Re: Plethora of gradebooks, grade change audit.

[Bill Ries-Knight <brk@slip.net>]

Matt & Bradley,

Thanks for the response.  Two things come to mind.
Digression 1:     Years ago I had the misfortune (? I deleted the whole database with a
keystroke, 30 days of keystrokes to recover.) to encounter a fox base program (xbase) used in
winemaking.  As a requirement to keep the BATF (revnooers, those guys that check bombs,
etc..) happy, the program was required to be closed out each month.  To carry forward, there
was a routine to create a permanent record (snapshot) of the transactions of the month,
primarily to log  the conversion of sugars to alcohol and where each gallon of taxable went,
even down the drain.  This permanent record was the reference for each tax cycle, and was
required, because of an encoding algorithm, to balance subsequent periods.
    Would this approach be 1) possible or 2) desirable?

Digression 2:    Going with the notion of a teacher key, thus allowing for a grade or other
entry to be locked, is it possible to require an academic key to validate to everyone's
satisfaction the teacher record is true?

JUST Thinking.....nothing more.
Bill

Bradley Burnside wrote:

> Hi,
>     I've been reading both your thoughts on the issue of a grade change audit.  I agree
> with Matt, the security you are suggesting is difficult because there aren't any paper
> copies.  I've been thinking about this, and I think pgp keysigning would be a good idea.
> But I'm sure there will eventually be an excuse that can still blame it on the teacher.
>     The only thing I can think of is making regular tape backups of the database at its
> full integrity and keeping it in an untouchable location.  I don't think there is anyway
> of keeping the DBA out of reach of the grades unless you make your own personal copies of
> it.  That is why I am making it possible for teachers to save their grades locally on a
> disk.
>                         Now I have something to think about,
>                                 Bradley Burnside
>
> > Bill,
> >
> > I think i understand your position, but this kind of security is
> > difficult because there are no paper copies.  because
> > administrators own the machine(s) that will be used
> > to store the grades, nothing keeps a very adept DBA from
> > changing logs and database entries.
> >
> > there are a number of ways i am thinking this can be fixed.
> >
> > One way is to have the system create grade listings at the
> > end of each term for each teacher.  The teacher then has to supply
> > a pgp/gpg key to sign the listing.
> >
> > These listings then have to be saved by the system.  and
> > if they aren't then it would be easy to show all the
> > "irregularities" are the turly the admistrators'.
> >
> > A not nearly so complex system a but probaly as efective is just have
> > a simple transaction log created for every modification.  This
> > will probably be enough to show no wrong doing on the part of
> > the teacher.  This system(which is already planned) offer
> > quite a bit of security-via-obscurity.  about the only people
> > that could make mods that wouldn't be detectable would be
> > the authors.(myself and a few others that hack on the system.)
> >
> > But again, signed logs seems to be about the only truely
> > secure way to prove that grades weren't changed.
> >
> > code for sending out a memo probably would hassles teachers
> > and administrators more than what it would make up in true
> > security.
> >
> > --matt wimer

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Bill Ries-Knight Computer Services

www.slip.net/~brk

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