GB - A teachers Gradebook program Copyright 1983 - Steve Strommen DOCUMENTATION OF GRADEBOOK PROGRAM This documentation is presented in two parts: operating instructions and internal workings. You will not need to read the internal workings section in order to use the program. Before you use the gradebook program, make a copy of the master disk and be sure to SYSGEN the disks (the CP/M operating system is not provided on the disk.) OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS To use the gradebook program, insert the program diskette in drive A while A is the logged in drive. Enter GB at the operating system prompt. This will start the program running. You will be prompted for: 1. The password. The default password is gradebook. You will be able to change it elsewhere in the program. 2. A class name. If there are no class names on file, you will be asked to provide one. (Two sample class names and files are supplied on the master disk.) 3. The quarter. This is a number 1-4. NOTE on class names: They must be 8 characters or less. They are also used as names of disk files. The class file normally is stored on drive A but can be put on drive B if the class name is preceeded by B: as in B:HOUR1. Since a class file with 50 students will occupy over 35k you may need to put some class files on a second disk in drive B because there is only room for a few large classes on drive A. The drive where the file is located is determined when the file is created (i.e. the class name is added). To determine how much space is left on a disk, use STAT or another CP/M utility. At this time the main menu will appear. You will see several options, each of which is described below. To exit the program you must press ESC while the main menu is displayed. Also, you can always return to the main menu from another menu in the program by pressing ESC. It is recommended that you use options A, N, and C first to see the names of the assignments, students and classes that have been entered already to help you get used to using the system on sample data. Instructions on how to set up the system without sample data appear at the end of this list of options. A - Edit assignments. You will be presented with another menu that allows you to add and edit assignments. If you want to add an assignment, you will be prompted for an assignment name (best to keep it short), quarter, total points, weighting in determining grades, and the score necessary to achieve each letter grade. The weighting may simply be total points; since it is used only to determine a weighted grade point average for each student. If you want to edit an assignment to change it you can only access those assignments that apply to the current quarter. You cannot delete an assignment except by changing the quarter it applies to to 5. G - Edit grades for an assignment. You will be prompted for an assignment name and then be presented with a display showing grades for that assignment. There will be a solid square nonblinking cursor block in front of the score for the first student in the display (up to 15 students can be displayed at one time). At this point you can do the following: 1. Enter a new score for that student. 2. Use the up and down cursor keys to move to a different student. 3. Press F to scroll the display forward in case there are more students. 4. Press B to scroll the display backwards. 5. Press ESC to save the new scores and return to the main menu. Try it - I hope you will find it easy to use. S - Edit grades for a student. You will get a menu that allows you to edit scores for all assignments for individual students. Any scores you enter are automatically saved to disk. N - Add/delete student names. You will get a menu that also allows you to view all student names and change a name. Each student is also assigned a student number (many schools use these - it can be anything; including the social security number). If you don't want to use student numbers just enter a blank for it. C - Add/delete class names. This menu also allows you to view all currently defined class names. Be careful - deleting class names also deletes the whole file for that class - grades and all. R - Print a report. This menu allows you to either print all grades for a student (in the current quarter) or to print all grades for an assignment. When all grades for a student are printed, the weighted average grade point is also calculated and printed. Q - Change quarters. You will be prompted for the new quarter (1-4). O - Change to another class. You will be prompted for the class name. P - Edit grade point system. The existing grade point system on file will be displayed and you will be given the opportunity to change it. Up to 10 different letter grades can be used. It is assumed that the first grade enterred is the highest score, etc. Z - Change the password. You will be prompted for the new password. Note on installation: The only file needed on a disk for the gradebook program to work is GB.COM. When you are ready to actually begin using the program, it would be best to use a file transfer utility like PIP to copy GB.COM onto an otherwise blank disk. The first time you run the program, all other needed files are created on the disk. The default password is gradebook and the default grade point system is 4 point A-F. INTERNAL WORKINGS The master disk contains the following files: 1. GB.COM The compiled object code for the gradebook program. 2. GB.BAS S-BASIC source code for GB. 3. GB.DOC Documentation for GB. 4. ASGN.DAT Assignments file. 5. CLASNMS.DAT Class names file - also contains the password. 6. GPOINTS.DAT Grade point system file. 7. HOUR1.DAT Class file for sample class HOUR1. 8. HOUR2.DAT Class file for sample class HOUR2. All the .DAT files are sequential except the class files which are random with 1 record per student. Any technical questions should be addressed to: Steve Strommen 5340 Frosty Lane Madison, WI 53705 608-238-4828