAM.
Regular tasks Those tasks that you can put in new data. They
are the number, letter, and extra credit
tasks.
176
Glossary
Special keys Special keys are those that do not print normal
(ASCII) keys. The function keys (<F1>
through <F10>), the <Alt>, <Ctrl>, <Ins>,
<Del>, and the cursor keys.
Special tasks Those tasks that are calculated by the program.
You cannot put in new scores into these
tasks.
Task A graded assignment for the class.
Toggle Turn on and off.
Text Printer A printer that prints non-graphics characters.
All printers are text printers.
Wildcard The characters * and ? are used by MS-DOS to
match more than one character, as a wild
card, when playing cards, can match any other
card.
XMS memory Extended memory. Memory above 640K. If you
have 1 megabyte or more memory and a program
that can map this memory, like EMM.SYS or
EMM386.SYS, programs like VAR Grade can make
use of the memory.
177