Re: [seul-edu] Grade input software

[Bill Tihen -- TECHNOLOGY <bill@mail.tasis.ch>]

Thanks for the input.  I better explain myself a little 
better though.  Some of the complications are not 
technical but human, but believe me they seem to create 
as many or more problems than just the technical ones.

Situation:
1) We use a school database system called AdminPlus (a 
dos/Syquel based database) made by Redikder Software.  
2) To allow teacher to put grades into the database we 
use a program called GradeQuick (a full-blown grading 
program).  Which works on Macs and Windows 
(unfortunately it works somewhat differently on each 
platform) and does spell checking on each platform.  
3) The rough-draft of the grades and comments have to be  
distributed.  Currently we print out and stuff the 
grades and comments into the advisor's mailbox (so they 
can write advisor comments) and the deptment head's 
mailbox (so that they can proof-read the comments).
 
Problems:
1) We have 6 computers for about 40 full-time and 10 
part-time faculty.  This is not enough to have the all 
sitting at our networked computers and enter grades into 
a network based solution (especially since we require 
written comments usually several hundred words on each 
student -- this is why the spell checking is so 
important).  Therefore, we give each teacher's data to 
them on a disk so they can work at home or at a school 
computer).
2) GradeQuick is complicated and does way more than just 
let teachers add grades to the database.  It's an entire 
grading package for teacher that happens to know how to 
export to AdminPlus.  This complication leads to many 
errors by the faculty who only use it to enter grades.  
3) AdminPlus exports text files, GradeQuick needs files 
in its own binary format it then exports back to 
AdminPlus' text format.  We found that asking the 
teachers to do all this export and import leads to total 
chaos and many lost files or improperly named files -- 
which the database will then either not recognize or 
improperly file the grades.  However if the registrar 
does all the importing and exporting it is time 
consuming & somewhat error prone when someone does this 
meanial job for several days in a row.  
4) It is tedious and time consuming for the registrar to 
handle 50 disks to enter the grades into the database, 
another 40 disks to handle the dorm and community life 
comments.
5) We have a very tedious paperbased system of 
distributing the information to advisors (so they can 
write advisor comments) and department heads (so they 
can check the quality of the comments and the writing).
6) I have already suggested email, but the registrar and 
headmaster are afraid of this solution -- again too much 
chance for user error.  
7) The teachers get to leave for vacation as soon as the 
grades are entered into the database.  So the 
teachers are in a rush and have no patience with 
the system.  And they are not always available 
to be found when problems arrise.
8) Because of time pressures and additional 
paper work and complications -- the headmaster does not 
require data verification checks -- ie they sign each 
class roster verifying that the grades and comments are 
indeed correct.
9) The school database does not currently associate 
classes with a department or department head (and as far 
as I know it would have to be a klude to make it do 
that).
10) The database does not have the email addresses of 
teachers in it.
11) The advisor and teacher list are not the same just 
linked in different ways (so it will take another klude 
to get them in sync).  This is a closed source program 
so I don't think I will be likely to get the source 
code to make these fixes.
12) The disk distribution system has corruption problems 
which teachers find VERY irritating to do all the work 
and loose it all.
13) I'd like to throw out the system and start over, but 
that seems very unlikely given the money and familiarity 
people have with the current unwieldly system.
14) Our school computers are SLOW -- low quality 
machines and many faculty have similar, but even older 
computers at home.  For this reason the teachers like to 
use the student computer when possible.
15) Others -- I'm sure that I can't think of -- but in a 
week will hit me over the head very hard.
16) People often write comments in MSWord and don't know 
how to turn off curly quotes or use extended ascii 
character (those French teachers just can't resist).  
Which print as junk from our sophisticated DOS database 
system.

NEEDS:
1) A simple way to distribute the files, but not 
exclusively network bound files because we need to allow 
teachers to work from home.
2) A simple easy interface that creates the proper files 
for the database. This seems like the easy part.
3) A solution that can run on a computer that is not 
connected to a network.  
4) A solution where the user stores the information and 
can make changes before the final draft is submitted.
5) A simple way to distribute the data to advisors and 
department heads.
6) A simple way to collect corrections from department 
heads.
7) A simple way to submitt finalized grades and comments 
to the database without having the registrar handle 
hundreds of disks.
8) A simple way to convert curly quotes and extended 
ascii to standard ascii when people use a word 
processor.
9) A spell checker on the remote workstations.
10) A way to add additional students if (when) the 
database is out of sync with reality.

Thoughts:
I guess it I went browser based I would have to do the 
whole thing in javascript (which I am not found of) or 
applets (more fond of -- but would really much more 
enjoy a cgi -- is there anyway to run a cgi on a 
workstation?) How do I get a browser to access a 
filesystem? I guess -- certainly hope that this only 
works if the browser program is on the local machine.  
Browsers -- if I remeber correcly don't print the data 
in html forms (makes javascript a problem).  Only 
Netscape 4.6 and beyond prints java applets.  Applets 
would be very slow on our school computers and on many 
people's home computers I don't think it would even run.

Scripting perl or python seems somewhat inviting, but I 
don't know how feasible it is to install this on all the 
teacher's home computers and to tell you the truth I 
have never done the GUI stuff because I have always used 
cgi -- but I don't know of anyway to do this on the 
local machine (except I saw an add for Oracle 8i that 
says it can do just that and is designed to solve this 
very problem I am facing).  Do we have a linux 
equivalent?

I am not about to rewrite the school database -- no 
matter how bad it is!  It has all our discipline 
records, attendance records, classes, grades, etc -- 
it's a complicated database and I just need a good way 
to get the data in and out of it!  That is simple, 
bullet proof and overcomes hardware shortages and poor 
hardware.  Maybe I am asking for too much.  The 
headmaster thinks if we ask nicely GradeQuick will 
address all of our problems -- however, I doubt it.  
Though they did fix bugs we found.


__________________________________________
TASIS (The American School In Switzerland)
Lugano-Montagnola, Switzerland
<http://www.tasis.ch/>