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Documentation for Itwrite Complete documentation is on Hardcopy manual. (c) Copyright Gail M. Drauden and Associates, 1988 IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines corporation MS-Dos is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation dBASE dBASE III and dBASE III Plus are trademarks of Ashton- Tate Corporation Table of Contents Section 1: The dBASE file Creating the dBase File Can I have Additional Fields on the File? 2 Section 2: Entering Information Text for the Question and the Choices The Keep Toggle and the Answer Key Section 3: Running ITWRITE Writing a Test File Writing a Key SECTION 1: The dBASE FILE Purpose of Program Program ITWRITE reads multiple choice items stored on a dBASE III or dBASE III Plus file. The program formats these items in a report format suitable for test administration and writes the formatted items onto a plain (ASCII) text file. In order to use the program, you must create a dBASE III file in the proper format, store your items in the file, select the items you want to use, and run ITWRITE. You can then edit the resulting plain text file (on most word processors) to add page numbers, page breaks, headings, or any other format changes you might wish. Finally, (using your word processor) print the finished text. Creating the dBASE File Program ITWRITE looks for specific content in the first 8 positions of the dBASE III file. Variables may have any name and any length, but the first eight variables in the structure must have a particular content, type and be in a particular order, as follows: STRUCTURE FOR DBASE III FILE Variable Type Size Content in Position 1 C up to 250 Question (stem) text 2 C up to 250 Text for choice a 3 C up to 250 Text for choice b 4 C up to 250 Text for choice c 5 C up to 250 Text for choice d 6 C up to 250 Text for choice e 7 L 1 Indicates whether item should be printed Y y T t for yes N n F f or blank for no 8 C 1 Answer key to question a,b,c,d, or e Can I Have Additional Fields on the File? You may have as many additional fields as you wish on the file, as long as the first 8 fields of the structure are defined as indicated above. You might want to have a field for the source of the items, book references for the item answers, item statistics, codes for the type of content or job family, and so on. SECTION 2: ENTERING INFORMATION We will use the file "myitems.dbf" as an example. We are looking at record 2 in this example. Text for the Question and the Choices The first variable in the file is always the question (stem) of the multiple choice item, in this case The author of the "Catcher in the Rye" is... The next five variables allow five possible answers. Note several things about these multiple choice responses... 1. You DO NOT include the item number with the text. If it is important for you to keep the item number on the file, create your own variable later in the file structure and record the item number. The program automatically numbers items from 1 to the number of items you choose. If you need different item numbers (for example, if this is section 2 of a test) you will have to change them yourself on a word processor before printing the test. Note that if you need the items in a particular order, you could sort them using dBASE III before running ITWRITE. 2. You DO NOT include the letter a) or 1) with the text for the choice. The letter is added automatically by the program. Choices will receive letters a to e 3. You DO NOT need to use all of the choices (but you must have the fields in your structure). The program will automatically check to see whether there is any text other than blanks in the field. If there is no text in the field, no letter, no text and no space is left on the resulting test for this response. If there is no e) response for example, the test will be formatted for only 4 responses. If there are only two responses, for instance a) true b) false, the program will format the results for just these two responses. Leave response fields that you are not going to need blank, and the program will take care of the formatting. The Keep Toggle and the Answer Key Variable (or field) 1 is the question text. Variables (or fields) 2 to 6 are the five multiple choice texts. Variable 7 is the keep toggle and Variable 8 is the answer key. THE KEEP TOGGLE Variable 7 is the keep toggle. ITWRITE will only print items which have a T t Y or y in this field. The purpose of this "keep toggle" is to allow you to go through your file and mark only those items that you want to keep--these items will be numbered and formatted for the test. Items with F f N n or blank in this field will not be printed by ITWRITE. Variable 7 is a logical field in the database structure. THE ANSWER KEY Variable 8 is the answer key. It indicates the correct answer to the multiple choices. You should enter an upper or lower case a b c d or e. Of course, you need to keep a record of the correct answer for you item. There is a special reason that the answer key is one of the eight required fields. In the next section on running the program you will find out that to run ITWRITE you just say the name of the program, your input .dbf file, and the output file. However, if you add k to the end of these commands, ITWRITE will print the correct answer at the bottom of each item. This will give you a hard copy answer key that you can keep in your files. When you are making the final run in printing the test that you are going to administer, print a key as well. In this way, you will have no problems of searching through the original file to locate the item and you won't need to worry about someone altering the dBASE file before you print your key. If you are working from a large data base and wish to keep track of a lot of the information about the items on your test, remember that you can also use dBASE III's report command. You could, for example, create a report form that had the question, the answer, the source, the item category number, and so on, if you keep this type of additional information on your file. SECTION 3: RUNNING ITWRITE Writing a Test File You should run ITWRITE from the DOS command line. You can run it from within dBASE if you have enough memory to use the ! or Run commands in dBase. ITWRITE reads a dBASE III or III Plus file. The program formats these items into the format of a final test and writes this to a plain text file. You will need to tell ITWRITE the name of your dBASE III file: myfile.dbf the name of a file to write the text on: myout Your dBASE file must have a .dbf extension (which dBASE III always writes automatically) but you don't have to tell the program. It will automatically add .dbf to the first filename if you don't write it in. To run the program, you say the name of the program the name of your input file and the name of your output file like this: ITWRITE A:MYITEMS B:TEST1OUT or like this: C:ITWRITE A:CLRKITEM.DBF A:TEST4 Your output file will be created by ITWRITE onto the drive that you specify in the filename. B:TEST1OUT will be created on the B: drive. Remember in DOS that the first part of a filename can have only 8 characters, and the extension (the part after the period) can have only 3. Writing a Key ITWRITE will also print the items in test form and write the correct answer under each item. To print this type of key you need only change the name of your output file and add the letter k at the end of the usual ITWRITE commands. To obtain keys for the tests in the examples given in the last section, you would type: ITWRITE A:MYITEMS B:TEST1KEY K or like this: C:ITWRITE A:CLRKITEM.DBF A:T4KEY k Note that the the output file name should be changed so that the test format file isn't destroyed by being overwritten. Output from Printing File From a Word Processor On most word processors, you can read the ITWRITE text file as though it had been created by the word processor. Add page breaks and any other changes you wish to make, and print it like any other file. Note that there is only a 2 space margin on the original ITWRITE text file. ITWRITE assumes that your word processor will automatically add a margin (as most do). The ITWRITE text file is formatted to fit within standard word processor margin settings. Using Word Processors To Edit and Print WordStar To edit the ITWRITE output file in WordStar, choose the D option from the WordStar menu, and when asked for the file name, give the name of the output file you created with ITWRITE. You can then edit the file. You may need to space some items down (using the return or enter key) to make the page breaks come out properly. You may also wish to add additional instructions, etc. When you are ready to print the file, save the file (cntrl KD) and use the WordStar print option from the menu. WordStar usually adds page numbers automatically, unless your version was configured not to do so. WordPerfect To edit an ITWRITE output file from WordPerfect, use shift F10 to open the document, and give the name of the ITWRITE output file as the document to be edited. Use Alt F8 1 to add page numbers to the document. Use Shift F7 to print the file. WORD (4.0) To edit an ITWRITE output file in Word, call up the file using transfer load. Be sure to add the "." if your file has no 3 letter final extension. That is, if you call your file MYFILE tell Word it is MYFILE. with the period. Or, before you call Word, rename the ITWRITE output file to a file with a "doc" extension as follows: At the DOS prompt, you would say: RENAME MYFILE MYFILE.DOC Use Print Option Repaginate and yes to see where page breaks will fall. Use Control+Shift+Enter to define page breaks where you want them. Use Format Division Page-Numbers to add page numbers to your document. (Hint, to start numbering on a particular page, make the top of that page a new division). Other Word Processors We have not tried ITWRITE output files with word processors other than the above three. ITWRITE output files are straight ASCII files, with endline marks at the end of each line of text. Most word processors, somewhere buried in their documentation, have information on reading plain ASCII files. Specifications ITWRITE is written in Turbo C. It runs completely independently of dBASE. ITWRITE should run on IBM-XTs and compatibles, under MS-DOS. We have run it on a Leading Edge, a Cordata (8088), and a Compaq Deskpro (8086). ITWRITE writes a standard ASCII file, with end of line marks at the end of each line of text.