| Creating a Gradebook Automagically Creating a Gradebook
Entering a Grade
Changing a Grade
Deleting a Grade
Adding a Student
Changing a Student's name
Deleting a Student
Recovering a Gradebook
Deleting a Gradebook
Printing a Gradebook
Calculating Final Grades
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Creating a New Gradebook
Before you can use GB you must create a gradebook for your class and section...
> GBcreate(202,"A")
Enter new student info (blank name to end)
Lastname,Firstname : Smith,Joe
Soc Sec (no dashes) : 123456789
Email id : jsmith
Lastname,Firstname : Adams,Sue
Soc Sec (no dashes) : 978654321
Email id : sue
Lastname,Firstname : Wu,Jack
Soc Sec (no dashes) : 010110010
Email id : wujack
Lastname,Firstname :
Wrote 'GB.202.A' to '/afs/andrew/usr/tn0o/stats'.
NULL
This would create a gradebook section A of class number 202, adding the 3 students listed. ...to the top
Creating a New Gradebook Automagically
A new program in GdBkUtils.S,
ezGBcreate
, allows you to create a gradebook directly from a comma-separated course datafile. This avoids manually typing in each student's name, social security number and email. This datafile comes from the registrar's electronic grading website. Unfortunately only faculty can downloaded by the comma-separated file; see this tip on how to convert the pretty-formatted roster files (which proxy users can download) into comma-separated files for this function. It's a good idea to wait a few weeks into the semester before creating the gradebook, that way you don't have to make a lot of changes for adds and drops.
The comma-separated data file should have no extra blank lines nor email headers. Say your datafile is
202.dat
, then you just need to specify the course number and the section...
> ezGBcreate(202,"B","202.dat")
Creating gradebook for 202 section B with following student information
Name SS Em
1 Smith,Joe 123456789 jsmith
2 Adams,Sue 978654321 sue
3 Wu,Jack 010110010 wujack
Wrote 'GB.202.B' to '/afs/andrew/usr/tn0o/stats'.
NULL
This would create a gradebook section B of class number 202. Note that the information grabbed from the datafile is displayed for you to check. Also note that
202.dat
could contain listings for all of the sections; you select which section you want with the second option.
...to the top
Entering a grade
To enter a grade use the function
GBaddgrade
. Here I have entered the lab grades of my students, 1, 0, and NA (added late).
GBaddgrade(202,"A")
Enter New Grade Type (0 to exit)...
1: Homework
2: Lab
3: Special
4: Exam
5: Final
6: Overall
Selection: 2
L1
Smith,Joe........................... 1
Adams,Sue........................... 0
Wu,Jack............................. NA
Wrote 'GB.202.A' to '/afs/andrew/usr/tn0o/stats'.
NULL
GB functions only allow numeric values for grades, but note that NA is a valid number.
GBaddgrade
has 4 modes, selected by the Type
option:
In the "incrementing" mode, the entered grade is added to an existing grade. This is is useful if more than one grader has to grade a homework. The next two sections deal with the
"fix"
and "del"
modes.
Extra for Experts!
- If you have your grades in a numeric vector you can avoid typing in each grade by specifying the
Gds
option; for example...
GradeVec <- c(100,78,34)
GBaddgrade(202,"A",Gds=GradeVec)
>>> Getting grades from Gds option <<<
Enter New Grade Type (0 to exit)...
1: Homework
2: Lab
3: Special
4: Exam
5: Final
6: Overall
Selection: 2
L1
Smith,Joe........................... 100
Adams,Sue........................... 78
Wu,Jack............................. 34
Wrote 'GB.202.A' to '/afs/andrew/usr/tn0o/stats'.
NULL
The key thing is that the grades for Lab 1 are taken directly from the numeric vector, not typed in; they are displayed in the same format as when typing them in so you can check that they are correct. Warning! Use of this option assumes you have the correct number and order of grades!!! You can create massive errors in your grade book if you're not careful!!!
...to the top
Fixing a grade
To fix a grade that you've already entered use the function
GBaddgrade
with the Type="fix"
option. You will be prompted to select the grade to fix and the student (or all students). Here I will fix the NA lab grade of my last student.
> GBaddgrade(202,"A",Type="fix")
Enter Grade to Fix (0 to exit)...
1: L1
Selection: 1
Enter Student Number to Fix (0 for all students)...
1: Smith,Joe
2: Adams,Sue
3: Wu,Jack
Selection: 3
(old) L1
Wu,Jack............................. NA 1
Wrote 'GB.202.A' to '/afs/andrew/usr/tn0o/stats'.
NULL
There is a short cut: GBfixgrade(...)
is equivalent to GBaddgrade(...,Type="fix")
. ...to the top
Deleting a grade
To delete a whole grade you also use
GBaddgrade
, but with the Type="del"
option. You will be prompted to select the grade to delete. Here I will delete the first lab.
> GBaddgrade(202,"A",Type="del")
Enter Grade to Delete (0 to exit)...
1: L1
2: H1
Selection: 1
If you sure you want to delete Lab 1 (L1) enter 'YES': YES
Wrote 'GB.202.A' to '/afs/andrew/usr/tn0o/stats'.
NULL
There is a short cut: GBdelgrade(...)
is equivalent to GBaddgrade(...,Type="del")
. ...to the top
Adding a Student
If you have to add a student after you have already created the gradebook, you use the function
GBaddstud
...
> GBaddstud(202,"A")
Enter new student info (blank name to end)
Lastname,Firstname : Neyman,Marcus
Soc Sec (no dashes) : 123456789
Email id : cookie
Lastname,Firstname :
Wrote 'GB.202.A' to '/afs/andrew/usr/tn0o/stats'.
NULL
This new student will have NA
s for all of his grades. Just like
GBaddgrade
, GBaddstud
has different modes selected by the Type
option:
The next two sections deal with the "fix"
and "del"
modes. ...to the top
Changing a Student's name
To change the name of a student you use also the function
GBaddstud
but with the Type="fix"
option...
> GBaddstud(202,"A",Type="fix")
Enter Student to Fix (0 to exit)...
1: Smith,Joe
2: Adams,Sue
3: Wu,Jack
4: Neyman,Marcus
Selection: 2
Enter student name: Lastname,Firstname
(Adams,Sue): Adams,Samuel
Wrote 'GB.202.A' to '/afs/andrew/usr/tn0o/stats'.
NULL
This will change Sue Adams to Samuel Adams, not effecting any grades. There is a short cut:
GBfixstud(...)
is equivalent to GBaddstud(...,Type="fix")
.
...to the top
Deleting a Student
When a student needs to be dropped from your gradebook you also use
GBaddstud
, but by setting the Type option...
> GBaddstud(202,"A",Type="del")
Enter Student to Delete (0 to exit)...
1: Smith,Joe
2: Adams,Sue
3: Wu,Jack
4: Neyman,Marcus
Selection: 4
Student "Neyman,Marcus" deleted.
Wrote 'GB.202.A' to '/afs/andrew/usr/tn0o/stats'.
NULL
The Type option actually takes three options, "new", "delete", and "fix". "new" is default so you never have to specify it, and "del" uniquely specifies "delete" (infact "d" would uniquely specify it). There is a short cut:
GBdelstud(...)
is equivalent to GBaddstud(...,Type="del")
.
...to the top
Recovering a Grade Book
Everytime a change is made to a gradebook a copy of the previous version is kept in a
.bak
object. If you accidently add, change or delete grades or students, you can get your last version of your grade book with GBrecover
.
> GBrecover(202,"A")
Current grade book for 202 section A has 4 students and 2 grades in it
Backup grade book for 202 section A has 4 students and 1 grades in it
Are you sure you want recover backup? y
Backup recovered (previous grade book now backup)
As is alluded to in the output, the current version is not removed, it is just swapped with the backup version. That way you can examine the backup with GBget
and see if it's what you want; if it isn't you can do GBrecover
again and you'll get the other version back. ...to the top
Deleting a Grade Book
If you accidently create a bogus grade book, or if you have a problem when you create it with
ezGBcreate
, you will want to destroy the grade book. Do this with the GBdelete
command; it tell you the size of the grade book and ask for confirmation...
> GBdelete(202,"A")
Grade book for 202 section A has 4 students and 2 grades in it
Are you sure you want to delete it? y
Deleted 'GB.665.A' from '.Data.hp'.
DANGER Be sure you have the right grade book; check it with GBget
first. If you accidently delete a grade book you can get it back right away with GBrecover; but if a new grade book of the same name is created you might not be able to! ...to the top
Printing
To print your sections grades just use the Print flag with GBget...
-
GBget(202,"AF",Print=T)
A temporary file, /tmp/202AF.txt
, will be created and printed to smear
or the default printer that you have set with the PRINTER
environmental variable. "AF" tells GBget to get sections A and F. If no section is specified then all sections are retrieved.
...to the top
Creating Final Grades
There are three functions in
GdBkUtil.S
to support creation of final grades, DropGd
will drop grades, MkGrd
will create a final numerical grade, and LetrGd
will assign letter grade. Unfortunately I don't have time to give them a decent write up, so here is some help:
Note that in the script above, the final grades are never returned to the grade book. The final record of class grades basically becomes a local Splus object (and a text file version of the same). ...to the top
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