(c) Copyright 1994 by Dennis Revie All rights Reserved
This is the shareware version of VAR Grade for Windows! This README file will help you get started with the program.
Since 1988, VAR Grade has been hailed as the most flexible, complete, and capable grading program available. VAR Grade for Windows (VGW) is a major update of that program. VGW allows you to grade, record attendance, and do seating charts for your classes. This is a complete grading system, and will do just about anything that you need or want to do regarding class records. In particular, it will allow you to record, analyze, and print grades and attendance, do seating charts, and have database items. Below is a list of some of the features of this program. In general, the program allows an almost unlimited number of students, grades, attendance, database items, reports and analyses.
Table of Contents
1. Features
2. Requirements
3. Installation
4. Getting started with VGW
5. Files included
6. Registration and site licenses
7. Changes to the Manual
1. Features
This program is flexible enough to allow you to grade your class with the same methods you now use--except that VGW does the tedious chores of adding, plotting, and writing the scores. The
program has been written by and for teachers and requires no special knowledge of computers, Windows, or MS-DOS. However, you do need to know the basics of how to start and run programs.
If you are not an experienced computer or VAR Grade for Windows user, there are numerous tutorials and hints that show you how to get started with the program. VGW also has help and context-sensitive help available.
VAR Grade can be used for both grades and attendance. You may grade with either letter or number grades, and you can mix and match letter and number grades. You can change the points of any assignment or score at any time. You can use many different types of pre-defined
assignments (tasks), including ones that are the sums, averages, and weights of other tasks. Any task or combination of tasks can be plotted, correlated, and analyzed statistically.
Attendance and seating charts for your classes can be recorded. VGW can print attendance for each day, or total the attendance a myriad of ways.
Either individual student scores or scores for each section of the class can be printed. You can also add database items, such as address, age, and year in school.
International users can change all text that is printed, date formats, and other country dependent information.
There are no other grading programs that can do all that VAR Grade for Windows does, whether they are shareware or "buy before you try" (store-bought) programs. Try VGW, then register it.
VGW will allow you to:
╖ have up to 16,000 students, with 8,000 assignments per student
╖ divide the class into as many sections (groups) as you want
╖ have up to 240 days of student attendance
╖ have up to 200 database items
╖ have up to 2 seating charts per section of students
╖ have an unlimited number of classes
╖ have up to 4 grading systems per class
You can:
╖ sum, average, weight, and scale assignments, discard the lowest, convert scores to
percentages, assign extra credit, assign final grades, and much more.
╖ plot any assignment for any combination of students.
╖ correlate any two exams.
╖ calculate statistics on any assignment
╖ calculate & assign T-scores, percentiles, and z-scores.
╖ plot trends for the class or for an individual student.
╖ display and print the scores for any combination of students or individually for each
student, and even print scores from several classes on one report.
╖ sort students numerous ways.
╖ define your own grading system(s).
╖ calculates scores needed by students to obtain specific grades (what ifs).
╖ export and import data from other programs.
╖ design and print your own printed reports.
╖ use a calculator when entering scores
╖ allows use of passwords
╖ and much MORE, in fact, do just about anything you want!
2. Requirements
VAR Grade for Windows requires 4 Megabytes of RAM (memory), 4 Megabytes of hard disk space, and Windows 3.1 or later.
3. Installation
To install VGW:
╖ Select "File", then "Run" from the Program Manager.
╖ Enter "A:INSTALL" (if the disk is in the A: drive, otherwise change the A: to the
directory where the program files are located).
╖ If necessary, change the suggested directories for where to install the program.
╖ Select the "Install" button.
The program will be installed, and a new folder opened called "VGW 1.0".
4. Getting started with VGW
To run VGW, double click on the VAR Grade for Windows icon. The first time you run the program, a "Hint" screen will appear, helping you get oriented to the program. We suggest running the tutorial(s) to help get started. The general order you should follow is to add students, define tasks for entering grades, and, if you use attendance, defining the attendance dates. There are no predefined tasks (assignments) or attendance dates, so you need to define them before entering data.
5. Files included
There are two files on the disk: INSTALL.EXE, and VGW10.ZIP. The latter is a zip file containing all the program files.
VGW10.ZIP:
╖ VGW..EXE (program)
╖ DEWCCVG.DLL and DEWTCVG.DLL (required DLL files)
╖ GSW.EXE and GSWDLL.DLL (Graphics Server and DLL)
╖ BWCC.DLL (Borland Windows Control DLL)
╖ VGW.HLP (help file)
╖ VGW.TUT (tutorial)
╖ VGW.WRI (on disk manual)
╖ VGW.INF (program file)
╖ README.WRI (read me file: THIS FILE)
╖ README.DOC (same as README.WRI, except in ASCII)
Registration information is located in the file REGISTER.WRI. After installation, one of the icons in the "VGW 1.0" folder will display the registration information. You can also view the information by selecting "Help", then "Registration information" when using VGW.
Site license information is located in the file SITELIC.WRI. After installation, one of the icons in the "VGW 1.0" folder will display the site license information. You can also view the information by selecting "Help", then "Site license information" when using VGW.
Registered users receive the latest version plus a printed manual. If they register within 90 days of a major new version, they also receive the next version plus manual when it is released.
Note: This version of VAR Grade for Windows is the shareware version, and is used on a trial basis only. You can use the program for 60 days to see if it will do what you want. After that, you should either register the program or remove it.
7. Changes to the Manual
Loading previous classes:
VGW automatically loads the last class that you used. However, you may not want the program to load a class when it starts. You can turn off the automatic loads on the "Options", then "File Options" dialog.
Writing by section:
When writing student data by section, the students are normally separated into their sections. You can prevent this by changing an option on the "Write", then "Option" dialog.
Viewing data by individual:
You can now add comments to each student by selecting "Comment" from the menu. The comments for each student are asked once, and remain there until you leave the screen or select different students. You can enter a comment up to 1024 characters long. The comment is displayed after all other data for that student. Note: The comment is not saved, and disappears after you leave the screen. You can, however, save the data to the Windows clipboard or to a file. The purpose of these comments to let you make specific comments about the student on the individual reports.
One new command was added to report forms:
Command: [SAY"xxx"] where xxx can be any words (up to 100 characters)
Action: Puts an information dialog, with the words between the double quotes displayed. Its main use is to inform you as to what the form should do or what data is needed for the form.
