Re: [school-discuss] Gradebook Specification

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

Geez, I take a night off to work on a personal project (setting up the
community center network; I've mentioned it before) and you folks go crazy on
a major new initiative!  I particularly like how people from multiple
Schoolforge member projects are committing to work together on developing
this!  Kudos all around!

I think it is well worth looking back at Bruno Vernier's original EduML work
<http://eduml.anet.fr/specs/eduml.1.0.xml> for fields needed in these various
tables.  Bruno can point us to better references to his work (can't you,
Bruno? :-) ).

One of the most important things, I think, is to "internationalize" this from
the start.  Don't assume US/Canadian norms, but make it flexible enough to
work for UK, Greek, South African, Singaporean, etc. schools.  I'll give a
few examples of such stuff in my comments below (I'm no expert in this, so
take my recommendations as concepts, not good solutions).

Les Richardson wrote:

> Reflecting upon a basic gradebook spec, I've come up with several tables
> in a database:
>
> 1) Student - student information including:
> a) Lastname
> b) Firstname
> c) Student Number (local or state/provincial)
> plus any other useful demographic stuff.
>

"Lastname" and "Firstname" should be "Familyname" and "Givenname" or
something similar to cover different name ordering among cultures.
Demographic fields should also be flexible (not requiring a state/province or
a postal code, for example, as some countries have neither).

>
> 2) Tests - a particular assessment device given to students in
> a particular class/section taught by a particular teacher.
>
> a) TestID - unique number
> b) Subject ID/Description - a particular subject. May match value in
> another "subject" table or not.
> c) SectionID - a particular "section" or "group taught by a particular
> teacher.
> d) Description of test/assessment device.
> e) Date of test
> f) Maximum Raw Score.
> g) Weighting (for total assessment results.)
> h) Category A - useful for grouping assessment types.
> i) Category B
> j) Category C, etc.
>
> 3) Results - students' results from tests.
> a) Student Number
> b) Test Number
> c) Raw Score
> d) Text Descriptor of result.
>

We should hear from different systems how student test results are tracked.
In the US, there are (AFAIK) three standard ways: percentage correct, letter
grades from A (best) through F (worst), and Grade Point Averages (from 0.0 to
4.0, 4.0 being perfect).  I'm sure there are other methods in use in the
world.

--
Doug Loss                 All I want is a warm bed
Data Network Coordinator  and a kind word and
Bloomsburg University     unlimited power.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Ashleigh Brilliant