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DOCUMENTATION FOR GRADE GUIDE Version 3.xx Series (C)Copyright 1988, Jon Kane ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GRADE GUIDE is a versatile program used for the storing, retrieving, and analyzing of students' grades. It does not require any special hardware but it does take advantage of color graphics cards, printers, and fixed disk drives when they are available. Its use on computers with less than 128 K of memory may be limited. Some of its features include: -displaying easy to follow menus showing users all available options. -selecting any option by touching one keyboard key. -listing names, ID's, grades, and statistics in several formats. -separating grades into categories such as EXAM, QUIZ, or HOMEWORK. -recording grades either as number scores, letter grades, or both. -giving grades of NONE to students whose grades are not yet available. -evaluating NONE grades either as zero grades or as ignored grades. -basing number grades on any maximum value, not just 100 points. -dropping the lowest or the lowest few scores in a category of grades. -weighting each grade and each category when calculating averages. -saving NOTES about absentee records, comments, or special grades. -letting you change any of the stored students' information. -rescaling by adding or multiplying students' grades by a constant. -accommodating up to 2000 grades per student. -putting no limit on the number of students until the memory is full. -allowing names and grades to be read from any DOS text file. -basing letter grades on almost any grading system; not just ABCDF. -having information displayed on screen, with printer, or to a file. -printing grade reports in a form convenient for handing to students. -supplying statistical reports and graphs of students' performance. -writing letters which include information about the students' grades. -creating grade report tables designed by the user. -backing up disk files at regular intervals to avoid lost work. -configuring the program to function as you want it to function. -using colors to aid readability when color hardware is available. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = DOCUMENTATION TABLE OF CONTENTS = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= INTRODUCTION AND LICENSING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 GETTING STARTED WITH GRADE GUIDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 FILE MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 OPTION A -- Choosing a Disk Drive or Directory . . . . . . . . 6 OPTION B -- Choosing a Class File and Using Command Line Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 OPTION C -- Moving to the MAIN MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 OPTION D -- Moving to the DEFAULT MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 OPTION E -- Combining Two Class Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 OPTION F -- Recovering a Backup File . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 OPTION G -- Changing Between Printer Output and File Output . 9 OPTION H -- Changing Color Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 OPTION Q -- Quitting GRADE GUIDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Page 1 ENTERING INFORMATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 commands; numbers; character strings; student names; change mode; illegal characters THE MAIN MENU CHOICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 MAIN MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 OPTION A -- Entering New Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 OPTION B -- Entering New Grades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Reviewing NONE grades; Creating a grade based on the GRAND AVERAGE OPTION C -- Entering New Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 OPTION D -- Dropping Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 OPTION E -- Dropping, Adjusting, or Deleting Grades . . . . . 21 Dropping grades; Adjusting grades; Deleting grades; Temporarily and permanently changing grades OPTION F -- Dropping Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 OPTION G -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Students' Names 23 OPTION H -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Students' Grades & Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Listing grades; Entering, viewing, and changing NOTES; Printing grade lists OPTION I -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Limits, Weights or Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 OPTION J -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Category Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 OPTION K -- Displaying or Printing Class Statistics . . . . . 29 OPTION L -- Writing Reports in Roster Format . . . . . . . . . 30 OPTION M -- Writing Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 OPTION Q -- Quitting and Returning to the FILE MENU . . . . . 37 CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 DEFAULT MENU OPTION A -- Setting up default directories and back-ups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 directories; disk drive; directory changing; back-up time interval DEFAULT MENU OPTION B -- Changing the Methods of Grade Calculations 40 grand average weighted; value of an empty category; basis of grade from average; converting of letter values; letter grade percentages; grade confirmations; treat none grades as zero; labeling of categories; listing grades with labels; grade report form DEFAULT MENU OPTION D -- Changing the way GRADE GUIDE displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 start in color mode; lines per page; maximum roster width; statistics grade list; statistics histogram; roster statistics; decimal digits for totals; decimal digits for averages; letter grade display names DEFAULT MENU OPTION E -- Changing the Use of the Editing Keys 51 DEFAULT MENU OPTION Q -- Quitting and Returning to the FILE MENU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 MEMORY REQUIREMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 INPUT/OUTPUT PROBLEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 SUGGESTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Page 2 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = INTRODUCTION AND LICENSING = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This program has been written and tested with great care to try to insure data integrity and accuracy of results. On the other hand, the programmer will not be liable for damages caused by use of GRADE GUIDE. GRADE GUIDE was designed to aid a teacher in the routine tasks associated with storing, reporting, and analyzing students' grades, and was not designed to take grading or teaching decisions away from the teacher. GRADE GUIDE Version 3.xx series is being distributed as Version 3.00 on three files: "GRADEGID.EXE" which contains the program, "GRADEGID.OVR" which contains overlay code for the program, and "GRADEGID.DOC" which contains a copy of this documentation. GRADE GUIDE Version 3.01 operates the same way that GRADE GUIDE Version 3.00 does except that it does not use program overlays. Thus GRADE GUIDE Version 3.01 is distributed on two files: "GRADEGID.EXE" and "GRADEGID.DOC". Version 3.01 is not being made available for general distribution. Copies of Version 3.01 are made available to registered users of GRADE GUIDE. Other versions of GRADE GUIDE in the 3.xx series include minor modifications made available as site licensed programs. The programmer maintains a copyright on this program, its displays, and its documentation. Any person may be licensed to use this program and may make as many copies of the program as desired. A short term license is granted to all new users at no cost. After users have had a chance to use GRADE GUIDE for a short evaluation period, not to exceed six months, they must register to obtain a license for continued use. If you have not sent a registration fee to Jon Kane, then you do not have a license for continued use of this program. Users who only obtained a copy of this program from a third party are not registered users. Fees paid to such a third party do not include payment of a registration fee. To register, send the version number of this program and $25.00 payable to Jon Kane to: GRADE GUIDE, c/o Jon Kane, 2814 Regent Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53705. The registration fee entitles one to continued use of the program, a diskette containing a copy of GRADE GUIDE, a printed copy of this documentation, and assistance in configuring GRADE GUIDE (setting up the correct GRADEGID.DFT file.) If your payment is being sent by a third party (such as the school purchasing agent), send notification of your payment to the above address so that the license can be registered in your name. Each user of GRADE GUIDE is required to register. Registration is not automatically extended to a user's spouse or other family members. If a household has one registered user, a second person at that household may be licensed to use the program by sending the second person's name and an additional $10 fee to the above address. This second license entitles the second person to use the program, but it does NOT entitle the second person to an additional copy of the program or an additional copy of the documentation since adequate access to these materials should already be available. The second person license cannot be extended to a third person. Page 3 Site licenses are also available. A site license grants all people employed at a site or institution the right to use the program as long as they remain employed at that institution. It can also include making some minor modifications to GRADE GUIDE for special use at that site. Site licenses are offered to groups of 10 or more users. To obtain information about the cost of a site license, contact Jon Kane at the above address. Include the name and address of the site or institution, the number of potential users of the program employed at that site, and the number of printed copies of the documentation that are required. All users, whether licensed or not, should feel free to give this program to others as long as the copyright notices within the program, on the display, and in the documentation remain unchanged. All copies distributed should include the three files "GRADEGID.EXE", "GRADEGID.OVR", and "GRADEGID.DOC". GRADE GUIDE is designed to make it easy to use. In fact, users find that they can operate most of the features of GRADE GUIDE without ever reading any of this documentation. It is, therefore, unnecessary for a new user to memorize the operating procedures described in this documentation. It may be a good idea to read or skim this documentation once to get an idea of what GRADE GUIDE is capable of doing for you, and so you can see how the program operates. While using GRADE GUIDE, you can always see what options are available to you, so you only need to be mildly familiar with GRADE GUIDE to use it. If you have any suggestions for improvements, have found any bugs, or wish to have this program customized to your specific grading requirements, you may inquire about changes at the above address. Version 3.00 has been released in response to users' suggestions about earlier versions of GRADE GUIDE. In particular, if you need to have GRADE GUIDE perform a specialized task such as preparing a file which you could use with your statistical or spreadsheet program or calculating a final grade using some special method, you may be able to have a GRADE GUIDE COMPANION program written which will perform your special task. Cost will depend on the task and number of users. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = GETTING STARTED WITH GRADE GUIDE = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The GRADE GUIDE Version 3.00 program is stored in two files named "GRADEGID.EXE" and "GRADEGID.OVR". Both of these files must be present when the program begins operation. It is easiest to place the GRADEGID.OVR file on the same disk drive as the GRADEGID.EXE file. If you use subdirectories, you may want the GRADEGID.OVR file in the same subdirectory as the GRADEGID.EXE file is. If the GRADEGID.EXE file and the GRADEGID.OVR file are not located in the same directory, DOS must be able to find the GRADEGID.OVR file. You may move these files to any floppy or fixed disk by using the DOS COPY command. The DOS PATH command can be used to inform DOS how to find the GRADEGID.EXE file and GRADEGID.OVR file. If your computer is equipped with sufficient Lotus- Intel-Microsoft Expanded Memory (EMS), the GRADEGID.OVR file will be loaded into the expanded memory. GRADE GUIDE Version 3.01 is stored on one file, "GRADEGID.EXE". It is loaded into memory all at one time. This provides for faster program execution at the expense of much memory space. Page 4 Whenever the "GRADEGID.EXE" and "GRADEGID.OVR" files are both present on the default disk drive (Version 3.00), you may run the GRADE GUIDE program by typing the name "GRADEGID" followed by a carriage return, <CR>. The program begins by displaying a welcoming message which remains on the screen until you press the space bar, <Space>. GRADE GUIDE is a menu-driven program, which means that it performs operations which you select from a list of possible operations by typing a one letter command. GRADE GUIDE always displays on the screen the list of operations from which you can choose. The first menu that you see while running GRADE GUIDE is the FILE MENU. GRADE GUIDE stores information about each of your classes in a separate disk file. You can use the FILE MENU to choose which class file you want GRADE GUIDE to process. From the FILE MENU you can choose to go to the MAIN MENU. From the MAIN MENU you can enter students' names and grades, display names and grades, change names and grades, analyze grades, remove students from a class, or write letters and reports. You can also establish grade categories such as EXAMS, QUIZZES, HOMEWORK, and so forth, so that grades in these different categories can be treated in different ways. Also from the FILE MENU you can choose to go to the DEFAULT MENU. From the DEFAULT MENU you can change many aspects of how GRADE GUIDE operates. You can change how GRADE GUIDE displays information, how GRADE GUIDE calculates grade averages, how GRADE GUIDE uses the cursor control keys, and how GRADE GUIDE performs several other functions. It is not necessary to use the DEFAULT MENU if you like the way GRADE GUIDE has chosen to handle these operations. The instructions which follow frequently note that some aspect of GRADE GUIDE performance can be changed by using the DEFAULT MENU. The section of this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS explains how to use the DEFAULT MENU to make these changes. If your computer has a color graphics card and a printer port, the FILE MENU looks like the following table. ....................................................................... : FILE MENU : : : : A : choose drive/directory F : recover from a backup file : : B : choose class : G : redirect output to file : : C : go on to the MAIN MENU H : change display to monochrome : : D : go on to the DEFAULT MENU : : E : combine two class files Q : quit the program : : : : Class Files in Directory : \ : :.....................................................................: If your computer does not have a color graphics card, OPTION H is not displayed. If GRADE GUIDE thinks that your computer does not have a printer port, OPTION G is displayed as "G : redirect output to printer". Then GRADE GUIDE tells you that it has prepared a DOS file to which you can send printer output (see OPTION G below). Page 5 OPTION A -- Choosing a Disk Drive or Directory This option allows you to choose which disk drive you want GRADE GUIDE to search for the class files that you use. If you always store your class files on the same disk and in the same directory that you store the "GRADEGID.EXE" and "GRADEGID.OVR" files, you never need to use OPTION A. After selecting OPTION A, just type the letter of the disk drive you want. GRADE GUIDE then asks you for the directory of the newly chosen drive. You can enter a carriage return, <CR>, or escape key, <Esc>, and GRADE GUIDE uses the current default directory for that disk drive, or you can clear the old directory name (press the <F2> function key) and enter a new directory name. GRADE GUIDE uses the standard DOS rules for naming directories. Once your new drive and directory names have been accepted, GRADE GUIDE lists for you all the classes available on the new drive and directory. (NOTE! GRADE GUIDE can be set so that it automatically chooses a particular drive or directory for you. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) Suppose, for example, you have just finished using a class file on floppy drive B. If you change the floppy disk which is in drive B, you can use OPTION A to update the "Class Files in Directory" list to reflect the contents of the new disk. Use OPTION A to change the default disk drive to drive B (even though the default drive was B already.) This will cause the directory to be updated. The same process can be used to change directories on the same disk. OPTION B -- Choosing a Class File and Using Command Line Parameters GRADE GUIDE stores information about each of your classes in a separate file. When you select OPTION B, you may enter the name of either a previously created class file or a new class file which you would now like to create. Your class name may be from one to eight characters long and may include letters, digits, or even some special characters (hyphen, underscore, exclamation point, and so forth). You may not use a period or a space in the name. The name you select is then displayed on the screen next to the "B : choose class" option. If there are already some class names listed on the screen, you may select (or edit) one of those names by using the cursor control keys. When you select OPTION B, a blank cursor appears in the list of class names. Pressing cursor control keys move that cursor to class names in the list of classes. When the cursor moves to a class name, that name appears on the screen next to the "B : choose class" option. Pressing the carriage return, <CR>, or the escape key, <Esc>, selects the name. There is one other way to select a disk drive, a directory, or a class file. When you begin using GRADE GUIDE by typing "gradegid", you may include a command line parameter. The parameter can be typed after the "gradegid" command but on the same line as that command. With the parameter you can tell GRADE GUIDE what your choices are for disk drive, directory, or class. The parameter may be in any one of the following seven forms: Page 6 drive: drive:class directory\ directory\class class drive:directory\ drive:directory\class For example, if you want to choose class MATH-001 on disk drive B, you could begin GRADE GUIDE with the command "gradegid b:math-001". This feature is convenient to use if you like to run GRADE GUIDE from a batch procedure. NOTE! choosing a class file with this option does not cause the program to proceed to the MAIN MENU where the class file can be processed. You must choose OPTION C to continue on to the MAIN MENU. The file that GRADE GUIDE creates for your class has a file name which is the same as your class name with a file extension of "GRD". Thus, the information that you store concerning the class "MATH-001" is stored in the file "MATH-001.GRD". Whenever GRADE GUIDE updates a file to save changes you have made to the stored information, the old version of the file is kept as a backup and is given the file extension "BAK". Thus, the backup file for MATH-001 is called "MATH-001.BAK". By using OPTION A above, you can choose to have GRADE GUIDE store and read class files in any directory on any disk drive that your computer has. If you no longer need to have a particular class on file, you may simply delete the "GRD" and "BAK" files for that class by using the DOS ERASE or DEL commands. For example: ERASE MATH-001.GRD. GRADE GUIDE was purposely designed not to do this deletion for you so that it would be difficult to lose an entire class of grades accidentally. As in any work done on computers, it is always a good idea to keep extra copies of your class files on backup disks in case you encounter physical problems with the floppy or fixed disk where your class files are stored. OPTION C -- Moving to the MAIN MENU With this option GRADE GUIDE proceeds to the MAIN MENU where you can choose to perform many functions with the class file that you have selected with OPTION B. If the program cannot find a "GRD" file for the class you have chosen in the directory of the currently chosen disk drive, it asks you if the class is a new class. If it is a new class, respond Y and GRADE GUIDE creates a new file for your new class. Otherwise, answer N and check to see that you have spelled the name of the class correctly and have chosen the correct directory, disk drive, and diskette. GRADE GUIDE does not allow you to select OPTION C before you select a class to process using OPTION B. OPTION D -- Moving to the DEFAULT MENU GRADE GUIDE allows you to change several aspects of its behavior. In particular, you may select default disk drives or directories so that GRADE GUIDE always selects the correct drive and directory for you. You may also set up GRADE GUIDE so that it does not continually ask you questions for which you always respond with the same answer. You can tell GRADE GUIDE to use different methods for calculating students' averages, different ways to display information, and different ways to Page 7 use the keyboard. To learn how to set these defaults, see the section of this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS. OPTION E -- Combining Two Class Files Occasionally you may want to combine the information which is currently being stored in two different classes. There are at least two common reasons why you may want to do this. The first case can arise when you are teaching two sections of the same class. Suppose that students in each section receive the same assignments and take the same or comparable tests. If you originally decided to store these two classes of students in two separate class files but later decide that it would be better to store all of the students in one file, then you want to combine the two files. The second case can arise when you teach a course which runs for more than one semester, quarter, or grading period. You may want to store the grades for one semester on one file and the second semester on a second file. Then you may want to combine these two files at the end of the course so that you have a complete list of all the grades obtained throughout the entire course. If you have more than two classes that you want to combine, you can easily combine two classes at a time until you have all the classes combined into one. When you choose to combine classes, GRADE GUIDE asks you to enter the names of the two classes that you want to combine and for the name of the new class which will be created when combining the old classes. The two old classes must be available on the current default disk drive. The new class can have the same name as one of the old classes. If you enter a blank name for any one of the three classes, GRADE GUIDE will return to the FILE MENU. After you enter the class names, GRADE GUIDE will read the information for the two old classes and check that it is possible to combine the two files. If the two old classes have no students in common, then GRADE GUIDE expects that you are trying to combine two sections of the same course. In this case, GRADE GUIDE requires that the two classes have the same categories defined with the same number of grades entered. If the two old classes have some students in common, then GRADE GUIDE expects that you are combining two different semesters, quarters, or grading periods of the same course. In this case, the two classes do not have to have the same categories defined. Grades from each student in the second class will be added onto the list of grades from the same student in the first class. GRADE GUIDE only requires that the total number of grades and the total number of categories do not exceed normal limits. Before GRADE GUIDE combines the two classes, it asks you to confirm that you do want to combine the two files. If you do, GRADE GUIDE combines the classes and writes a copy of the new file on the disk. When you return to the FILE MENU, the new class will appear as the current class name. Page 8 OPTION F -- Recovering a Backup File If you have made serious errors while changing a class file, this option allows you to recover the backup file for that class. For example, you can have the "MATH-001.GRD" file deleted and replaced by the "MATH-001.BAK" file. It has the same effect as performing the two DOS commands ERASE MATH-001.GRD RENAME MATH-001.BAK MATH-001.GRD NOTE! GRADE GUIDE periodically makes backup copies of your file, making the old MATH-001.GRD file into the new MATH-001.BAK file. So, if you have made serious errors from which you would like to recover, be sure to exit GRADE GUIDE before your file is backed up a second time. OPTION G -- Changing Between Printer Output and File Output GRADE GUIDE allows you to view information about students on the screen or to print that information with a printer. Some users may wish to have the information stored on a DOS text file. By selecting OPTION F, you tell GRADE GUIDE that you would like to write your information to a file rather than with the printer. GRADE GUIDE then allows you to write information to a file named "GRADEOUT.1" which will be stored in the directory you have currently chosen for your class files. If GRADE GUIDE finds that you already have a file named "GRADEOUT.1", it calls the new file "GRADEOUT.2" or "GRADEOUT.3" or uses some other extension number so that the new file will not be confused with an old file. There are many times when GRADE GUIDE gives you the option of writing information either on the screen or with the printer. After selecting OPTION F, GRADE GUIDE changes so that you have the option of writing information either on the screen or to the GRADEOUT file. The information is written to the GRADEOUT file in exactly the same form as it would have appeared on the printer (including the use of form feed characters.) This option may be convenient to use if you do not wish to use the printer at the present time. You could write your report to the GRADEOUT file and print it at a later time. It may also be useful if you want to change the way that GRADE GUIDE presents information by editing the GRADEOUT file with a text editor or a word processing program. Another possible use of this feature is to create a file of information which can then be read by a spreadsheet program, database program, or other statistical analysis program. GRADE GUIDE allows you to keep sending information to the same GRADEOUT file even if you change the class file which you are using. Selecting OPTION F a second time causes GRADE GUIDE to end writing to the GRADEOUT file and again send information to the printer. If GRADE GUIDE never writes any information to the GRADEOUT file so that the file remains empty, then GRADE GUIDE erases the file and no new GRADEOUT file appears in your directory. NOTE! if you do not have a printer port on your computer, then GRADE GUIDE automatically assumes that you want to set up a GRADEOUT file when you begin running GRADE GUIDE. Occasionally, on some not-so- compatible computer systems, GRADE GUIDE cannot tell that there is a Page 9 printer attached to the system when in fact there is a printer. In those cases you can select OPTION G to tell GRADE GUIDE that your computer does have a printer. GRADE GUIDE writes to DOS printer port LPT1. If you have a serial printer or wish to use a second printer attached to your computer, you will have to use the DOS MODE command before you run GRADE GUIDE. Printers often print a maximum of 80 or 120 characters per line. Thus, GRADE GUIDE restricts printed output to no more than 80 characters per line. When writing to a GRADEOUT file or when using a larger printer, you might not want GRADE GUIDE to observe this restriction. The 80 character restriction only affects output written by the roster output feature of GRADE GUIDE (MAIN MENU OPTION L.) This 80 character restriction on the roster output width can be changed. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details. OPTION H -- Changing Color Modes If your computer has a color graphics card, OPTION H is displayed. It allows you to force the display to appear in black and white rather than in color. This option is provided for those users who might have a monochrome display or TV connected to their color graphics card which can be difficult to read when the screen displays in color. If the H option is chosen and the display is in black and white, then the H option allows you to change back from black and white to color. OPTION H is omitted if your computer does not have a color graphics card. (NOTE! you can reset GRADE GUIDE so that it always begins in monochrome mode rather than in color mode. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) OPTION Q -- Quitting GRADE GUIDE When you are done using GRADE GUIDE, select OPTION Q. GRADE GUIDE will ask you to confirm that you want to exit the program. You may also exit from GRADE GUIDE at any time that GRADE GUIDE is running by entering a <Ctrl-Break> (hold down the Ctrl key and press the Break key.) (When GRADE GUIDE is waiting for you to enter a key at the keyboard, <Ctrl-C> as well as <Ctrl-Break> will allow you to exit.) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = ENTERING INFORMATION = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Often GRADE GUIDE asks you to enter information. Here are a few rules about entering such information. COMMANDS To enter a command, merely press the key for the letter correspond- ing to the menu choice for that command. The response may be in upper case or lower case and you do not need to press the carriage return, <CR>. NUMBERS To enter a number just enter the digits for the number you want. The digits that you press appear in reverse video on the display. Do not use a decimal point (".") when entering a whole number or a sign Page 10 ("+" or "-") when entering any number. If you make a mistake while entering a number, you can backspace over the mistake using the backspace key. You can also correct errors by moving the cursor to the left with the <F9> function key or to the right with the <F10> function key. If the cursor is at the first character of the input, then pressing <F9> will bring the cursor to the last character entered. Similarly, if the cursor is at the last character of the input, then pressing <F10> will bring the cursor to the first character entered. You may insert new characters at the current cursor position by typing the characters on the keyboard. You can delete the character at the current cursor position by pressing the <Del> key. If you press the <F2> function key, it will clear your input so that you can start over from scratch. You can complete your input by typing a carriage return, <CR>, by pressing the space bar, <Space>, or by pressing the escape key <Esc>. If you are entering a grade and do not type any digits, then the grade is entered as NONE. When entering weights or percentages, you may add up to 3 decimal digits to the number. Weights and percentages can have up to 3 digits to the left and 3 digits to the right of the decimal point. CHARACTER STRINGS Character strings can be entered the same way that numbers are entered except that the input is always ended with a <CR> or <Esc>, not with a <Space>. Students' names, aliases and notes, category names, class names, input file names, letter grades, and comments are all entered as character strings. Character strings entered as names, aliases, or letter grades may not begin with a <Space>. NOTE! GRADE GUIDE distinguishes between upper and lower case letters. So, when you enter a student's name, be sure to use the same capitalization as you plan to use when referring to that student later on. Similarly, if you want names of categories to appear in capital letters, then you should enter those names using capital letters. STUDENT NAMES Occasionally you must tell GRADE GUIDE the name of a student. (See MAIN MENU OPTIONS B, D, H, and M.) When entering the name of a student that you want GRADE GUIDE to find, it is not necessary to type the full name of that student. If GRADE GUIDE cannot find the name that you typed, it will look for a name which CONTAINS what you typed. If it finds such a name, it asks you if that is the name you want. If you say no (N), then it keeps looking. For example, if you want to find the student "Smith, John" and you asked for the name "John", GRADE GUIDE might ask you if you meant "Baker, John" since that name also contains "John". If you respond N, GRADE GUIDE will find "Smith, John". CHANGE MODE There are several places in GRADE GUIDE where you are given the opportunity to change previously entered information by entering CHANGE MODE. When this is done, you see the information which can be changed being displayed on the screen in reverse video. If there are several Page 11 items of information visible on the screen when you are in change mode, then you are able to move from one item to another item by pressing one of the cursor control keys, the up arrow, down arrow, left arrow, and right arrow. NOTE the distinction between the use of the arrow keys and the <F9> and <F10> function keys. The arrow keys move the reverse video entry on the screen to another entry on the screen. The <F9> and <F10> function keys move the cursor within one entry from one character to the next. You can exit from CHANGE MODE by using a carriage return, <CR>, or escape key, <Esc>. Remember, if you want to clear an old entry so that you can begin entering a completely new one, you should press the <F2> function key. Because some keyboards do not allow you to use the cursor control keys and the numeric keypad at the same time, GRADE GUIDE allows you to use four of the function keys instead of the cursor control keys. You can use <F5> in place of up arrow, <F6> in place of down arrow, <F7> in place of left arrow, and <F8> in place of right arrow. (NOTE! you can change the keys that GRADE GUIDE uses for cursor movements or editing functions. You can define the keys so that they work the way you are used to having cursor and editing keys work. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) If you move from one item of information on the screen to another or escape from CHANGE MODE without entering any new characters, then the old information remains unchanged and is redisplayed in normal video. If you wish to change a previously entered grade to a grade of NONE, then while you are in change mode you would first press the <F2> function key to clear the present entry and then press <Esc> or an arrow key to accept the new entry. ILLEGAL CHARACTERS If at any time while running GRADE GUIDE you press a key which GRADE GUIDE was not expecting, the computer beeps to signal that the key was not expected. The key you pressed is not recorded or displayed in any way, and you may continue by typing any legal key. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = THE MAIN MENU CHOICES = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= GRADE GUIDE allows you to enter students' names, ID's, and grades, and then allows you to view or print that information and some related statistics. It also makes it easy for you to change any of the information that you have entered. The MAIN MENU shows you the choices you have when performing these operations with a class. The menu looks like the following table. Page 12 ....................................................................... : MAIN MENU : : : : : : A : add student names D : drop student names : : B : add student grades E : drop/adjust grades : : C : add grade categories F : drop grade categories : : : : G : display/print/change student names : : H : display/print/change student grades & notes : : I : display/print/change grade limits, weights, & labels : : J : display/print/change category names, percents, & labeling : : : : K : display/print class statistics : : L : display/print class roster : : M : display/print letters : : : : Q : quit and return to FILE MENU : :.....................................................................: While the MAIN MENU is being displayed, you may choose to perform one of 13 grading operations labeled A to M, or you may press Q to quit and return to the FILE MENU. When you establish a new class, you will usually first choose OPTION A which allows you to enter the names of your students. Next you will select OPTION C so that you can establish some grade categories. GRADE GUIDE stores grades in grade categories. These categories allow you to keep different types of grades separate. For example, you might want to establish one category for EXAMS, one for QUIZZES, and one for HOMEWORK. GRADE GUIDE can list students' grades by category, can calculate the total and average of each student's grades within a category, and can calculate the average of all the students' grades within a category. Also, GRADE GUIDE can automatically calculate an overall average score for each student called the GRAND AVERAGE. You can tell GRADE GUIDE how to combine the average grades in each category to calculate this GRAND AVERAGE. OPTION B allows you to enter grades for your students and assign weighting factors to those grades. After entering names and grades for each student, you can list names using OPTION G, you can list grades using OPTION H, you can calculate some statistical reports concerning the class' performance using OPTION K, and you can print a wide variety of reports using OPTIONS I, J, and L. OPTIONS G, H, I, and J also allow you to change the information that you have previously entered in case there are errors or needed modifications. OPTION M allows you to have a form letter or customized grade report printed with an individual student's name and grades inserted into the letter at appropriate places. OPTION H can also be used to store notes for each student. Notes can be used for recording text information and can be used for absentee information, behavior reports, personal information, or other comments. If you need to remove students from the class, use OPTION D. If you wish to drop the lowest grades for each student, use OPTION E. OPTION E can also help you to adjust a grade for purposes of rescaling or to have a grade removed altogether. If you want to remove one of the categories that have you established, use OPTION F. Page 13 Here is a more detailed description of each of the MAIN MENU options. OPTION A -- Entering New Names Choose OPTION A if you want to enter the names of students not previously entered into your class. GRADE GUIDE displays a menu with seven choices. To enter new names from the keyboard, select choice A. Then GRADE GUIDE allows you to enter a list of names. Each name can be up to 20 characters long. GRADE GUIDE notifies you if you enter a name which has already been entered into your class so that no duplication of names will occur. Names may be entered in any order; GRADE GUIDE alphabetizes them for you. It is helpful to enter each student's name either in the form of last name followed by a comma followed by first name, or in the form of last name followed by a space followed by first name. If this is done, GRADE GUIDE can determine the first and last names of each student. This may be important to you if you plan to have GRADE GUIDE write letters to students or parents using MAIN MENU OPTION M. In either form, there can be as many spaces as you desire between the last name and the first name. When you are finished entering the new names, press <CR> or <Esc> without entering any characters. If you enter new students into a class which already has some grades assigned, the new students are automatically given grades of NONE for each of the previously entered grades. You can change these NONE grades by using MAIN MENU OPTIONS B or H. GRADE GUIDE also lets you enter an ALIAS for each student, although this is not required. You may wish to use the alias for a student ID number, a set of initials, a phone number, a nickname, a course section number, or any other piece of information up to 12 characters long. One advantage of using aliases is that you are then able to list students' grades by alias rather than by name. Some teachers prefer listing students' grades by alias so that the grade lists can be posted without permitting any student to learn the grades of another student. Even though no two students can have the same name, many students are allowed to share the same alias. If two students have the same alias and students are listed in the order of their aliases, then those two students will appear next to each other in the list in alphabetical order determined by their names. There are two ways to enter aliases from the keyboard. If you have entered a list of students' names and later want to assign aliases to those students, you may do so by selecting choice B from the ADD STUDENT NAMES menu. GRADE GUIDE then lists for you the names of the students in the class who do not yet have aliases assigned to them. Each name appears on the screen and for each name, you may enter an alias. You may continue entering aliases until all students in the class have been assigned aliases, or you may enter a <CR> or <Esc> to stop. Another way to enter aliases is to use choice C from the ADD STUDENT NAMES menu. This allows you to enter aliases at the same time that you are entering students' names. For each new student's name that you enter, GRADE GUIDE allows you to enter an alias for that student. (See MAIN MENU OPTION G for still another method of entering aliases.) Page 14 Each of the choices for entering names and aliases (A, B, and C) allows you to enter information from the keyboard. GRADE GUIDE can also read this same information from a DOS text file. If you have students' names or aliases on a text file and want to have GRADE GUIDE read those names rather than having you type them at the keyboard, then you can select choice D, E, or F. This can give you a fast way to enter names and ID's if there is a file containing this information for students in your class. When you select OPTIONS D, E, or F from the ADD STUDENT NAMES menu, GRADE GUIDE asks you for the name of the DOS file containing the information that you want to enter. If you do not specify the drive or directory of the file, the directory used is the same as the class file's directory. GRADE GUIDE will expect to find information for one student on each line of that file where each line ends with a carriage return. Each line may be up to 250 characters long. GRADE GUIDE asks you to enter the beginning and ending columns (tab positions) for the position on the line where the names or aliases can be found. The first line of your file is displayed on the screen to help you remember which columns to choose. While reading the names or aliases, GRADE GUIDE displays the new information, deletes leading and trailing blanks in the input, and does not use any duplicate names. OPTION B -- Entering New Grades This option allows you to enter new grades for all the students in your class. Since all grades are entered into categories, some categories must be established (MAIN MENU OPTION C) before you can enter grades. If you have established at least one category, you are shown an ADD STUDENT GRADES menu with eight choices. To enter grades from the keyboard, select choice A or choice B. If you select choice A, GRADE GUIDE asks you to enter your students' grades in the same order as your students are listed alphabetically by name. If you select choice B and you have given your students aliases, GRADE GUIDE asks you to enter the grades in the same order as they are listed alphabetically by alias. GRADE GUIDE allows you to record grades in three different formats: NUMBER, LETTER, and NUMBER WITH CUTOFF. When you establish a category (MAIN MENU OPTION C), you select which method you want to use for storing grades. If you select the option LETTER, then all the grades that you enter into that category will be letter grades. GRADE GUIDE accepts the standard letters grades from a 4.0 scale GRADE VALUE ----- ----- A 4 B 3 C 2 D 1 F 0 Page 15 In addition, the following less standard grades are accepted GRADE VALUE GRADE VALUE ------ ----- ------ ----- A+ 4.333 A- 3.667 B+ 3.333 AB 3.5 B- 2.667 BC 2.5 C+ 2.333 CD 1.5 C- 1.667 DF 0.5 D+ 1.333 D- 0.667 F+ 0.333 F- -0.333 (NOTE! you can change both the letters used and their corresponding values. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) If you establish a category and you want to record grades in that category as numbers, then you can select the option NUMBER rather than LETTER for that category. The third option, that of NUMBER WITH CUTOFF, allows you to store grades in a format similar to storing grades with the NUMBER format except that you are allowed to enter for each grade in that category a set of four CUTOFF grades representing the lowest numeric score for the grades of A, B, C, and D. The only difference between this method of storing grades and that of the NUMBER method is that with the NUMBER WITH CUTOFF method, when students' grades are listed, the number score is listed, and along with it, the associated letter grade. When you enter new grades into this category, you can choose to enter grade cutoffs. If you do not elect to enter cutoffs, then grades will be listed without the associated letter grade. (Grade cutoffs can be changed at any time with MAIN MENU OPTION I.) All grades stored with the NUMBER or the NUMBER WITH CUTOFF method must be whole numbers in the range from 0 to 250. When you use MAIN MENU OPTION B to enter grades, GRADE GUIDE needs to know which types of grades you wish to enter. After you select a choice from the ADD STUDENT GRADES menu, GRADE GUIDE shows you a list of your categories. For example A : EXAM B : QUIZ C : HOMEWORK If you only want to enter one grade, let us say a QUIZ grade, then press b (in either upper or lower case) followed by a <CR>. GRADE GUIDE responds by showing you the grade QUIZ 1 GRADE GUIDE can also let you enter several grades at once. For example, you could enter a QUIZ grade, an EXAM grade, a second QUIZ grade, and a HOMEWORK grade. In that case you would type the choices "babc" followed by a <CR>. GRADE GUIDE would respond by listing the grades Page 16 QUIZ 1 EXAM 1 QUIZ 2 HOMEWORK 1 You may enter up to ten grades at one time. The number after the category name tells you which grade of the category you are entering. If you had previously entered three QUIZ grades, then the two new QUIZ grades would be numbered 4 and 5. (It is legal to enter an empty list of grades by typing only a <CR> when prompted for the grades you want to enter. Do this if you really do not want to enter any grades.) After confirming that the list of grades that you want to enter is correct, you are asked to enter the maximum possible score for each of the number grades, the A, B, C, and D cutoffs for each of the NUMBER WITH CUTOFF grades, and a grade weight for all grades. A category can be a LABELED category, which means for each grade in that category you may attach a label describing the purpose for that grade. If you are entering any grades into a LABELED category, then you are asked to enter a grade label of up to 16 characters. For example, for QUIZ 2 you might enter a label such as "Chapt. 2 Sect. 4". To each grade that you enter, you may assign a weight. GRADE GUIDE will ask you to enter this weight, although if you simply enter a <CR> or <Esc>, the weight will default to being 1.0. This weight allows you to put more or less emphasis on a grade. If, for example, you wish to double the value of a grade, enter a weight of 2.0. If you want a grade to have only half its normal value, enter a weight of 0.5. If you do not want the grade to count at all, enter a weight of 0. The number you enter for a weight may include up to three decimal digits. For each of your students, GRADE GUIDE displays the student's name and a place for you to insert each of the student's grades. You can then enter each of the grades that you chose to enter. If for any grade you enter a blank grade (by typing a <CR> before entering a grade), then GRADE GUIDE records the special grade of NONE. NONE grades are intended to be used for students who have not yet completed an assignment or when you have decided not to assign a grade. NONE grades, like any other grades, can be changed using MAIN MENU OPTION H. When GRADE GUIDE calculates grade averages, it can either treat NONE grades as if they had the value zero, or it can ignore NONE grades and treat them as if the grade had never been assigned. GRADE GUIDE frequently asks you whether or not you want NONE grades treated as zero. (NOTE! if you always want GRADE GUIDE to treat NONE grades as zero or always want NONE grades ignored, you can have GRADE GUIDE stop asking you. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) GRADE GUIDE allows you to enter students' grades which are larger than the maximum possible scores which you entered. The larger numbers will be treated as though there were extra credit given. For example, if the maximum possible score on an EXAM is 100, and you enter a grade of 110, then GRADE GUIDE will treat the grade as if it included 10 points of extra credit and will assign it a percentage of 110 %. GRADE GUIDE displays a reminder whenever a grade is entered which exceeds the maximum possible score for that grade. Page 17 Before entering grades, GRADE GUIDE asks you: Do you want to confirm inputs (Y/N) ? If you respond with Y, then after each student's grades are entered, GRADE GUIDE will ask you if the grades you entered are correct. If you say that they are not correct, GRADE GUIDE will enter CHANGE MODE, and you will be able to change the grades that you just entered. Entry errors can always be corrected later using MAIN MENU OPTION H, but it is often more convenient to correct errors at the time you make them. NOTE! the use of maximum possible scores equal to zero or NONE can cause strange results when category percentages and GRAND AVERAGES are calculated. GRADE GUIDE also allows you to enter grades from a DOS text file. This feature is supplied for those teachers who may have computer graded exams with results supplied in DOS text files and for those who may want to read grades that they have obtained as output from some other computer program. If you wish to read in grades from a file rather than from the keyboard, then you should select choice C or choice D from the ADD STUDENT GRADES menu. If you do choose to enter grades from a file, then GRADE GUIDE asks you to enter the name of the DOS text file containing the new grades. If you do not specify the drive or directory of the file, the directory used is the same as the class file's directory. GRADE GUIDE checks that the file has exactly one line of text for each student in your class. Each line except for the last line of the file must end with a carriage return. Lines may be up to 250 characters long. If the file is of the correct length, GRADE GUIDE will accept grades from that file. If you enter grades from a file, as GRADE GUIDE asks you to select categories into which you are going to enter grades, it also asks you for the beginning and ending columns (tab positions) for the positions on the line containing those grades. The first line of the input file is displayed on the screen to help you remember the correct columns to choose. GRADE GUIDE continues just as it did when you entered grades from the keyboard, including asking you for maximum possible scores, weights, cutoffs, labels, and whether or not you want grade confirma- tions. The only difference is that the grades are read from the file. By choosing to do grade confirmations, you can check that your grades are being read in correctly and even change them if they are wrong. GRADE GUIDE looks at each of the positions which you chose on each line on the file and determines a grade from what it finds in that position. In general GRADE GUIDE selects the first item in the position which looks like a grade. If you said that there was a letter grade in columns 5 through 12 and one line reads: "ghscabyh" in that position, then GRADE GUIDE would assign a grade of C, the first reasonable grade in that position. If the position reads: "ghsuabyh", then the grade would be AB. If a number grade is read from a line reading: "a000078+23rihs ", then the grade would be 78. If GRADE GUIDE cannot make sense out of the characters read from a given position, a grade of NONE would be assigned. Entering grades for a large class can be a long process. If you are ever in the middle of entering grades for a class and need to quit, you may exit from GRADE GUIDE by typing <Ctrl-Break> or <Ctrl-C>. GRADE Page 18 GUIDE will ask you if you want to save your class file. Unless you have made a mistake and want to erase all that you have just entered, you should save the file. When you do this, all of the grades which you have not yet entered will be recorded as NONE. Then the next time that you use GRADE GUIDE you can continue where you left off by using ADD STUDENT GRADES menu choice E or F. Reviewing NONE grades ADD STUDENT GRADES menu choices E and F allow you to REVIEW NONE GRADES. If you select one of these choices, GRADE GUIDE will list for each student all the grades where that student currently has a NONE grade recorded. Then you can either change those grades or leave them alone. GRADE GUIDE will ask you for the name of the student that you want to begin listing. If you had selected choice E, your students will be listed alphabetically by name. If you selected choice F, they will be listed by alias. If (as suggested in the previous paragraph) you had exited GRADE GUIDE before completing the entry of grades for all your students, then option E or F will allow you to change all of the NONE grades that were given to those students as a result. NOTE! all of the NONE grades for each student will be listed; not only those which may have resulted from exiting GRADE GUIDE early. You can use choices E and F even if you have never exited from GRADE GUIDE without completing your grade entries. It provides an easy way to see which students still have incomplete work (that is, NONE grades.) It also gives you a fast way to update those grades which were recorded as NONE but now need to be changed. Creating a grade based on the GRAND AVERAGE ADD STUDENT GRADES menu choice G allows you to automatically create a new grade. The new grade is based on each student's current average grade. If you select choice G, for each student GRADE GUIDE calculates an average of that student's grades. Then that average is converted into the new grade for that student. GRADE GUIDE asks you for the category into which you want the new grade entered. If the category stores number grades, each student's average grade is converted to a percentage which is stored as the student's new grade. If the category stores letter grades, each student's average grade is first converted to a percentage, and then that percentage is converted to a letter grade. (NOTE! if you wish to use this feature for letter grades, you will probably need to set the letter grade percentages corresponding to your personal choice for the value for each letter grade. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) After you select a category, GRADE GUIDE asks you for a grade label if the category is a LABELED category. GRADE GUIDE asks you for a grade weight, but will assume a weight of zero if you simply enter a <CR> or <Esc>. You will likely want the new grade, being an average of all the other grades, to be weighted zero so that its value will not be included in future calculations of the average grade. On the other hand, if you want to use this quarter or semester grade along with other quarter or semester grades to calculate a final grade in the course, you will have to use MAIN MENU OPTION I to change its weight to 1.0. If the category into which you are entering the new grade stores numbers, GRADE GUIDE assumes that the maximum possible score for that grade is 100 which corresponds to an average of 100 percent. (NOTE if you would rather have these grades based on a total different from 100, you can tell Page 19 GRADE GUIDE what maximum score you want to use. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) If the category into which you are entering the new grade stores numbers with cutoff, GRADE GUIDE asks you to enter the grade cutoffs. If the category into which you are entering the new grade stores letter grades, GRADE GUIDE asks you if you want to use the mixed letter grades of AB, BC, CD, and DF and also, if you want to use the fractional letter grades of A+, A-, B+, and so forth. OPTION C -- Entering New Categories Since there must be at least one category established before you can enter students' grades, you will usually want to use MAIN MENU OPTION C when you first establish each class file (although you can establish new categories later on.) GRADE GUIDE allows you to enter as many as 200 grades for each student in each category which is NOT LABELED and 120 grades in each category which is LABELED. You can establish as many as 10 different categories, and, therefore, GRADE GUIDE limits you to entering no more than 2000 grades for each student. If you select MAIN MENU OPTION C, GRADE GUIDE lists information about each of the categories you have established so far and waits for you to enter new information. For each new category you enter a name for the category (the name can be up to 20 characters long), select a grade format (NUMBER, LETTER, or NUMBER WITH CUTOFF), a percentage of the GRAND AVERAGE, and whether or not you want the category to be LABELED. The percentages you assign need not add up to 100%. If they do not, GRADE GUIDE adjusts them for you when it needs them. GRADE GUIDE uses these percentages when it calculates a GRAND AVERAGE score for each student. It weights each category's average according to the percentages that you assign. If you enter all of the percentages as 0.000%, then GRADE GUIDE will calculate the GRAND AVERAGE without weighting the different categories. Instead it calculates the GRAND AVERAGE on a basis of the total number of points accumulated. (That is, GRAND AVERAGE = points accumulated divided by the total number of points possible.) If a category is LABELED, then you will be able to assign a 16 character label to each grade that you enter into that category. Labels provide a description of what the grade was for and can make listings of grades easier to understand. The main disadvantages of using LABELED categories is that LABELED categories take up more memory space and require you to enter more information. If you do not expect to use labeling, you should make the categories NOT LABELED. (NOTE! You can ask GRADE GUIDE to stop asking you if you want each category to be LABELED. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) You signal that you are done entering new categories by entering a blank name for a category. OPTION D -- Dropping Students With this option you can choose to drop some students from your class. GRADE GUIDE asks you for a list of the students you want to drop. Recall that it is not necessary to enter the entire name of the Page 20 student to find the student that you want. Before actually dropping any student from the list, GRADE GUIDE asks you to confirm that you want that student dropped. OPTION E -- Dropping, Adjusting, or Deleting Grades This option allows you to choose three functions that can modify every student's grades. With OPTION E, GRADE GUIDE can drop the lowest grade or lowest few grades in any category changing the dropped grades to NONE. Also, with OPTION E, GRADE GUIDE can adjust one particular grade by a constant value. This can be done to rescale grades. Finally, with OPTION E, GRADE GUIDE can have one grade completely removed from the list of grades. When OPTION E is selected, GRADE GUIDE displays a DROP/ADJUST GRADES menu. Dropping grades Instructors sometimes want to drop the lowest grade or lowest few grades for a student before calculating final grades. You can elect to drop students' grades by selecting choice A from the DROP/ADJUST GRADES menu. When you do, you are asked to choose a category and to choose how many grades you want dropped from that category (for example, the lowest 1 grade or the lowest 3 grades.) GRADE GUIDE also asks you whether you want NONE grades treated as zero or want NONE grades ignored. Then GRADE GUIDE considers each student in the class and looks at all the grades in the chosen category for that student. It changes the lowest grades in that category to NONE. If you indicate that you want to treat NONE grades as zero, GRADE GUIDE will drop those scores with the smallest value (after multiplying by the appropriate grade weights.) This will give the students the highest possible average when NONE grades are treated as zeros. If you choose to have NONE grades ignored, GRADE GUIDE will drop those scores with the smallest percent. This will give the students the highest possible average when NONE grades are ignored. For example, suppose that there are four QUIZ scores recorded as follows: QUIZ # MAXIMUM POSSIBLE SCORE WEIGHT ------ ---------------------- ------ 1 10 1.000 2 10 2.000 3 20 1.000 4 10 1.000 Suppose also that one student has received the four grades 8, 7, 12, and 9, respectively. If you drop two grades while NONE grades are treated as zero, GRADE GUIDE will calculate the weighted grades to be 8, 14, 12, and 9 and will drop the first and the last grade which are the smallest. If you drop two grades while NONE grades are ignored, GRADE GUIDE will calculate the percentages obtained for each score to be 80%, 70%, 60%, and 90% and will drop the second and third grades which have the smallest percentage. NOTE! if you drop the lowest 2 grades from a category once and then try to drop the lowest 2 grades again, the second drop will have no effect since each student will already have at least 2 NONE grades in that category. If you wanted to drop 2 MORE grades, you would have to ask for the lowest 4 grades in the category to be dropped. Page 21 Adjusting grades Sometimes after instructors look at the grades they assigned, they see that there is a need to shift or rescale the grades to bring them in line with other grades given in the same course. This often happens as a result of a test or assignment being too easy or too hard for students making their grades artificially high or artificially low. You can make such adjustments in the students' grades by selecting choice B from the DROP/ADJUST GRADES menu. When you do, you are asked to choose a category and a grade in that category. You are not allowed to adjust LETTER grades. GRADE GUIDE will ask you if you want to add a constant to the chosen grade, subtract a constant from the grade, or multiply the grade by a constant. If you choose to add or subtract a constant, you can then enter a whole number constant which will be added or subtracted from each student's grade. If you choose to multiply by a constant, you can then enter a rescaling factor with up to three decimal digits. Then that factor will be multiplied by each student's grade, and the results will be rounded to the nearest whole number. With all three of these adjustments, no grade is allowed to exceed the maximum possible number score of 250 or go below the minimum possible number score of zero. If a grade would have exceeded 250, GRADE GUIDE assigns a grade of 250. If a grade would have fallen below zero, GRADE GUIDE assigns a grade of zero. GRADE GUIDE keeps a count of how many grades reach 250 or zero during the adjustment process and informs you of that count. NOTE! GRADE GUIDE only adjusts the students' grades and not the maximum possible scores or the letter grade cutoffs which are associated with that grade. If you want those changed also, they can be reset by using MAIN MENU OPTION I. It is possible that you might want to make a more complicated adjustment in the students' grades. For example, you may wish to multiply each grade by one half, and then add 50 points to each grade. This can easily be done by performing the adjust procedure twice; once to multiply by the value 0.5, and once to add the value 50. Deleting grades Occasionally instructors either enter a grade incorrectly or decide that a particular grade should not be used for grade calculations. One way to handle this situation would be to change the weight of that grade to zero using MAIN MENU OPTION I. Then the grade would appear on each student's grade list but would have no effect on the student's average. Another solution would be to remove that grade completely from the list of grades. You can delete a grade in this manner by selecting choice C from the DROP/ADJUST GRADES menu. When you do, you are asked to choose a category and a grade in that category. GRADE GUIDE will then remove that grade from all grade lists. If, for example, you have 10 QUIZ grades, you may choose to delete QUIZ 6. This will cause the QUIZ grades numbered 7, 8, 9, and 10 to be renumbered and appear as QUIZ 6, 7, 8, and 9, respectively. Page 22 Temporarily and permanently changing grades You may want to see the effect of your having dropped, adjusted, or deleted grades before committing yourself to making the grade change permanent. Therefore, at first, GRADE GUIDE only TEMPORARILY changes the grades. This allows you to view the grades using any of the MAIN MENU options while the grades are still only TEMPORARILY changed. In fact, if you return to the MAIN MENU while there are TEMPORARILY CHANGED GRADES, there will be a statement at the bottom of the screen reminding you that grades have been TEMPORARILY CHANGED. The only changes you can make to the stored information while there are TEMPORARILY CHANGED GRADES is to create more TEMPORARILY CHANGED GRADES. GRADE GUIDE never updates the disk file while there are TEMPORARILY CHANGED GRADES. Before you are allowed to make other changes to your file you must decide whether you want those grades PERMANENTLY CHANGED or whether you want to reinstate the old grades. You make that choice by re-entering OPTION E which allows you to select between those two options or to change some more grades (TEMPORARILY.) GRADE GUIDE does this by making sure that the copy of your class file on the disk has been updated prior to your changing grades. Then if you decide that you want to reinstate the grades the way they were before you created the TEMPORARILY CHANGED GRADES, the file can be read from the disk and the old grades are restored. OPTION F -- Dropping Categories Occasionally, you may have established a category which you never used or for which you have no further use. You can remove that category and ALL OF THE GRADES ENTERED IN THAT CATEGORY by using OPTION F. You are asked to select a category to drop. GRADE GUIDE allows you to choose between dropping the entire category (including all the grades entered into that category) or dropping just the grades entered into the category (leaving the category definition intact). You can also choose not to drop any information. If you establish a category to contain LETTER grades and you should have used NUMBER grades, then the only way for you to rectify the situation is to drop the category using OPTION F and then reestablish it using OPTION C. OPTION G -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Students' Names This option allows you to have your students' names and aliases listed. If you choose to list names on the screen, students' names are listed alphabetically, 40 at a time. Each time the screen fills with names, you can choose to enter CHANGE MODE by typing a C. Then you can use the cursor control keys to move to any name on the screen and change the name. Recall that the carriage return, <CR>, or escape key, <Esc>, is used to get out of CHANGE MODE. If you do change a name, then when you escape from change mode, GRADE GUIDE begins listing the names again from the beginning of the alphabet so you can view any changes you have made in the order of the names. If you have more than 40 students in your class, you can either press <Space> to continue listing more names or press Q to quit listing the names. If you list names and aliases, then both the students' names and aliases appear on the screen. If you enter CHANGE MODE, then you can change both names and aliases. In this way CHANGE MODE can be used to Page 23 enter aliases for students even if no aliases had been previously entered for any student. You may also list names on the printer (or to the GRADEOUT file.) The option to list aliases on the printer appears only if you have established aliases for at least some of your students. You can choose to have the names or aliases listed in one of three ways. Like This (no horizontal lines) 1. Able 2. Baker Or Like This (horizontal lines) 1. Able________________________________________________________ 2. Baker_______________________________________________________ Or Like This (horizontal lines and vertical lines) 1. Able___|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____| 2. Baker__|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____| The latter two methods produce lists which are convenient for recording grades by hand before they are entered into a class file. If you are printing names, you may stop the printer by entering the <Ctrl-Break> or <Ctrl-C> key once. Rather than stopping the program's execution, the program will pause, and you will be able to continue printing by pressing <Space> or stop printing by pressing the letter Q. This is helpful if you want to stop the list before the end. OPTION H -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Students' Grades & Notes Choose this option when you want to view or print the grades of one or more of your students, when you need to change one or more grades, or when you want to enter, view, or change student NOTES. GRADE GUIDE displays a menu of choices allowing you to list grades on the screen, print grades on the printer, or quit and return to the MAIN MENU. You can choose to have the grades listed using your students' names or their aliases. NOTE! if you have not given aliases to your students, you may still choose to list their grades using aliases. This causes GRADE GUIDE to show a blank where the students' names normally appear. After selecting an option to view or print grades, GRADE GUIDE asks you for the NAME of the first student whose grades you wish to see. (NOTE! you must enter the NAME of the student even if you selected to list students by ALIAS.) If you respond with a <CR> only, then GRADE GUIDE lists the grades of all the students in the class. Listing grades When GRADE GUIDE lists grades, it gives the student's name or alias, a list of each category into which grades have been entered, and a list of all the grades the student has earned in each category. In addition, it gives a total and an average grade based on the student's Page 24 performance in each category. For all categories, it gives a sum of all the grades multiplied by their grade weights (which you have entered when entering the grades in OPTION B) and a percentage based on the maximum possible scores (which you have also entered.) In addition, for letter grades, it lists a grade point average (on the 4.0 grade scale). (NOTE! the number of decimal places that GRADE GUIDE uses to display totals and averages can be changed. See the section of this documenta- tion entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) GRADE GUIDE also gives a GRAND TOTAL and a GRAND AVERAGE score which is a percentage based on the percentages the student obtained in each category and the percentage weights you have assigned to each category. (NOTE! the method that GRADE GUIDE uses to calculate the GRAND AVERAGE can be changed to suit your needs. See the section of this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) There are two different ways in which GRADE GUIDE can handle NONE grades. It can assign them a value of zero, or it can treat them as if that grade had never been assigned. For example, if the student "Smith, John" has been assigned quiz scores of QUIZ # SCORE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE WEIGHT ------ ----- ---------------- ------ 1 10 20 1.000 2 10 20 2.000 3 NONE 30 1.000 4 15 30 1.000 then, if NONE grades are assigned the value zero, the quiz total would be 10 * 1.000 + 10 * 2.000 + 0 * 1.000 + 15 * 1.000 = 45 and the total possible would be 20 * 1.000 + 20 * 2.000 + 30 * 1.000 + 30 * 1.000 = 120 giving "Smith, John" a quiz percentage of 45 / 120 = 37.50 %. On the other hand, if NONE grades are ignored, the total would be 10 * 1.000 + 10 * 2.000 + 15 * 1.000 = 45 and the total possible would be 20 * 1.000 + 20 * 2.000 + 30 * 1.000 = 90 giving "Smith, John" a quiz percentage of 45 / 90 = 50.00 %. Before listing any grades, GRADE GUIDE asks you which way you want the grades evaluated by saying Do you want NONE grades given the value of ZERO (Y/N) ? to which you can respond with a Y or N. If you have any grades in LABELED categories, GRADE GUIDE will ask you if you want to list grades with labels. Listing the grades with labels takes much more room than printing them without labels. (NOTE! by setting defaults using the DEFAULT MENU, you can avoid the need to answer these questions. See the Page 25 section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) GRADE GUIDE calculates the GRAND AVERAGE for each student by weighting the percentages the student gets in each category by the category percentages (which GRADE GUIDE adjusts if they do not add up to 100%.) If a category has no grades in it, then there is a question as to how the GRAND AVERAGE should be calculated. GRADE GUIDE acts as if that category did not exist. When it calculates the GRAND AVERAGE, it adjusts the other category percentages so that the percentages of the categories which do have grades add up to 100%. (NOTE! you can change GRADE GUIDE so that it treats an empty category as if it had grades in it and either all the grades were zero or all the grades were perfect scores. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) There is a wide variety of ways that GRADE GUIDE could handle LETTER grades. The way GRADE GUIDE treats LETTER grades is to assume that each assignment which receives a LETTER grade is worth 4 points as in the standard 4.0 point scale for letter grades. If you want a LETTER grade to be worth more (or less) than four points, you can do that by adjusting the weight of the grade accordingly. When GRADE GUIDE calculates averages with LETTER grades, it simply assigns the corresponding grade point values to each grade and divides by the total number of points possible. For example, if a student received 3 LETTER grades of A, B, and C, that student would be given 4 points for the A, 3 points for the B, and 2 points for the C. This yields a total of 4 + 3 + 2 = 9 grade points. Since the total number of points possible is 4 + 4 + 4 = 12, the student's average would be (4 + 3 + 2) / (4 + 4 + 4) = 9 / 12 = 0.75 = 75.000 %. Since the GRADE POINT AVERAGE (GPA) for this student is 9 / 3 = 3.0, the student has a B average. Most instructors do not associate 75% with a B average. The problem is that teachers use many different methods for calculating letter grades from percentages. No matter what method GRADE GUIDE chose to use to display averages of LETTER grades, only a few instructors would be happy with that method. Therefore, GRADE GUIDE allows you to set the percentages that you want associated with LETTER grades. If you plan to use LETTER grades, you should see the section of this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for instructions about how to get GRADE GUIDE to handle LETTER grades properly for you. If grades are being listed on the screen and there is not enough room to display all the grades on one screen, then GRADE GUIDE lists the grades using several categories at a time. It waits until you press <Space> before it continues. When grades are on the screen, you may press the letter C and enter CHANGE MODE. Then you may use the cursor control keys to move the cursor which becomes visible to any grade on the screen. You may change any grade and when you do, the category totals and averages and the GRAND AVERAGE are automatically updated for you. <CR> or <Esc> is used to exit from change mode. If you are viewing a list of all the students' grades, then you will see one student's grades on the screen at a time. You can move to the next student by pressing <Space>, or you can avoid seeing the remainder of the list by pressing the letter Q. Page 26 Entering, viewing, and changing NOTES Student NOTES are designed to allow you to enter comments or customized grades into a student's record. For each student GRADE GUIDE allows you to enter up to 20 lines of NOTES numbered 1 to 20. In each of these lines you may type any text information that you want. You might choose to enter reminders to yourself about each student, lists of dates that each student missed class, information about a student's illness, the student's address, the student's parents' names, or even a customized grade not available in GRADE GUIDE like "WITHDRAWN' or "INCOMPLETE". These notes can be viewed on the screen or sent to the printer while using MAIN MENU OPTION H. The NOTES can also be listed along with student's grades using MAIN MENU OPTIONS L and M. Since MAIN MENU OPTION L will allow you to sort students according to the information you have stored in one of the NOTES, you can use NOTES to separate students into classes or types. Whenever you are viewing a student's grades on the screen using MAIN MENU OPTION H, a message at the bottom of the screen reminds you that you can see that student's NOTES by pressing the N key. Pressing N will cause GRADE GUIDE to display a screen full of NOTES. The student's name and GRAND AVERAGE appear on the top line of the NOTES screen, the word NOTES appears on the second line, and then 20 lines of NOTES are displayed for that student. Pressing <Space> will cause GRADE GUIDE to return to displaying the student's grades. If you enter a C while the NOTES are being displayed, GRADE GUIDE puts you into CHANGE MODE, and you can enter, change, delete, or add to any of the NOTES. The cursor control keys can be used to move from one NOTE to another while the <F9> and <F10> keys can be used to move the cursor within a NOTE. You are free to enter any desired text into the NOTES. Each line of the NOTES can contain up to 75 characters. You may use all 20 lines of NOTES or only a few lines. You do not have to use the lines in order. For example, you may enter information on line 10 of the NOTES before you have entered any information on the first nine lines. It may be convenient for you to use each of the 20 lines of NOTES in the same way for each of your students. This is helpful when using the roster listing or the letter writing feature of GRADE GUIDE. There you are allowed to choose a particular line of the NOTES to list for each student. So, for example, if you use line 8 in the NOTES for each student for a comment about the student's midterm project, then you could include that NOTE 8 comment in a roster listing of all the students (MAIN MENU OPTION L) or a customized letter to each student (MAIN MENU OPTION M.) When NOTES are listed on the printer, you specify that only some of the notes should be printed. GRADE GUIDE lets you tell which NOTE number should be the first NOTE printed, and which should be the last NOTE printed. Therefore, if you want to keep some sensitive information about each student such as what the student looks like or what the next assignment for that student should be, it is best to keep all such sensitive information on either very low numbered NOTES like NOTES 1 to 5 or on very high numbered NOTES like NOTES 15 to 20. Then when NOTES are printed, you can avoid having those notes listed. Also, when NOTES are listed on the printer, GRADE GUIDE does not print NOTES which are blank. So, for example, if you have entered information into NOTE 3 and Page 27 NOTE 8 but for no other NOTE, only two lines of NOTES will be printed. If you want blank lines printed for NOTES 4, 5, 6, and 7, you can enter NOTES consisting of a single space for those NOTES. <CR> or <Esc> allows you to exit form CHANGE MODE. Printing grade lists If you choose to list grades on the printer, GRADE GUIDE will ask you if you want NOTES printed as well as GRADES. (NOTE! by setting defaults using the DEFAULT MENU, you can avoid the need to answer this question. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) If you do want NOTES printed, GRADE GUIDE will ask you to enter the number of the first and last NOTES that you want printed. If you do not enter a number for the first NOTE and simply press <Space>, <CR>, or <Esc>, then GRADE GUIDE will assume that you want to begin with NOTE 1. Similarly, if you do not enter a last NOTE number, GRADE GUIDE will assume that you want to end with NOTE 20. GRADE GUIDE only allows you to print one sequence of NOTES. For example, you cannot ask for GRADE GUIDE to print NOTES 5 through 9 and NOTES 14 through 16. MAIN MENU OPTIONS L and M do allow you to choose exactly which NOTES GRADE GUIDE should print. While you are listing grades on the printer, you may stop the printer by entering the <Ctrl-Break> or <Ctrl-C> key once. Rather than stopping the program's execution, the program will pause, and you will be able to continue printing by pressing <Space> or stop printing by pressing the letter Q. This is helpful if you want to stop the list before the end. If you had elected to see a list of all the students' grades, the printer will print each student's grades, one after the other. If you had elected to begin the list with a particular student, then after printing each student's grades, GRADE GUIDE will ask you if you want to continue with the next student. Note that if you do not like the format that GRADE GUIDE has chosen to list grades, you can design your own formats using the roster listing facility of MAIN MENU OPTION L or the letter writing facility of MAIN MENU OPTION M. OPTION I -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Limits, Weights or Labels With this option you may list or change any of the maximum possible grades, grade weights, or grade labels that you have previously established. After selecting this option, GRADE GUIDE displays a list of all the grade categories that you have established for this class. You may choose any category whose grade limits and weights you wish to list. After you select a category, GRADE GUIDE displays the grade weights that you have established for that category. The weights are listed in rows of five grades each. You may enter CHANGE MODE by pressing the letter C which allows you to change any of the weights that you see. See the section of this documentation about MAIN MENU OPTION H for a discussion concerning the use of grade weights. Recall that <CR> or <Esc> is used to get out of CHANGE MODE. Pressing P or F sends the displayed information to the printer or the GRADEOUT file, respectively. After this action, continue the program by pressing <Space>. A maximum of 100 weights are displayed on the screen at any one time. If there is Page 28 not enough room to list all the weights on one screen, GRADE GUIDE will display a second screen of weights when you are done looking at the first screen. When viewing the second part of the listing you can enter CHANGE MODE or print just as you can with the first part. If the category you have selected is for storing number grades, GRADE GUIDE then lists the maximum possible scores for each grade. Again, you may enter CHANGE MODE, print, or continue by pressing C, P, or <Space>, respectively. Recall that <CR> or <Esc> is used to get out of CHANGE MODE. If there is not enough room to list all the maximum possible scores on one screen, GRADE GUIDE will display a second screen of maximum possible scores when you are done looking at the first screen. If the category you have selected is for storing number grades with cutoffs, then GRADE GUIDE displays the grade cutoffs which you have established. It begins with the A cutoffs and continues to the B, C, and D cutoffs. Each set of cutoffs is displayed on a separate screen, and with each set you may choose to enter CHANGE MODE, print, or continue with a C, P, or <Space>, respectively. If there is not enough room to list all the cutoffs on one screen, GRADE GUIDE will display a second screen of cutoffs when you are done looking at the first screen. If the category you have selected is a LABELED category, then GRADE GUIDE displays the grade labels, three per row. If there is not enough room to list all the labels on one screen, GRADE GUIDE will display a second screen of labels when you are done looking at the first screen. As with the other displays, with each screen you may choose to enter CHANGE MODE, print, or continue with a C, P, or <Space>, respectively. After viewing one full category of information, you may choose another category or select OPTION Q to quit and return to the MAIN MENU. OPTION J -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Category Information Selecting this option causes GRADE GUIDE to display all the category information you have established for the class. For each category the category names, the type of grades (NUMBER, LETTER, or NUMBER WITH CUTOFF), the percentage of the total grade, and whether or not the category is LABELED are displayed. You may enter CHANGE MODE by pressing C. This allows you to change the category names and the category percentages but does not allow you to change the category grade type. (The only way to change the grade type is to delete the category using MAIN MENU OPTION F and then reinsert the category using MAIN MENU OPTION C.) Recall that <CR> or <Esc> is used to get out of CHANGE MODE. Pressing P or F sends the displayed information to the printer or the GRADEOUT file, respectively. Pressing Q quits this option and returns you to the MAIN MENU. OPTION K -- Displaying or Printing Class Statistics This is a very powerful option which displays several kinds of reports about grades for your class. You may choose to display a report concerning one particular grade (for example, EXAM 3), one particular category (for example, QUIZ totals or averages), or the GRAND TOTALS or GRAND AVERAGES. Page 29 Each report has GRADE GUIDE calculate one value for each student. In the case of one grade, GRADE GUIDE takes either that grade for each student or a percentage for that grade based on the maximum possible score for that grade. In the case of one category, GRADE GUIDE takes either the total or the percentage that each student obtained in that category. In the case of the GRAND TOTAL or GRAND AVERAGE, GRADE GUIDE calculates the GRAND TOTAL or GRAND AVERAGE for each student. In each case GRADE GUIDE asks: Do you want grade TOTALS rather than AVERAGES (Y/N) ? (NOTE! this question can be answered instead on the DEFAULT MENU. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) GRADE GUIDE next displays a report giving the number of students in the class, the maximum and minimum values obtained by the students, the mean and median scores obtained by the students, and the standard deviation of the scores. GRADE GUIDE then displays a list of all the scores obtained listed in increasing order. This list also includes the Z-Score for each score obtained. The Z-Score tells how many standard deviations the score is from the mean score. The statistical report ends with a histogram showing graphically how the scores are distributed. (NOTE! you can have GRADE GUIDE suppress the listing of grades and Z-Scores or the histogram if you wish. You can also change the character used to display the histogram on the printer. See the section of this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) As in OPTION H you are able to choose to have the report sent to the printer if you have a printer attached to your computer. Also, GRADE GUIDE asks you to choose whether or not you want NONE grades treated as zeros. When the report has been completed, you have the option to select another report or press Q to return to the MAIN MENU. OPTION L -- Writing Reports in Roster Format With this option you can print a report in a traditional roster format with one student's information appearing on each line. You can select just which information you want to appear on each line. For example, you could print a report where each line gave a student's name, the student's QUIZ 1, QUIZ 2, and QUIZ 3 scores, the student's QUIZ TOTAL, the student's GRAND TOTAL, and the student's NOTE 3. You are only limited by the width of the printer you are using. In addition, you can have the lines of the roster sorted so that students are listed in order of their names, in order of one of their NOTES, in order of one of their grades (that is, students with better grades would appear first), or even in order of a total or average grade. When you choose OPTION L, GRADE GUIDE shows you a screen with two sides to it. The left side says "ENTRIES YOU HAVE CHOSEN". Here GRADE GUIDE lists the types of information that you have selected to print on your roster report. On the right side of the screen it says "ENTRIES YOU MAY CHOOSE FROM". Here GRADE GUIDE gives you a menu of the types of information you can choose to put into your report. Page 30 The menu of choices begins with a list of the categories that you have established for your class. Then it lists the choices NOTE, GRAND TOTAL | AVERAGE, NAME, ALIAS, LINE NUMBER, and DELETE LAST ENTRY. You may choose any of these menu choices in the order that you want the information to appear on your report. For example, if you want the first column of your report to list the students' names, then select NAME. If you want it to be a line number, then select LINE NUMBER. If you want to select a grade to be listed, then choose the menu choice for the category to which that grade belongs. GRADE GUIDE asks you to enter the number of the grade that you want. If you select a category but just enter a <CR> when you are asked for a grade number, then GRADE GUIDE assumes that you want the category TOTAL or category AVERAGE. It asks you whether you want the TOTAL or the AVERAGE. When you are making your selections, GRADE GUIDE displays your selections for you in the table at the left side of the screen. The first column in the table is labeled "Entry Number" and numbers the table entries. The table entries are numbered from 1 to 15 when you begin making your selections. If you make more than 15 selections, then the screen scrolls so that you can see the last 15 of your selections. In that case, you will be able to use the up and down cursor control keys to make your list scroll up and down. The second column in the table is labeled "Tab Column". This tells you the tab position on the printed line where your entry will be located. GRADE GUIDE automatically arranges for there to be two columns of blanks between each entry on the printed line. The table shows the tab position for the next entry that you select. If you would like more than two blanks between two of your entries, you can add blanks by pressing the right cursor control key. You can take away the blanks that you added by pressing the left cursor control key. Each time that you select MAIN MENU OPTION L, GRADE GUIDE looks at your class and decides how long the longest student name is, how long the longest student alias is, how long the longest of each of the 20 NOTES are, and how large each of the grade totals could be. While this is being done, GRADE GUIDE flashes the message "Initializing the Roster Format", although for small classes, this may take less than a second. In this way GRADE GUIDE knows how many columns it will take for NAME, ALIAS, and TOTAL entries to print. If you make a mistake while selecting entries, or if you need to make a change, then select the DELETE LAST ENTRY choice from the menu. This removes the last entry that you made. By repeatedly selecting DELETE LAST ENTRY, you can remove as many entries as you want. If you have used the roster listing for the same class before, GRADE GUIDE remembers what the previous roster format looked like and displays it for you. If you want a new roster, just DELETE LAST ENTRY a few times until the roster entries that you no longer want disappear. It is possible that the roster listing that GRADE GUIDE displays for you is not exactly like the one that you last used because some of the columns may have expanded between the last time you used the roster and this time. For example, perhaps last time you used the roster listing you listed NOTE 2 for each student, and the longest NOTE 2 was 5 characters long. Now the longest NOTE 2 might be 10 characters long, so the columns of the roster had to be shifted to allow for the longer NOTE Page 31 2. Also, some roster entries may have changed if you have deleted some grades or categories using MAIN MENU OPTIONS E or F. When you are done making entries, press the carriage return, <CR>. If you have selected more than one entry, GRADE GUIDE asks you to enter the number of the entry that you want to use to sort your output. For example, suppose that you have made selections giving the following table: 1 1 LINE NUMBER 2 5 NAME 3 27 EXAM 1 4 35 EXAM 2 5 43 EXAM 3 6 55 EXAM TOTAL If you tell GRADE GUIDE to sort by entry number 2, then the lines of your roster report will appear alphabetically by students' NAME. If you tell GRADE GUIDE to sort by entry 6, the lines of your roster report will appear in the order of your students' EXAM TOTALS. GRADE GUIDE asks you whether or not you want the lines in decreasing or increasing order of these EXAM TOTALS. If you do not select a proper entry number or just press <CR> when selecting an entry to be used for sorting, then GRADE GUIDE assumes that you want to sort by students' names. When GRADE GUIDE sorts your roster by a NOTE field, it can use one of two different methods. The first sorting method is fairly fast. If your class size is large, and your computer is low on memory space, GRADE GUIDE chooses to use a second sorting method. This second sorting method is much slower than the first. For example, if your computer is low on memory, and you sort by a NOTE field for a class of 300 students, you may have to wait several minutes for your computer to complete the sort. If you cannot wait for the sort to complete, you can always exit from GRADE GUIDE by pressing <Ctrl-Break>. When you have completed making your selections for your roster, GRADE GUIDE allows you to choose between showing your roster on the screen, printing your roster (or writing it on the GRADEOUT FILE), changing the entries that you have made, or quitting and returning to the MAIN MENU. GRADE GUIDE labels the entries of your roster report with numbers. Each column of the roster report has a number at the top. If you list the roster on the printer, there will be a key printed at the bottom of the report stating what each column entry represents. If you list numbers in a column of your roster (number grades, totals, or averages), GRADE GUIDE prints five lines of statistics at the bottom of the column. The statistics give the maximum possible value for the numbers in the column, the maximum value that was listed, the minimum value that was listed, and the mean and the standard deviation of the numbers listed. GRADE GUIDE does its best to fit those statistics into the space allotted for that column. If you think that the statistics are too cramped, you can allot more space for that column by adjusting the tab positions for that column. GRADE GUIDE will label the five statistics lines using a column of the roster which does not contain numbers. It will use the NAME field if it is present, the ALIAS field if the NAME field is not present, and a NOTE field if the NAME and ALIAS fields are not present. (NOTE! you can have GRADE GUIDE suppress the listing of these five lines of statistics if you wish. See the Page 32 section of this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details.) You may make as many lists of your roster as you like while using the roster entries that you have chosen. Then if you wish to change the roster so that it contains different entries or so that it is sorted by a different entry, you may change the roster entries. You can then delete entries, add entries, and change the number of the entry that is used for sorting. By default, GRADE GUIDE assumes that you never want to write a report that is wider than the standard 80 column printer. For this reason, GRADE GUIDE stops you from selecting entries which would print beyond this 80 column limit. NOTE! if you have a printer that can handle more than an 80 column line, GRADE GUIDE will let you change this 80 column default. See the section in this documentation entitled CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS for details. If you set up GRADE GUIDE so that it will let you write a 120 column line, for example, it still only lists the first 80 columns of your roster when you list your roster on the screen. OPTION M -- Writing Letters This option allows you to write one or more letters in a manner similar to the mail merge options available on many word processors. To use this option, you must have first created a LETTER file which is a DOS text file containing a form letter. This form letter may contain special codes which instruct GRADE GUIDE to insert special information into the letter in place of the special codes. This information could include the date, a student's name, a grade, a list of grades, an average, or other information which you may want to include in a letter about a student. You can use any word processor or text editor which allows you to create a standard DOS text file (that is, a file with a carriage return symbol at the end of each line and no special embedded word processor command symbols.) You must give the LETTER files you create the file extension "LTR". The LETTER files must be stored in the same directory as the class file containing the students for whom you want to write the letters. You may create as many as 12 different LETTER files at one time. GRADE GUIDE allows you to select the LETTER file you want to use. You may, for example, want to have several form letters prepared: one for exceptionally good students, one for good students, one for average students, and perhaps several for students with various problems. Note that this letter writing facility can also be used to tailor your own grade report format if you do not like the format already supplied by GRADE GUIDE in MAIN MENU OPTIONS H or L. When you select OPTION M, GRADE GUIDE displays a menu with seven choices. Choices A and B allow you to see letters displayed on the screen with an option to send the letters to the printer (or GRADEOUT file.) Choices C, D, E, and F write the letters on the printer (or GRADEOUT file) without first allowing you to preview the letters on the screen. With choices C and D, GRADE GUIDE lets you choose a different form letter for each student. With choices E and F, GRADE GUIDE writes a letter to each student using the same form letter. With any of these choices, while a letter is being printed, it is also echoed to the screen so that you can easily follow what is being printed. Page 33 If you select any of the choices except Q to quit, GRADE GUIDE will ask you for the name of the first student for whom you wish to write a letter. If you enter a blank name, then GRADE GUIDE will begin with the first student in the class. Choices A, C, and E will allow you to step through the students in alphabetical order by name while choices B, D, and F allow you to step through the students by alias. If you use choices A, B, C, or D, for each student GRADE GUIDE displays for you a summary of the student's averages and a list of LETTER files from which to choose. If you want to write a letter for the currently displayed student, just select one of the LETTER files by pressing the appropriate keyboard letter. You may also go on to the next student or quit writing letters altogether. If you use choices E or F, GRADE GUIDE displays a list of LETTER files before it lists any of your students. From that list you may choose a letter to send to each of your students. When you select a LETTER file, GRADE GUIDE reads the file from the disk, replaces each of the special codes on the file with the appropriate information for that student, and displays or prints the resulting letter. GRADE GUIDE will insert a form feed character at the end of each letter. To create a LETTER file, just create a letter with your word processor or text editor. GRADE GUIDE requires that each line of the letter contain no more than 250 characters. There are several kinds of special codes that you can insert into the letter which mean something to GRADE GUIDE. Each special code must begin with the two characters "@[" and end with the two characters "]@". You may use one or more blanks between the words in the special code. The code must fit entirely on one line; that is, you may not have part of a code at the end of one line and the remainder of the code at the beginning of the next line. There can be many special codes on each line. Special codes can be written in either upper or lower case letters. You may reuse a particular code as many times as you want to in a letter. The next page shows a list of the codes that GRADE GUIDE accepts and the information that GRADE GUIDE inserts for each of the codes. Page 34 CODE GRADE GUIDE WILL INSERT THE ---- --------------------------- @[ DATE ]@ current date @[ NAME ]@ student's full name @[ FIRST NAME ]@ student's first name @[ LAST NAME ]@ student's last name @[ ALIAS ]@ student's alias @[ category name grade number ]@ student's grade for the given grade number in the given category @[ category name grade number POSSIBLE ]@ maximum possible grade for the given grade number in the given category @[ category name grade number WEIGHT ]@ weight for the given grade number in the given category @[ category name grade number LABEL ]@ label for the given grade number in the given category @[ category name TOTAL ]@ total number of points given to that student in the given category @[ category name AVERAGE ]@ student's average for the given category @[ category name GPA ]@ student's grade point average if the category contains LETTER grades @[ category name POSSIBLE ]@ total score possible in the given category @[ NOTE number ]@ student's NOTE for the given NOTE number @[ category name NONE ]@ student's number of NONE grades assigned in the given category @[ category name NUMBER ]@ number of grades in the given category @[ NONE ]@ student's number of NONE grades @[ GRAND TOTAL ]@ student's grand total @[ GRAND AVERAGE ]@ student's grand average @[ GRAND TOTAL POSSIBLE ]@ total possible for the grand total @[ NUMBER ]@ number of grades in all the categories @[ GRADE LIST ]@ list of all the student's grades @[ COMMENT ]@ comment from you When you preview letters on the screen, GRADE GUIDE will show you what it is putting in place of each of your codes except for the COMMENT code. When you send the letter to the printer (or GRADEOUT file), GRADE GUIDE pauses at each COMMENT code and allows you to insert a comment up to 78 characters long. When you preview letters on the screen, GRADE GUIDE will warn you if it finds a code within your letter which it does not understand. When you send the letter to the printer (or GRADEOUT file), you do not receive such a warning; the incorrect codes are simply ignored. NOTE if you plan to use FIRST NAME and LAST NAME, make sure that each student's name is either entered in the form of last name followed by a comma followed by first name or entered in the form of last name Page 35 followed by a space followed by first name. This is necessary for GRADE GUIDE to determine the correct first and last names. Do not make the mistake of entering Joan Van Frank's name as "Van Frank Joan". That would give her a last name of "Van" and a first name of "Frank Joan". Use the form "Van Frank, Joan" or "Van.Frank Joan". As an example, you might create a letter file called GOOD.LTR which contains the following form letter. @[Date]@ To the parents of @[ First Name ]@ @[ Last Name ]@: Your child is in my MATH 001 course this year. So far this year, your child is doing very well. After @[EXAM NUMBER]@ exams @[Note 1 ]@ has obtained an average of @[EXAM AVERAGE]@. The important grade on the semester's first project was @[PROJECT 1]@. The project was concerned with @[NOTE 20]@. Here is a list of the grades he/she has earned so far. @[GRADE LIST]@ It has been a pleasure having @[ First Name ]@ in my course. @[ COMMENT ]@. Sincerely, This would work nicely if for each student NOTE 1 was the word "he" or "she", depending on the student's sex, and NOTE 20 was a description of the student's PROJECT. Each of the special codes in the form letter gets replaced by the appropriate student's information. To help you position where on the printed line that replacement information will go, GRADE GUIDE allows you to format the special codes. A format code consists of a letter L followed immediately by a column number or a letter R followed immediately by a column number. A format code can be included at the end of any special code. Its effect is to move the replacement information to the indicated column number on the line. For example, if you use the special code "@[ HOMEWORK 5 ]@", GRADE GUIDE will simply replace the code with the student's HOMEWORK 5 grade. If you include the format code L24, that is "@[ HOMEWORK 5 L24 ]@", GRADE GUIDE will print the HOMEWORK 5 grade beginning in column 24. If you use the special code R24, that is "@[ HOMEWORK 5 R24 ]@", GRADE GUIDE will print the HOMEWORK 5 grade ending in column 24. That is, the L format codes are used to LEFT JUSTIFY the replacement information while R format codes are used to RIGHT JUSTIFY the replacement information. GRADE GUIDE will use the format codes only if there is room to print the information in the requested columns. The format codes can be used to construct a customized grade report table. For example, you could construct a LETTER file which looks like this. Page 36 @[ name ]@ @[ date r70 ]@ EXAM POSSIBLE ---- -------- @[ EXAM 1 R10 ]@ @[ EXAM 1 POSSIBLE R18 ]@ @[ EXAM 1 LABEL L20 ]@ @[ EXAM 2 R10 ]@ @[ EXAM 2 POSSIBLE R18 ]@ @[ EXAM 2 LABEL L20 ]@ @[ EXAM 3 R10 ]@ @[ EXAM 3 POSSIBLE R18 ]@ @[ EXAM 3 LABEL L20 ]@ @[ EXAM 4 R10 ]@ @[ EXAM 4 POSSIBLE R18 ]@ @[ EXAM 4 LABEL L20 ]@ @[ EXAM 5 R10 ]@ @[ EXAM 5 POSSIBLE R18 ]@ @[ EXAM 5 LABEL L20 ]@ ----- -------- @[ EXAM TOTAL R10 ]@ @[ EXAM POSSIBLE R18 ]@ GRADE GUIDE would replace the codes and print something like the following. Smith, John December 11, 1988 EXAM POSSIBLE ---- -------- 95 A 100 Chapters 1-3 88 B 100 Chapters 4-5 71 D 100 Chapters 6-8 87 B 100 Chapter 9 185 A 200 Final Exam ----- --------- 526.00 600.00 OPTION Q -- Quitting and Returning to the FILE MENU This option causes the FILE MENU to be redisplayed. If your file has been changed since the last time a copy of it was written to the disk, GRADE GUIDE makes a final updated copy of your file at that time. When the FILE MENU has been displayed, you may select any of the options available with that menu including choosing another class or quitting the program. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = CHANGING DEFAULT SETTINGS = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= GRADE GUIDE was designed to be easy to use. To do this, many decisions had to be made about how users would want the program to work. If these decisions had not been made, then users would have to make them while running GRADE GUIDE and the program would be harder to use. On the other hand, some users may wish to tailor GRADE GUIDE to function in ways better suited to their own needs. Therefore, GRADE GUIDE allows you to change some of the ways that it operates. You can change many of GRADE GUIDE's operating characteristics by using the DEFAULT MENU. You can get to the DEFAULT MENU by selecting OPTION D from the FILE MENU. The DEFAULT MENU looks like this: Page 37 ....................................................................... : DEFAULT MENU : : : : SET DEFAULTS FOR THE : : : : A : disk drives, directories, and back-ups : : B : methods of grade calculations : : C : answers to operating questions : : D : displaying of information : : E : keyboard definitions : : : : Q : quit and return to the FILE MENU : :.....................................................................: If you select any of the choices from the DEFAULT MENU, GRADE GUIDE displays a menu from which you can select default settings to change. DEFAULT MENU OPTION A -- Setting up default directories and back-ups Selecting OPTION A from the DEFAULT MENU causes the following menu to appear. ....................................................................... : SET DEFAULTS FOR DRIVES, DIRECTORIES, AND BACK-UPS : : : : Set the Default for the : : : :A : directories : :B : disk drive .unset. (A through Z or unset) : :C : directory changing On (Off or On) : :D : back-up time interval 10 (1 through 250 minutes or NONE): : : :Q : quit and return to the DEFAULT MENU : : : :Drive Default Directory for the Drive : : A .unset. : : B .unset. : : C .unset. : : D .unset. : : E .unset. : :.....................................................................: Choice A : directories If you keep class files in a particular directory on a particular drive, you can request that GRADE GUIDE look at that directory every time you select that drive. Choice A from this SET DEFAULTS FOR DRIVES, DIRECTORIES, AND BACK-UPS menu allow you to set a default directory for up to five disk drives. Before any defaults are set, GRADE GUIDE assumes that the five disk drives are A, B, C, D, and E although these drive names can be changed to any five different letters. If you choose A, GRADE GUIDE enters change mode and allows you to change the drive names and corresponding directories listed on the bottom of the screen. If the directory has not been set or has been set to blank, the screen displays the name ".unset." GRADE GUIDE checks that the five drive names that you enter are all different. GRADE GUIDE does not check to see if your computer has the appropriate drives or whether the default directory names that you associated with the drives are legal directory Page 38 names. If you enter any illegal directory names, GRADE GUIDE will ignore the names when it comes time to use them. Suppose for example that you have set the second line of the list of default drives and directories to read "B \grades". Then whenever you select drive B when you use OPTION A in the FILE MENU, GRADE GUIDE automatically switches to the directory "\grades" on that drive. If you have the default for directory changing (see choice C below) set to "On", then GRADE GUIDE still gives you the chance to change directories in case you do not want your chosen default directory. If you start GRADE GUIDE by using a command line parameter (see the note about command line parameter use in GETTING STARTED WITH GRADE GUIDE -- OPTION B), then a directory given in the command line parameter, will be used in preference to the directory set by default. If you enter an empty string when entering a default directory, then GRADE GUIDE returns the default setting to "unset". When the setting is "unset", then GRADE GUIDE does not automatically change the directory for you when you change drives. It leaves you in the current default directory on that drive when it asks you to enter a directory name in FILE MENU OPTION A. NOTE! if you enter a default directory name beginning with a back slash, "\", then you are entering a full DOS path name for the directory. If the directory name does not begin with a back slash, then it is only a relative directory name as explained by the DOS path name rules. If your default directory for drive A is named "grades", then whenever you choose to change to drive A, GRADE GUIDE will attempt to add "grades" to the CURRENT directory name for drive A. If the current directory is the root directory, "\", then GRADE GUIDE will change it to "\grades". But, if the current directory is "\students", then GRADE GUIDE will change it to "\students\grades". This is compatible with standard DOS rules for changing directories. Choice B : disk drive If you keep your class files on a different disk drive than your GRADEGID.EXE and GRADEGID.OVR files, then you may want GRADE GUIDE to automatically change drives when it begins. For example, if you keep your GRADEGID.EXE and GRADEGID.OVR files on drive C but your class files on drive A, then every time GRADE GUIDE begins you will have to change the drive from C to A. With choice B from the SET DEFAULTS FOR DRIVES, DIRECTORIES, AND BACK-UPS menu, you can tell GRADE GUIDE that you want drive A (or any other drive) as the drive to look at for your class files. Then, whenever GRADE GUIDE begins, A automatically becomes the drive name. Again, a drive specified in a command line parameter takes precedence over the drive set as default. If the default setting for choice B is ".unset.", then GRADE GUIDE will not change drives when it begins. If you enter a <CR> when choosing the default drive, then GRADE GUIDE will set the default drive to ".unset.". Choice C : directory changing When you choose C from the SET DEFAULTS FOR DRIVES, DIRECTORIES, AND BACK-UPS menu, the default shown on menu next to choice C changes from "On" to "Off". Pressing C again switches the setting back to "On". Page 39 If the setting is "On", then whenever you select OPTION A from the FILE MENU, GRADE GUIDE asks you to "Enter the directory name : ". If you never use subdirectories or you do use subdirectories but you have told GRADE GUIDE exactly which subdirectories you do use, then the request to "Enter the directory name : " is unnecessary. If OPTION G is set to "Off", then GRADE GUIDE does not ask you to enter a directory name when you change drives. Choice D : back-up time interval When you make changes to your class files, GRADE GUIDE keeps track of how long it has been since the last time it wrote a copy of your class file to the disk. GRADE GUIDE does not let you work for more that 10 minutes before it backs up your class file. This is to protect you from losing too much of your work if your computer should experience a power failure or other hardware problem. If you would like GRADE GUIDE to back up your class files more or less often than every 10 minutes, then choice D from the SET DEFAULTS FOR DRIVES, DIRECTORIES, AND BACK-UPS menu allows you to enter the time interval that you want. If you enter NONE, then GRADE GUIDE will stop making backup copies of your file except, of course, when you exit from the MAIN MENU back to the FILE MENU, just before you create TEMPORARILY CHANGED GRADES, or when you exit GRADE GUIDE with <Ctrl-Break> or <Ctrl-C>. DEFAULT MENU OPTION B -- Changing the Methods of Grade Calculations Selecting OPTION B from the DEFAULT MENU causes the following menu to appear. ....................................................................... : SET DEFAULTS FOR METHODS OF GRADE CALCULATIONS : : : : Set the Default for the : : : :A : grand average weighted On (Off or On) : :B : value of an empty category NONE (0%, 100%, or NONE) : :C : basis of grade from average 100 (0 to 250) : :D : converting of letter values After (Before or After GPA) : :E : letter grade percentages : : : :Q : quit and return to the DEFAULT MENU : :.....................................................................: Choice A : grand average weighted When GRADE GUIDE calculates the GRAND AVERAGE grade for your students, it normally uses the category percentages that you have supplied. For example, you might have set up three grade categories EXAM 70% of the grade QUIZ 20% of the grade HOMEWORK 10% of the grade Perhaps you have entered 2 EXAM grades, 4 QUIZ grades, and 10 HOMEWORK grades for each student. When the GRAND AVERAGE is calculated for a student, it is calculated from the category averages using the weightings of 70%, 20%, and 10%. Suppose each exam were worth 100 Page 40 points, each quiz 20 points, and each homework assignment 10 points. Suppose that one student's grades were CATEGORY GRADES TOTAL AVERAGE -------- ------ ----- ------- EXAM 80 100 180 90 % QUIZ 15 14 16 19 64 80 % HOMEWORK 7 9 8 6 3 5 8 9 7 8 70 70 % The GRAND AVERAGE is calculated by weighting the category averages (90%, 80%, and 70%) by the category weightings of 70%, 20%, and 10%. Assuming that all grades entered were given a weight of 1.000, one would get GRAND AVERAGE = 90% * 70% + 80% * 20% + 70% * 10% = 86.00 %. By selecting choice A from the SET DEFAULTS FOR METHODS OF GRADE CALCULATIONS menu, you can turn "Off" this weighting of the GRAND AVERAGE so that the GRAND AVERAGE is calculated on the basis of total points only. The above calculations would then become TOTAL POINTS = 180 + 64 + 70 = 314 TOTAL POINTS POSSIBLE = 200 + 80 + 100 = 380 GRAND AVERAGE = 314 / 380 = 82.63 %. By selecting choice A a second time, you can turn the weighting of the GRAND AVERAGE back "On". NOTE! if you have set the percentages for all of the categories for a particular class to zero, then, for that class, GRADE GUIDE will calculate the GRAND AVERAGE on the basis of total points. Choice B : value of an empty category Consider the example given above for choice A. Suppose that instead of having given 2 EXAMS, 4 QUIZZES, and 10 HOMEWORK, you had given 2 EXAMS, 10 HOMEWORK, but no QUIZZES. Suppose that a student had been given the grades CATEGORY GRADES TOTAL AVERAGE -------- ------ ----- ------- EXAM 80 100 180 90 % QUIZ no grades 0 0 % HOMEWORK 7 9 8 6 3 5 8 9 7 8 70 70 % If the GRAND AVERAGE is being weighted, then GRADE GUIDE acts as if the category QUIZ never existed and calculates the GRAND AVERAGE by WEIGHTED SUM = 90% * 70% + no grades + 70% * 10% = 70% TOTAL CATEGORY PERCENTS = 70% + 10% = 80% GRAND AVERAGE = 70% / 80% = 87.50 % There are two other ways that this calculation might be done. One way would be to assign an average of 0% to the QUIZ category to get Page 41 WEIGHTED SUM = 90% * 70% + 0% * 20% + 70% * 10% = 70% TOTAL CATEGORY PERCENTS = 70% 20% + 10% = 100% GRAND AVERAGE = 70% / 100% = 70.00 % Another way would be to assign an average of 100% to the QUIZ category to get WEIGHTED SUM = 90% * 70% + 100% * 20% + 70% * 10% = 90% TOTAL CATEGORY PERCENTS = 70% + 20% + 10% = 100% GRAND AVERAGE = 90% / 100% = 90.00 % By selecting choice B from the SET DEFAULTS FOR METHODS OF GRADE CALCULATIONS menu, you can change the way empty categories are treated. Selecting choice B once changes the method of treating empty categories from the first way (default setting "NONE") to the second way (default setting "0%".) Selecting choice B again changes the way that empty categories are treated to the third way (default setting "100%".) Selecting choice B a third time changes the method of treating empty categories back to the original way (default setting "NONE".) Choice C : basis of grade from average When using MAIN MENU OPTION B to create a number grade from the GRAND AVERAGE score, GRADE GUIDE calculates for each student a GRAND AVERAGE expressed as a percentage. This results in each student's average being in the range from 0 to 100 (unless the student has enough extra credit that the student's average is more than 100 percent.) That percentage is used as the student's new grade. If you want to have this grade expressed as a percent of some number other than 100, then you should use choice C from the SET DEFAULTS FOR METHODS OF GRADE CALCULATIONS menu. For example, if the basis of grade from average is changed to 25, each student's grade will be a percentage of 25 where the percentage is determined by the student's GRAND AVERAGE. Choice D : converting of letter values The use of choice D will not make sense until you understand the use of choice E described below. By using choice E discussed below, you have a great amount of control over the numeric values assigned to the various letter grades. The default values for these numeric settings can always be seen in the letter values table which appears when choice E is selected. Even after these values are set, there is still another choice that can be made concerning how GRADE GUIDE calculates the average of letter grades. The question is one of whether GRADE GUIDE should make the conversion to your choice of letter grade values before or after it calculates a grade point average. Suppose, for example, that a student has received the four grades A-, B, C+, and D. GRADE GUIDE would first calculate a grade point average treating A- as a 3.667, B as a 3, C+ as a 2.333, and D as a 1, then the GPA would be Page 42 (3.667 + 3 + 2.333 + 1) / 4 = 2.5 (The values for the A- and C+ were determined by the LETTER GRADE +- FRACTION set on the letter values table discussed below in the section about choice E.) This average is half of the way between a C and a B which is equivalent to the grade BC. Now GRADE GUIDE has to determine a PERCENTAGE AVERAGE for this list of four letter grades. Suppose that on the letter values table discussed below in the section on choice E you had set the letter grade percentages as follows. GRADE PERCENT GRADE PERCENT GRADE PERCENT GRADE PERCENT ----- ------- ----- ------- ----- ------- ----- ------- A 96 % A+ 98 % A- 93 % AB 92 % B 88 % B+ 90 % B- 85 % BC 82 % C 76 % C+ 79 % C- 73 % CD 68 % D 60 % D+ 63 % D- 45 % DF 40 % F 20 % F+ 30 % F- 0 % According to this table, a GPA equivalent to a BC should average to be 82 %. But suppose that GRADE GUIDE first converts the letter grades into percentages and then finds the GPA. Then GRADE GUIDE would take the average of the four percentages 93%, 88%, 79%, and 60% to get (93% + 88% + 79% + 60%) / 4 = 80.00 % Clearly the percentage is different depending on whether GRADE GUIDE converts to your chosen percentages BEFORE calculating the GPA (80 %) or AFTER calculating the GPA (82 %). The only time that it will make a difference is when the percentages assigned to the letter grades are not evenly spaced. In the above example the spacing between the settings for A and B is 96% - 88% = 8% while the spacing between the settings for B and C is 88% - 76% = 12%. Therefore, GRADE GUIDE allows you to choose whether you want to convert to percentages before or after the grade point average is calculated. The current default choice is AFTER. By selecting choice D from the SET DEFAULTS FOR METHODS OF GRADE CALCULATIONS menu, you can change the default to BEFORE. GRADE GUIDE still reports a grade point average (GPA) calculated on the standard 4.0 scale as shown above. Choice E : letter grade percentages If you use letter grades, you may associate a numeric percentage with each of the letter grades. GRADE GUIDE, for example, assigns A a value of 95%, B a value of 85%, C a value of 75%, D a value of 65%, and F a value of 55%. These choices may or may not be compatible with the values that you would want assigned. When you select choice E from the SET DEFAULTS FOR METHODS OF GRADE CALCULATIONS menu, GRADE GUIDE displays the following letter values table. Page 43 ....................................................................... : Set the Default for the : :A : letter grade +- fraction 33.333 % (0 to 50 % of 1 point) : :B : values for converting letter grades to numeric averages : : : : Grade Percentage Fractional & Mixed Grade Percentages : : A 95.000 A+ 98.333 A- 91.667 AB 90.000 : : B 85.000 B+ 88.333 B- 81.667 BC 80.000 : : C 75.000 C+ 78.333 C- 71.667 CD 70.000 : : D 65.000 D+ 68.333 D- 61.667 DF 60.000 : : F 55.000 F+ 58.333 F- 51.667 : : : :C : ranges for converting numeric values to letter grades : : : : TOP BOTTOM TOP BOTTOM TOP BOTTOM TOP BOTTOM: :A Maximum 90.000 A+Maximum 96.667 A-93.333 90.000 AB 92.5 87.5 : :B 90.000 80.000 B+ 90.000 86.667 B-83.333 80.000 BC 82.5 77.5 : :C 80.000 70.000 C+ 80.000 76.667 C-73.333 70.000 CD 72.5 67.5 : :D 70.000 60.000 D+ 70.000 66.667 D-63.333 60.000 DF 62.5 57.5 : :F 60.000 0.000 F+ 60.000 56.667 F-53.333 50.000 : : : :Q : quit and return to the DEFAULT GRADE CALCULATIONS MENU : :.....................................................................: By changing the entries on this table you can change the way GRADE GUIDE treats LETTER grades. When determining a grade point average (GPA) from a list of letter grades, GRADE GUIDE assigns a grade point value to each letter grade. For example, the letter grade B is assigned the value 3.000. When you use a plus letter grade like B+, GRADE GUIDE assigns that letter grade a value which is one third of a point greater than the assignment made for a B. This assigns to a B+ the value 3.333. Similarly, GRADE GUIDE assigns to a B- a value which is one third of a point less than the assignment made for a B. This assigns to a B- the value 2.667. By selecting choice A from the letter values table you can change the fraction that GRADE GUIDE adds or subtracts when a plus or minus letter grade is used. The value is expressed as the percent of one point. Thus GRADE GUIDE's chosen fraction of one third is expressed as 33.333 %. If you want the fraction changed to one fourth, for example, you would select choice A and enter 25.000. This would result in a B+ receiving a value of 3.25 and B- receiving a value of 2.75. The fraction that you enter must be between zero and 50.000 %. If the fraction is set at 50.000 %, a B- will have the same value as a C+ and the same value as a BC. When determining an average for a list of LETTER grades, GRADE GUIDE uses the table listed under "B : values for converting letter grades to numeric averages." For example, if a student receives the letter grades A, B-, and B (all with weight 1.000), GRADE GUIDE would calculate and average by replacing A with 95 %, B- with 81.667 %, and B with 85 % to get (95 + 81.667 + 85) / 3 = 87.222 %. By selecting choice B from the letter grade table you can change these percentages. To decide what values to enter, you should decide first Page 44 what each letter grade is worth. Take the grade B+, for example. If a student were to receive B+ for every grade ever given, what average would you want that student to receive? A 92 % ? An 87.5 % ? Whatever percentage you decide is correct for that student who earns a B+ for every grade is the percentage you should assign to B+. After selecting choice B, GRADE GUIDE enters CHANGE MODE and allows you to change the percentages for the base grades, A, B, C, D, and F. When you finish with the percentages for those five grades, press the <Esc> key. Then GRADE GUIDE will ask you if it should adjust the values of the fractional grades (the plus and minus grades) by using the LETTER GRADE +- FRACTION set in the table in part A. If you want, GRADE GUIDE will set the percentages for those plus and minus grades to be compatible with the LETTER GRADE +- FRACTION and the base grade percentages that you just finished setting. Whether or not you ask GRADE GUIDE to make that adjustment for you, GRADE GUIDE will then enter CHANGE MODE and allow you to adjust the percentages for the plus grades of A+, B+, C+, D+, and F+ if you want. When you are done with those adjustments, press the <Esc> key again. Then GRADE GUIDE will allow you to adjust the percentages of the minus grades of A-, B-, C-, D-, and F-. When you are done with those adjustments, press the <Esc> key again. GRADE GUIDE will then ask if it should adjust the percentages for the mixed grades of AB, BC, CD, and DF by making them half way between the appropriate base grade percentages. Whether or not you ask GRADE GUIDE to make that adjustment, GRADE GUIDE will then enter CHANGE MODE and allow you to adjust the percentages for the mixed grades. When you are done, press the <Esc> key for one last time. When using MAIN MENU OPTION B to create a grade from the GRAND AVERAGE, you can create for each student a new grade in a category of your choice based on the value of the student's current GRAND AVERAGE. If the chosen category contains LETTER grades, then GRADE GUIDE has to convert the numeric GRAND AVERAGE into a LETTER grade. To do this, GRADE GUIDE uses the table listed under "C : ranges for converting numeric values to letter grades." For example, if a student's GRAND AVERAGE is 84.35 %, GRADE GUIDE would assign a grade of B. If you wish to change these grade ranges, select choice C from the letter grade table. If you do, GRADE GUIDE will enter CHANGE MODE and allow you to set the bottom limits for the ranges for A, B, C, and D. NOTE! that the grade ranges for the five base grades of A, B, C, D, and F completely cover the values from 0 up to 200 so that any average between 0 and 200 can be assigned to one of the letter grades, A, B, C, D, or F. If an average falls on a border between two grades, the higher grade is assigned. When you are done adjusting these ranges, press the <Esc> key. Then GRADE GUIDE will let you adjust the bottom limits for the grade ranges for A+, B+, C+, D+, and F+. NOTE! that the ranges for these plus grades must lie at the top end of the ranges you set for the corresponding base grades. That is, for example, the range for C+ must be the top portion of the range for C. When you are done adjusting these ranges, press the <Esc> key. Page 45 Then GRADE GUIDE will let you adjust the top limits for the grade ranges for A-, B-, C-, D-, and F-. NOTE! that the ranges for these minus grades must lie at the bottom end of the ranges you set for the corresponding base grades. That is, for example, the range for B- must be the bottom portion of the range for B. When you are done adjusting these ranges, press the <Esc> key. Finally, GRADE GUIDE will let you adjust the top and bottom limits for the ranges for the mixed grades of AB, BC, CD, and DF. NOTE! that these grade ranges for the mixed grades must cover the border of the grade ranges for the two associated base grades. That is, for example, the top value for the AB range must be in the range set for A, and the bottom of the AB range must be in the range set for B. When you are all done setting the range limits, press the <Esc> key. When you are done adjusting numbers on the letter values table, press Q to return to the "SET DEFAULTS FOR METHODS OF GRADE CALCULATIONS" menu. DEFAULT MENU OPTION C -- Answers to Operating Questions There are several questions which GRADE GUIDE needs to ask you while you are operating the program. For several of these questions, you can tell GRADE GUIDE that your answer will always be the same. Then GRADE GUIDE will no longer need to ask you for your answer. Selecting OPTION C from the DEFAULT MENU causes the following menu to appear. ....................................................................... : SET DEFAULTS FOR ANSWERS TO OPERATING QUESTIONS : : : : Set the Default for the : : : :A : grade confirmations Optional (Off, On, or Optional) : :B : treat none grades as zero Optional (Off, On, or Optional) : :C : labeling of categories Optional (Off, On, or Optional) : :D : listing grades with labels Optional (Off, On, or Optional) : :E : grade report form Optional (Totals, Averages, or Opt) : : : :Q : quit and return to the DEFAULT MENU : :.....................................................................: For each of the choices A through E on this menu, the current setting is "Optional". This means that each time that GRADE GUIDE needs to know how you want it to operate, it must ask you an appropriate question. By changing the default settings, you are telling GRADE GUIDE that your answer to the question will always be the same, so GRADE GUIDE no longer needs to ask the question. Choice A : grade confirmations Whenever you use GRADE GUIDE to enter grades using MAIN MENU OPTION B, you are asked Do you want to confirm inputs (Y/N) ? By selecting choice A from the SET DEFAULTS FOR ANSWERS TO OPERATION QUESTIONS menu you change the default setting from "Optional", which Page 46 means that GRADE GUIDE asks the question every time grades are entered, to "Off" which means that GRADE GUIDE assumes you never want to confirm grades. Selecting choice A a second time turns the default setting to "On" which means that GRADE GUIDE assumes that you always want to confirm grades. Selecting choice A a third time returns the default setting to "Optional". Choice B : treat none grades as zero At several places (in MAIN MENU OPTIONS E, H, K, L, and M) GRADE GUIDE asks you Do you want NONE grades given the value of ZERO (Y/N) ? Just as in choice A above, you can use choice B to answer this question so that GRADE GUIDE will not have to ask it. Selecting choice B once turns the default setting to "Off" so that NONE grades are never treated as zero. Selecting choice B again turns the default setting to "On" so that NONE grades are always treated as zero. Selecting choice B a third time turns the default setting back to "Optional" and GRADE GUIDE will continue to ask the question. Choice C : labeling of categories Each time that you establish a new category in MAIN MENU OPTION C, you must specify whether or not the category should be LABELED. If you either want all of your categories LABELED or all of your categories NOT LABELED, then choice C will set your choice automatically for you. Selecting choice C once turns the default to "Off" so that all NEWLY established categories will be automatically made NOT LABELED. Selecting choice C again turns the default setting to "On" so that all NEWLY established categories will be automatically made LABELED. Selecting choice C a third time turns the default setting back to "Optional" and GRADE GUIDE will need to be told whether or not new categories are to be LABELED. Choice D : listing grades with labels If your class has at least one category which has some grades in it and is LABELED, then when you use MAIN MENU OPTIONS H and M, GRADE GUIDE will ask you Do you want to list using grade labels (Y/N) ? Displaying or printing a grade list with labels takes up more room than listing the grades without labels. Selecting choice D once turns the default to "Off" so that labels are never used. Selecting choice D again turns the default setting to "On" so that labels are always used. Selecting choice D a third time turns the default setting back to "Optional" and GRADE GUIDE will need to be told whether or not to use labels on grade lists. Choice E : grade report form At two places (in MAIN MENU OPTIONS K and L) GRADE GUIDE asks you Do you want TOTALS rather than AVERAGES (Y/N) ? Page 47 You can use choice E to answer this question so that GRADE GUIDE will not have to ask it. Selecting choice E once turns the default setting to "Off" so that you will never get TOTALS; you will always get AVERAGES. Selecting choice E again turns the default setting to "On" so that you will always get TOTALS; you will never get AVERAGES. Selecting choice E a third time turns the default setting back to "Optional" and GRADE GUIDE will need to ask if you want TOTALS rather than AVERAGES in MAIN MENU OPTIONS K and L. DEFAULT MENU OPTION D -- Changing the way GRADE GUIDE displays GRADE GUIDE allows you to change in several ways the manner in which it displays information on the screen or on the printer. Selecting OPTION D from the DEFAULT MENU causes the following menu to appear. ....................................................................... : SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION : : : : Set the Default for the : : : :A : start in color mode On (Off or On) : :B : lines per page NONE (5 through 250 lines or NONE) : :C : maximum roster width 80 (30 through 250 columns) : :D : statistics grade list Show (Show or Suppress) : :E : statistics histogram list Show (Show or Suppress) : :F : roster statistics Show (Show or Suppress) : :G : histogram print character * (42) (Any Character ASCII 32 to 255): :H : total decimal digits 2 (0 through 7) : :I : average decimal digits 2 (0 through 7) : :J : letter grade display names : : : :Q : quit and return to the DEFAULT MENU : : : : Letter Grades : A B C D F : : Letter Grades Displayed As : A B C D F : :.....................................................................: Choice A : start in color mode If your computer has a color graphics card, then whenever GRADE GUIDE begins, it writes to the screen in color. If your computer has a color graphics card but does not have a color monitor, then you will likely choose FILE MENU OPTION H every time that you run GRADE GUIDE. If you select choice A on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION menu, this default switches to "Off". Then the next time GRADE GUIDE begins, it will begin in monochrome mode rather than in color mode. Selecting choice A a second time switches the default back to "On". NOTE! selecting choice A does not change GRADE GUIDE into monochrome mode; it only requests that GRADE GUIDE begins in monochrome mode IN THE FUTURE! Choice B : lines per page Normally when GRADE GUIDE prints, it does not count the number of lines being printed. Therefore, GRADE GUIDE often writes right on top of the page perforations on the printer paper. This is because the default setting for choice B on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF Page 48 INFORMATION menu is set to "NONE". If you select choice B, GRADE GUIDE allows you to enter a number of lines that you want GRADE GUIDE to use as the maximum number of lines that are written on any page. For example, standard 11 inch long paper has room for 66 lines written at 6 lines per inch. If you want GRADE GUIDE to avoid writing on the last 6 lines of the page, use choice B to set the maximum number of lines per page to 60 (or any other number less than 66.) Then GRADE GUIDE will not write more than 60 lines before writing a form feed to make the printer jump to the top of the next page. GRADE GUIDE will not put the page jumps in at random places. If you are printing students' grades using MAIN MENU OPTION H, then GRADE GUIDE will not print some of a student's grades on one page and some more grades on the next page. If a student's grades do not all fit on the current page, then GRADE GUIDE will jump to the next page before printing that student's grades. When GRADE GUIDE is printing lists, it tries to print a multiple of five lines on each page. Choice C : maximum roster width GRADE GUIDE assumes that your printer prints 80 characters per line. Some printers can print many more characters than 80 per line. If you would like GRADE GUIDE to allow you to write a roster report to a printer which can handle more than 80 characters per line, then choice C on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION menu allows you to enter a different number of characters. You can even ask GRADE GUIDE to restrict your reports so that they are forced to have fewer than 80 characters per line by entering a number less than 80. NOTE! you may want to reset this default when you are writing reports to the GRADEOUT file. Files can be written with up to 250 characters on one line. NOTE! even when you create a roster report with more than 80 characters on each line, only the first 80 characters are displayed when you show the report on the screen. Choice D : statistics grade list Each time that GRADE GUIDE lists statistics in MAIN MENU OPTION K it gives a list of all the scores obtained by the students and the associated Z-Scores (see the discussion of MAIN MENU OPTION K.) If you want to suppress this listing, you can do it by selecting choice D on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION menu. Selecting choice D once changes the default to "Suppress". Selecting the choice a second time returns the default to "Show". Choice E : statistics histogram Each time that GRADE GUIDE lists statistics in MAIN MENU OPTION K it gives a histogram graphing the distribution of values obtained (see the discussion of MAIN MENU OPTION K.) If you want to suppress this histogram, you can do it by selecting choice E on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION menu. Selecting choice E once changes the default to "Suppress". Selecting the choice a second time returns the default to "Show". Page 49 Choice F : roster statistics Each time that GRADE GUIDE makes a roster listing (using MAIN MENU OPTION L) containing number grades, totals, or averages, it lists five lines of statistics at the bottom of the listing (see the discussion of MAIN MENU OPTION L.) If you want to suppress these statistics, you can do it by selecting choice F on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION menu. Selecting choice F once changes the default to "Suppress". Selecting the choice a second time returns the default to "Show". Choice G : histogram print character When the statistics histogram is displayed on the screen, GRADE GUIDE uses the block graphics character with ASCII value 219. This causes the bars on the histogram chart to be completely filled in. When GRADE GUIDE writes a histogram on the printer, it does not use the block graphics character because most printers do not use this character. GRADE GUIDE uses instead the asterisk "*" with ASCII value 42, a standard character available to almost all printers. If you want to choose a different character to be printed on your printer, select choice G on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION menu. GRADE GUIDE will allow you to enter one character with any ASCII value from 32 to 255. To enter a character not available on your keyboard, hold down the alternate key, <Alt>, and enter the ASCII code for the character using the numeric keypad on your keyboard. Finally, release the <Alt> key. Do not be disturbed if the character displayed by GRADE GUIDE on the screen is not the same as the character you expected to show on your printer. Characters with ASCII values greater than 127 are not standard; the display of those characters on the screen may well be different from the display of those characters on your printer. Choice H : decimal digits for totals When GRADE GUIDE displays or prints a TOTAL, it shows the number with 2 decimal digits. You may change the number of digits by selecting choice H on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION menu. When you select choice H, you can set the number of decimal places for all TOTALS at any number from 0 to 7. Choice I : decimal digits for averages When GRADE GUIDE displays or prints an AVERAGE or GPA, it shows the number with 2 decimal digits. You may change the number of digits by selecting choice I on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION menu. When you select choice I, you can set the number of decimal places for all AVERAGES and GPA'S at any number from 0 to 7. Choice J : letter grade display names GRADE GUIDE uses the five letter grades A, B, C, D, and F. Choice J on the SET DEFAULTS FOR DISPLAYING OF INFORMATION menu allows you to change those letters to any other system of five letters. For example, some schools use an A, B, C, D, and E system. Other schools use the O, G, S, U, and F or the E, G, S, U, P systems. Whatever system of five grades you choose, GRADE GUIDE will allow them. Simply select choice J and enter the five letter grades that you want to use. Make sure that the grades are entered in order from high grade to low grade. GRADE Page 50 GUIDE shows you what the corresponding A, B, C, D, and F grades are. After you make the change, GRADE GUIDE begins to use your chosen letter grades both when it displays and reads grades. From then on you must use your chosen letters when you enter grades. DEFAULT MENU OPTION E -- Changing the Use of the Editing Keys Whenever you enter or change information in GRADE GUIDE, you can use the editing keys. The key use is KEY USE --- --- Up Arrow Key cursor up between entries on the screen Down Arrow Key cursor down between entries on the screen Left Arrow Key cursor left between entries on the screen Right Arrow Key cursor right between entries on the screen F9 cursor left within an entry on the screen F10 cursor right within an entry on the screen F2 clear an entry on the screen Esc escape from change mode F5 alternate key for Up Arrow F6 alternate key for Down Arrow F7 alternate key for Left Arrow F8 alternate key for Right Arrow The alternate keys (F5, F6, F7, and F8) are provided for those users who like to use the numeric key pad. On many keyboards you cannot use the arrow keys at the same time that you use the numeric key pad. The Del and Back Space keys are also used by GRADE GUIDE for deleting characters. If you would prefer a different handling of these keys, GRADE GUIDE will allow you to use the arrow keys, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn, Esc, Ins, and the function keys in any of the uses listed in the table above. To change the way GRADE GUIDE uses the editing keys select OPTION E on the DEFAULT MENU. To change the keys first press the letter A to indicate that you are ready to change keys. Then just enter one key for each of the key uses listed on the screen. From that point on, GRADE GUIDE will begin using your choice of keys. DEFAULT MENU OPTION Q -- Quitting and Returning to the FILE MENU When you select OPTION Q, GRADE GUIDE asks you Make These Settings Permanent (Y/N) ? If you respond with N, then the current default settings are used by GRADE GUIDE while the program is running. However, when you quit using the GRADE GUIDE program, GRADE GUIDE forgets all the changes you made in the default settings. If, on the other hand, you respond with a Y, then GRADE GUIDE writes a new file called "GRADEGID.DFT". The file is placed in the same directory that was the current default directory when the program began execution. Every time that you begin running GRADE GUIDE, it looks for Page 51 the "GRADEGID.DFT" file in your current default directory. If that file is found, then GRADE GUIDE reads it and finds out what the default settings are. In this way, you can set the default settings on the DEFAULT MENU once and never need to go back to the DEFAULT MENU again unless you want to change the default settings. NOTE! if the default settings that you chose are the same as the default settings that GRADE GUIDE has chosen to use (see the DEFAULT MENU listed above), then no "GRADEGID.DFT" file will be needed and none will be written. In particular, if you have an old "GRADEGID.DFT" file, and you change the default settings back to the original GRADE GUIDE default settings, then your old "GRADEGID.DFT" file will be erased. If you have used the DEFAULT MENU to change some of the default settings, you can undo all of your changes and return to using GRADE GUIDE's choice of default settings. This is done by deleting the GRADEGID.DFT file. This cannot be done from within the GRADE GUIDE program but can be done in DOS by typing ERASE GRADEGID.DFT as a DOS command. When giving a copy of GRADE GUIDE to a friend, you should give them a copy of GRADEGID.EXE, GRADEGID.OVR, and GRADEGID.DOC. If you do not give them a copy of your GRADEGID.DFT file, then they can begin using GRADE GUIDE with the standard default settings. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = MEMORY REQUIREMENTS = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= When GRADE GUIDE is working on one of your classes, it reads the entire file of information for that class into the computer's memory. This allows GRADE GUIDE to execute very fast. If you try to read a file into memory which is too large for the memory of your computer, GRADE GUIDE displays a warning message and does not allow you to continue processing that class. This could happen if you record information about a class using one computer and then try to process that class using another computer with less internal memory. GRADE GUIDE Version 3.00 has been tested with a class which has 120 students with 400 grades and 20 NOTES assigned to each student. It was also tested with a class which has 230 students with 40 grades and 20 NOTES assigned to each student. This worked fine on a computer with an internal memory of 256 K bytes. On a computer with 640 K bytes of memory, GRADE GUIDE worked for a class of 500 students. Since most classes do not have anywhere near this much information to store, GRADE GUIDE will almost never run into memory problems. The use of NOTES increases drastically the amount of memory required to handle your classes. If you do not use NOTES or use only a couple of short NOTES for each student, you can expect to handle a class of several hundred students on a computer with an internal memory size of only 256 K bytes. GRADE GUIDE constantly checks whether or not your computer has the memory capacity to continue processing. If you attempt to add one more new student or try to record a new set of grades and there is not enough memory in the computer to allow that, GRADE GUIDE stops you and prevents you from making those additions to your class. You can continue processing normally as long as you do not try to add the new informa- tion. If you need to add the new information, there are several things that you can try. First, you could move your work to a computer with more memory. Second, you could delete some less important information. An easy way to get more room, for example, would be to stop using Page 52 LABELED categories. Another way would be to drop an unneeded category or some students who are no longer attending your class. Third, you can delete some NOTES that you have left for students. Student NOTES take up a large amount of memory space, so if your computer is low on memory, do not put a lot of information in NOTES. Finally, if you are using a RAM disk or a memory resident program which takes up some of your memory space, you could try running GRADE GUIDE without those utilities present. There are three MAIN MENU options which require some extra memory to be allocated in your computer. They are OPTIONS E (drop grades), K (display statistics), and L (display class roster when sorting is done with a number entry). In addition, GRADE GUIDE must check the memory used when it combines two classes with FILE MENU OPTION E. If you ever try to use one of these options when your computer does not have enough available memory, a warning is displayed and you are not allowed to use the option. Normal processing can continue as long as you avoid using those options. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = INPUT/OUTPUT PROBLEMS = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= When reading from or writing to the disk drives, there is always a possibility that problems will occur either due to hardware problems with the disk drive or the diskette, due to the diskette's being full, or due to your removing the necessary diskette from its drive before GRADE GUIDE is done with it. GRADE GUIDE tries to catch each of these kinds of errors and will display a warning message whenever it finds a problem. It may ask you to choose to A:abort GRADE GUIDE or R:retry ? Choose to abort if you want the program to stop. Choose to retry if you want to start the reading or the writing of the file over again. If you receive this message because GRADE GUIDE was writing the class file and your floppy disk ran out of free space to write the file, you can replace the floppy with a different formatted floppy disk which does have enough free space on it. Then press R to have GRADE GUIDE retry writing your class file. NOTE! GRADE GUIDE makes updated copies of your class file while you are working and changing your class information. This is done so that if you experience a power loss or other serious hardware problem, there will be a fairly recent version of you class file stored on the disk. It is recommended (as it is for all information stored on a disk) that after a session with GRADE GUIDE, you use the DOS COPY function to make backup copies of your class files. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = SUGGESTIONS = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= It is often convenient to run GRADE GUIDE on a disk which also contains the DOS boot routines. This allows you to put the GRADE GUIDE disk into the A drive, turn your computer on, and immediately begin processing with GRADE GUIDE. To do this, you must first format a disk. Put a new disk into drive A and type FORMAT A:/S . When the disk is Page 53 formatted, copy the GRADEGID.EXE and GRADEGID.OVR files onto the newly formatted disk. You could also type COPY CON A:AUTOEXEC.BAT GRADEGID^Z where the ^Z is the character obtained by pressing Z while the Ctrl key is being held down, and where you press the carriage return, <CR>, after typing each line. If you do, then GRADE GUIDE program will automatically begin running every time that you boot your computer with the new disk. If you wish to use GRADE GUIDE for a class and do not want to separate your grades into categories, just establish one grade category and call it GRADES. If you are entering a new class name using FILE MENU OPTION B, and the new class name is similar to the name of a class already in the list of classes, you can move the cursor to the old name and edit that name. For example, if one of the names in the list of class names is MATH-145 and you want to enter the name MATH-146, move the cursor to MATH-145, press the <F9> key, the Back Space key, and the 6. Then press <CR> or <Esc> to select the new name. If you have a category where you give two grades for each assignment, you could establish two categories for those grades. For example, if you assign one grade for form and one for content, then you can establish two categories such as THEME-form and THEME-content. Similarly, if you like to assign number grades and letter grades to the same assignment, and you do not assign letter grades strictly on the basis of a cutoff (that is, someone with a 93 gets a B while someone else with a 92 still gets an A), then you can have two categories for those assignments, one for the number score and one for the letter score. If you want a GRADEOUT file to be written to a directory that is different from the directory containing your class file, then do the following: 1) using FILE MENU OPTION A, change drive and directory to the directory in which you want the GRADEOUT file to appear. 2) then use OPTION G to tell GRADE GUIDE that you want to write a GRADEOUT file. 3) then use OPTION A again to change to the drive and directory where your class file is listed. If you like to analyze grades in more than one way--such as a friend of mine who prefers to either weight the midterm exam to be one half the value of the final exam or weight the final exam to be one half the value of the midterm exam depending on which way turns out better for the student--then you can analyze and print the grades using one scheme, use MAIN MENU OPTION I to change weights, and then analyze and print the grades using the other scheme. If you want to list students' grades using MAIN MENU OPTION H but you would like each student's grades to appear on a separate page, then set the default page length to 5. Page 54 If you want to write a roster report which is wider than 80 columns, but your printer does not write more than an 80 column line, then write two roster reports and tape them together. If you have more than one section of one particular course and you would like to have the two sections listed together because they have the same assignments and take the same tests, then you can establish one class file for all the sections. If you want the students from one section to be listed on your class list separately from those students in another section, just use a prefix for each student's name when you enter the student's name. Jerry Smith from your first section could be entered as "1 Smith, Jerry" and Sally Jones from your second section could be entered as "2 Jones, Sally". In this way the names from your first section will be separated from the names from your second section when the names are alphabetized. Another way to separate students into sections is to use the ALIAS for the section number. Then if you list students alphabetically by ALIAS, they will be listed alphabetically by name within their separate sections. Still another way would be to create a NOTE for each student indicating the student's section number and name. Then roster listings which include that NOTE could be sorted by section number and name. If you begin teaching a course which has the same list of students as a course you have previously taught, then you can easily begin working with the new class without having to reenter the students' names. Suppose that you have just finished teaching MATH-001 and are about to begin teaching MATH-002 with the same students. Before using GRADE GUIDE use the DOS copy command to copy the old class file to a new file. For example: COPY B:MATH-001.GRD B:MATH-002.GRD Then use GRADE GUIDE to work with class MATH-002. Begin by using MAIN MENU OPTION F to delete the old categories. If you wish to use the same categories as in MATH-001, you can drop the grades from each of the categories. If you want to establish new categories, you should drop the entire categories. Now the class MATH-002 file will contain all the student's names and aliases that class MATH-001 had. If you like to drop grades at the end of a semester or year, but you would also like to show students how well they are doing before the end, you can TEMPORARILY drop some grades and get a listing of grades to show the students, but do not make the TEMPORARILY CHANGED GRADES permanent. You can wait till the end to make them permanent so that if students receive lower scores later in the semester, the new lower scores can be dropped and the old scores will not be lost. If the time has come to assign final grades in a course, you may wish to get a listing of all your students' grades with MAIN MENU OPTION H, get a listing of the maximum possible scores and grade cutoffs with MAIN MENU OPTION I, and get one or more statistical reports using MAIN MENU OPTION K. Together, these lists will give you as much information as possible to aid in your final grade assignments. If you want GRADE GUIDE to write a report to be posted at the end of the term which contains your students' final grades, then establish a category called FINAL GRADE. Establish that category to store LETTER Page 55 grades and assign it a category percent of 0%. Then, at the end of the term you can put one grade into that category containing the final grade for each student. Give that grade a weight of 0.000 so that it will not affect the calculations of the GRAND AVERAGE. Then print your report showing the FINAL GRADE. There is a convenient trick that you can play if you plan ahead and enter FINAL GRADE as the first category for the class. At the end of the term use MAIN MENU OPTION B to enter one FINAL GRADE. Before actually entering each of the final grades using OPTION B, exit from GRADE GUIDE and save the file so that all students will receive a NONE grade. Then using MAIN MENU OPTION H you can list the students' grades on the screen and use CHANGE MODE to change the FINAL GRADE from NONE to what you want. The advantage of entering FINAL GRADE as the first category is that FINAL GRADE will appear at the top of the screen when you list grades. This makes it easier to change the NONE grade when you are in CHANGE MODE. If your course runs for several quarters, semesters, or grading periods, you may wish to establish a new class file for each grading period. You can establish a category in each class called QUARTER GRADE and enter your quarter grade into that category (perhaps by using MAIN MENU OPTION B, choice G.) If you make the QUARTER GRADE category a labelled category, you can label the grades as "QUARTER 1", "QUARTER 2" and so forth. Then when the course ends, you can combine the class files using FILE MENU OPTION E which will show you all the grades which your students received throughout the course. If you want to list the grades but have the GRAND AVERAGE reflect an average of the QUARTER GRADEs, then use MAIN MENU OPTION J to change the category percents so that all categories except the QUARTER GRADE category have a percent of zero. You may also have to use MAIN MENU OPTION I to change the weights of the QUARTER GRADES to 1.0 if they had been given weights of 0.0. You can now use MAIN MENU OPTION B, choice G to calculate a final grade based on the QUARTER GRADES. Suppose that you are working with a class that is so large that there is not enough memory space in your computer to allow you to produce statistical reports using MAIN MENU OPTION K. Remember that you can get some statistical information regarding grades, totals, and averages by creating a roster listing containing the desired values using MAIN MENU OPTION L. You can use NOTES to help you classify your students into groups. For example, suppose that you had a class where each student was working on one of five independent projects. Suppose you wanted to get a list of all of the students working on project number 3. If you enter each student's project number as a NOTE, say NOTE 2, you could then obtain a roster listing using MAIN MENU OPTION L which was sorted by NOTE 2. This roster would list the students according to their project assignment. Page 56