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                     WELCOME TO ICES!!

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  This  examination  supervisor  is  designed to help you provide 
better   training   opportunities   for   your   students   while
significantly  reducing  the  work  you  must spend in preparing,
administering, solving, and grading quizes and examinations.  The
system does virtually all of that work for you.

  You,  of  course,  must set up and manage the system.  However,
the time required to do that is much less than the time you would 
spend  doing  the  work  which  the  system  performs  for   you.
Moreover, the system is quite easy to manage and operate.

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PREPARING AND GRADING QUIZES

  You do not have to prepare any quizes!

  All  quizes  are  computer generated and computer scored.  Each 
quiz is scored while the student is taking it and  the  score  is
reported to the student immediately and saved for the instructor.

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COLLECTING GRADES  

  When a student has completed one or more quizes or examinations
using  their  own  exam  diskette,  the  student merely gives the 
instructor the diskette (or a backup copy).  The instructor  then
uses  this  program to collect the grades.  The program lifts all
data off the student's diskette and then updates the instructor's
records.

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PREPARING GRADE REPORTS  

  The instructor may obtain an updated grade report at  any  time
by  using  this program.  By choosing the appropriate option from 
the menu, the instructor may print a grade report that  is  based
on  all  data  submitted by the students as of the time the grade
report is prepared.

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ASSESSING STUDENT EFFORT-ABILITY  

  A student's final grade on a quiz or examination  reflects  the
result  of both effort and skill.  Some students will take a quiz 
or exam only once and obtain a high score.  Others  will  attempt
the exams several times in order to improve a score.  

  The system keeps track of, and records,  the  number  of  times
each  student  attempts  an  examination .  The number of 'tries' 
becomes part of the grade report so that you  can  better  assess
the  effort  students  are making.  Provided, of course, that you 
permit multiple trials on the quizes and examinations.  You  have
complete control over that!

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PRESENTING LECTURE NOTES 

  As  you will see in the main menu of the PROFESS program, there 
is an option to present lecture notes.  Thus, you  can  take  the
PROFESS  program to a classroom with a large monitor and run your
lectures from the computer.  

  It's so very simple.  Just put your lecture notes in  any  text
file  on  a  separate  diskette.  You then have your own built in
visual aid for the classroom. 

  If you want your students to have your  lecture  notes,  merely
give the students a copy of your 'notes' diskette.  They can then
view  or  print  virtually  any text file that you provide on the
'notes' diskette.

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OVERALL SECURITY 

  Special efforts have been made to provide  reasonable  security
for  all forms of student data, and this is done in several ways
that will be described shortly. 

  It  is  essential for you to recognize that use of this PROFESS 
program constitutes the  weakest  link  in  the  entire  security
chain.   Thus,  you should NEVER allow a student to obtain or use
this program or the diskette on which it resides.

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PASSWORD SECURITY 

  Each student is given a 'password' which must be correctly used
in order to operate any part of the system.  Thus, a student must 
deliberately  surrender  the  password  before  anyone  else  can
operate the system using their exam diskette.

  Passwords  are used to minimize any chance of someone examining
a student's grades without proper authorization.

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DATA SECURITY  

  Virtually  all  student  data  and  the  exams are encrypted to 
discourage the unlikely  event  that  someone  might  attempt  to
modify grades or examination answers.

  Certain  additional protections have been included that make it 
difficult to modify any information unless that is properly  done
by  the  system.   Thus,  students  are warned that they must not 
attempt to modify any of the files on their data  diskette.   Any
effort  to  do  so could result in total destruction of all prior
work. 

  Moreover, any such fortuitous file destruction will  likely  be
brought  to  the  instructor's  attention by the student who will
have to seek help in restoring data files.
 
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INSTRUCTOR'S SECURITY

  As  you saw earlier, this PROFESS program is unprotected unless 
you assign your own password.  It is very important that  you  do
that.

  When you create a password for this PROFESS program, it is very 
important that you also write it down and store it  in  a  secure
place.   If you forget your password you cannot then get into the
system! 

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PLACE SECURITY

  We  strongly  recommend  that  students  be  allowed to use the 
system only in designated public places  like  computer  labs  or
classrooms  that  contain adequate computer equipment.  Moreover, 
we recommend that such laboratories or classrooms  be  supervised
by an attendant in order to discourage any effort to modify files
or break security codes and encryption techniques.

  The main consideration to keep in mind is that security is only
as  good  as  you  make it.  A reasonable effort has been made to 
provide security, but the effectiveness of those efforts  depends
on  your  management of the environment in which the system is to
be used. 

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ICES PHILOSOPHY 

  You should know that ICES is based  on  a  particular  view  of
education.  It is a view based on the belief that students should
be  free  to  set their own standards for the level of excellence 
that they will pursue in the  course.   Some  will  aspire  to  a
'perfect  score'  on  all quizes and examinations and others will
settle for less than that.  

  This philosophy is implemented by allowing students to  attempt
any examination or quiz as many times as they wish.  However, the
instructor has complete control over the number of times students
are allowed to attempt an examination or quiz.

*

  Our  experience  with  this  system  has  thus  far  been quite 
positive.   While  students  often  complain   loudly   when   an
instructor  'requires'  repetition of an assignment or quiz, they 
have generally been most eager to 'elect' repetition of work  and
effort when they know that will provide an opportunity to improve
their  grade.   Frankly,  we've  been  rather amazed at students' 
willingness to invest great  energy  into  the  learning  of  the
materials by availing themselves of the ICES options.  

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