VAR Grade is COPYRIGHTED (C) 1990 by Dennis Revie. All rights are reserved. VAR Grade can be distributed as SHAREWARE. It is not free. Baby Driver is licensed from Ithaca Street Software, Inc. COPYRIGHT (C) 1989. The program INSTALLP.EXE is copyrighted Ithaca Street Software, Inc., and is included in accordance with the license. Comments and instructions from the Baby Driver manual have been used in this manual. VAR Grade is written in Borland International's Turbo Pascal. The files that can be listed by the "DIR *.BGI" (screen drivers) and "DIR *.CHR" (fonts) are copyrighted by Borland International and are used in accordance with the license. VAR Grade is dedicated to VAR, without whom neither the program nor the program author would exist. Diana E. Axelsen has been invaluable in preparing this Manual: her assistance is gratefully acknowledged. NOTICE This program can be used in a preview basis only unless it has been registered. You may use it on an interim basis to decide if you want the program. Should you decide not to register it, you MUST erase the program. If you use the program, you MUST register it. The program can be updated and improved only if you support the program. If you find the program useful, please express your appreciation by registering your copy. Registration of VAR Grade will not only salve your conscience but will also provide you with benefits. The registration information below is for a single-site licence. This allows you to make as many copies of the program as you desire, as long as only one copy is in use at any time. Multiple-site licenses are also available on either a per copy or per school basis. To register, send $30 to the address listed below. For an additional $10, you also get a 78 page laser-printed manual. The Manual includes tutorials, detailed descriptions of ways to use the program, figures showing some of the ways the program can be used to analyze grades, an index, and suggestions for both beginning computer users and for experts. A shorter disk version of the manual (without figures and index) is included with the program. Registration includes: (a) The current version of the program on four 360K disks (other disk formats are available) will be sent. This includes one disk more than the shareware version. The additional disk includes two utilities: one to alter the graphics printer drivers and the other allows you to load students from batch files. It also includes several additional fonts. There is also an enhanced manual. (b) If you find any significant bugs, they will be corrected and a corrected version of VAR Grade sent to you as soon as possible. (c) The next update of the program will be sent free of charge (the updated manual will be offered at low cost). If you have purchased the Manual within 90 days of a new update, the new Manual also will be included free of charge. (d) Further updates will be offered at nominal cost (approximately 25% of the price of the current registered version). i When you register please include your name, address, and the version of the program that you wish to register. A suggested form is included on Disk #3 in the file REGISTER.TXT. The following information is useful to us, and essential for bug reports: (1) The type of computer AND microprocessor 8088, 80286, ...). (2) The type of printer you will use with it. (3) The version of DOS that you are using (important for finding bugs). (4) Where you found or heard about VAR GRADE. (5) Any suggestions for improving the program--wish lists, etc. for the program. (6) List any bugs that you have found--and EXACTLY, if possible, how they occurred. This information is needed to find and correct the bug. For Registration or Information: Dennis Revie Attn: VAR Grade 4804 Highland Ave Oxnard, CA 93033-7818 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS NOTICE..........................................................i TABLE OF CONTENTS.............................................iii I. INTRODUCTION TO VAR GRADE....................................1 A. Program Features.........................................2 B. Conventions Used in this Manual..........................6 C. GSample..................................................7 II. REQUIREMENTS................................................8 A. Versions.................................................8 B. Files on the Disks.......................................8 C. Required Files...........................................9 D. Where Should the Files Be?...............................9 III. INSTALLATION OF VAR GRADE.................................10 A. Using INSTALL...........................................10 B. Installation without INSTALL............................12 IV. FIRST USE OF VAR GRADE.....................................13 A. Printing the Manual.....................................13 B. Starting the Program....................................13 C. Using an Existing Class: Tutorial.......................13 D. Starting a New Class....................................16 E. Entering Data...........................................18 F. If You Are Lost.........................................19 G. Exiting the program.....................................19 H. How Special Keys are Used...............................20 I. How the cursor keys work................................20 V. STARTING THE PROGRAM........................................22 A. Where Should the Program Files Be?......................22 B. Picking a Class.........................................25 C. Converting Old Classes Into New Classes.................26 D. Classes Too Big for the Memory..........................26 E. Setting Up the Class....................................27 F. Entering Students, Tasks, Attendance, and Grades........29 G. Reading the Manual and Help screens.....................30 iii VI. ENTERING STUDENTS..........................................32 A. General Methods.........................................32 B. Names and IDs...........................................32 C. Typing in Names and IDs.................................32 D. Importing Students from Files...........................34 E. Sorting Students........................................36 VII. DEFINING TASKS............................................37 A. Regular Tasks...........................................37 B. Special Tasks...........................................38 C. Scaling Tasks...........................................41 D. Memory Limitations......................................41 E. Manipulating Tasks......................................42 F. Examples of Task Definitions............................43 VIII. ENTERING GRADES..........................................45 A. Entering Data for the Whole Class.......................45 B. Entering Individual Student Data........................47 C. Saving Entered Data to Disk.............................48 IX. ATTENDANCE.................................................49 A. Defining Attendance Days................................49 B. Changing Defaults.......................................49 C. Entering Class Attendance...............................50 D. Entering Individual Student Attendance..................50 X. ANALYZING THE GRADES........................................52 A. Default Values for Analysis.............................52 B. Plotting the Scores of a Class..........................53 C. Plotting the Scores of an Individual....................54 D. Calculating Statistics..................................55 E. Correlating Different Tasks.............................56 F. Statistical Plots of the Classes........................57 G. Scaling the Tasks.......................................58 H. Setting the Fewest Allowed Points.......................58 I. Assigning Standard Deviations and T-Scores..............58 J. Adjusting the Statistics of a Task......................59 K. Changing the Grading Names..............................59 L. Picking Automatic Grade Cutoffs.........................60 XI. ASSIGNING AND PRINTING THE GRADES AND ATTENDANCE...........61 A. Default Values for Analysis.............................61 B. Printing the Student Scores and Attendance..............66 C. Calculating and Printing Grades.........................67 D. Exporting Data..........................................69 iv Table of Contents XII. OTHER PROGRAM FEATURES....................................70 A. Running Other Programs from VAR Grade...................70 B. Dates...................................................70 C. Video Displays..........................................70 D. Mouse Support...........................................71 E. Examples of VAR Grade Batch Files.......................72 XIII. APPENDIX.................................................74 A. Program Parameters--Defaults and Limits.................74 B. Backup Files............................................74 C. Beeps or Noises.........................................75 D. Menus...................................................77 XIV. GLOSSARY..................................................78 XV. FURTHER INFORMATION........................................81 A. Information.............................................81 B. Registration............................................81 v I. INTRODUCTION TO VAR GRADE WELCOME TO VAR GRADE! This program has been written to be flexible enough to allow you to grade your class with the same methods you now use--except that the program does the tedious chores of adding, plotting, and writing the scores. The program has been written by and for teachers and requires no special knowledge of computers or MS-DOS. This manual will help both computer novices and computer experts get the most out of the VAR Grade program. If you are not an experienced computer user, the manual will show you how to get started with the program. Before putting data from your own classes on the computer, we suggest that you go through the tutorial in Chapter IV, First Use of VAR Grade, which uses a sample class to illustrate the steps in starting the program. If you are acquainted with MS-DOS and want to modify the program to meet your specific needs, the manual contains helpful information on doing so in Chapter V, Starting the Program. Menus are used to access all areas of the program. This "menu-driven" program should be easy to use, but you can also get help at any time by simultaneously pressing the key and the key "H". One of the most powerful features of the program is its ability to analyze student grades in a variety of ways. The tutorials and additional material in Chapter IV will enable you to examine both individual and group performance using several different methods of data analysis. The calculations generated by VAR Grade will give you a great deal of information helpful in assigning final grades. Both you and your students will benefit from this data, since you can identify clearly how the student is performing relative to the rest of the class, and also evaluate the student's work on different assignments. The program also allows you to generate clear and attractive graphics, which will answer the question "why did I get this grade?" in detail probably beyond what any student would expect. The program can be used for both grades and attendance. You may grade with either letter or number grades, and you can mix and match letter and number grades. You can change the points of any assignment or score at any time. You can also use many different types of pre-defined assignments (tasks), including ones that are the sums, averages, and weights of other tasks. Any task or combination of tasks can be plotted, correlated, and analyzed statistically. Attendance for your classes can be recorded. Several categories of attendance are defined by VAR Grade. Individual student scores can be printed or scores for each section of the class can be printed. You can control page length, margins, and type size when printing the data. 1 The program has also been designed to be as immune as possible from errors on your part. The program checks for reasonable task scores, will not easily let you exit the program without saving your data, and will check to ensure that the data sent to a disk was actually written before letting you exit from the program. It will also prevent accidental deletions of your files by making them read-only files (which you cannot delete with the DOS "del" or "erase" commands). You can also protect your grades from prying eyes by requiring a password before allowing access to your data. The program has been in use for several years, and has undergone constant improvements and corrections. However, suggestions are always welcome for additions, deletions, or improvements to the program. Please send comments! Most of the recent changes in the program were suggested by people using this program. A. Program Features An unlimited number of students, tasks, and classes of students are allowed by VAR Grade. Only the amount of memory in your computer limits these. 1. Entering the students You can enter the students either by entering their names directly into the program, or by telling the program to use a file of names for the students. The "N" option on the Main Menu will allow a choice between these alternatives. See Chapter VI, Entering Students, for further information. You can sort and list students several ways, including by names, IDs, sections, and task scores. You can display and print students by their names or their IDs. These can be Changed in the "Z" option of the Main Menu. 2. The number of sections The number of sections is initially set at 1 when you first start a new class. For elementary schools, that is probably all that you will need. For high schools and colleges, several sections of the same class are frequently given by the same instructor. There is a limit of 99 sections of students in the class. 3. Tasks Below is a quick overview of tasks. For more information, see Chapter VII, Defining Tasks. Tasks can be defined or changed in the "T" option of the Main Menu. Besides defining tasks, there is a full retinue of tools to manipulate the tasks after they have been defined. 2 Introduction (a) Regular tasks There are ten types of tasks allowed. Two of them correspond to ordinary number and letter grades. These can be defined in the "T" section of the Main Menu. You give a task a name, then, if it is a number task, the total allowed points for the task. (i) Number tasks are ones in which you enter numbers as the grades. (ii) Letter tasks are ones where the scores are entered as letters. (iii) Extra credit tasks are ones where the points are added to a number task, but the total points of the number task are not altered. Extra credit tasks are treated in special ways by the program. As far as the special exams below are concerned, they have 0 total points. (b) Special tasks The second type of tasks are called Special tasks. These pre-defined tasks are also be specified in the "T" section of the Main Menu. Special tasks are Sums, Averages, Highest, Percentages, etc., of other tasks. You do not enter scores into special tasks. Instead, you pick the tasks to be counted in the sum (or average, percentage, highest, etc.) of other tasks. The program then calculates the scores for you. These scores will be recalculated each time you change student scores. (i) Sum tasks These are tasks that are the sums of other tasks. Tasks that are not yet entered can be included in the list of tasks that will be summed. When the tasks are then defined, they will be included in the sums. (ii) Averaged tasks These are tasks that are the average of other tasks. If you use letter grades, the averages are reported as scores between the highest (e.g., A) and the lowest tasks (e.g., F), otherwise they are the numerical average of the tasks. Any tasks that have not yet been entered are NOT averaged, so the averages reflect only those tasks for which the student has had scores entered. (iii) Percentage tasks These are tasks that average other tasks, then convert those averages to percentages. Like averaged tasks, 3 any tasks that have not yet been entered are not used in the conversions, so the percentages reported for the students are for the tasks that have had scores entered. (iv) Highest tasks These are tasks that sum the scores of other tasks, then the lowest one or more scores are discarded ("throw out the lowest of several scores"). The program will find the lowest of a set of tasks and add up only the highest tasks. Scores that are unentered are discarded first, then the lowest scores that have been entered are discarded. (v) Weighted tasks You can define a task as the sum of other tasks, each times a weight. Unentered tasks are given a score of 0 for the weighting. (vi) Final weighted tasks You can define a task as the sum of other tasks that are weighted such that the final percentage is what you specify. This differs from weighted tasks because the weights in the final weighted tasks are the relative worth you want each task to be in the total score, while the weighted task weights are the amount by which to multiply the scores for each exam. (vii) Final task You can define a task as a final task. This task will keep track of the letter grades assigned in the "G" option of the Main Menu. These scores are only assigned in the "G" option. 4. Attendance On the "A" option of the Main Menu, you can have VAR Grade also keep attendance for your class. There can be up to 240 days of attendance, with several different types of attendance (present, absent, late, etc.). The characters that represent each attendance type can be changed from the Attendance Menu. 5. Notes Besides names and IDs, you can enter notes of up to 20 characters for the students. The notes can be anything, including why a student missed an exam, seat numbers, nicknames, etc. These notes can be printed along with your grades. 4 Introduction 6. Entering data Scores and attendance can be entered spreadsheet style. Students and their data are listed either by individual students or by the whole class. Data entry is checked for valid input, so no scores can entered that have more than the allowed points. 7. Writing the scores Using the "W" option of the Main Menu, you can print all the scores of one student OR the scores you want for an entire class or combination of sections of the class. Note that after choosing which way to write out the scores, a menu will be displayed that will list a number of options for printing on the Print Menu: which sections, what printer, and whether to write to the screen only, or also to a disk file or a printer. Thus, the Print Menu allows great flexibility in how the program prints the data. 8. Plotting the scores In the "P" option of the Main Menu, you can plot and graph the scores of any task you choose. If you grade with numbers, you also choose the low and high scores to plot. You can also plot all the scores for one student in the "I" option of the Plotting Menu. You can correlate scores on two tasks. The scores will be plotted against each other and the correlation coefficients calculated. You will be asked for the high and low scores for each exam, just as when plotting exam scores. You can also plot the class scores for any task or set of tasks. Ranges, means, medians, and standard deviations are calculated and plotted. All the plots can be displayed using several fonts, and the results printed on your printer. 9. Define a grading system You can pick just about any grading system you want, simply by renaming the grades and changing their points. You can also have the program automatically assign grades according to your grading scale. These and other options are available in the "G" option of the Main Menu. 5 10. Assign final grades At the end of an task or semester, you can assign grades and have the grades and grade cutoffs neatly printed using the "G" option of the Main Menu. If you use number grades, you also can weight exams by adding or multiplying the current scores by a number, and/or calculate statistics on tasks (without plotting scores). 11. Printers You can tell the program which printer that you are using. In fact, to be able to print graphs and plots, you need to pick a printer during installation or on the "Z" option of the Main Menu, with section "P". Virtually every printer is now supported by VAR Grade for printing graphs and plots. Most are also supported for printing files in pica, elite, and compressed characters (if your printer supports them). For unsupported printers, you can find the codes in your printer manual, and enter the necessary codes to support your printer. 12. Passwords If you keep your grades on a computer that is accessible to others, you can prevent most people from "browsing" in the student data by telling the program that you want to use a password. The password can be up to 15 characters long, and can include spaces and punctuation marks. Passwords can be changed in the "Z" option of the Main Menu. 13. Other program features Anytime that you want to change some of the current settings of the program, you can use the "Z" option on the Main Menu. Some of these are listed above. Among other changes, you can change (a) the colors of the characters and background, error messages, help screens, and graph points, (b) the lines on a screen, and (c) the ways dates are displayed. 6 Introduction B. Conventions Used in this Manual Names of files and programs are printed in UPPERCASE letters. Warnings and notes are printed in italics. Examples of what to type are in double quotes: "TYPE THIS". MS-DOS prompts are usually listed as: A>. Anything after the prompt should be typed. Example: A> GRADE The prompt is A>, and you should type "GRADE". Special keys are those that do not print normal (ASCII) keys. They are designated in the manual and program by bracketing the key name with "<" and ">". Example: means the Escape key, means the Return or Enter key. C. GSample To look at the capabilities of VAR Grade, two sample classes called GSample and GSampleb have been included on Disk #1. Many of the features of the program have been used for these classes. To view them, type "GRADE GSAMPLE" if you have a color monitor or "GRADE GSAMPLEB" if you have a black and white monitor. These classes are also used for many tutorials seen in the manual. 7 II. REQUIREMENTS 1. This program will run on an IBM PC or compatible computer. 2. It requires MS-DOS 2.0 or later. 3. It requires at least 300,000 bytes of free memory (memory LEFT after DOS and memory resident programs like Borland's SidekickTM are running). If you have 384K memory or greater in your computer you should have no problem running VAR Grade. 4. Two 360K disk drives or one drive of 720K or more. 5. The program can run using either a monochrome or a color monitor. To see graphs and plots, you need a display adapter that can display graphics (e.g., Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA, and others). If you want to print graphs and plots, a dot matrix, ink jet, or laser printer is required. Grades can be printed on any printer. A. Versions The standard version of this program allows you to have up to 16,000 students in up to 99 sections or groups per class, up to 10,000 tasks per class, 240 attendance days per class, and an unlimited number of classes. In reality, the limitations are due to available memory. Should you desire "custom" versions of this program, they are also available. When you register your current version, should you desire a custom version, indicate so and we will try to meet your requirements. The program will automatically use a math coprocessor chip (8087 or 80287, etc). B. Files on the Disks Disk #1: README.BAT Lists Readme.4 to the screen. README.4 Introduction to VAR Grade. GRADE.EXE This is the main program. INSTALL.EXE Installation program for VAR Grade. GSAMPLE.PAR Sample class data. GSAMPLE.DAT Student data for the GSample class. GSAMPLEB.PAR Sample class data for use on monochrome monitors. GSAMPLEB.DAT Student data for the GSampleB class. Disk #2: GRADE.OVR This is the overlay for the program. GRADE.HLP The file containing help screens. INSTALLP.EXE The program that installs printers. GPRTDRV.PDT Printer drivers (for INSTALLP). *.BGI Screen drivers for VAR Grade. 8 Requirements Disk #3: GRADE.MAN The VAR Grade Manual. *.CHR Fonts for the screen drivers. REGISTER.TXT Registration form. The installation program will generate another file, GRADE.PDT. This file contains information needed to print graphs and screens. After the program is run, an additional file is created, called GRADE.PRT. This file contains information used for printing text from VAR Grade. C. Required Files For the program to run, it requires: GRADE.EXE (program) GRADE.OVR (overlay) The following files are needed for graphs: ?.BGI (which one depends upon your display adapter) GRADE.PDT (to print graphs) *.CHR (to change fonts for graphs) The following files are used for installing printers: INSTALLP.EXE (installs new printers) GPRTDRV.PDT (printer codes, needed by Installp) D. Where Should the Files Be? 1. If you have DOS 2.X The required files can be in the default directory or drive, they can be anywhere in the directories specified by the DOS PATH command, or they can be in the default directory of any drive. 2. If you have DOS 3.X or later The program can be invoked from any drive or directory if the required files are in the same directory as the program. Otherwise, the files can be in the default directory or drive, they can be anywhere in the directories specified by the DOS PATH command, or they can be in the default directory of any drive. 9 III. INSTALLATION OF VAR GRADE When you obtain VAR Grade, it will be on disks. The program can be run directly from those disks; however, some of the files are not required, and some of the files are better placed onto other disks. Therefore, a program has been included on Disk #1 that will set up new disks for you that has the correct files on the correct disks. VAR Grade can be installed onto either a hard (fixed) disk or onto floppy (removable) disks. The program INSTALL will automatically install VAR Grade. You will need to answer some questions and follow the instructions, but will not have to worry about what files are needed where. If you prefer to install the program yourself, directions are given below in Section B. A. Using INSTALL To install the program, you can run the program INSTALL. Follow the instructions below. INSTALL will not modify any existing files on your computer. 1. Put Disk #1 (the "Program" disk) into a drive. It can be in any drive. 2. You will need 4 blank 360K double-sided floppy disks, 2 720K 3 1/2" disks, or 1 megabyte of free disk space on any other disks. If the disks are not formatted or not empty, you can format them during the installation. NOTE: The program uses the MS-DOS format command for formatting, and will only format disks of 1.44 Megabytes capacity or less. Put one of these disks into the drive you will install the program onto. If you are installing onto a hard disk, you will not need any floppy disks. 3. Type "INSTALL". An opening screen will appear, explaining the requirements for VAR Grade and how to use the installation program. If you have a monochrome monitor, you should type "INSTALL/b" to force the program into black and white mode. This may be required if you have a Hercules compatible monochrome board, as these boards often tell programs (erroneously) that they are color boards. 4. You can exit the installation program, at any time, by pressing the "Ctrl" and the "C" keys simultaneously (), or by pressing the "Ctrl" and the "Break" keys simultaneously (). If the program has not completely installed the program, you may have to start over. 10 Installation 5. After pressing a key, you will be asked for the directory where you will be putting the program. If you have only two disk drives, the program can be installed onto either one of the two drives. The program will suggest a drive, but you can change it if you want (e.g., to change it to drive A, delete the suggested name by pressing the function key , then typing "a:", then press ). If you have a hard disk, the program will install the files onto the directory that you specify. The program will suggest installation onto "C:\VARGRADE", but you can change it to any other directory and/or drive. If you get a "beep" and error message, it probably means that you haven't yet put a disk into the drive. 6. The program will now install the program. If it does not find the disks or files it needs, it will request that you put them into the appropriate drives. If the disk does not have enough room on it for the VAR Grade files, you will be asked what to do. There are three options: (a) You can format the disk. This is probably the best option. (b) You can tell the program to write the files to another disk, or (c) You can tell the program to write the disk anyway. Choose this option if you have changed the disk or if you are installing VAR Grade onto a previous version of the program. If a previous version of the program is present, the installation program will ask if the existing files should be replaced (overwritten). Note that you will only be asked this once: if you say yes, all the duplicate files will be replaced. During the installation, the program will ask you to pick your printer. NOTE: if your computer cannot display graphics, this part will be skipped by the installation program. To do this, you will need the name and model number of your printer. Use the arrow, page up, and page down keys to traverse the list and find your printer. Then press the to select it. You can repeat this process until you have picked up to 5 printers. When you have picked all your printers, press . A file called GRADE.PDT will be created that has the necessary information. 7. If there is not enough room on the new Overlay disk for all the fonts, they will be put on the new Manual disk. If you decide not to use all the fonts, there should be room on the Overlay disk for a couple of the fonts. 8. When the installation is completed, a message will be displayed explaining how to label the disks and how to start VAR Grade. 11 9. When you run VAR Grade, the disk with the overlays needs to be in the drive at all times. Part of the program is in "overlays", which means that some of the program is on the disk and is read into the program when needed. NOTE: If you have removed the overlay disk, the program will print a message asking you to insert the overlay disk it needs to continue. Also, do not move the disk with the overlays from one drive to another. It must always be in the drive that it was in when you started VAR Grade. B. Installation without INSTALL To install the program without INSTALL, follow the instructions below. 1. You need up to 1 megabyte of disk space. 2. The simplest method is just to copy all of the files from the disks onto a directory of your drive. 3. If you don't have enough room on that drive, the files you need are: GRADE.EXE, GRADE.OVR: these don't need to be on the same disk. A .BGI file: Which one you need depends upon your display adapter. The name of the file corresponds to the display adapter (e.g., HERC.BGI is for Hercules adapters). This and the following files are needed only if you want to view graphs of the grades. A .PDT file: You need to run INSTALLP to install your printer. Start it by typing "INSTALLP GPRTDRV.PDT GRADE.PDT 5", then select your printer(s) (see step A6, above). If you have a monochrome monitor, you need to add start the program with "INSTALLP GPRTDRV.PDT GRADE.PDT 5 -m" to force INSTALLP into monochrome mode. To add or delete printers from VAR Grade, INSTALLP and GPRTDRV.PDT need to be with the program. *.CHR files: To change fonts for the graphs, the CHR files need to be with the program. 4. The only files that are absolutely required are the program (GRADE.EXE) and the overlays (GRADE.OVR). 12 IV. FIRST USE OF VAR GRADE In general, you move around the program by choosing options on menus. The "Main Menu" is the menu that appears after specifying a class name. If you choose one of the options on the Main Menu, the program goes to another set of menus ("secondary menus"), etc. Below is a short description of how to enter data for a new class, as well as a list of some of the features of the program. A. Printing the Manual You can print the manual on Disk #3 by typing, at the DOS prompt: A> COPY GRADE.MAN PRN B. Starting the Program 1. Type "GRADE" when in DOS (i.e., at the prompt: A> ). If you have a monochrome monitor, type "GRADE/B". For more details, see Chapter V, Starting the Program. 2. You will then be asked for the name of a class. A class will be highlighted on the screen. Press to select that class, or use the arrow keys to move the highlight to a new class before pressing . To access any class not listed on the screen, type the name and press . If the program cannot find the class, it will ask if this is a new class. If it is a new class, answer "Y" for yes. Class names can be corrected with the key. After a class has been selected, the Main Menu then appears. This chapter will describe both how to start a new class and how to use the class supplied with the program. C. Using an Existing Class: Tutorial Start the program as in section A. Next, you will see two classes highlighted, GSample and GSampleb. If you have a monochrome monitor, move the highlight to GSampleb by pressing the left or right arrow keys. If you have a color monitor, move the highlight to GSample. Press . VAR Grade will now read the students into the program. For the tutorial, "GSample" will mean either of the two classes. A menu will appear. This menu is called the Main Menu. On it are several options. These options are separated into four categories. First, there are several options involved with entering data. Second, there are options regarding analyzing the student data. Third, there are other options, such as changing how parts of the program work, seeing the help screens, and running other programs. Last, there are options for leaving the class and program. You can use the arrow keys to move the highlight to a different menu choice. To pick a choice, either move the highlight to the desired choice, then press , or just press the key shown on the left side of the highlight. 1. Entering data Press "D" on the Main Menu. You will see a list of students in the class and scores for several of the tasks that have been defined. Use the arrow keys on the keypad to move around the class. (a) Names Move to the second name, "Axelsen, Diana". The cursor will be at the end of the name. Press the backspace key. Next press an "e". The name will now read "Axelsen, Diane". (b) Number tasks Move down to "Crick, Francis". Now move right two cells to the number "80.00". If you look to the top of that column, it will say that it is task #1, with the name "Number 1". The cursor will be at the end of the number. Press the backspace key 4 times. Now type a "5". The number should read "85". Move down one cell with the down arrow. Notice the 85 stays in the previous cell. You do not have to type a to signal the end of input; just moving to another cell with the cursor keys is sufficient. (c) Letter tasks Now move to "Darwin, Charles". Move right three cells, to a "B". This is in the column: task #2, "Lette". The "Lette" is the first five letters of "Letter 2", the name of task #2. Only the first few letters of each task name is shown (to show all the letters takes too much screen space). To change the task score, use the backspace key to delete the B, then put in a new grade, from A to F. Notice that if you type any other letters, they will be ignored by the program. Only valid letters are accepted. (d) Scrolling to the right From "Darwin, Charles", task #2, move right four cells with the right arrow key. Notice that when you moved to First Use the fourth cell, the screen shifted to the right. The names are still listed on the left, but a slightly different set of tasks is shown. If you want, you can change the score as before. (e) Scrolling down Just as in the previous example, you can also scroll down. This time you will see more names. Use the down arrow on the keypad to go all the way to the last person in the class. Notice that the screen shifts as you do so. You can scroll through the students and tasks until you find the data you want to change. (f) Changing which data is displayed To change which data is listed on the screen, press . You will see the Display Menu, which asks whether to display the name, ID, or both. Choose "B", for both. If there had been more than one section of students in the class, you would be asked whether to display section numbers. In GSample, there is only one section of students. Next, you will be asked whether to display notes. Press "Y". Last, you will be asked which tasks to display. Type "1 3:2", then . You have told the program to list tasks 1, 3, and then 2 on the screen. You will now see the names, IDs, notes, and task scores for tasks 1, 3, and 2. You can display any regular tasks (number, letter, or extra credit), in any order. You could now alter the data, if you wished. (g) Exiting To leave this part of the program, type an . The data you changed will be saved into memory. 2. Analyzing grades We can see a plot of the scores on task #1 by pressing "P" when we are on the Main Menu. Next, press a "T" (for three dimensional). You will be asked which task to plot. Type in a "1", then a . Next, you will be asked for the high score to plot. Just type a to allow the program to choose the highest score. Next, you are asked for the low score to plot. Again, just type a . You have told the program to pick the highest and lowest scores in the class as the highest and lowest points to plot. You will next see a menu, the Print Menu, that will list several options, such as printing to a printer, disk file, etc. Just press "S". The program will display the plot. At the bottom right of the screen is a message: "Press any key to continue." When you are through looking at the plot, press a key. You will return to the Plot Menu. Press an "X" or to exit back to the Main Menu. 3. Writing scores If you want to list some of the task scores of the class on the screen, press a "W" when on the Main Menu. You will see another menu, the Write Data Menu. Press an "S". This will display the scores of all the students in the class. You will be asked whether you want to display task scores, attendance, etc. Pick "T", task scores. You will then be asked for the list of tasks to display. Type "1:4", then . You have just told the program to list the first four tasks in the class. Next, you will be asked if you want to display the student names, and/or IDs. Press "B" to display both. Last, you will see the Print Menu. Press "Y" on the Print Menu to see the scores, stopping at every screenful of students. When the screen stops, press a key to see some more. When you have seen all the scores, the Write Data Menu will appear again. Press "X" or to go back to the Main Menu. 4. Quitting the program Press "Q" on the Main Menu to leave the class. Since we changed some of the data, the program will ask you if you want to save the data before exiting. Press "N" (don't save the data). D. Starting a New Class Start the class as in section A. This time, instead of pressing , type in a name of a class. You will be asked if it is a new class, type "Y". The Main Menu will then appear. 1. First, if there are more than one section of students in your new class, you will need to increase the number of sections. You can have up to 99 sections of students in each class. Press "Z" when on the Main Menu. On the second menu, press "S" (change the number of sections). Type in the new number, from 2 to 99, then . Then exit back to the Main Menu by pressing "X" or . If you have several classes that use the same tasks and turn in the same assignments, calling them different "sections" of the same class lets you easily compare them. 2. Next, you want to enter the names of the students. Enter the names by pressing "N" on the Main Menu. There are several choices. You can type in only names ("N"), type in names and IDs ("I"), or load the class names from a files ("F", "A", "C"). Name, IDs, and sections can be changed at First Use any time. If you choose "N" or "I", you will be asked for the section in which to add students. If you are typing in the names, just enter the names (ending each name with ). If you are also typing in IDs, type them in, too. If the previous name was entered incorrectly, you can delete it by typing . When you have finished entering names, press . Example: If you are on the Main Menu, type an "N", then "N" again. The program will ask for the section number. Type in the section number, then . You can now type in names, ending each with a . If you misspelled a name, but did not notice until you were on the next name, press to delete the previous name. Retype it in correctly. After the last name has been entered, press an , and an again when the program asks for the section number. NOTE: The program sorts the names alphabetically. If the names are entered last name first, they will be sorted by last name. If they are entered with the first name first, they will be sorted by first names. The program will check for duplicate names, so you cannot put the same name into the same section twice. If you are entering names from a file, the program will ask for the name of the file. Flat files are ones where the names, IDs and exam scores are in columns. For the "F" (flat file) option, you need to tell the program where the names and IDs are located in the file. Names longer than 20 characters will be truncated, as will IDs longer than 15 characters. If there are no IDs, sections, or exams, just tell the program to start at "0" for them. For the "A" (automatic flat file) and "C" (comma) options, the program will try to make sense of the names. Comma and quote delimited files are readable by most spreadsheets. See below, Chapter VI, Entering Students, for more details on loading students from files. 3. Tasks are assignments for students. They can be exams, tests, homework, projects, etc. If you have task scores to enter into the program, press "T" when on the Main Menu to define the new assignments. The second menu will ask you for the number of the task. You will then be asked the name and total points of the task (if it is a number exam). You can continue to define as many tasks as you like. There are ten different types of tasks that can be defined. You must define a task before you can enter task scores. Note that if you are grading by numbers, no scores can be entered that are either higher than the total points of the task or that are less than the fewest allowed points (as set by you). If you are using letter grades, only letters defined by you can be used (the "default" grades are A to F, with + and - grades, but these can be changed). 4. Next, you can use either the letters as defined by you, or the "default" grades to enter the scores. Pick the number of the task or tasks that you want to use. You may enter scores for multiple tasks or for only one. You then can enter the scores "by individual" ("I" on the Main Menu), or "by section" ("D" on the Main Menu). "By individual" lists all the tasks for one student, while "by section" or class lists for every student in the class only those tasks that you have picked. With either method, the program lists the students by the whichever sort method you have chosen (e.g., alphabetically by name). You can use the cursor keys (up, down, etc.) to move to a new task or student. Pressing will cause the program to move to the next task, while using the cursor keys will move you up, down, or over to new tasks. NOTE: If you are "using" cursor keys, you move between students with -cursor keys. 5. When you are finished entering data, press to exit the section and save the data to memory. Next, when on the Main Menu, type an "S" to save the data to a disk file. The program will ask for the class name. Most of the time, you will just type . If you want to change the name of the class or the directory where it is located, you can do so before pressing . E. Entering Data In general, if you are asked to "enter" data, end it with "" or a cursor key, when you are asked to "press" a key, only one key needs to be pressed. 1. Menu choices The program accepts as input only the keys listed on the menu, and will respond to the key when it is pressed. When you are asked for a menu choice, to select it you can (a) press the key, OR (b) use the cursor keys to pick the correct choice and press the Return or Enter key, OR (c) use a mouse to select the choice and press the left button. First Use 2. Entering numbers When you type numbers in, you must press the return key () or, a cursor key (arrow, page up and down, etc.) to signal the end of your data. A alone, with no number, tells the program: (a) do not change the current value; OR (b) end current input of the number; OR (c) let the program choose the appropriate number. Which possibility (a, b, or c) that the program will use is stated when the data is requested. 3. Selecting and entering names When you enter words or names, you must press either the return key () or a cursor key (arrow, page up and down, etc.) to signal the end of your data. When names of classes or students are listed on the screen, the cursor keys can be used to select the student or class name. Select the desired name with the cursor keys, then press . F. If You Are Lost If you are lost, or want to return to the Main Menu, you can usually reach it by repeatedly pressing the key. G. Exiting the program Normally, you exit the program by going thru the Main Menu. To exit, pick the "Q" (quit the program) option. If any data has been changed, the program will ask if you want the changes to be saved. You can also exit from almost anywhere in the program by pressing Ctrl-C (the Control key and the "C" key simultaneously: ). Again, if student data has been changed, you will be prompted about saving it before leaving the program. The key combination Ctrl-Break has no effect while in the program. H. How Special Keys are Used These keys are not used in all parts of the program, but will be used in most parts. Other keys are also used, but these are listed on the screen when they can be used. Key Name of key Program Function Escape Exit this program section. Return, Enter End of input. Page Up List previous screen. Page Down List next screen. Home Go to the first screen. End Go to the last screen. Function key 1 Use all choices, or select the next available choice. Function Key 2 Delete previous entry. Function Key 10 To delete current entry. Alt-H HELP--always available. Alt-U Undo that field when entering numbers or words. Control C Exit from the program. If data has been changed, you will be asked whether it should be saved before exiting the program. I. How the cursor keys work You have options as to how you want the cursor keys to work. If you do not redefine the functions of the cursor keys, they will work as follows: , Go to the first name or cell , Go to the last name or cell Go up one screen Go down one screen Go left one cell or column Go right one cell or column Go up one half column Go down one half column Go up one name or line Go down one name or line Go left two columns Go right two columns Delete previous character You can switch between using or not using edit keys in the "Z" section of the Main Menu. Furthermore, if you choose to use edit keys, you can use "insert" or "overstrike" modes. Just press the key to switch between these modes. In insert mode, the characters are inserted at the position of the cursor, with the rest of the characters pushed to the right. First Use In overstrike mode, the character typed replaces the one that was at the cursor. If you "use" edit keys, by redefining their functions, you will be able to move left or right in the data with the cursor keys functioning as they would in a word processor. If you switch to "using" the edit keys, they will be redefined as follows: Go to the first character. Go to the last character. Go left one character. Go right one character. Go left one name or cell. Go right one name or cell. Delete the character at the cursor. Switch between Insert and Overwrite modes. V. STARTING THE PROGRAM This part of the manual tells you how to start the program, including where to place your files, where to put your class grades, and how to locate class files from the program. It will also explain how to access help and the manual from the program. You should have already installed the program (see Chapter II). A. Where Should the Program Files Be? 1. For DOS beginners Before starting the program, make sure that all the program files listed above in Chapter II, Requirements, are in the current directory of one disk, or, if the program has been installed onto floppy disks, on the current directories of two disks. At the DOS prompt, type: "GRADE" If you are not a DOS expert, go to section B. 2. For DOS experts The program will search the current environment for the program files. This means that the search for the files are in the following order: (i) It searches the current directory first. (ii) It then searches for the files in the directory where the "GRADE.EXE" file was found. (iii) It then searches the directories specified by the DOS PATH command. NOTE: The PATH command tells DOS which directories to search for executable files: those ending in ".COM", ".EXE", or ".BAT". (iv) If it still hasn't found the files, it searches the default directories on each drive in your computer. (v) If the program files are still not found, the program will halt with an error message. The required files, therefore, are most logically placed in one directory of a hard disk or on two floppy disks, as is done by INSTALL. 22 Starting the Program (a) MS-DOS 3.X or above The program can be started from any directory by just typing the directory and "GRADE". For example, if the program is in the directory c:\class, just type "c:\class\GRADE". If the program files are in the same directory as the GRADE.EXE file, the program will find the files it needs. Note that this will only work in DOS 3.X, not in DOS 2.X. (b) MS-DOS 2.X Because the program can find the necessary files if the program has been installed correctly, you can then keep the program files in one directory, and the class files in another. Just make sure that the PATH command specifies the directory where the program is located. Read your MS- DOS manual for directions on how to use the PATH command. If you know the name of the class that you want to grade before you enter the program, you can enter the class name as a parameter on the command line: e.g., if the class is called "BIOLOGY", type "GRADE BIOLOGY" at the DOS prompt. The BIOLOGY class data will automatically be read into the program. The class name can include a path, so, if the BIOLOGY class is located in the c:\science directory, you can start the program with "GRADE C:\SCIENCE\BIOLOGY". (c) Examples (i) If the program is on the same drive as the class (the "A>" is the DOS prompt): For example, type: A> GRADE If the program is on a different drive, type the drive, colon, GRADE. For example, if you are on drive A, and the program is on drive B, type: A> B:GRADE The program will find the overlay, print, and help files if they are on the default directory or on any directory specified by the path command. 23 (ii) If you know the name of the class that you want to use, enter it on the DOS command line: A> GRADE classname OR A> GRADE \path\classname (iii) If you are using a hard disk, you may want to set up a batch file that will do the typing for you: Batch file example: If GRADE (including the necessary files) is in the directory, C:\CLASS, prepare a batch file that says: SET PATH=C:\CLASS; GRADE OR SET PATH=C:\CLASS; GRADE classname (iv) If you are using DOS 3.X, you can start the program by typing the directory and "GRADE": If VAR Grade is in the directory C:\CLASS, type C:\CLASS\GRADE OR C:\CLASS\GRADE classname (v) If you have a monochrome monitor, you may need to start the program with: GRADE/B classname This will force the program into monochrome mode. Many Hercules compatible display adapters erroneously tell programs that a color monitor is attached. The results are that some color combinations are invisible to you. You can also force the program into monochrome mode with a DOS SET command: A> SET VMON=BW; You can set up a batch file for VAR Grade as follows (assuming the program is in the directory C:\VARGRADE): SET VMON=BW; SET PATH=C:\VARGRADE; GRADE 24 Starting the Program If you have a monochrome monitor, you probably want to add that command to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. This file is executed every time you start your computer. (d) Using one drive to run the program You can start the program from one 360K drive by putting the program disk in the drive, and typing "GRADE". When the program cannot find the overlay file, you will be asked to put the disk containing the file into a drive. If you now put it in the same drive that the program disk was in, the program will continue and run correctly. B. Picking a Class When the program starts, the first screen shows the program name, a comment about registering the program, the class files and directories listed on the directory from which the program was invoked, and a prompt for the class. If there are any files on the disk that have the extension ".PAR", they will be listed by the program on the opening screen. The ".PAR" file contains the parameters of your class: exam names, default settings for the program, etc. To help you find the right class, sub-directories are also listed. You can either type in the name of the class, or you can use the cursor keys to locate the class. 1. Using the cursor keys One of the class files or a directory will be highlighted. If you have a monochrome monitor and do not see a class highlighted, try starting the program with "GRADE/B" to force the program into monochrome mode. To pick the correct class, use the cursor keys to move the highlight to the correct class or directory. Then press . If you chose a directory, a new listing of classes will be shown. Repeat the above process until a class is chosen. NOTE: If any characters have been typed on the prompt line, the program will use them as the class name. You can delete these by using the key. 2. Typing in the name (a) If the class that you want is not listed, you can change directories and search for the class. There are two ways to change directories: i) Press , then type in the name of the new drive or directory. You can continue to change directories until you find the desired class. 25 ii) Type the new drive or directory instead of the class name. The program first tests to determine whether what you have typed is a directory. If it is, the directory is changed. NOTE: The new directory must end in a backslash ("\"), or the new drive must end in a colon (":"). (b) If and when your class is listed, just type the name in. The ".PAR" is not needed, and any extensions, like .PAR, are discarded. The program will read in the class parameters, and, if a file with the same name with the extension ".DAT" is also there, the student scores will be read into the program. 3. Starting new classes Type in the name of the class. When the program does not find the ".PAR" file, it will ask if this is a new class--if it is, press "Y". The new class will be created. Each class has two files. Each starts with the name of the class (e.g. "BIOLOGY"). They have the extensions ".PAR" and ".DAT" (e.g. "BIOLOGY.PAR" and "BIOLOGY.DAT"). There may also be backup files with the extensions ".PAX" and ".DAX" (see the Appendix for further details). 4. Using the DOS command line You may also enter the class name from the command line by listing it as a parameter: e.g. if the class name is "MATH", start the program by typing: "GRADE MATH". If the class exists, it will be read into the program. If it does not, you will be asked if it is a new class. If you say that it is not, you will be asked to reenter a class name until you have picked the desired class. C. Converting Old Classes Into New Classes If you want to use the same exams and class information for two different classes, just copy the "CLASSNAME.PAR" file to a new classname (e.g., copy "BIOLOGY.PAR" to the file "MATH.PAR" by typing, at the DOS prompt: "COPY BIOLOGY.PAR MATH.PAR". Math will now be set up exactly the same way as Biology). The new class is now set up the same as the previous class, except that no students will be in the new class. This feature can allow you to set up your class once and use the set-up for many classes in the future. D. Classes Too Big for the Memory After the classname is entered, the program will read in the class data and student information. If there are more students than can fit in the available memory, the program will warn you 26 Starting the Program and ask if you want to continue. If you continue, the program will read ONLY as many students into the class as there is memory. WARNING: If you then use the program and save the data, the students that were not read into the program will be lost. To find out approximately how many students can be read into the program, enter a "Z" when in the Main Menu. At the top of the second menu you will see how many students are currently in the class and how many could be in the class if all the available memory is used and if the current exams are not increased. There are essentially an unlimited number of students and exams allowed. The limitations are that all the data must be able to fit into the available memory. Part of the program is in overlays. This means that part of the program is on disk, not in memory. When the program starts, it leaves a certain amount of memory free, and uses the rest for overlays. You can change how much of the program is in memory with a DOS SET command. If you need more memory, enter the following command at the DOS prompt: A> SET OMEM=0; This command will shrink the program to its minimum size. Conversely, to put all the program into memory, use the command: A> SET OMEM=150000; You can add either SET command to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file that is executed when you start your computer. This way, the program will always use the amount of memory you want. You can vary the number from 0 to 150000 to get variable amounts of the program in memory. E. Setting Up the Class Anytime that you want to change some of the current settings of the program, you can use the "Z" option on the Main Menu. 1. The number of sections The number of sections is initially set at 1 when you first start a new class. For example, if you teach 3 English classes that have identical exams and assignments, you can call them different sections of the same class. You can then compare the different classes as "sections". Each section uses the same set of exams, but the program can do statistics on any combination of sections. The program keeps track of what sections you last used, and will, by default, use whatever sections that were last used by you. To set the number of sections, go to the "Z" option of the Main Menu, then into "S". Just enter the number of sections that you have in the class. 27 2. Colors Yes, the default colors of the program can be changed! This can be done in the "Z" option of the Main Menu, then "C". There are several colors used, designated: (i) Normal colors: The text is in this color. (ii) Background color: The background is this color. (iii) Highlight color: This color is used for plotting scores, and is used to make the scores standout better. (iv) Error colors: For error messages. (v) Help colors: Colors used by the Help screens. Some of these colors are used in pop-up menus and messages, as well. To change the colors, press "Z" on the Main Menu, then "C" (color) on the second menu. You will be asked for the new colors. The bottom lines of the screen show what the colors would look like. Needless to say, if you are using a monochrome monitor, you will only get black and white. Some monochrome adapter boards tell the program that they are color boards. This results in some things becoming invisible or not highlighted when they should be. If this is the case for you, you can force VAR Grade into monochrome mode by either of two methods: (a) Start the program with "GRADE/B". The /B tells the program that you are using a black and white monitor. (b) Set a DOS command: "SET VMON=BW;". At the DOS prompt (e.g., A>), type the above statement. This tells the program you are using a black and white monitor. This command can also be put into your AUTOEXEC.BAT file that is run when your computer is turned on. 3. Files The class grade files are, by default, written in what is known as "read-only" files. This means that if you are in DOS and ask that the files be deleted, they will not be deleted by DOS. The program does this to prevent accidental deletions of the data, but this can sometimes cause problems with other programs, most notably some backup programs. You can change the way files are written by specifying that they be written normally (they can be deleted by DOS), as read- only files, or that they be "hidden" files (DOS will not even list the files on a "dir" command). Hidden files will still be seen by VAR Grade, but not by anyone casually snooping around your disk. To do this, go to the "Z" option of the Main Menu, then pick "F". Then just choose the type of file for writing the student data. Backup files are normally made of your grades. These backups contain the data from the previous time that you saved your data. The backup files have the same name as the 28 Starting the Program class, but have the extensions ".DAX" and ".PAX". NOTE: The appendix gives more information on these files. No matter in which type of file the class data is written (read-only, hidden, or normal), the backup files are made normal files. This means that they can be deleted should you not want to clutter up your disk with them. However, if you prefer not to have the program make backup files, you can use the "B" option on the Parameters Menu to prevent backups. It is strongly recommended that you let back-up files be made and that you let the program write the class files as read-only. The combination of these two options will give your data much greater security. 4. Printers You can tell the program which printer you are using. In fact, to be able to print graphs and plots, you need to pick a printer during installation or in the "P" section of the "Z" option of the Main Menu. Virtually every printer is now supported by VAR Grade for printing graphs and plots. Most are also supported for printing files in pica, elite, or compressed printing (if your printer supports them), and bold and high quality. For unsupported printers, if you can find the codes in your printer manual, you can enter the necessary printer codes to support your printer (See Chapter X: Printing the Grades). 5. Passwords If many people have access to your computer and its disks, you may worry about someone's altering your class files. To greatly reduce the chances of this happening, you can require that a password be used for your class. To define a password, use the "W" option in the "Z" section of the Main Menu. Note: The default value is not to have a password. The password can have up to 15 characters, numbers, and/or punctuation characters. Should you forget your password, you can contact us at the address at the end of the manual to get instructions on how to defeat the password. (Note: you MUST be registered to receive help.) The password is not foolproof, but greatly reduces the likelihood of snooping. F. Entering Students, Tasks, Attendance, and Grades There are two kinds of prompts in the program. The first, like the prompt asking for the classname, asks you to Enter the name and then type a to signify the end of the data. The second type only asks for one key--this option is usually used for the menu selections. To save keystrokes, the program will respond immediately when the key is pressed--no is necessary. When you are presented with a list of choices, you 29 can use the cursor keys to move to the desired choice, then type to select that choice. NOTE: In many parts of the program, if you enter a with no data entered, the program will assume either that: (a) you did not want to enter data--the program will continue; or (b) you want to exit this section and go back to a higher level menu; or (c) the number to be entered is zero. In general, if the program asks you to enter data, you should end with a . If you are choosing a menu option or between two alternatives, press only the appropriate key. When you have to enter a long list of numbers, such as designating Task 80 as the sum of Tasks 1 to 79, the program will allow you to enter them with an inclusive colon: "1:79" would be 1 through 79, rather than requiring you to enter all the numbers from 1 to 79. This situation arises in three places: when entering lists of tasks, as noted in the example, when entering lists of sections to use, and when entering attendance days. Colons can be used to enter a list of numbers from high to low, as well. Entering "79:1" will tell the program to use tasks 79 down to 1. Example: To enter tasks 1 thru 5 and 8, type: "1:58". NOTE: When entering a list of separate numbers, you can separate them with s, commas, or spaces. For the above example, typing "1:5,8," or "1:5 8 " will give the same result. Later chapters in this Manual will tell you how to enter students, tasks, attendance, and grades. G. Reading the Manual and Help screens If the files GRADE.HLP and/or GRADE.MAN are present in the default directory of any drive or in any directory specified by the DOS path command, then you can read them from the program (See Chapter V Section A, above). When the program is on the Main Menu, type an "H" for help or an "M" for the manual. The help screen is much shorter and less detailed than this manual. The help screen can also be reached from anywhere in the program by typing (press the ("Alt" and the "H" keys simultaneously). The help reached from is context sensitive. This means that VAR Grade will try to find the relevant material from the help file. You can browse at will through the file by using the cursor keys. When in Help or the Manual, typing will show you a list of the keys and features supported. If there is not enough memory to display the file, an error message will appear. To view the file, you would then have to reduce memory use (See Section D, above). 30 Starting the Program Moving with the keys in HELP or the MANUAL: Up one line Down one line Up one screen Down one screen Up one-half screen Down one-half screen , Beginning of the file , End of the file GO TO LINE: The top line will be the line that you designate. In the center of the screen a box will appear that will ask for the line number. At the bottom right of the screen, you can see which line you are on and how many lines there are in the file. Example: type "4" to go to line 4. GO TO SCREEN: The top line will be the first line of any screen that you enter. In the center of the screen a box will appear that will ask for the screen. The total number of screens and the screen that you are currently on are shown at the bottom right corner of the screen. Example: type "8" to go to screen 8. To locate text: Find a string Find the next matching string Find the previous matching string Show the supported keys Return to the previous screen 31 VI. ENTERING STUDENTS One of the first things that you will do when starting a new class is to enter the names of students into the program. This Chapter tells you how to enter new students into the class, add IDs, change the names of students, and sort and list the students in the class. A. General Methods When the Main Menu is on the screen, choose the "N" (Name) option. Several options will be listed on a new menu, the Add Student Menu. You can type the names into the program via options Name only ("N"), or by Name and ID ("I"). You can import (read) names into the class from flat files ("F" and "A"), or comma and quote files ("C"). B. Names and IDs The student names can be up to 20 characters long, and can include spaces and punctuation. The program can sort the students alphabetically by their names for printing out scores, so it is usually better to enter the names last name first. Spelling is retained exactly as you enter it, except that leading and trailing spaces are ignored. When sorting, however, lower and upper case letters are not distinguished, so "Sue" is considered to be the same as "sue". ID numbers or other names (nicknames, etc.) can be entered as "IDs". At some colleges and universities, students are given their grades by student numbers rather than by name. You can use IDs for first or last names and the "name" for the last or first name. You can change IDs, or add them later in the several sections of the program. IDs can be up to 15 characters long, and can include spaces and punctuation. The program can sort by IDs as well as names. Spelling is retained, but, as in sorting names, sorts do not distinguish between lower and upper case letters. C. Typing in Names and IDs 1. Names only You add names on the "N" option on the Add Students Menu. You first need to tell the class which section you want to enter students. Pick a number from 1 to 99. To enter names, you just need to type in the name, ending with a . If the name is already present in the section, it is NOT reentered and an error message results. The same name 32 Entering Students can be used in two different sections of the same class. To delete the letters you have typed, and hence remove the name, type an . The command works in all parts of the program. Names can be changed later in several parts of the program (see below). If you added the previous name in error, you can delete it with an (backup) command. When you have added all the names, press the escape key (). You will exit back to where you are asked for the section numbers again. To exit, press again. 2. Names and IDs This option, "I" on the Add Students Menu, works the same as for adding names only. The only difference is that you are asked for the ID, as well. Deleting an ID or Name with will remove the previous student from the class. 3. Adding, changing, and deleting names, IDs, and notes Names, IDs, and notes can also be added, changed, or deleted in four other places of the program. The details are described in later chapters. The four places are: (i) "I" on the Main Menu: Individual students; (ii) "D" on the Main Menu: Data entry for tasks of the class; (iii) "A" on the Main Menu, then "I": Adding attendance for individual students; and (iv) "A" on the Main Menu, then "C": Data entry for class attendance. Student notes are a field in the student records that can be used to enter up to 20 characters. Notes can be used to enter seating arrangements, comments, nicknames, or anything else you may want. They can be printed, but otherwise are not used much by VAR Grade. They can be entered and changed in the same four places of the program mentioned above. (a) When individuals are listed In the attendance by individual students (iii, above) or Tasks by individual students (i, above), all the tasks or attendance for a student are listed. If you press the key (insert student), you will be presented with a blank form to enter the new name. Entering any letters will add the student to the class. An "Empty" or blank name will be deleted or not entered into the class, and the deletion can be quickly done by using the key. Note: when a student has been deleted, his or her name and all associated data are deleted. Changing the spelling of the name, ID, or note, or changing the section number for the student, is also possible here. Note: only sections that have been defined are allowed as sections for the student. You can increase the number of sections in the "Z" section of the program. 33 (b) When the whole class is displayed If you need to add a new name when in parts ii or iv (above), use the key . A new line will be displayed on the screen. As above, removing a student name will remove that student and the associated data from the class. Blank names are removed from the class only when you leave that section of the program. A second way to delete the student is with the key. The student will be deleted immediately, and the rest of the class moved up one line. Note: when a student has been deleted, his or her name and all associated data are deleted. You can also change the names, IDs, notes, or sections for a student by using the cursor keys or a mouse to move to the cell with the name, ID or section and typing in the new name or ID for that student. To see any students not listed on the screen, use the cursor or Alt keys (as listed at the top of the screen). The cell highlighted is the one that will be used for data input. You can use the key to completely delete the ID or name. If you start altering the data, then decide the original data was correct, you can retrieve the data if you haven't moved from that cell. Use the (undo) key to get the original data back. (c) Recovering deleted data Data that has been changed or deleted is normally lost. There are, however, two ways to recover the data if you immediately decide to "undelete" it: (i) quit the program without saving the data to disk. Any data entered in this session will not be saved. (ii) if you have already saved the data from the class, use the backup files to recover the data from the previous session. More information on how to do this is located in the Appendix. D. Importing Students from Files You can also enter names via text files. VAR Grade will import data that is written by many other programs, including most spreadsheet programs. 1. Importing flat files Many spreadsheets will export (write) data in a flat file. A flat file is one where the data is listed in columns. All the names of students are in one column, all the IDs in another, etc. In the "F" option of the Add Students Menu, 34 Entering Students you can pick a flat file of student names, IDs, sections, and/or task scores, tell VAR Grade which columns the name, IDs, sections, and tasks are in, and have the data automatically loaded into the class. The file must have been previously prepared by deleting lines that do not have student names on them, or else the program will try to load those lines as well. An example of a flat file is listed below: Jones, Fred 123 1 34.5 23.5 B 44 Smith, Ann 321 2 43.5 18.3 B 43 To load new students into the class, the program will first ask for the filename of the flat file. It will then display the contents of the file across the top of the screen, along with a ruler. You now have to tell the program what data is where. First, you need to tell the program where the student names are. An answer of 0 tells the program that data is missing from the file. Next you tell the program where the IDs, notes, sections, and tasks are located. For the tasks, you will also be asked for the number of the task. Data then will be read into the program. For the tasks, if the data is numeric, it will be read in as number tasks; if it is not numeric, the data will be read in as letter tasks. In the above example, suppose the first column is the names, the second the IDs, the third the sections, and the next four are tasks. The sixth column (third task) would be read in as a letter task. The tasks would be numbered as the first four unused tasks in your class, and given names (e.g., Number task 1, Number task 2, Letter task 3, and Number task 4). 2. Importing comma & quote files Many spreadsheets also can read in data from files where the data is not in columns, but is instead separated by commas. Data that has commas in it, e.g., student names, are kept together by double quotes (""). The "C" option of the Add Students Menu lets you import data from these files. An example of data in the file might be: "Jones, Fred", "123", 1, 34.5, 23.5, B, 44 "Smith, Ann", "321", 2, 43.5, 18.3, B, 43 The program will assume that the student names are in the first field, the IDs in the next, and the next five are tasks. For the tasks, the fourth one will be a letter task; the others will be number tasks. As in the flat files, the names of the exams will be made by the program, and the first five unused tasks will be used for the new tasks. If this is not what you want, you have another option. You might include this as the first line of the file: "Name", "ID", "Section", "One", "Two", 8, "#4" 35 This line would tell the program that the first field is the name, the second is the ID, the third is the section, the fourth and fifth are number tasks (they are numbers) with the names One and Two, the sixth is a Letter task 8, and the last field is a number task with the name #4. NOTE: Whether they are letter or number tasks is determined by the student data, not from the first line. On the first line, "Name" tells the program that field is student names, "ID" tells it is IDs, "Notes" means student notes, "Section" refers to sections, and any other words are treated as tasks. These need to be the entire label for the fields, but whether the labels are in upper and/or lower case letters is not important. For the tasks, anything that is a number (like 8) is taken as the desired number of the task (the program will make up a name for the task), and anything that is not a number will be taken as the name (with its number being the first unused task). Whether the tasks are made number or letter tasks are determined by the data on line two (the first student). 3. Automatic flat file imports The "A" option on the Add Students Menu works like the previous one ("C"), except that the fields are separated by one or more spaces, not by commas. The method of determining the type of data is the same as that used for the comma and quote files. E. Sorting Students Students can be sorted by a variety of methods, including by name only, by name and section, by ID only, by ID and section, by section only, by the scores of any defined task, or by no sorts. You can change the method of sorting in the "Z" option of the Main Menu, then "A" (alter the method of sorting the class). The change is "permanent" in that the program will remember which sorting method was used and will continue to use that method until told differently. Sorts are not done until you are finished altering data, so if you add new students, the names will not be alphabetized or sorted until you exit back to the Main Menu. You can have the program list the students via their names OR by their IDs. This affects how the students are listed when you see lists of students on the screen. When you print the scores, you are also asked how you want the class listed to the printer. 36 VII. DEFINING TASKS Tasks are graded assignments for students. They can be homework, exams, tests, papers, or anything else that is graded. There are ten different predefined types of tasks in VAR Grade. The tasks are divided into two categories: (1) Regular tasks are those where you enter grades. There are three types of regular tasks. (2) Special tasks are those that you do not enter grades into. These include sums, averages, percentages, etc. There are seven types of special tasks. Defining, removing, and redefining tasks can be done from the Task Type Menu, the "T" option of the Main Menu. A. Regular Tasks You can enter tasks as numbers (Number tasks), you can enter them as letters (Letter tasks), or you can enter them as extra credit (Extra credit tasks). These can be defined in the "T" section of the Main Menu. You give a task a name, then, if it is a number task, the total allowed points for that task. 1. Number tasks Number tasks are ones in which you enter numbers as the grades. The maximum allowed points for any regular task is one million! The program checks the scores of every student when you put in the scores to make sure they do not exceed the maximum allowed points. If the score does exceed it, that score is rejected, and a new score must be entered. This validation of scores reduces the number of errors made while entering student scores. Tasks that have 0 or less total points are ignored by Special tasks. 2. Letter tasks Letter tasks are ones where the scores are entered as letters. The program will converts them to numbers, but the score can be entered, printed, and manipulated as a letter grade. The standard or default grading system is an A is 4.0, a B is 3.0, a C is 2.0, etc. Plusses are 0.3 points higher (except A+), and minuses are 0.3 points below the grade (e.g. B- = 2.7; C+ = 2.3). You can, however, define any grading system that you want, including the names and points for each grade, as long as the total grade types does not exceed 12 (see Chapter XI, Section ). If you do change the grading system, you should do it before you enter any letter grades. The program stores the grades as numbers, not as letters. Thus, changing the points allowed for letter 37 grades after some letter grades have been assigned can result in incorrect scores. 3. Extra credit tasks Extra credit tasks are ones where the points can be added to a number task, but the total points of the number task are not altered. Extra credit tasks are treated in special ways by the program. The extra credit tasks need to have the total points be specified, just like number tasks. However, this number is used only to check data entry. As far as the special exams (below) are concerned, extra credit tasks have 0 total task points, but the student scores are used in the calculations for special tasks. In the case of discarding the lowest of a list of tasks, if the extra credit score is one of lowest scores, it will be discarded. This may not be what you want, so you should consider this potential problem before you include extra credit tasks in the definitions of Highest Tasks. B. Special Tasks The second type of tasks are called Special tasks. These can also be specified in the "T" section of the Main Menu. Special tasks are Sums, Averages, Highest, Percentages, etc., of other tasks. You do not enter scores into special tasks. Instead, you define the task as the sum (average, percentage, highest, etc.) of other tasks. The program then calculates the scores for you. These scores will be recalculated each time you change student scores. Note: Tasks with 0 or less total points are ignored by special exams. For example: at the end of the term, you probably want to add up all the task scores in the class. You can specify a task, e.g. #30, as the sum of all the previous tasks (#1 through #29). Task #30 is a special task called a "sum task". Since any of the 10,000 possible task numbers can be either a special or regular task, you can, for example, define special tasks as the sums of quizzes, tests, and/or homework. One limitation for defining special tasks is that they can be defined only as tasks acting on other tasks with lower numbers. Allowing you to add or sum tasks with the same or higher numbers could result in circular definitions that would confuse the computer and produce nonsense or variable results. A second limitation applies only to sums of tasks. The total points allowed for a "sum task" (like task #30 above), is 9,999,999 (less than 10 million points). The ability to specify any task as the sums of others is a very powerful feature that should allow great flexibility when you analyze student scores. 38 Defining Tasks NOTE: Tasks can be removed by using the "R" (remove) option on this second menu or by redefining the task as a new task. To remove, choose the "R" (Remove) option. Then choose the task number or numbers at the prompt. Since all student data for the task(s) is also removed, you will be asked again to make sure that you want to remove the task(s). 1. Sum tasks These are tasks that are the sums of other tasks. Tasks can be summed multiple times. Example: Task 5 can be the sum of task 1 + task 1 + task 1. This would be the equivalent of multiplying the task by 3. Tasks that are not yet entered can be included in the list of tasks that will be summed. When the tasks are then defined, they will be included in the sums. NOTE: The sums of all the tasks in a Sum task must be less than 10 million points. 2. Averaged tasks These are tasks that are the average of other tasks. Task 5 can be the average of tasks 1 through 4. If you use letter grades, the averages are reported as scores between the highest (e.g. A) and the lowest tasks (e.g., F), but the average is shown with numbers, not letters. Any tasks that have not yet been entered are NOT averaged, so the averages reflect only those tasks for which the student has had scores entered. 3. Percentage tasks These are tasks that average other tasks, then convert the scores to percentages of the total points. Example: If task 10 is the percentage of tasks 5 and 6 (which each have 100 points), the program adds up the scores from 5 and 6, then divides the scores by the total points of 5 and 6 (200 points). The score is then converted to a percent by multiplying by 100. Hence, the scores range from 0 to 100 percent. Like averaged tasks, any tasks that have not yet been entered are not used in the conversions, so the percentages reported for the students are for the tasks that have already had scores entered. 39 4. Highest tasks: Throwing out the lowest scores Throwing out low tasks seems to be a popular phenomenon with students. Unfortunately, it is a fairly tedious thing to do for instructors. You can throw out the lowest of a set of tasks in VAR Grade. In the "T" section of the Main Menu, option "H" will allow you to define a task that will throw out the lowest task(s) of a special task. Example: You can throw out the lowest two out of ten tasks. Highest tasks discard the lowest one or more scores of a sum, average, or percentage tasks ("throw out the lowest of several scores"). The special task that is used must have a number lower than the highest task. This is a very common grading option that is used in many classrooms. For a highest task, the program will find the lowest scores of a list of tasks and add up only the highest of those scores. You need to tell the program how many tasks to discard (the lowest 1, the lowest 5, etc.). Scores that are unentered are discarded first, then the lowest scores that have been entered are discarded. 5. Weighted tasks You can define a task as the sum of other tasks, each times a weight. For example, you can define task 20 as the sum of task 10 with a weight of 0.2, task 11 with a weight of 0.3, and task 12 with a weight of 0.5. This will give "true" weighting of tasks. Unentered tasks are given a score of 0 for the weighting. 6. Final weighted tasks You can define a task as the sum of other tasks that are weighted such that the final percentage is what you specify as the weight. This differs from weighted tasks because the weights in the final weighted tasks are the relative worth you want each task to be in the total score while the weighted task weights are the amounts to multiply the scores for each exam. Example: If you have three exams in your class, each worth 100 points, and want to weight them 30%, 30%, and 40%, you can define task 4 as the final weight of task 1 with a final weight of 30, task 2 with a final weight of 30, and task 3 with a final weight of 40. Task 4 will have a total of 100 points. 40 Defining Tasks NOTE: The total points of the Final weighted task will be the sum of the weights that you give it. In the above example, the total points of the final weight task will be 30 + 30 + 40 = 100. The calculation for the final weights is done by taking the weights you give for each task and dividing them by the total points for each task. These numbers are then added up and multiplied by 100. For the example above, the students scores are calculated as: 100 * (((Task #1 score) * 30 / 100) + ((Task #2 score) * 30 / 100) + ((Task #3 score) * 40 / 100)) The parentheses denote calculations that are kept together. In the above example, "*" means "multiplied by". 7. Final task You can define a task as a final task. This task will keep track of the letter grades assigned in the "G" option of the Main Menu. These scores are only assigned in the "G" option. If you define a second final task, that one will be used to assign scores by the "G" option. In other words, in the "G" option the grades are assigned to the most recently defined final task. Note: If there are other types of special tasks that you would like to have the option of using, send a note to us and explain how this type of task would be calculated. We will try to accommodate you. C. Scaling Tasks In the "G" option of the Main Menu, there is an option that lets you add any number of points to a regular task, or multiply the scores of any regular task by a number. Since the primary purpose of scaling scores is to adjust the scores before giving final grades, further details are given in Chapter XI, Assigning and Printing the Final Grades. D. Memory Limitations Each task that is defined takes up space. In cases where memory is limited, you may find that you cannot define a new task. You may need to delete an old task to be able to add a new one. A second option to increase your memory is by removing any TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs like "Sidekick" (TM Borland International) from memory BEFORE running the program. A third option is to tell VAR Grade to use less memory for overlays (See Chapter V, Section B3, 41 above). Version 4.0 of VAR Grade uses very little memory per student, so, for example, classes of 30 students with 30 tasks or of 90 students and 10 tasks would take up less than 15K of memory over and above that used by the program. If you are having memory problems, contact us at the address below for possible solutions. E. Manipulating Tasks Tasks can easily be moved, copied, removed, and so forth. 1. Copying tasks Tasks may by copied to new tasks that have higher task numbers. To do this, go the "T" option of the Main Menu, then press "C". The definition of the task is copied exactly, even if the task is a special task. The students scores are copied as well. You will be asked for a new name for the task, however. Example: If the task to be copied is a number task, the new task will have the same total points and student scores as the first task. Example: If the task to be copied is defined as the percentage of tasks 1 through 3, the new task will also be defined as the percentage of tasks 1 through 3. 2. Transferring tasks When tasks are transferred, the student scores are transferred but the exam definition is not. The task to transfer to is defined as a number or letter task, depending upon the definition of the task to be transferred. The student scores are copied from the first task to the second. 3. Moving tasks You can move one or more tasks. To move one task, press "M" on the Task Type Menu. To move a group of several consecutive tasks, press "G". When a task is moved, the task is renumbered, and all the special tasks that use that task are redefined to refer to the new number, as well. When you move a group of tasks, you are asked for the first and last numbers of the tasks to move. All the tasks between and including those two numbers are moved. Student scores, of course, move along with the task. 42 Defining Tasks 4. Clearing student scores To redefine all student scores for a task as unentered, use the "K" option on the Task Type Menu. The task remains defined the same way as previously. You can clear only regular tasks, as the others are recalculated each time scores are entered into the class. 5. Show task definition To help you remember how you have defined tasks, the "V" option on the Task Type Menu will list the current definition of the task. 6. Removing tasks You can remove one or more tasks from the class. The "R" option on the Task Type Menu asks you for a list of all the tasks to remove. After you specify the tasks to be removed, the program will ask you if you really want to remove them. If you say "D" (delete), the task and the student scores will be deleted from the class. Using the option with the key to select all tasks will start the class over for you. If you have the same students from one grading period to the next, removing all the tasks will start the class over for you, while keeping the students in the class. F. Examples of Task Definitions Example #1: I gave three tests. The first was worth 100 points, the second was worth 130 points, and the third was worth 211 points. I want the exams to be worth 25%, 25%, and 50%, respectively. Solution: Define the tests as Tasks 1 through 3, all number tasks. Define task 4 as a Final Weight Task. For task 4, make task 1 have a weight of 25, task 2 have a weight of 25, and task 3 have a weight of 50. Task 4 will be worth 100 points. Example #2: For each test, I give two versions to my students. Half the students take one version, half the other. I want to keep track of each version separately, yet calculate the final averages in the semester for the students in my class. Solution: For each test, define three tasks. The first two are the two versions of the tests. The third one is an Average Task, which averages the first two tasks. The third task will be the average of one task that has an entered score and one that is unentered, hence equivalent to the entered score (see the definition of Average Tasks, above). 43 Example #3: I give a homework assignment, then give students extra credit for turning it in early. At the end of the semester, I discard the lowest homework assignment. However, I don't want the extra credit discarded, just the lowest homework. Solution: When the homework is graded, define the homework task, the extra credit task, and a third task, the sum of the homework and extra credit. When you discard the lowest homework assignment, use the third task in the definition, not the first two tasks. Example #4: I want to distinguish between unentered grades and excused grades. How do I do it? Solution: The program keeps track of the lowest allowed score. When the program is first run, the lowest allowed score is 0. You can, however, enter scores less than 0. You can always enter scores down to - 1,000,000. NOTE: You can tell the program the lowest score to use for statistics in the "G" option on the Main Menu, then "F" for fewest. The program, when calculating statistics, assumes that scores less than the fewest allowed points are unentered scores. The scores you entered, however, are displayed correctly (as scores less than the fewest allowed) when printing or entering scores. Hence, if you enter a -1, it will be ignored for the plots, etc., but written as a -1 when you print the scores. Example #5: I want to assign grades to students halfway through the semester. I then want to assign final grades at the end of the semester. Solution: Define a Final Task at the half way point. Then assign grades in the "G" option of the Main Menu. After you have assigned the grades, define a new Final Task. The next time you assign grades to a Final Task, the new final task will get the new grades, and the first Final Task will also remain. Example #6: I defined a number task as having 100 points. I entered grades, then decided to redefine it as having 110 points. Yet, I do not want to lose the previously entered grades. Solution: When you redefine a task, the program asks whether to delete any previous grades. If you say no, the grades will not be changed. The only exception is if you decrease the number of points, and a student has more than that number. The student score will be decreased to the new maximum points for the task. 44 VIII. ENTERING GRADES Grades can be entered into the program in either of two ways. Either the whole class can be listed for a list of tasks, the "D" option of the Main Menu, or every grade for an individual student can be listed, the "I" option on the Main Menu. A. Entering Data for the Whole Class The "D" option of the Main Menu lets you enter task data for all students in the class. 1. Moving around the screen Students, IDs, sections, and tasks can be listed on the screen. To enter scores, the tasks must have already been defined in the "T" option on the Main Menu. Only number, letter, and extra credit tasks can have scores entered. The others are calculated by VAR Grade. To change which data is listed on the screen, use the key . You will be asked (a) if you want to list the students by name, ID, or both; if you pick both, there will be one column for each on the screen. (b) Next, if there is more than one section of students in the class, you will be asked if you want the sections to be listed. (c) Next, you will be asked if student notes should be listed. (d) Finally, you can pick which tasks are listed on the screen. The options you select are saved by the program, so that the next time you use the program, the same list is shown. Any time you define a regular task, it will be added to the end of the list of tasks. Only the first characters of the task name (how many depends upon the total points for the task), as well as its number, are listed at the top of the columns, while the student names, and/or IDs, notes, and sections are listed on the left. A cell is a piece of data. It can be a task score, a name, etc. To move between cells, use the cursor keys. The cursor keys are the ones on the keypad, including the arrows and the home, end, etc. keys. If you "use" cursor keys, then use -cursor keys to move between cells. Otherwise, use the left, right, etc. keys to move between the cells. You can change between "using" and not using cursor keys for editing on the "Z" option of the Main Menu (See Chapter IV, Section H, above). If you move past the right end of the screen, the tasks are scrolled to the left. The student names (or IDs), however, always stay listed on the screen. If there too many students to fit on one 45 screen, the list will scroll up as you move down the screen. The top of the screen lists some special keys. They are: Move to the beginning, left hand column. Move to the end column, that furthest right. Insert a new student before the student where the cursor is. If the cursor is at the end of the line, insert the new student after the current one. Delete the student where the cursor is. This immediately deletes the student. Change columns (discussed above). Save the data to memory. It is not saved to disk. To do that, use the "S" option on the Main Menu. Restore (undo) the data in that cell. This works only if you have not left the cell. Delete the data in that cell. 2. Enter the data You can use the cursor keys to move around the class and screen. Unentered scores are left blank. You can enter the new scores in the appropriate places. To keep the same score, type only a or use the cursor keys to move to the next cell. To enter a new number score, put in a new number between the minimum allowed points and the total allowed points of that task. Other numbers are rejected. The minimum allowed points are -1,000,000, while the maximum for any task is 1,000,000. You can use decimal points in number scores. To enter a zero, you must type a "0". Cells for tasks that are left blank revert to unentered scores. If you are entering letter grades, only letters that are in the names of the grades are allowed (e.g., for grades from A to F, only the letters A, B, C, D, and F are allowed). Press or to stop entering scores. With , the data in the current cell is discarded and you can quit without saving any of the changes (except deleting students by the key), while automatically saves it to memory, but not to the disk. You can also alter the student name, ID, and section numbers. To delete a student, delete the name (e.g., with ), or use . 3. Hints (a) It is helpful to give the tasks names. The names can be up to 20 characters long. You can enter scores into any defined task whether or not the task name exists. However, names will help you make sure you are entering scores into the correct task. When entering data for the 46 Entering Grades whole class, only the beginning of the task names is listed. (b) VAR Grade can be used to add up points on any task. To use VAR Grade to add up scores for questions on a test, for example, you can define Task 20 as question 1, Task 21 as question 2, etc, in the "T" option on the Main Menu. Then, define Task 22 as the Sum of Tasks 20 and 21. Voila! You can then use the program to add up the points on questions 1 and 2 of the task. You could then also use VAR Grade to do statistics on each individual question. If you have a large number of questions on the task, this could get a little tedious, as you need to define each question and enter the grades for each task. B. Entering Individual Student Data The "I" option of the Main Menu lets you enter task data for all tasks of individual students. The program will list all the number, letter, and extra credit tasks for one student. Use the cursor keys to move around the screen. You can alter any of the tasks, as well as the student names, IDs, or sections. Unentered scores are left blank. To delete a score, make the cell blank (e.g., with the key). To keep the same score, type only a or use the cursor keys to move to the next cell. To enter a new score, put in a new number between the fewest allowed points and the total allowed points. To enter scores less than zero, you need to change the fewest allowed points in the "G" option on the Main Menu. The minimum allowed points are -1,000,000, while the maximum points are 1,000,000. To enter a zero, you must type a "0". Press or to stop entering scores. With , you can quit without saving the changes, while automatically records the changes. You can also alter the student names, IDs, and section numbers. To delete a student, delete the name (e.g., with ). The top of the screen lists some special keys. They are: Move to the first student in the class. Move to the last student in the class. Move to the previous student. Move to the next student. Insert a new student before the student where the cursor is. If the cursor is at the end of the line, insert the new student after the current one. Delete the student where the cursor is. This takes immediate effect. Find a student. You will pick from a list of all the students in the class. Save the data to memory. It is not saved to disk. To do that, use the "S" option on the Main Menu. 47 C. Saving Entered Data to Disk It is strongly recommended that you save the data you have just entered as soon as possible after entering it. Although the program won't let you exit without saving changes, in case of power failures or computer failure, you will have a copy on disk of your new data. You save entered data in the "S" option on the Main Menu. You will be asked for the filename to save the data to. The current filename is listed on the line, and just pressing will do the trick. If you want to change the name, change it, then press . If you change the name, further updates will be made to the new name. WARNING: When you "save" data in the "D" or "I" options of the program, you are saving it to memory, not to a disk file. NOTE: The file that contains your student data is normally made a "read-only" file. This means that you cannot delete it with the DOS del or erase commands. You can tell the program to write your files "read-only", as "hidden" (the DOS dir command will not even list the file), or "normal". Normal files can be deleted in DOS. The program also makes backup files "normal", hence they can easily be deleted. Details on how to change the way the program saves the data are in Chapter V, Starting the Program. It is also recommended that you keep two copies of your class data on disk. To encourage this practice, another option on the Main Menu, "B" (backup), will write the class to another directory. The program will suggest writing the file to either drive A or B, so that the data will be on floppy disks. If you are using drive A for your class, the program will suggest drive B, otherwise it will suggest writing to drive A. You can, of course, pick any other drive or directory. 48 IX. ATTENDANCE Attendance dates can be defined and attendance entered for up to 240 different days. The attendance is entered by a whole class, or by individual students in a manner analogous to those for entering data for tasks. Attendance is found in the "A" option of the Main Menu. A. Defining Attendance Days You define attendance days in the "D" option of the Attendance Menu. There are two methods by which to define a new attendance day. First, to choose the next undefined day, press . Second, you can type in any number (from 1 to 240) as the day you want to define. In either case, you need to give the day a name or date. In fact, it is required that you enter a name or date before the attendance is defined. To make it easy to enter dates, the function keys through can be used to automatically enter the dates. The keys are defined as the following: The date two days ago. The date yesterday. The date today. The date tomorrow. The date in two days. The date any number of days from todays date, up to 365 days away. You need to enter the days. Example: To enter the date one week earlier, enter a -7. The dates that are entered are in whatever format you have chosen. These can be changed in the "Z" option on the Main Menu. With this option you can change how dates will be printed on documents as well as how they are entered in attendance. B. Changing Defaults By default, when attendance days are added, the student attendance is made "Present". There are six categories of attendance: Present, Excused, Unexcused, Late, Not Entered, and Other. These have the characters " ", "E", "U", "L", "_", and "O", respectively. The default student attendance and the characters associated with them can be altered on the "A" (Attendance) option of the Main Menu, then "Z". The screen will list the current values. The default new student attendance will be highlighted or, if you have a monochrome monitor, underlined (unless you've changed the 49 default colors). Use the cursor keys (or -cursor keys) to move around the menu. To select a new default student attendance, press . The new value will now be highlighted. To change the letters for the different types of attendance, pick the new key. To simplify matters, any lowercase letters will be converted to uppercase letters. The allowed keys are the uppercase letters and the characters ".", "_", "-", and " ". C. Entering Class Attendance To enter attendance for all students in your class, use the "C" option of the Attendance Menu. This option works like the "D" option of the Main Menu for entering task data. 1. Choose the dates Students and days will be listed on the screen. Just as in entering task scores, to change the columns, use the key . You can then pick which days to list on the screen, as well as whether to list the names, IDs, and sections. See Chapter VIII, Section A1 for more details. The most recently defined list of names and days are saved by the program. If you define new attendance days, they will automatically be added to the end of the list of days to display. The top of the screen lists valid keys and key codes for the attendance. Next the days are listed by name and number. The names are listed by the first several letters of the date. Student names and/or IDs are on the left of each row. If you have numerous days you want displayed, not all of them may fit on the screen at once. If you move to the right, more may be displayed. The names or IDs in the leftmost column are always displayed. 2. Enter the data You can use the cursor or -cursor keys to move around the class and screen. The valid keys are listed at the top of the screen. Only those keys will be accepted. To delete a student, delete the name (e.g., with ), or use . To add a new student, type . When quitting this section, any changes made to the screen are recorded by the program by , or possibly by exiting with . 50 Attendance D. Entering Individual Student Attendance To change attendance for just one student, use the "I" option of the Attendance Menu. The program will list all of the currently defined attendance days for a student. You can alter the attendance for any day, as well as the student name, ID, or section. To keep the same attendance, type a or use the cursor keys to move to another day. To enter a new attendance value, put in a new letter (from the list near the top of the screen). Press to erase the data or to save it when finished. To delete a student, delete the name (e.g., with ), or use . To add a new student, type . For more details, see Chapter VIII, Section B. 51 X. ANALYZING THE GRADES Grades can be analyzed a variety of ways. These are listed in the sections below. Furthermore, all the statistics and plots listed below can be printed on a printer or sent to a disk file. Chapter XI, Printing the Grades, explains the printing. The analyses in this chapter are generally from the "G" and "P" options of the Main Menu. A. Default Values for Analysis After you pick several of the options listed below, a screen will appear that asks how you want to proceed. Several options will be listed, including: (a) which printer to use; (b) what sections to use; (c) whether to print to the screen or to a printer or disk file; (d) whether to temporarily drop students from the statistical analysis. Picking a printer and deciding where the data should be displayed are discussed in Chapter XI, Assigning and Printing the Grades. The others are discussed here. 1. Sections If you have only one section of students in the class, this option is not displayed. Otherwise, the most recently selected sections will be listed. Each time you enter the program, the program will default to using all of the current sections of the class. If you change the list of sections to use, this new list will become the default sections for all parts of the program during the current session with the program. If you choose to use no sections, an error message will result and you will exit back to the Main Menu as there are no usable data. 2. Temporarily dropping students You can tell the program to temporarily drop students from the calculations for statistics and/or plots. This option can be used for students that have incomplete data. The number of students currently ignored are shown on the Print Menu screen. These students are ignored only for statistical purposes. You can still enter data, write scores to printers, etc., unless statistical measures are needed (e.g., all plots). When you need to increase or decrease the numbers of students to ignore, two lists of students will be shown: (1) all the students in the class, and, (2) those students who are temporarily dropped from the statistics calculations. 52 Analyzing the Grades You drop students by using either the cursor keys or by typing in the student names. The key can be used to switch between adding and decreasing the number of students to be ignored. These students will be ignored for any further statistics during the current session with the program or until they are no longer ignored in this part of the program. 3. Font selection You can change fonts from the Plot Menu. Font files must end in "CHR". You will be asked for the directory for the font files. The program will suggest "*.CHR". This will list all the font files in the DOS PATH. You can, however, change which drive to search by replacing *.CHR with, for example: "A:*.CHR". This will cause the program to search drive A for the font files. WARNING: Some fonts will not look good on some video monitors. NOTE: The registered version of the program has more fonts available than the shareware version. 4. 2D versus 3D plots Most plots can be done either with bars that look two dimensional (2D), or with bars that look three dimensional (3D). The plots are otherwise the same. B. Plotting the Scores of a Class By selecting the "P" (plot) option on the Main Menu, the scores for any of the tasks can be plotted. The program lists the tasks and asks for a task to be plotted. On the Plot Menu, "P" will plot the scores, and "T" will give the same plot with 3-D bars. Plotting the scores follows the sequence below. 1. Choose a task You will see a list of all the tasks. To see any that are not listed on the screen, use the cursor or -cursor keys. If you pick task zero or , the program will exit this section without plotting an task. Otherwise, the task will be plotted. 2. Score ranges If you grade with numbers, you must specify the range of scores to plot (the high and low scores). The program will ask for these numbers. If you just type when asked for the high and/or low scores, the program will pick the highest or lowest score in the class. If there are no students in the range of scores you have chosen, an error message will result and no scores will be plotted. 53 By picking different ranges of scores, you can zoom in on various groups of students to see how they have done, rather than seeing scores only for the entire class. One of the most useful features of picking the low range is to prevent a very low score from skewing the plot. Student scores not yet entered or lower than the fewest allowed points are not used for the plots. 3. Defaults As discussed above, after picking the task and a range of scores, you can pick which sections of students to use and where to print the scores. See Part A of this chapter for more details. 4. Plotting the scores The plot separates the scores into up to 25 categories of scores. It also shows the mean, median, and standard deviation of the scores for the task (see the section on "Calculating Statistics" below for a more complete explanation of what these statistics mean). It plots the numbers of students with the various scores. The statistics calculated are only for those scores in the range of scores you choose. If you vary the high or low range of the scores used, these statistical measures will change. On the plot, the mean and median are shown with arrows. At one standard deviation above and below the mean are additional arrows (listed as "+1", "-1"). If the standard deviations fall outside the range of scores plotted, they may not be displayed. 5. Listing the scores After the plot is shown, you will be asked if you want to see the list of students' scores. If you decide to see them, the program will list the students scores in two columns: (a) class order (dependent upon your method of sorting students) and (b) by scores on that task, from high to low. The rank order of the students is also printed, if you choose that option on the Print Menu (the program defaults to printing the ranks). C. Plotting the Scores of an Individual You can follow how a student is doing in your class by plotting the scores for that student on a set of tasks. By selecting on the Plot Menu the "I" for 2D bars, or "B" for 3D bars, you can plot trends for scores of any of the class tasks for an individual student. 54 Analyzing the Grades 1. Picking the tasks The program will list the tasks and asks you to pick which ones to plot. You have the option of plotting (a) the percentages of each task, (b) the sums (totals) of each task, (c) the T-scores, or (d) the standard deviations from the mean for each task. 2. Listing the scores The program will then plot the task scores and calculate the statistics. The program assumes that the student trend is a straight line: either the scores increase or decrease. Note that this is frequently not the case, hence, these results should be interpreted with caution. The program then calculates the best-fitting line for that trend, and plots it on the graph. The correlation coefficient for the tasks, and the mean, median and standard deviations are also calculated. These all may or may not be useful for understanding how a student is doing in the class. The statistics are listed on the screen after the graph is plotted. If you choose more tasks than fits on one screen, you will need to press a key to proceed through all the tasks. D. Calculating Statistics You can calculate statistics without having to plot the scores. Rather than plotting each task to calculate the mean, median, and standard deviation, you can pick the "G" (grade) option on the Main Menu, then pick the "M" option on the Grading Menu. You can then see these statistics for any combination of tasks. To calculate statistics, you need to choose which tasks to calculate statistics, and pick which sections to use. The data will be calculated only for those sections you have told the program to use. This allows comparisons between different sections or combinations of sections. Statistics will not be calculated if a task has not been defined or if the task has less than the fewest allowed points. The median is the score for the person exactly in the middle of the class, i.e., exactly half the scores are above that number and half are below that number. The mean is the number calculated by adding up all the student scores and dividing by the number of students in the class. If you have a "normal" or "bell-shaped" distribution of scores, the mean and median should be the same number. In practice they are usually different. The standard deviation is a measure of how the scores are dispersed. The larger the standard deviation, the greater the range in the scores. A score that is equal to the mean plus the standard deviation (called "one standard deviation above the mean") is approximately in the top 16% of the scores. For a normal distribution, two thirds of the scores should be within one standard deviation of the mean. 55 How many standard deviations away from the mean a student has scored, therefore, is a measure of how the student did on the task in relation to everybody else. You can then compare scores between tests by comparing the deviations from the means for each student. E. Correlating Different Tasks By selecting the "C" or "3" options on the Plot Menu, you can plot the scores for any of the tasks against the scores for any of the other tasks. This helps you to see if there were any problems on one or both of those tasks. If the tasks are measuring different things, the scores will be widely scattered. This may be an indication that one or both of the tasks did not measure what you hoped it would. If the tasks are measuring similar abilities, the scores will tend to cluster near the diagonal. 1. 2D or 3D plots In contrast to the other plots, the two different plots for correlations look quite different. In the 2D plot, the scores are shown as x's. If two or more x's are on the same place, the x becomes thicker. For the 3D plot, 3D bars are plotted. The more students on a point, the higher the bars. To make the plot easier to interpret, it is slightly skewed. This makes it easier to tell the difference between tall bars and bars at different points on the graph. 2. Choose the tasks You must choose the tasks to plot on each of the axes. Any task can be plotted against any other task. To help in your selection, the program lists the tasks. If you pick task zero for either axis, the program will give an error message and ask again. To exit this section without plotting, type an . 3. Pick a range of scores for each task If you grade with number grades, for each task that you have picked, you must pick the high and low scores to plot. If you just type , the program will pick the highest or lowest score in the class (whichever is appropriate). If no students are in the ranges of scores that you pick, no scores will be plotted and an error message will result. 4. Defaults As discussed above, after picking the task and range of scores, you can pick the sections, decide whether to ignore students, and change how to print the scores. See Part A of this chapter (above). 56 Analyzing the Grades 5. Correlation plot The plot shows a 20 X 20 matrix of the distribution of the scores. The correlation coefficient is calculated and shown. The coefficient ranges from 1.0 (the scores on the X-axis predict exactly the scores on the Y-axis) to 0.0 (the scores on the two axes are completely random with respect to each other) to -1.0 (the low scores on the X-axis predict high scores on the Y-axis, and vice versa). The closer the coefficient is to 1.0, the more closely the two tasks measured the same parameters or abilities (and hence the students scored more nearly the same on both the tasks). If the correlation coefficient is close to 0 or below it, then students who did well on one task did poorly on the other. If you decide that this result indicates a flaw in one or both of the test, the program will allow you to delete one or both tasks. Note: The 3D plot is tilted slightly. This makes it easier to distinguish the different scores. For the 2D plot, two or more scores on the same point will show up as a thicker "x", while on the 3D plot, the bars will get higher and higher with each score. F. Statistical Plots of the Classes The last type of plot, the "S" option on the Plot Menu, shows plots of the mean, median, and standard deviations for one or more tasks. Furthermore, the "1" option on the Plot Menu will show how an individual student scored on those tasks compared with the entire class. 1. Pick the tasks The program lists the tasks and asks for which ones you wish to plot. You can choose to plot from one to forty tasks. If you want to plot an individual student against the scores, you will also be asked for a student record to plot. 2. Plotting the statistics The program will show the range of scores as bars. The mean is a wide line all the way horizontally across the bar. The median is a horizontal bar halfway across the bar, with some vertical lines in it. The standard deviation is shown as the vertical line, extending one standard deviation above and below the mean. At one standard deviation above and below the mean are horizontal lines extending halfway across the bar. If you are plotting the scores of a student as well, that student's scores are shown as arrows. The tip of the arrow is the position of the student's score. If you plot tasks that have a wide range of scores, some or all of these measures may end up compressed. The range of scores that are plotted are from the lowest to the highest obtained scores. The Y axis may extend down to 0 points, however, even if no scores are that low. The widths of the bars 57 changes depending upon how many tasks are plotted; the more tasks, the narrower the bars. The X-axis shows the numbers of the tasks that were plotted. G. Scaling the Tasks If you grade using number grades, you can scale the regular tasks differently. Pick the "G" (grade) option of the Main Menu, then the "S" (scale) option in the Grading Menu. You may add any number of points to an task, or multiply the task by any positive number. The total points for the task, after the scaling, must be less than or equal to one million and greater than or equal to the lowest allowed score. Point totals less than the allowed scores are summed as the lowest allowed score, while scores greater than the total task points are set at the total points. Students with scores that have not been entered are not changed (the score is still undefined). This part of the program allows you to conveniently change point totals for any task. It also allows you to add points to one section and not to others, as the scaling occurs only for those sections you choose. You cannot scale special tasks. The total points for the task, after scaling, will not change. If desired, you can readjust the total points manually in the "T" section of the Main Menu either before or after scaling the task. H. Setting the Fewest Allowed Points. When the program starts, the fewest points that a student can have on a task is 0 points. If you want to enter scores less than 0, you can set the fewest allowed points to be less than zero. On the "G" option of the Main Menu, the "F" option allows this. You can reset the number to as few as -1,000,000 points. Even though the fewest allowed points may be 0 (or any other number), you can still put in scores less than the fewest allowed points. Students with scores less than the fewest allowed points will be ignored for statistical tests, and are considered to be equivalent to unentered scores. The difference from unentered scores is that the numbers you enter will be printed if you print the scores, whereas unentered scores will be blank. I. Assigning Standard Deviations and T-Scores Standard deviations and T-scores tell you how a student did in relation to the other students in the class. You can calculate the standard deviations and/or T-scores of a task for the class, and assign these numbers to a number task. Go to the "G" option on the Main Menu. On the Grading Menu, press "V" for standard deviations, or "T" for T-scores. You will be asked which task to use for the calculations, and to which task to assign the new scores. WARNING: The new task will be redefined as a number task. If you assign standard deviations and T-scores, approximately half of the scores will 58 Analyzing the Grades be below zero. Make sure that you change the fewest allowed points to a number below the lowest standard deviation or T- score (see Section H, above). J. Adjusting the Statistics of a Task In unusual circumstances, you may want to manually adjust the mean, median, and standard deviation of a task. The "A" option on the Grading Menu lets you do this. The "D" option lets you remove those adjustments. One reason you might want to do this is to "freeze" the current numbers. Make-up exams or late homework assignments will continually change the statistics on a task. Adjusting the statistics after the grades have been assigned on a task to the current value will stop these values from changing. To adjust the statistics, you need to pick the task to use. The current values are then displayed. You can change one or more of these values to any numbers you want. These numbers are then used by all the other parts of the program that calculate these values. To return to the true values, use the "D" option on the Grading Menu. K. Changing the Grading Names VAR Grade can use just about any grading system you want. The program defaults to the grading system commonly used in the United States: A through F, with + and - scores. However, you can define any grading system that has up to 12 grades (plus a "unentered" or "incomplete" grade). Each grade can have a name of up to two characters long. The grading system can have the highest grade as the highest score, or the highest grade as having the lowest score. Furthermore, you can assign point totals to the grades. To change the grading system, go to the "G" option on the Main Menu. Choose the "N" option on the Grading Menu. Next, you will be asked whether to use one of a few pre-defined grading systems, or to define your own system. If you define your own grading system, you will be asked to enter the grade names, then the point totals for the grades. These point totals are the values for the grades, not the scores that are needed to obtain the grade (see Section L to do this). Grade names and point totals can be changed at any time. The program converts all letter grades to numbers and stores the numbers. WARNING: If you change the grading system after assigning letter grades, the new numbers may translate into a different grade than you want. 59 L. Picking Automatic Grade Cutoffs If you always use the same grading system, you may want to set the grading system in the "C" option of the Grading Menu. For instance, you can tell the program that 90% is an A, 80% is a B, etc. Alternatively, you can tell the program that 90 points is an A, 80 points a B, etc. When you assign grades, VAR Grade will use these values, either as percentages or points, as the point system to use when assigning grades. You can change the grading system at any time. To remove the cutoff points needed for various grades assigned in the "C" option, use the "R" (remove) option of the Grading Menu. The program will again ask you for the lowest scores for each grade every time you assign grades in the "G" option of the Main Menu. 60 XI. ASSIGNING AND PRINTING THE GRADES AND ATTENDANCE You can print out the grades and attendance of a class by three methods: 1. Plot the scores of a task. The program will list the student scores for that task in numerical order and in sorted order (see Chapter X, Analyzing the Grades). 2. Print grades or attendance for any combination of tasks and sections or names with the "W" (write) option on the Main Menu--discussed below. 3. Assign and print the grades with the "G" (grade) option on the Main Menu. This method is also discussed below. A. Default Values for Analysis After picking several of the options listed below, a menu will appear that asks how you want to proceed. This is the Print Menu. Listed on the menu will be several options, including: (a) which printer to use; (b) what sections to use; (c) whether to print to the screen or to a printer or disk file. The options listed will vary in different parts of the program. Some of the options are listed above, in Chapter X, Analyzing the Grades. 1. Choosing a printer When you install the program, you are asked which printer you will be using. If you want to change which printer will be used or how to print (single or double spacing; pica or elite; etc.), press "Q" on the Print Menu to get to the Printer Menu. The Printer Menu can also be reached in the "Z" option of the Main Menu. (a) Installation of a printer To install a new printer, press "P" on the Printer Menu. The program, INSTALLP must be on a disk or directory that the program can find, and there must be enough memory to run the program INSTALLP. It will list all the currently supported printers. Use the cursor keys to locate the printer(s) that you wish to install. When you find each one, press the space bar. After you have picked up to 5 different printers, press the key to install the printers. To quit before installing the printers, press . This will install the Graphics printer codes. If yours is not listed, your printer manual should list the printer(s) that it emulates. Note: The list of supported printers will be continually updated. If yours is not 61 supported with the version that you have, an update may be available that will explicitly support your printer. When you install the printers, the program will change the file GRADE.PDT. For many of the printers, the Line printer codes will also be installed. For most, however, you also need to tell the program which printer codes to use. Pick the "L" option on the Printer Menu. Listed will be several different printers that are frequently emulated. Most printers emulate the Epson FX-80 printer. If yours does, pick that. If not, it may emulate one of the other printers listed below. Some printer manufacturers and the printers they usually emulate is listed below. If your printer is not listed, or if you want to change the printer codes for your printer, use the "U" option on the Printer Menu to put in the printer codes. Line Printer Def. Printers Supported Epson FX-80 Most Epson printers, including the EX, FX, MX, and RX series. Also, many printers from Brother, Citizen, and others. IBM Graphics Printer IBM dot matrix, Okidata with IBM emulation, Star Micronics, and others. HP Laser Jet HP LaserJet, Plus, Series II, DeskJet, PaintJet, and most laser printers. NEC P-2200 Most NEC printers. Okidata 92 Okidata 84, 92, 93, 192, 193, 292, and others. (b) Changing the line printer codes To change the printer codes, press "U" on the Printer Menu. Listed will be the current printer codes. To change them, use the cursor keys to move to the code that you want, then press the correct codes. Your printer manual will list the codes needed to use pica, elite, etc. printing. NOTE: Some of the keys work differently in this part of the program, as you need to be able to enter any possible printer code. To enter escape (#27), press the key. The backspace key will enter (#8). The enter or key will enter (#13). To enter codes below 32 or above 127, hold down the key, then use the keys on the numeric keypad to enter the number. You can enter up to 10 characters for each of the codes. To backspace (remove the previous character), use the key. After you exit with , the new codes will be in effect. Pressing will switch between listing the codes as hex numbers or as text. 62 Printing the Grades (c) Changing the graphic printer codes If your printer is not supported, or if the printer codes that are used by the program are not producing the results that you want, the program BDE (Baby Driver Editor) can be used to change the codes. BDE is available to registered users, only. (d) Printer errors If there are problems with your printer (not turned on, out of paper, etc.), the program will put out an error message. Sometimes the error message may mistakenly state that the error is a "disk" error instead of a printer error. In either case, try to correct the error before telling the program to continue. If the error is not correctable, output to the printer will stop. In most cases, the printing is just turned off. (e) Changing installed printers After you choose your printer, the choice is written to a file called "GRADE.PRT". This file also contains the various line printer codes, and is written to the current directory. To change the printer, go to the Printer Menu, then select the number of the printer you want to use. If the printer is not listed, it is not installed, and must be installed before it can be chosen. If you have your classes each in different directories, you can have each class set up to print differently. The program searches for the GRADE.PRT file in the current directory first, then searches for the file in the directory where the program is located, then, if still not found, searches for the file in a directory specified by the DOS PATH command. (f) Changing the printer ports The program assumes that you are using the first parallel printer port, called LPT1 (also called LST or PRN). To change this, you can pick either of several parallel or serial ports as the destination of the printing. No checking is done for the port, so if the port you choose does not exist, you will not be able to print data. 2. Print options The "Z" option of the Printer Menu lets you change how the page is output to a printer or disk file. 63 (a) Line Spacing Single, double, and even greater spacing of lines can be printed. Changes from single line spacing occur when output is sent to a disk or the printer, never on the screen. Also note that the plots are always single spaced. (b) Margins You can set up the left, right, top, and bottom margins of the pages. The left margin is the number of characters to leave blank on the left side of the page. The right margin is set indirectly: you specify the number of characters on a line. If you decrease the number of characters, the line is shorter, hence you have a larger right margin. The header and footer set the lines at the top and bottom of the page. The page numbers are written in the footer, while the running head on the top right of the page is written in the header. Setting either to 0 will prevent them from being written. You can also stop page numbers from being written by telling the program to stop printing page numbers. Lastly, you can specify the number of lines on a page. A typical 8 1/2" by 11" page in pica mode has 80 characters on a line and 66 lines. Elite has 96 characters and 88 lines, while compressed has 136 characters and 110 lines. This flexibility also can cause problems. If you have set the number of characters to a very small number, you can truncate some of the data sent to the printer. If only the left part of the graph has been written, check the margins that you have set to see if that is the problem. If the program doesn't break the pages in the correct place, try increasing or decreasing the lines on a page. (c) Listing ranks You can have VAR Grade print out the rank of each student when listing the students in the class. This option can be turned on or off in the Print Menu. Student ranks will be listed by whatever sorting method you have chosen (see Chapter VI, Section E, above). For example, if you have sorted the class by student names, the ranks printed will be the alphabetical order of the class. If you sort by the score on an task, the ranks will be by the score on that task. Note that if you sort the class without regard to sections, then print them by sections, the numbers will not necessarily be consecutive for each student in each section. 64 Printing the Grades (d) Printing Notes You often enter notes that you do not want printed out. VAR Grade, therefore, will print the notes only if you tell it to. You can toggle (switch on and off) whether to show the notes. If the toggle is on (the notes will be shown), when data is printed, the notes will also be printed. NOTE: When printing final grades from the "G" option of the Main Menu, the notes may not all fit onto the lines when printing both the student ID and names and may be truncated. To print out notes that you have entered into the student records, you need to tell the program to "show" the notes. Pressing "T" on the Write Data Menu will let you indicate whether to show the notes. You can also indicate whether to show the notes in the Print Menu that is always seen before you print your data. For those parts of the program where you can print notes, there is an option on the Print Menu that lets you toggle whether to show the notes. 3. Disk files When you print files to disk, they are printed as ASCII files. This means that you can then use a word processor to alter them in any way that you want, or use the word processor to print the files. If you pick the "D" (print to disk) option, you will be asked the name of the file. Pressing or will cause the default disk file listed to be written; typing "none" will turn off the printing to a disk file. In case of a syntax error in the file name, the program will ask for a new name. The program checks to see whether there is enough space on your disk and to see if a file with that name already exists. If there is not enough space on the disk, the program will stop sending files to the disk. If you are printing a graph or plot, the program will write the plots to a file with the same filename, but the extension (the part after the period), will be changed. NOTE: The plots are not written in ASCII letters, but will be written for whichever printer you specify. These can be printed from disk to your printer by typing "COPY file.ext PRN". Each type of plot has a different letter in the extension (the first letter of the suggested extension), with a number from 00 to 99 after it. For example, printing a plot to a disk file for the class GSAMPLE will produce a file "GSAMPLE.P00". If that file already exists, it would be written to "GSAMPLE.P01", etc. The disk file that you specify will contain a line in it telling you the name of the file for the plot. 65 4. Class name In addition, in the "Z" option of the Main Menu, there is an option that will let you rename the class with up to 15 characters. This rename is for printing purposes only, and will not change the file name of the class. When VAR Grade prints data to a printer or disk file, it also prints the name of the class. Renaming the class will override the default name (which is the one used when starting the program). Example: The class is called "BIO" when you tell VAR Grade to use it. The default name for printing would be "BIO". You can change it to anything else, e.g. "Biology 100", for printing purposes, but the file name(s) will still be BIO (plus the extensions ".PAR" and ".DAT"). B. Printing the Student Scores and Attendance If you want to print out a list of the students and their task scores, select the Main Menu choice "W" (write). This is the Write Data Menu. You can print out all the task scores or attendance for one student ("by name") or for whole sections of students ("by section"); you can print a grid for entering scores; or, you can export data in formats that can be read by other programs. 1. By name After you select this option, you will see a list of students in the class. If there are more students than fit on one screen, you can use the cursor keys to locate the desired student. The highlighted name can be chosen by typing . You can also pick a name by typing it in at the prompt, but you must spell the name as the name appears in the program (in upper and/or lower case letters). If you type in the name, and there is more than one section of students in the class, you must enter the section number for the student (or to search for the section--note that the program will find only the first occurrence of the name). If you use attendance in your class, you also need to choose whether you want to write attendance, tasks scores, or task scores and a summary of attendance. The program first lists the name of the student, the ID, the section, and the date the data was printed (i.e., the current date). It will then list all the defined tasks by number and name as well as the scores for the student, the total points for the task, and the percentage of the total points for the student score. If you grade with letter grades, the total points and percentages are not listed, since they are meaningless. If no score was entered for the student, it is listed as "not entered". For attendance, VAR Grade will list all the dates and attendance. For the attendance summary, a list of the totals for each attendance 66 Printing the Grades category will be printed. If you list the scores to a printer or to a disk file, VAR Grade will break the listing into pages. You can change such things as margins, type styles, etc. before you print the class from the Print Menu (see above). 2. By section If you select this option, you must pick the tasks or attendance days to print, ending the input with a , followed by a second (with no other characters) or "0" . This tells the program that you are finished putting in task or attendance numbers. NOTE: If there are too many tasks or attendance days to print on one screen, the program will print out as many as fits across the page for a whole section, then more, etc., until all tasks and students have been printed. After specifying what to print, you reach the Print Menu. If the wrong section, printer, or other options are listed, change them before specifying where to print the data. If you are printing the student notes, they will be printed after any tasks that you have chosen. We always recommend that you print the scores on your printer immediately after entering task scores, just in case there is a computer or disk malfunction. If you print the scores on your printer, using elite type and single spacing will allow more scores to be printed per page than pica printing. As mentioned above, you can set margins, page lengths, characters per line, etc. from the Printer Menu. Although you may have entered scores using several decimal places, they may be printed using only one or even no places to the right of the decimal, depending upon how many points the task is worth. NOTE: The program keeps grades using 15 significant digits, but may not print that many. When printed to the printer, page lengths are calculated and the printing formatted accordingly. The date is also printed so that you know when you last printed your class data. 3. Printing grids For entering student data, it is often useful to list the students with a blank grid. You can then use it to record the grades. The grid can make it easier to enter the student grades into the computer. The program will just list all the students in the class and empty boxes (grids) for entering student data. C. Calculating and Printing Grades To calculate and print grades on a task (or final grades) use the "G" (grade) option on the Main Menu, then "G", "P", or "3" on the Grading Menu. 67 1. Choose a task First, pick which task to grade. The program lists all the valid tasks. If there are more tasks than can be listed on one screen, use the cursor keys to see more tasks. Task 0 or is interpreted as no task (exit). Only non-letter grades can be picked (the others already have the grades assigned). 2. Defaults As discussed above, after picking the task and range of scores, you can pick the sections and how to print the scores. 3. Plot and cutoffs If you selected the "P" or "3" options on the Grading Menu, all the scores for the sections specified will be plotted; otherwise, the "G" option skips the plotting. You then must select the LOW cutoffs for each grade (unless you have already set the cutoffs in the "C" option of the Grading Menu). Depending upon your grading system, up to 11 cutoffs need to be entered. If you just press enter for a cutoff, the program will select the same cutoff as the previous cutoff (hence nobody will receive that particular grade, and the totals for that grade will not be listed at the end of the class). You can use to backup one or more grades. 4. Listing the grades The program will list the total points (or averages) and grades, by section, for the selected task. A table of numbers of students with each grade and the cutoffs are then listed. The program will ask whether these grades are acceptable. If you choose no ("N"), the plot and cutoffs will continue to be repeated, with new cutoffs, until you say they are acceptable ("Y"). When the data is printed out, the classname, section, task, and date are also printed. If you have defined a task as a final task, the program will save the grades for the students on that task. Grades are always assigned to the most recently defined final task. Otherwise, it does not store these grades and cutoffs anywhere in the program. If you print notes, they will be listed on the right hand side of the page. WARNING: If you are printing with both names and IDs, the notes may be truncated. 68 Printing the Grades D. Exporting Data You can export data from a VAR Grade class in three different formats. Other programs can then read the data. For all three methods of export, you can specify whether to write names, IDs, and sections, as well as any combination of tasks. If you want student notes to be written, make sure that the you have you have told the program to show the notes (i.e., set the toggle) before you export the data. 1. Comma and quote file A quote and comma file is an ASCII file where strings (names) are enclosed in double quotes (""), while numbers are not. Cells of data are separated by commas. Many spreadsheets can import this type of file. Each cell get imported into one cell in a spreadsheet. Each line in the file ends up as one line in the spreadsheet. 2. Flat file A flat file is an ASCII file where data is separated into columns. The columns are separated by spaces. Many spreadsheets can import data in this format. 3. Byte file This type of file is not an ASCII file. It is included either as a last resort, so you can write your own converter, or to work with report card programs that may be on the market. The names are written with 20 characters, then the IDs with 15 characters, student notes with 20 characters, sections as 2-byte cardinal numbers, and tasks as 2-byte letter grades for letter and final tasks or 8-byte floating point numbers for all other tasks (1 sign bit, 11 exponent bits, and 52 bits for the significand). If specified, the order is: name, ID, notes, section (written if there is more than 1 section in the class, otherwise not written), then the list of tasks, in the order you chose. 69 XII. OTHER PROGRAM FEATURES A. Running Other Programs from VAR Grade If necessary, you can use the "R" option on the Main Menu to run other programs from VAR Grade. This feature was put into the program to allow you to delete files or format disks without exiting the program. These may be necessary if you run out of disk space before writing data to a disk file. With this option, however, you can run any program, if you have enough memory. To remind you that you are still in VAR Grade, the prompt will be preceded by a message: "To return to VAR Grade, type EXIT." You should be warned that certain programs may cause problems. The major problems can come from programs that are memory resident or that will (inadvertently) stall ("hang") the computer. Because there is no reasonable way for VAR Grade to prevent you from running these types of programs, it is advised that you save your data before running programs other than those of the DOS operating system (del, format, dir, etc.). B. Dates You can redefine the method of writing the date. You can define dates a variety of ways, including American, Japanese, and European style dates. This can be found on the "Z" option of the Main Menu. These dates are used for writing data. It is also used in defining attendance days. C. Video Displays VAR Grade supports all standard displays. There are some points below that may help you. 1. Monochrome displays Some monochrome display adapters tell programs that they are color boards. This causes the program to write data to the screen that looks funny or unreadable. If you have a monochrome board and the opening screen has a lot of underlined characters, there are two things you can do to improve the display. (a) Start the program with a switch Instead of starting the program with "GRADE", start it with "GRADE/B". The /B is a switch that tells the program that you have a black and white display. This has to be done each time you run the program. 70 Other Program Features (b) Set a DOS environment variable Rather than typing /B all the time, you can set a DOS variable, instead. Before running the program, type "SET VMON=BW;". This tells the program that you have a black and white display. The best thing would be for you to set this variable in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file that DOS reads when booting the computer. Example: You can do this by typing, at the DOS prompt, "COPY CON AUTOEXEC.BAT" then . Then type "SET VMON=BW;", then . This will add one line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Alternatively, set up a batch file that starts VAR Grade: Example: Prepare a file called G.BAT the has the following lines: SET VMON=BW; GRADE SET VMON=; This will set the variable, run the program, then remove it from the environment. Some suggested batch files for use with VAR Grade are given later in this chapter. 2. EGA and VGA If you have EGA or VGA, you can display 43 or 50 lines, respectively, on the screen. Go to the "Z" option of the Main Menu, then pick "V". You can pick whether to show 25 or more lines. 3. Video 7 If you have a Video 7 VGA or VGA+ video adapter board, and wish to have more lines or characters on a line, you can set a DOS variable to allow the program to change the display. You can have up to 132 characters per line and up to 60 lines per screen. Type the following line, or put it in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file: "SET VMON=VIDEO7;". If you have a Video 7 board and black-and-white monitor, add the line: "SET VMON=VIDEO7;BW;". If the screen looks funny after changing the display, your board will not go into the mode you chose. You need to set the display back to one that your board is capable of using. D. Mouse Support All mice that are Microsoft or Logitech compatible are now supported. For all mice, the right button is equivalent to pressing (exit this part of the program). The left button is equivalent to pressing (select this). For 3- 71 button mice (Logitech), the middle button is equivalent to pressing (delete the current entry or word). If you move the mouse, this is equivalent to pressing the cursor keys with the arrows (up, down, left, and right). E. Examples of VAR Grade Batch Files If you are familiar with MS-DOS, the following are examples of how to set up batch files to do what you want with VAR Grade. For all the examples, it is assumed that you are using MS-DOS 3.0 or later, and that the program is in the directory C:\VARGRADE. Classname is a name of any valid VAR Grade class. Preparing Batch files: The easiest way to prepare the following files is to use a word processor that will write the data to disk files in ASCII format. To prepare the batch files from MS-DOS, type the following (A> is the DOS prompt, the material between the [], below, tells you what to do): A> COPY CON batchfilename [type in one of the batch files listed below] [simultaneously press the key and "Z"] A> GR.BAT: Batch file to run VAR Grade from any directory. Put it in your directory where DOS is, or in one specified by the PATH command. Start it from DOS by typing "GR Classname". @ECHO OFF @REM CALL WITH "GR Classname" IF %1Z == Z GOTO ERR SET LASTPATH=%PATH% SET PATH=C:\VARGRADE;%PATH% C:\VARGRADE\GRADE %1 SET PATH=%LASTPATH% GOTO END :ERR ECHO ERROR! RUN GR WITH: "GR Classname" :END You may want to add parts of some of the following batch files to GR.BAT to fit your needs. GM.BAT: Batch file if you have a monochrome monitor. Put it in your directory where DOS is, or in one specified by the PATH command. Start it from DOS by typing "GM Classname". SET VMON=BW; C:\VARGRADE\GRADE %1 72 Other Program Features GMin.BAT: Batch file to reduce the memory used by VAR Grade. Put it in your directory where DOS is, or in one specified by the PATH command. Start it from DOS by typing "GMin Classname". SET OMEM=0; C:\VARGRADE\GRADE %1 GMax.BAT: Batch file to increase the memory used by VAR Grade, thereby reducing the disk accesses, and increasing the speed of parts of the program. Put it in your directory where DOS is, or in one specified by the PATH command. Start it from DOS by typing "GMem Classname". SET OMEM=150000; C:\VARGRADE\GRADE %1 73 XIII. APPENDIX A. Program Parameters--Defaults and Limits The default values are those that are there when the program starts. Parameter Default Maximum Students 0 16000 Sections 1 99 Tasks (total) 0 8000 Total points for a number task 0 1000000 Total points per sum task 0 9999999 Attendance Days 0 240 Backups made Yes - Password used No - Printing--default values (modifiable): Lines per page 64 30000 Characters per line 80 255 Type size Pica Type quality Draft Line spacing Single Left margin 0 Lines in header 5 Lines in the footer 5 Page numbers printed Yes B. Backup Files 1. Preventing Data Loss It is very important to prevent data from being lost. There are several things that the program does to prevent this loss. 1. You cannot exit the program without telling it whether you want your data saved. 2. You cannot accidentally exit the program (e.g. disk drive door open, printer not turned on), except from a power failure or by rebooting the computer. 74 Appendix 3. Files are written in read-only format by default. You cannot delete or erase these files in DOS. The default can be changed to "normal" (if you do not fear deleting your class grades), or "hidden". 4. When files are written to disk, the program checks to make sure the files were written with the correct size (hence were probably correctly written). 5. When files are written to disk, the previous class data is turned into backup files. The file CLASSNAME.PAR is changed to CLASSNAME.PAX. The file CLASSNAME.DAT is changed to CLASSNAME.DAX. These backup files are not read-only, and can be deleted by DOS. Should you want to delete old class files, use the DOS 3.x command Attrib to change the file attribute to "normal", then delete the file. Example, type: A> ATTRIB -RH CLASSNAME.* A> DEL CLASSNAME.* You can tell the program to stop making backup files, but we recommend that you do this only if disk space is at a premium. 6. If a fatal error occurs during program execution, VAR Grade will try to save any new data put into the program. Its success depends upon the nature of the fatal error. A fatal error is one that prevents the program from executing correctly. Although great care has been taken to prevent such errors, they may still occur. Therefore, it is suggested that you immediately save your data to disk when you have entered new data. It is also recommended that you also print the data on your printer to have another copy of it. 2. Recovering Old Data To recover the information in the backup files, you must first exit VAR Grade. When in DOS, rename them so that the file that ends in ".PAX" ends in ".PAR" and the file that ends in ".DAX" ends in ".DAT". Both files must have the same classname. At the MS-DOS prompts (A>), type: A> RENAME ACLASS.PAX ACLASS2.PAR A> RENAME ACLASS.DAX ACLASS2.DAT ACLASS2 will have the data from the PREVIOUS update of the data--NOT the most recent update. 75 C. Beeps or Noises If the computer beeps or makes a noise, the memory may be quite low, so that the information in a screen window could not be saved. When the current window is finished, it probably will not be able to redraw the underlying window correctly. Pressing will usually redraw the screen. The program should run correctly when memory is low; however, not all students, tasks, or attendance days may be listed when memory is low. If you get one beep, more will probably occur due to the limited memory. Since memory is low, you should probably exit the program, free up some memory, and then re-run VAR Grade. One way to free up memory is by setting a MS-DOS variable OMEM=0, then reentering the program. Example: At the DOS prompt (A>), type: A> SET OMEM=0; 76 Appendix D. Menus The following is a list of the major Menus in VAR Grade. They are arranged in a hierarchy, so an indent is one menu down in the hierarchy. Main Menu Main Menu (continued) Add Names Menu Grading Menu Type in names Assign grades Type in names and IDs Plot and assign grades Import flat files Plot with 3D bars and Import flat files assign grades automatically Scale tasks Import comma and quote Assign T-scores files Assign standard Individual Task Form deviations Student Task Form Change grade names Task Type Menu Assign cutoffs Attendance Menu Remove cutoffs Student Attendance Form Adjust statistics for a Individual Attendance task Form Delete adjustments of Define new attendance statistics dates Set the fewest allowed Attendance defaults points Save class data Help Backup class data Manual Write Data Menu Parameters Menu View by section Time and dates Print by section Video display lines View by name Color Print by name File protection Print grids Backups Export quote and comma Passwords file Edit keys Export flat file Class name Export byte file Printer Menu Plot Menu Pick a new printer Plot the scores in 2D Set user defined bars line codes Plot the scores in 3D Line printer codes bars Set character size Plot individual trends Set print quality in 2D bars Set the printer port Plot individual trends Page and line in 3D bars settings Correlate two tests Sorting Correlate two tests Default sections with 3D bars Numbers of sections Plot class statistics DOS shell Plot an individual Quit the class versus class statistics Get another class Change fonts 77 XIV. GLOSSARY ASCII A standard code that translates normal characters and symbols into 7 bit binary computer code. AUTOEXEC.BAT When you start your computer, it looks for this file to get information about the operating environment. Bars Squares used to depict student scores in the plots. They can look two dimensional or three dimensional. Batch One of three types of files that MS-DOS can execute. Batch files are written in ASCII characters, with each line telling MS-DOS what to do. Cell A highlighted area of the screen that holds one piece of data. Comma & Quote Files Files that have strings of characters between double quotes (""), and commas separating pieces of data. Numbers are separated only by commas. Cursor Keys Keys that move the position of the cursor on the screen. They include the arrow keys, the home, end, page up, and page down keys. Default The value when the program starts. Directory Group of files on a disk. Files on hard disks are usually grouped together in directories to make it easier to find the file you need. Drives are also directories. Display Adapter A card in the computer that controls the monitor. It can be a Hercules card, CGA, EGA, or VGA card, as well as other cards. 78 Glossary Edit Keys When edit keys are used, the left and right arrow cursor keys move within a cell instead of between cells, and the home and end keys move to the beginning and end of the cell. To "use" edit keys means that you can use the left and right arrow, home, and end keys to move around a cell. To move between cells when "using" edit keys, you need to use -arrow keys. Fixed Disk A disk that cannot be removed from the computer. Flat Files Files that have data in columns, separated by spaces. Floppy Disk A disk that can be removed from a drive. Hard Disk A disk that cannot be removed from the computer. Install Put the files needed by a program onto new disks such that the new disks have the program files in the places needed by that program. Line Printer A printer that prints non-graphics characters. All printers are line printers. Main Menu The menu that lists the major sections of the program. Menu-driven Uses menus to let you reach all parts and features of the program. Monochrome Black and white. Overlay The part of the program that is in memory only when needed. It is read in from a disk when it is needed. Path A list of directories that tells MS-DOS where executable programs are. The path is set by typing "SET PATH=directory1;directory2;" at the DOS prompt, where directory1 and directory2, etc., are names of directories. Ports Printers are connected to either serial or parallel cards in your computer. Each card has a different designation for its address. These addresses are the ports. 79 Printer Codes Codes sent to the printer to control how it prints data. Regular tasks Those tasks that you can put in new data. They are the number, letter, and extra credit tasks. Special keys Special keys are those that do not print normal (ASCII) keys. The function keys ( through ), the , , , , and the cursor keys. Special tasks Those tasks that are calculated by the program. You cannot put in new scores into these tasks. Task A graded assignment for the class. Toggle Turn on and off. 80 XV. FURTHER INFORMATION This program is COPYRIGHTED (C) 1987-90 by Dennis Revie. All rights are reserved. Schools, school districts, and colleges and universities can get a site license ("group" register) VAR Grade at reduced rates. Write for details, including information on special needs. A. Information This manual should contain most of your questions. Should you need further assistance, either to clarify parts of the program, to suggest changes, to report bugs, or to obtain a custom version of the program, write to the address below. You will receive a prompt reply. This program is user supported and your comments are encouraged. Details on registration are listed near the beginning of the program. B. Registration This program can be distributed as SHAREWARE. It is not free. You may use it on a preview basis only. If you find the program useful, you MUST register it by sending $30 (for registration only) or $40 (to register and also receive a 78 page laser-printed manual) to the address below. See the Notice on page i for more details. Dennis Revie Attn: VAR GRADE 4804 Highland Ave Oxnard, CA 93033-7818 Modem (information only): BIX: revied CIS: 73427, 112 81