Requirements Specification Prototype Design Implementation Testing Administration Documentation
2.3.0 Editing by an Individual Class/Class Section
The user may change contents of the gradebook under the 'Student' and 'Grade Item' menu bar. The scenarios in this section show a user the process of editing a gradebook.  These contents are teacher-interface restricted. Teacher-assistant and students do not have access to these commands. The topics includes:

    * Managing items
    * Aspects of managing items
    * Editing

The user may start with adding contents to the gradebook by selecting the 'Grade Item' menu on the menu bar. In response, the system drops down a menu similar to figure 17. Figure 17 displays additional commands for the user to use. The user has the option to 'Add Grade Item', 'Post Gradebook', 'Fetch Gradebook', and 'Edit Selected Grade Item Properties'. The user may also start with adding students to the roster by clicking on the 'Student' menu command. See figure 17 for the display of the 'Student' menu command. Figure 17 also shows the drop-down menu for students such as 'Add Student', 'Synchronize', 'Update roster from SIS', and 'Edit Selected Student Properties'. This scenario only covers the adding and editing section.
Figure 17

2.3.1 Managing items
The user select the 'Grade Item' menu command, move the mouse over 'Add Grade Item' to add a category to the current gradebook. Refer to figure 17 to see the 'Grade Item' menu commands. The system respond by opening a new window. The new window has information to be fill in by the user in order to add a category. At the top of the window is a check box. The check box tells the system whether the new category is a "parent-category" or a regular "category". By checking one of the boxes, some fields are gray out depending on which option the user chooses.

If the user checks the 'Parent-Category' box, then the 'Category Name:' field needs to be fill in. Underneath 'Category Name:' is the weighting field. If this category is the top level category, then the 'Hierarchy Category:' field is none. Look at figure 18 for an example of the window. Figure 18 has check for adding a 'Parent-Category' and the 'Category Name:' is called "Test". Because there are no category above "Test" then the 'Hierarchy Category:' field is "None". However, if the user wishes to place the current category within a category, the 'Hierarchy Category' field allows the user to bind the current category under the 'Hierarchy Category'. And below that is the 'Percentage Worth:' and to the right of it tells the user that the percentage worth is class-relative or parent-relative. Figure 18 has some information gray out because those information does not belong to 'Parent-Category'. At the mid-section of the window is 'Late-Policy' and 'Extra Credit'. Below that is 'Electronic Turn-in-able', 'Progressive', and 'Drop-Lowest Score'. These fields are explain in 2.3.2. At the bottom of the window is a small "Item Explorer" for the user to see existing categories. When the user is done, the user clicks 'Add' at the bottom right corner to add the new category, or click 'Cancel' to close the window.
Figure 18
 		Figure 19

If the user checks the 'Category' box, then 'Category Name:' field is gray out. However the use still has to select 'Hierarchy Category:' and Percentage Worth. See figure 19 for adding an individual category. Figure 19 shows we are adding a Program#4 to the 'Program' as shown under 'Hierarchy Category'. The percentage worth of program#4 is 20% to the parent-category. And the category has a Name, Date, Due Time, Due Date, and amount of Points. 'Late-Policy' and 'Extra Credit' are inherited from the parent-category. Because this is a category, the user may select the work to be 'Electronic Turn-in-able' with our integrated "handin" system. Refer to section x.x.x for "handin". 'Progressive' and 'Drop-Lowest Score' is gray out because those only applies to 'Parent-Category'. When the user is done, click 'Add' to add the new category, or 'Cancel' to close the window.

2.3.2 Aspects of Managing Items
 Within categories are 'Late-Policy', 'Extra Credit', 'Electronic Turn-in-able', 'Progressive', and 'Drop-Lowest Score'. Below is a table explaining which field relates to which category to be added.


 Category
 Parent Category
Late-Policy
 Able
 Able
Extra Credit
 Able
 Able
Electronic Turn-in-able
 Able
 Not
Progressive
 Not
 Able
Drop-Lowest Score
 Not
 Able

Refering back to figure 18 or figure 19, the figures has late-policy and extra credit.  If the user wishes to use a late policy, the system has two forms of late policy for the user to choose from. One is a "Decaying-Late-Policy" where each passing day a percentage "X" is deducted from the students who did not turn in the work in time. The user has the ability to change the amount of percentage to be deducted in the field next to 'Late Policy'. The second policy is the "Grace-Days-Late-Policy" in which there is a limit of days the students can still turn in the work. Look at figure figure 19 for an example of the user giving the students "3 grace days". The user has selected "Grace-Days-Late-Policy", enter 3 for the days and the system entrusts the students receive full credit when the work is turn in under those 3 days. After the 3 days, if a student does not turn in the work, then the score for that category is 0. Refer to figure 20 for the types of setup for 'Late-Policy'.
Figure 20


Also in figures 18 and 19 is the extra credit field. The system has extra credit off by default. If the user wishes to include extra credit for current item, the user must select the 'On' button under 'Extra Credit'. The way extra credit works is that any points from the extra credit field is added to the total points score by a student, but the points added does not exceed the maximum amount of points of that category. An example is, if a student has a raw score of 95 out of 100 on assignment X, where assignment X has extra credit on, and a student has 10 points extra credit, then the student receives full points for that assignment but does not gain any more points that the maximum allocated.

The electronic turn in check box is specifically for an individual category and is gray out if the user is adding or editing a parent-category. Electronic turn in is intergrated with the "handin" system. Refer to section x.x.x for "handin".

Refering back to figure 18, at the bottom is a check box called 'Progressive'. Checking this box means the parent-category grades "progressively". The system handles progressive grading by checking for a condition. The condition checks if a student has increasing score improvements under this parent-category and if so then the last score improvement is the score for all other categories under this parent-category.

'Drop-Lowest Score' is another way of grading for the user. Checking this box means the parent-category drops the lowest score out of all the sub-categories it has. For example, if there are 4 programs under the parent-category Program, and 'Drop-Lowest Score' is enable for Program, then out of those 4 programs, the lowest one is dropped.

2.3.3 Editing Category
 If the user is editing a category, the user must select the category and go to 'Grade Item' and select 'Edit Selected Grade Item Properties'. The system opens a similar window that resembles adding a category window. Look at figure 21, the figure resembles figure 18. One of the differences is a 'Modify' button instead of a 'Add' button. One other difference is a 'Delete' button at the bottom of figure 21. The 'Delete' button is for the user to erase existing category.
Figure 21

Besides editing existing categories, the user is also allow to convert a category into a parent-category. To do so, the user needs to uncheck the 'Category' box and check the 'Parent-category' box. Refer to figure 21. Figure 21 shows the user changing program#3 from a category into a parent-category. The figure shows the category information is gray out and the parent-category fields are filled in. Also at bottom of the screen is the "Item Explorer" displaying that the program#3 is no longer a category, but a parent-category ready to be added with categories.








Prev: Setting Up a Gradebook | Next: Managing Students | Up: functional | Top: index