[schooltool] Gradebook calculations

[Neil Manson]

Hi All

I am busy looking at SchoolTool for use in our school, and so far it
looks great. Thanks for all the hard work.

The one thing I am not understanding is in the grade book. Many of our
courses have an assessment structure similar to this:
Assignment 1 (15%)
Class Test (10%)
Assignment 2 (15%)
Final Exam (60%)

I would like to set up columns in the grade book for each of the above
assessments, as well as for the Term Mark and Final Mark. The term mark
is the weighted sum of the first three items, and the Final Mark is a
formula that includes a test to check that both the term mark and the
exam mark are above 40%. Any information, or links, on how I could set
this up would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,
Neil

[Tom Hoffman]

On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 8:41 PM, Neil Manson

Post by Neil Manson
Hi All
I am busy looking at SchoolTool for use in our school, and so far it
looks great. Thanks for all the hard work.
The one thing I am not understanding is in the grade book. Many of our
Assignment 1 (15%)
Class Test (10%)
Assignment 2 (15%)
Final Exam (60%)
I would like to set up columns in the grade book for each of the above
assessments, as well as for the Term Mark and Final Mark. The term mark
is the weighted sum of the first three items, and the Final Mark is a
formula that includes a test to check that both the term mark and the
exam mark are above 40%. Any information, or links, on how I could set
this up would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Neil,

I think you're running a little ahead of SchoolTool's current
capabilities. We have introduced weighting by assignment categories,
which would do at least some of your basic weighting story, although
it might require creating a separate category for each of those
assignments.

We don't currently support marks that are derived from other activity
scores, or logic to test conditions of certain cells. Given that
computers are very good at adding, dividing, applying logical
conditions, etc. none of this is difficult. It is probably a
developer/week's worth of work, and is just a question of when we will
squeeze it in.

Of course, if your institution is interested in SchoolTool, you could
also consider underwriting the specific features you need, which would
ensure that they get done when you need them to your satisfaction.

Thanks for your interest!

Tom Hoffman
Project Manager

[Tom Hoffman]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Neil Manson

Hi Tom
Thanks very much for the reply. One of the things I love about many Open
Source projects is the developer responsiveness.
Another thing I love about Open Source is the ability to get involved.
I'm not sure if I should be sending this directly to you, or to the list. If
you think the question below should rather be on the list, please let me
know and I will resent, and you could rather answer it there.
We are a small school that is part of a larger IT Faculty. Our students are
required to complete a year long (actually 2 x 13 week semesters) Industrial
Experience project as part of their final year. They usually work as a group
of 6-8 students per project. How would you feel about one (or more) of those
groups working on SchoolTool? I'm not exactly sure of how these projects
run, as I'm not responsible for the course, but you would need to act as the
client, give the students a specification of what is required (or work with
them to develop a spec.), and then give them some guidance as the project
progresses. You would also need to give us some feedback on the quality of
the work produced at the end of the project, to assist us in assessing the
students.
What are your thoughts on this idea?

This is almost exactly what our experience has shown us works. The
most successful part of SchoolTool is CanDo, a competency tracking
application which was created by secondary school students and
teachers in Arlington, Virginia. The close relationship between
developers and teachers makes all the difference. Notably, the
gradebook is more something we cooked up in relative isolation, and it
shows.

The important thing would be that rather than "SchoolTool" acting as
the client that you worked with local users as the client. We could
support and evaluate the technical side, but we'd want you to have
local users -- perhaps even yourself!

So yes, I think this is an excellent idea.

--Tom