Re: [seul-edu] Eduml proposal (the documennt)

[Eric Sandeen <sandeen@jump.net>]

aside from some minor typo-related things...

<email> - instead of comma separated, can we have multiple <email> tags?
Other than that, <people> looks pretty good...

<tasks> - it doesn't make sense to me to have <tasks> outside of a
session... while some tasks may be duplicated across sessions and
classes and courses, I think that in general, they should be within a
<class> element.  I don't think that there will be enough task
repetition to warrant a whole list of <tasks> outside of a <class>. 
Also, this seems to have a unique <task> entity for each student, for
each task.  This will quickly grow unmanageable, with
(sessions*courses*classes*students*tasks) entries, if I'm reading it
right.

<session>
  <course>
    <class>
      <teacher> - I'm not sure why "act" is in here... in fact, I'm not
sure what the difference between <task> and <act> is?

I had suggested something along these lines, (starting with the
<session> tag.)

<tasks> are contained within a particular <class>.  They are also broken
into categories, to show which tasks are tests, which are papers, etc. 
These categories can be weighted for the final average.  The grading
scale for each task is shown in its attributes (maximum possible points)
if applicable, and they can be weighted as well.  The <symbols> relate
symbolic/letter grades to  percentage/numeric grades.  (this allows
grades to be entered numerically or symbolically, and to give a final
letter grade based on a final percentage)  Finally, a <student> has
<mark>s for each task completed.  A <comment> or other entities could go
within the <mark> tags.

(Is this too constraining?  Are there grading methods that wouldn't fit
into this scheme?  It would seem that marks _must_ be either numeric or
symbolic.  If they are numeric, they must have a maximum possible
value.  It also seems likely, but not mandatory, that tasks would be
grouped in some way, and possibly weighted.  Am I missing anything
here?)

<session name="Fall 1999" start="1999/08/03" end="1999/12/24">
 <course course_id="e9678" name="Freshman English">
  <class class_id="s2" name="Period 1" room="123" teacher="123-45-6789">
   <tasks categories="true" marks="numeric"> <!-- marks could also be
"symbolic" -->
    <category name="Tests" weight="30">
     <task task_id="1" name="Midterm" max="100" date="1999/09/23"/>
     <task task_id="2" name="Final" max="100" weight="2"
date="1999/09/30"/>
    </category>
    <category name="Quizzes" weight="20">
     <task task_id="3" name="Quiz 1" max="100" date="1999/08/20"/>
    </category>
    <category name="Homework" weight="30">
     <task task_id="4" name="Homework 1" max="100" date="1999/10/23"/>
    </category>
    <category name="Projects" weight="20">
     <task task_id="5" name="Project 1" max="100" date="1999/11/01"/>
    </category>	
   </tasks>
   <symbols>
    <symbol name="A" score="90"/> <!-- relate symbols to numbers -->
    <symbol name="B" score="80"/>
    <symbol name="C" score="70"/>
    <symbol name="F" score="60"/>
   </symbols>
   <student people_id="506-94-7378">
    <mark task_id="1">100</mark> <!-- assignment id from tasks -->
    <mark task_id="2">80</mark>
    <mark task_id="3">90</mark>
    <mark task_id="4">83</mark>
    <mark task_id="5">88</mark>
   </student>
  </class>
 </course>
</session>