DOCUMENTATION FOR THE GRADE GUIDE Version 1.2
Copyright 1985, Jon Kane

The GRADE GUIDE is a versatile program used for the storing, retrieving,
and analyzing of students' grades. It does not require any special hardware
but it will take advantage of color graphics cards, printers, and fixed
disk drives when they are available. Its use on computers with less than
128K of memory may be limited. Some of its features include :

displaying easy to follow menus showing users all available options.
selecting any option by touching one keyboard key.
listing student names in an optional grade book format for grade recording.
separating grades into grade categories like EXAM, QUIZ, and so forth.
recording grades either as number scores, letter grades, or both.
giving grades of NONE to students whose grades might not yet be available.
evaluating NONE grades as zero grades or as ignored grades, at your option.
dropping the lowest or the lowest few scores in a category of grades.
weighting each grade and each grade category when calculating averages.
letting you change any of the student information that has been stored.
having any stored information displayed on the screen or on a printer.
printing student grades in a format convenient for handing to students.
suppling statistical reports and graphs showing the students' performance.
using colors to aid readability when a color graphics card is available.
allowing names and grades to be read in from any DOS text file.

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= A NOTE TO USERS OF THIS PROGRAM =
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The programmer maintains a copyright on this program, its displays, and
its documentation. Any person may use this program and may make as many
copies of it as desired. People should feel free to give this program to
others as long as the copyright notices within the program, on the display,
and in the documentation remain unchanged.

Each person who finds this program useful, is asked to send $20.00
to the programmer : Jon Kane, 2814 Regent Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53705.
Those users who have already paid for Version 1.0 of the GRADE GUIDE do not
need to pay for Version 1.2. Anyone may use and distribute the program
whether or not they send any money.

If you have any suggestions on improvements, have found any bugs, or
wish to have this program customized to your specific grading requirements,
you may inquire about changes at the above address. Version 1.2 has been
released in response to users' suggestions about Version 1.0.

This program has been written and tested with great care to try to
insure data integrity and accuracy of results. On the other hand, the
programmer will not be held liable for damages caused by use of the GRADE
GUIDE. The GRADE GUIDE was designed to aid a teacher in the routine tasks
associated with storing, reporting, and analyzing student grades, and was
not designed to take grading or teaching decisions away from the teacher.

The GRADE GUIDE has been designed to make it easy to use. It is,
therefore, unnecessary for a new user to memorize the operating procedures
described in this documentation. It may be a good idea to read or skim this
documentation once to get an idea of what the GRADE GUIDE is capable of
doing for you, and so you can see how the program operates. While using the
GRADE GUIDE, you can always see what options are available to you, so you
only need to be mildly familiar with GRADE GUIDE to use it. A list of
improvements included in Version 1.2 can be found at the end of this
documentation.




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= FILES FOR THE GRADE GUIDE PROGRAM =
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The GRADE GUIDE program is stored on two files called
"GRADEGID.COM" and "GRADEGID.000." Both of these files must be
present on your default disk drive (either floppy disk or fixed
disk) when the program begins operation. If you use subdirectories,
then these two files must be in the default directory of the default
drive.

GRADE GUIDE stores information about each of your classes on a
separate file. It allows you to assign an 8 character name to each
class. The file that GRADE GUIDE creates for your class
has a file name which is the same as your class name and a file
extension of "GRD" . Thus, the information that you store concerning
the class "MATH-001" will be stored on the file "MATH-001.GRD" .
Whenever GRADE GUIDE updates a file due to changes you have made
to the stored information, the old version of the file is kept as a
backup and is given the file extension "BAK" . Thus, the backup file
for MATH-001 will be called "MATH-001.BAK" . GRADE GUIDE can
access any class file on any disk drive that your computer has. The
class file does not have to be on the same disk or in the same directory
as the program files.

If you, by mistake use GRADE GUIDE to make changes to a class
file which you wish you had not made, the GRADE GUIDE can allow you to
delete the current "GRD" file for that class and reinstate the old "BAK"
file for that class.

If you no longer need to have a particular class on file, you may
simply delete the "GRD" and "BAK" files for that class by using the
DOS delete or erase commands.

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= WHAT THE GRADE GUIDE DOES =
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The GRADE GUIDE operates by performing tasks which you can select from
a menu of possible tasks. This documentation will describe those tasks
in detail. The GRADE GUIDE lists all available options in easy to follow
menus, and allows you to choose an option by typing a one letter
command. The main choices you can make are listed in one of two menus, the
FILE MENU and the MAIN MENU. The FILE MENU shows you the choices you have
when selecting the class that you want the GRADE GUIDE to consider. If your
computer has a color graphics card, the FILE MENU looks like this :
............................................................................
: FILE MENU :
: :
: A : Choose Drive/Directory D : Recover from a backup file :
: B : Choose Class E : Display in monochrome :
: C : Go on to the MAIN MENU Q : Quit the program :
: :
: Class Files in Directory : :
:..........................................................................:











If your computer does not have a color graphics card, OPTION E is missing.
The MAIN MENU shows you the choices you have when viewing or changing the
contents of a class file. It looks like this :
............................................................................
: MAIN MENU :
: :
: :
: A : add student names D : drop student names :
: B : add student grades E : drop student grades :
: C : add grade categories F : drop grade categories :
: :
: G : display/print/change student names :
: H : display/print/change student grades :
: I : display/print/change grade limits and weights :
: J : display/print/change category names and weights :
: :
: K : display/print class statistics :
: :
: Q : quit and return to FILE MENU :
:..........................................................................:

The GRADE GUIDE allows you to enter information related to storing,
retrieving, and analzing student grades. For each class that you have
the GRADE GUIDE allows you to set up grade categories. All student grades
are entered into these grade categories. This lets you keep different
types of grades separate such as EXAM, QUIZ, HOMEWORK, THEME, PROGRAM,
ATTENDANCE, and so forth. Whenever GRADE GUIDE reports a student's grades,
it displays each category and all of the grades which have been entered into
that category. It will display the student's average score in each category,
and display a GRAND AVERAGE of all the student's grades. You can make each
category determine a given percentage of a student's GRAND AVERAGE.

For each class you may establish up to ten different categories, and
for each student you may store up to 200 grades in each category. See the
discussion about the MAIN MENU to learn how to establish new categories
using MAIN MENU OPTION C, delete unwanted categories using MAIN MENU option
F, and display or change category information with MAIN MENU OPTION J.

As an example of how categories can be used, you might have set up
three grade categories

EXAM 75 % of the grade
QUIZ 15 % of the grade
HOMEWORK 10 % of the grade

Perhaps you have entered 4 EXAM grades, 8 QUIZ grades, and 14 HOMEWORK
grades for each student. When student grades are listed, along with a
student's name and each of the grades, there will be listed an average
grade for each of the three categories and a GRAND AVERAGE which is
calculated from the category averages using the weightings of 75 %,
15 %, and 10 %. Suppose a student's 4 EXAM grades were 45, 100, 47, and
93 when the maximum possible scores for the 4 EXAMs were 50, 100, 50,
and 100, respectively. Then along with the student's 4 EXAM scores would
be listed the total score of 285 and percentage of 95 %. If the student
had a 95 % average in EXAMs, an 80 % average in QUIZes, and a 70 % average
in HOMEWORK, the GRAND AVERAGE for that student would be calculated as

.95 * .75 + .80 * .15 + .70 * .10 which is 89.25 %.

In addition to assigning percentage weights to each category, you can
assign weights to each grade within a category. For example, if you have
given 4 EXAMs worth 50, 100, 50, and 100 points as above and if you want
each EXAM grade to contribute equally to the EXAM average, you could



give the EXAMs weights of 2.0, 1.0, 2.0, and 1.0, respectively.
If you wanted the last EXAM grade to be worth twice as much as the other
exams, you could give that exam a weight of 2.0. Grade weights are assigned
when grades are entered with MAIN MENU OPTION B and can be displayed or
changed at any time with MAIN MENU OPTION I.

GRADE GUIDE allows you to record grades in three different formats :
NUMBER, LETTER, and NUMBER WITH CUTOFF. When you establish a category
(MAIN MENU OPTION C), you select which method you want to use for storing
grades. If you select the option LETTER, then all the grades that you enter
into that category will be letter grades. The letter grades which are
accepted by GRADE GUIDE are the standard letters from the 4.0 scale

GRADE VALUE
A 4
B 3
C 2
D 1
F 0

In addition, the following less standard grades are accepted

GRADE VALUE
A+ 4 1/3
A- 3 2/3
B+ 3 1/3
B- 2 2/3
C+ 2 1/3
C- 1 2/3
D+ 1 1/3
D- 2/3
F+ 1/3
F- -1/3

AB 3 1/2
BC 2 1/2
CD 1 1/2
DF 1/2

When letter grades are listed, the category average on a scale of 4.0 is
listed rather than the total and percentage that are listed for number
grades.

If you establish a category and you want to record grades in that
category as numbers, then you can select the option NUMBER rather than LETTER
for that category. The third option, that of NUMBER WITH CUTOFF, allows you
to store grades in a format similar to storing grades with the NUMBER
format except that you will be allowed to enter for each grade in that
category a set of four CUTOFF grades representing the lowest numeric score
for the grades of A, B, C, and D. The only difference between this method
of storing grades and that of the NUMBER method is that with the NUMBER
WITH CUTOFF method, when student grades are listed the number score is
listed and along with it, the associated letter grade. When you enter
new grades into this category (MAIN MENU OPTION B), you can choose to
enter grade cutoffs. If you do not elect to enter cutoffs, then grades will
be listed without the associated letter grade. Grade cutoffs can be changed
at any time with MAIN MENU OPTION I. If you had previously elected not to
set the grade cutoffs and now you want to set them, MAIN MENU OPTION I
will show you that the grade cutoffs are set at NONE and you can change
these NONE values to any values you like.

Note that each grade stored with the NUMBER or the NUMBER WITH
CUTOFF method must be a whole number in the range from 0 to 250.



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= ENTERING INFORMATION =
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Often the GRADE GUIDE will ask you to enter information. Here are a
few rules about entering such information.

COMMANDS
To enter a command, merely press the key for the letter
corresponding to the menu choice for that command. The
response may be in upper case or lower case and you do
not need to press the .

NUMBERS
To enter a number just enter the digits for the number you want.
The digits that you press will appear in reverse video on the
display. Do not use a decimal point (".") when entering a whole
number or a sign ("+" or "-") when entering any number. You may
backspace over mistakes by using the backspace key. You may
complete your input by typing a (enter key) or a .
If you are entering a student's grade and do not type any digits,
then the grade will be entered as NONE. When entering weights
for grades or precentages for categories, you may add up to
3 decimal digits to the number. Those numbers can have up to
3 digits to the left and 3 digits to the right of the decimal
point.

CHARACTER STRINGS
Character strings can be entered the same way that numbers are
entered except that the input is always ended with a , not with
a . In addition, character strings may not begin with a
. Student names, category names, class names, and letter
grades are entered as character strings.

CHANGE MODE
There are several places in the GRADE GUIDE where you are given
the opportunity to change previously entered information by
entering CHANGE MODE. When this is done, you will be able see
the information which can be changed being displayed on the screen
in reverse video. You will be able to move to another item of
information being displayed by pressing one of the cursor control
keys. You can exit from CHANGE MODE by using the (escape)
key. If you move from one item of information on the screen to
another or escape from CHANGE MODE without entering any new
characters, then the old information will remain unchanged and
will be redisplayed in normal video. If you wish to change a
previously entered student grade to a grade of NONE, then enter an
"N" (or "n") for that grade while in change mode.

ILLEGAL CHARACTERS
If at any time while running the GRADE GUIDE you press a key which
the GRADE GUIDE was not expecting, the computer will beep to signal
that the key was not expected. The key you pressed will not be
recorded or displayed in any way, and you may continue by typing any
legal key.

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= USING THE GRADE GUIDE =
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Whenever the "GRADEGID.COM" and "GRADEGID.000" files are both present
on the default disk drive, you may run the GRADE GUIDE program by
typing the name "gradegid" followed by a carriage return . The program



will begin by displaying a welcoming message which will remain on the
screen until you press the space bar.

The GRADE GUIDE lets you know at all times what options are available
to you. Options are usually displayed for you on the screen in a menu
format allowing you to choose an option by pressing one keyboard letter
(in either upper or lower case.) Often special instructions, reminders,
or warnings will appear in a three line message display at the bottom of
your screen.

The next display which you will see is the "FILE MENU." Below the
there will be a list of all the class files currently available for use
on the currently chosen disk drive. Your options include :

OPTION A -- Choosing a Disk Drive or Directory

This option allows you to choose which disk drive you want
GRADE GUIDE to be looking at to find your class files. After
selecting OPTION A, just type the letter of the disk drive you
want. GRADE GUIDE will then ask you for the directory of the
newly chosen drive. You may enter a directory name or you can
enter a carriage return and GRADE GUIDE will use the root (\)
directory. Directory names must be full path names beginning
with a back slash (\). Once your new drive and directory names
have been accepted, GRADE GUIDE will list for you all the classes
available on the new drive and directory.

OPTION B -- Choosing a Class File

Select this option when you want to choose a class with which
to work. You will be able to type the name of any class and
the name you type will appear on the screen next to the
OPTION B menu listing. Note that choosing a class with this
option does not cause the GRADE GUIDE to proceed to the MAIN
MENU. You must select OPTION C in order to be able to go to
the MAIN MENU.

OPTION C -- Moving on to the MAIN MENU

With this option GRADE GUIDE proceeds to the MAIN MENU where
you can choose to perform many functions with the class file that
you have chosen. If you select OPTION C before any class has been
chosen with OPTION B, then the GRADE GUIDE will request that you
enter a class name before continuing. If the program cannot find
a "GRD" file for the class you have chosen on the currently
chosen disk drive, then it will ask you if the class is a new
class. If it is a new class, respond Y and GRADE GUIDE will
create a new file for your new class. Otherwise, answer N and
check to see that you have spelled the name of the class
correctly and have chosen the correct disk drive and diskette.

OPTION D -- Recovering a Backup File

If you have made changes to a class file which you do not want,
this option will allow you to recover the backup file for
that class. For example, you can have the "MATH-001.GRD" file
deleted and replaced by the "MATH-001.BAK" file.

OPTION E -- Changing Color Modes

If your computer has a color graphics card, OPTION E will be
displayed. It allows you to force the display to appear in
black and white rather than in color. This option is provided



for those users who might have a monochrome display or TV
connected to their color graphics card which can be difficult
to read when the screen displays in color. If the E option is
chosen and the display is in black and white, then the E option
will allow you to change back from black and white to color.

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= THE MAIN MENU CHOICES =
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While the main menu is being displayed, you may choose to perform
one of 11 grading functions labeled A to K, or you may press Q to quit
and return to the FILE MENU. Briefly, options A, B, and C allow you to
enter new information into your class file, options D, E, and F allow you to
remove previously entered information, options G, H, I, and J allow you to
display, print, or change any of the previously entered information, and
OPTION K generates some statistical reports about your students' grades.

OPTION A -- Entering New Names

This options allows you to enter the names of students not previously
entered into your class. Entered names are displayed on the screen.
GRADE GUIDE will notify you if you enter a name which has already
been entered into your class so that no duplications of names will
occur. Names may be entered in any order; GRADE GUIDE will
alphabetize them for you. When you are done entering the new names,
enter one blank name (press without entering any characters.)

GRADE GUIDE will then ask you if you want to enter any names from a
file. If you want GRADE GUIDE to read some names from a standard DOS text
file, respond with "Y". Then GRADE GUIDE will ask you for the name of a
DOS file containing the names. If you do not specify the drive of the
file, the drive will be the same as the class file's drive. GRADE GUIDE
will expect to find one student's name on each line of that file where each
line ends with a carriage return. Each line may be up to 250 characters
long. GRADE GUIDE will ask you to enter the beginning and ending columns
for the field on the line which contains the names. While reading the
names, GRADE GUIDE will display the new names, delete leading and trailing
blanks in the new names, and will not use any duplicate names. This
feature is designed for teachers who may have access to DOS text files
which list the names of all the students in their class. It is not
designed to read other GRADE GUIDE files.

If you enter new students into a class which already has some grades
assigned, the new students will automatically be given grades of NONE
for each of the previously entered grades. You may, of course, change
these NONE grades by using main menu OPTION H.

OPTION B -- Entering New Grades

This option allows you to enter new grades for all the students in
your class. Since all grades are entered into categories, there must have
been some categories established (MAIN MENU OPTION C) before you can
enter grades. If you have established at least one category, you will
be asked to choose the grades you want to enter. GRADE GUIDE will
show you a list of your categories, for example

A : EXAM
B : QUIZ
C : HOMEWORK






You could then decide that you want to enter a QUIZ grade, an EXAM
grade, a second QUIZ grade, and a HOMEWORK grade. You would state
your intensions by typing the letters "babc" (either upper or lower case)
followed by a . GRADE GUIDE will respond by listing the grades

QUIZ 1
EXAM 1
QUIZ 2
HOMEWORK 1

You may enter up to ten grades at one time. The number after the
category name tells you which grade of the category you are entering.
If you had previously entered three QUIZ grades, then the two new
QUIZ grades would be numbered 4 and 5.

It is legal to enter an empty list of grades by typing only a
when prompted for the grades you want to enter. This is what you
should do if you ever select OPTION B by mistake.

After confirming that these grades are correct, you will be asked
to enter the maximum possible score for each of the number grades,
the A, B, C, and D cutoffs for each of the NUMBER WITH CUTOFF grades, and
a grade weight for all grades. GRADE GUIDE will allow you to enter
student grades which are larger than the maximum possible scores which
you enter. The larger numbers will be treated as though there was extra
credit given. For example, if the maximum possible score on an EXAM is
100, and you enter a grade of 110, then GRADE GUIDE will treat the grade
as if it included an extra 10 points of extra credit and assign it a
percentage of 110 %. If you enter a maximum possible score of zero or
NONE, GRADE GUIDE will treat the corresponding grades as extra credit.
Note that the use of maximum possible scores equal to zero or NONE can
cause strange results when category percentages and GRAND AVERAGES are
calculated. The GRADE GUIDE will print a reminder whenever a grade is
entered which exceeds the maximum possible score for that grade.

Right before asking you to enter the new grades, GRADE GUIDE will
ask you if you want to confirm inputs. If you do, then after GRADE
GUIDE prompts you for each student's grades, it will give you a chance to
enter CHANGE MODE in case you make a mistake entering any of the grades.
If you do not select to confirm inputs, you would have to use MAIN MENU
option H to change any grades which were entered incorrectly.

GRADE GUIDE will also allow you to enter grades from a DOS text
file. If you wish to read in grades from a file rather than from the
keyboard, then you must tell GRADE GUIDE before you select the grade
categories for the new grades. This is done by selecting the

R : Read Grades from a File

option. If you select this option, then GRADE GUIDE will ask you to
enter the name of a DOS text file containing the new grades. If you do
not specify the drive of the file, the drive will be the same as the class
file's drive. GRADE GUIDE will check that that file has exactly one line
of text for each student in your class. Each line except for the last
line of the file must end with a carriage return. Lines may be up to
250 characters long. If the file is of the correct length, GRADE GUIDE
will accept grades from that file. Now when you select categories from
the menu, GRADE GUIDE will ask you for the beginning and ending columns
for the field on the line containing that grade. GRADE GUIDE will
continue just as it did when you entered grades from the keyboard
including asking you for maximum possible scores, weights, cutoffs, and
whether or not you want grade confirmations. The only difference is that




the grades will be read from the file. GRADE GUIDE will look at each
field of each line on the file and determine a grade from what is in the
field. In general GRADE GUIDE will select the first item in the field
which looks like a grade. If you said that there was a letter grade in
columns 5 through 12 and one line reads : ghscabyh in that field,
then GRADE GUIDE will assign a grade of C, the first reasonable grade in
that field. If the field reads : ghsuabyh , then the grade would be
AB. If a number grade is read from a field reading : a000078+23rihs ,
then the grade would be 78. If GRADE GUIDE can not make sense out of the
given field, a grade of NONE will be assigned. This feature is supplied
for those teachers who may have computer graded exams with results
supplied on DOS text files.

OPTION C -- Entering New Categories

This option is used to enter new category names. Typically,
you will use this option when you first establish each class file,
although there is nothing wrong with establishing new categories later
on. GRADE GUIDE will list for you information about each of the
categories you have established so far and will wait for you to
enter new information. For each new category you will enter a
name for the category, select a grade format (NUMBER, LETTER, or
NUMBER WITH CUTOFF), and a percentage of the GRAND AVERAGE. You
signal that you are done entering new categories by entering a
blank name for a category.

OPTION D -- Dropping Students

With this option you can choose to drop some students from your
class. The GRADE GUIDE will ask you for a list of the students you
want to drop. You are not required to enter the entire name of a
student you want to drop. If GRADE GUIDE does not find a student
whose name is the same as the name you typed, then it will look for
the name of a student whose name CONTAINS what you typed. If it finds
such a name, it will ask you if that was the name you wanted. If you
say no (N), then it will keep looking. For example, if you want to
drop the student "Smith, John" and you ask for the name "ith",
GRADE GUIDE might ask you if you meant "Jones, Kennith" since that
name also contains an "ith." If you respond N, GRADE GUIDE will
find "Smith, John." Note that it is important to use the same
upper and lower case letters as you used when entering the student's
name because GRADE GUIDE does distinguish between upper and lower
case letters. Before actually dropping any student from the list,
GRADE GUIDE will ask you to confirm that you want that student
dropped.

OPTION E -- Dropping Grades

Instructors sometimes want to drop the lowest grade or lowest few
grades of a student before calculating final grades. GRADE GUIDE can
drop the lowest grade or lowest few grades in any category with OPTION E.
When you elect to drop students' grades with OPTION E, you are
asked to choose a category and then to choose how many grades you want
dropped from that category (for example, the lowest 1 grade or the
lowest 3 grades.) Then the GRADE GUIDE will consider each student in
the class and look at all the grades in the chosen category for that
student. It will change the lowest grades in that category to NONE.
If you now look at the grades for each student while treating
NONE grades as zeros, each student's grand average will have decreased
(since some non-zero grades have been replaced by NONE grades), but
the new GRAND AVERAGEs can now be used to compare students' records
on an equal basis. The dropped grades are the ones where the grade




value multiplied by the weight for the grade come out the smallest.
Grades which are already NONE will be given the value of zero so they
will be the first candidates to be dropped. Note that if you drop
the lowest 2 grades from a category once and then try to drop the
lowest 2 grades again, the second drop will have no effect since each
student will already have at least 2 NONE grades in that category. If
you wanted to drop 2 MORE grades, you would have to ask for the lowest 4
grades in the category to be dropped.

You may want to see the effect of your having dropped grades
before committing yourself to dropping any. Therefore, at first,
the GRADE GUIDE only TEMPORARILY drops the grades. This allows
you to go and view the grades using any of the MAIN MENU options
while the grades are still only TEMPORARILY dropped. In fact, if you
return to the MAIN MENU while there are TEMPORARILY DROPPED GRADES,
there will be a statement at the bottom of the screen reminding you
that grades have been TEMPORARILY DROPPED. The only changes you can
make to the stored information while there are TEMPORARILY DROPPED
GRADES is to create more TEMPORARILY DROPPED GRADES. The GRADE GUIDE
will never update the disk file while there are TEMPORARILY DROPPED
GRADES. Before you will be allowed to make other changes to your file
you must decide whether you want those grades PERMANENTLY DROPPED or
whether you want to reinstate the old grades. You make that choice by
re-entering OPTION E which will allow you to select between those two
fates or to drop some more grades (TEMPORARILY.) GRADE GUIDE does this
by making sure that the copy of your class file on the disk has been
updated prior to your dropping grades. Then if you decide that you want
to reinstate the grades the way they were before you created the
TEMPORARILY DROPPED GRADES, the file can be read from the disk and the
old grades will be restored.

OPTION F -- Dropping Categories

Occasionally, you may established a category which you never
used or for which you have no further use. You can remove that
category and all of the grades entered in that category by using
OPTION F. You will be asked to select a category to drop and will
then be asked to verify your choice before continuing. Note that
if you ever establish a category to contain LETTER grades and you
should have used NUMBER grades, then the only way for you to rectify
the situation is to drop the category using OPTION F and then
reestablish it using OPTION C.

OPTION G -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Student Names

This option allows you to have your students' names listed on the
screen or on a printer. If there is no printer attached to your
computer, GRADE GUIDE will not give you the option to print.

If you select the option to list names on the screen, your
students' names will be listed alphabetically, 40 at a time.
Each time the screen fills with names, you can choose to enter
CHANGE MODE by typing a C. Then you can use the cursor control keys
to move to any name on the screen and change the name. When you escape
from change mode, GRADE GUIDE will begin listing the names again from
the beginning of the alphabet so you can view any changes you made.
If you have more than 40 students in your class, then after listing the
first 40 you can either press the space bar to continue listing more
names or press Q to quit listing the names.

If you select to print names, you can choose to have the names
listed in one of three ways.




Like This (no horizontal lines)

1. Able
2. Baker

Or Like This (horizontal lines)

1. Able_______________________________________________________________
2. Baker______________________________________________________________


Or Like This (horizontal lines and vertical lines)

1. Able___|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|
2. Baker__|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____|


The latter two methods produce lists which are convenient for
recording grades by hand before they are entered into a class file.

If you are printing names, you may stop the printer by depressing
the key and holding it down until the printer stops. Then
you can continue printing by pressing the letter C or stop printing
by pressing the letter Q. This is helpful if you want to insert
form feeds in the middle of your list or to stop the list before
the end.

OPTION H -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Student Grades

Choose this option when you want to view or print the grades of one
or more of your students or when you need to change one or more
grades. GRADE GUIDE will display options allowing you to display
grades on the screen, print grades on the printer, or quit and return
to the main menu. If there is no printer attached to your computer,
then the option to print will be suppressed.

GRADE GUIDE also lists the name of each grade category
and the percentages which you assigned to each category when you
established the categories using OPTION C. If for some reason the
percentages you assigned do not add up to 100 %, GRADE GUIDE will
try to adjust the percentages so that they do add to 100 %. These
adjusted percentages are the values which are listed. No adjustments
are made if all categories have been assigned a percentage of 0.0 %.

After selecting the option to view or print grades, the GRADE GUIDE
will ask you for the name of the student whose grades you wish to see.
If you respond with a only, then GRADE GUIDE will list the grades
of all the students in the class. You may enter student names in
the same way that you enter names when dropping students in OPTION
D. That is, you may use substring abbreviations for student names.

When GRADE GUIDE lists grades, it gives the student's name, a list
of each category into which grades have been entered, and a list of all
the grades the student has earned in each category. In addition,
it gives a percentage or average grade based on the student's performance
in each category. For number grades, it gives a sum of all the
number scores multiplied by their grade weights which you have
entered when entering the grades in OPTION B and a percentage
based on the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE scores which you have also entered. For
letter grades, it lists an average (on the 4.0 grade scale) instead of
a total. GRADE GUIDE also gives a GRAND AVERAGE score which is a
percentage based on the percentages the student obtained in each
category and the percentage weights you have assigned to each category.



There are two different ways in which GRADE GUIDE can handle NONE
grades. It can assign them a value of zero, or it can treat
them as if that grade had never been assigned. For example, if
the student "Smith, John" has been assigned quiz scores of

QUIZ # SCORE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE WEIGHT
------ ----- ---------------- ------
1 10 20 1.000
2 10 20 2.000
3 NONE 30 1.000
4 15 30 1.000

then, if NONE grades are assigned the value zero, the quiz total would be

10 * 1.000 + 10 * 2.000 + 0 * 1.000 + 15 * 1.000 = 45

and the total possible would be

20 * 1.000 + 20 * 2.000 + 30 * 1.000 + 30 * 1.000 = 120

giving "Smith, John" a quiz percentage of 45 / 120 = 37.50 %.

On the other hand, if NONE grades are ignored, the total would be

10 * 1.000 + 10 * 2.000 + 15 * 1.000 = 45

and the total possible would be

20 * 1.000 + 20 * 2.000 + 30 * 1.000 = 90

giving "Smith, John" a quiz percentage of 45 / 90 = 50.00 %.

Before listing any grades, GRADE GUIDE will ask you which way you
want the grades evaluated by saying :
"Do you want NONE grades given the value of ZERO (Y/N) ? "
to which you can respond with a Y or N.

GRADE GUIDE calculates the GRAND AVERAGE for each student by
weighting the percentages the student gets in each category by
the adjusted category percentages. If a category has no grades in
it, then that category's average will be calculated either as a 0.000 %
or a 100.000 % depending on whether NONE grades are treated as zero
or not.

If grades are being listed on the screen and there is not enough
room to display all the grades, then GRADE GUIDE will list the grades
using several entire categories at a time. It will wait until you
press the space bar before it continues. When grades are on the
screen, you may press the letter C and enter CHANGE MODE. Then you
may use the cursor control keys to move a cursor which becomes visible
to any grade on the screen. You may change any grade and when you do,
the category totals and averages and the GRAND AVERAGE will be
automatically updated for you. The key can be used to escape
from change mode. If you are viewing a list of all the students'
grades, then you will see one student's grades on the screen at a time.
You move onto the next student by pressing the space bar and can
avoid seeing the remainder of the list by pressing the letter Q.

If you are listing grades on the printer, you can stop the printing
as in the listing of names (OPTION G) by pressing the key
until the printer stops. You can then choose to continue by pressing
a C or quit the printing by pressing a Q.




OPTION I -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Grade Limits or Weights

With this option you may see or change any of the maximum possible
grades or grade weights that you previously established. After
selecting this option, GRADE GUIDE will display a list of all the
grade categories that you have established for this class. You may
choose any category whose grade limits and weights you wish to see.

Having selected a category, GRADE GUIDE will display on the screen
the grade weights that you have established for the that category.
The weights will be listed in rows of 10 grades each, just as grades are
listed in OPTION H. You may enter CHANGE MODE by pressing the letter C
which will allow you to change any of the weights that you see. If
there is a printer attached to your computer, you may print the
information which is listed on the screen by pressing P.
You may continue the program by pressing the space bar.

If the category you have selected is for storing number grades, then
GRADE GUIDE will list the maximum possible scores for each grade. Again,
you may enter CHANGE MODE, print, or continue by pressing C, P, or the
space bar, respectively.

If the category you have selected is for storing number grades with
cutoffs, then GRADE GUIDE will display the grade cutoffs which you
have established. It will begin with the A cutoffs and continue to the
B, C, and D cutoffs. Each set of cutoffs will be displayed on a
separate screen, and with each set you may choose to enter CHANGE MODE,
print or continue with a C, P, or space bar, respectively.

After viewing one full category of information, you may choose
another category or select OPTION Q to quit and return to the MAIN MENU.

OPTION J -- Displaying, Printing, or Changing Category Information

Selecting this option causes GRADE GUIDE to display all the category
information you have established for this class. For each category the
category names, the type of grades (NUMBER, LETTER, or NUMBER WITH
CUTOFF), and the percentage of the total grade is displayed. You again
may select to enter CHANGE MODE by pressing C. This will allow you
to change the category names and the category percentages but will not
allow you to change the category grade type. If a printer is attached
to your computer, pressing the letter P will cause the information on
the screen to be printed. Pressing Q will quit this option and return
you to the MAIN MENU.

OPTION K -- Displaying or Printing Class Statistics

This is a very powerful option which allows you to print several
kinds of reports about grades for your class. You may choose to
display a report concerning one particular grade (for example, EXAM 3),
one particular category (for example, QUIZ averages), or the GRAND
AVERAGES. Each report will have GRADE GUIDE calculate one
value for each student. In the case of one grade, GRADE GUIDE will
take that grade for each student. In the case of one category,
GRADE GUIDE will take the percentage that each student obtained in
that category. In the case of the GRAND AVERAGE, GRADE GUIDE will
calculate the GRAND AVERAGE for each student. Then you will receive
a report giving the number of students in the class, the maximum and
minimum values obtained by the students, the mean and median scores
obtained by the students, and the standard deviation of the scores.
Next the GRADE GUIDE will display a list of all the scores obtained
listed in increasing order. After that, a histogram of the
distribution of grades is shown.



As in OPTION H you will be able to choose to have the report sent to
the printer if you have a printer attached to your computer. Also,
GRADE GUIDE will ask you to choose whether or not you want NONE
grades treated as zeros.

When the report has been completed, you will have the option to
select another report or press Q to return to the MAIN MENU.

OPTION Q -- Quitting and Returning to the FILE MENU

This option causes the FILE MENU to be redisplayed. If your file
has been changed since the last time a copy of it was written to the
disk, GRADE GUIDE will make a final updated copy of your file at that
time. When the FILE MENU has been displayed, you may select any of the
options available with that menu including choosing another class or
quitting the program.


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= MEMORY REQUIREMENTS =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

When GRADE GUIDE is working on one of your classes, it reads the
entire file of information for that class into your computer's memory.
This allows the GRADE GUIDE to execute very fast. If you try to
read a file into memory which is too large for the memory of your
computer, the GRADE GUIDE will display a warning message and will not
allow you to continue processing that class. This could happen if
you record information about a class using one computer and then
try to process that class using another computer with less internal
memory. GRADE GUIDE has been tested with a class which has 300
students with 400 grades assigned to each student. This worked fine
on a computer with an internal memory of 256 K bytes. On a computer
with only 128 K bytes, you might expect to store 300 students
with 40 grades each or 50 students with 400 grades each. Since most
classes do not have anywhere near much information to store,
GRADE GUIDE will almost never run into memory problems.

If you are processing a class with the GRADE GUIDE and you are
pushing the memory capacity of your computer to the limit, the
GRADE GUIDE will constantly check whether or not your computer
has the capacity to continue processing. If you attempt to add
one more new student or try to record a new set of grades and
there is not enough memory in the computer to allow that, the
GRADE GUIDE will stop you and prevent you from making those
additions to your class. There are two MAIN MENU options which
require some extra memory to be allocated in your computer. They
are OPTIONS E (drop grades) and K (display statistics). If you
ever try to use these options when your computer does not have enough
available memory, a warning will be displayed and you will not be
allowed to use those options.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= INPUT/OUTPUT PROBLEMS =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

When reading from or writing to the disk drives, there is always
a possibility that problems will occur either due to hardware problems
with the disk drive or the diskette, due to the diskette being full, or
due to your removing the necessary diskette from its drive before GRADE
GUIDE is done with it. GRADE GUIDE tries to catch each of these kinds of
errors and will display a warning message whenever it does find a





problem. It may ask you to choose to "A:abort, R:retry, or I:ignore ?" .
Chose to abort if you want the program to stop. Choose to retry if you
want to start the reading or the writing of the file over again. Choose
to ignore only if you believe that the reading or writing of the file
should continue from where it left off, having not corrected any error.

Note that the GRADE GUIDE makes updated copies of your class
file while you are working and changing your class information. This
is done so that if you experience a power loss, there will be a fairly
recent version of you file stored on the disk. It is recommended (as
it is for all information stored on a disk) that after a session
with the GRADE GUIDE, you use the DOS copy function to make backup
copies of your class files.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= SUGGESTIONS =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

If you wish to use GRADE GUIDE for a class but do not want to
separate your grades into categories, just establish one grade
category and call it GRADES.

If you have a category where you give two grades for each
assignment, for example, you may assign one grade for form and one for
contents, you could establish two categories like THEME-form and
THEME-contents. Similarly, if you like to assign number grades and
letter grades to the same assignment, and you do not assign letter
grades strictly on the basis of a cutoff (that is, someone with a 93
gets a B while someone else with a 92 still gets an A), then you could
have two categories for those assignments, one for the number score and
one for the letter score.

If you enter a grade and later decide that you do not want that
grade to be counted, just use MAIN MENU OPTION I to change the weight
for that grade to zero.

If you like to analyze grades in more than one way--like a friend of
mine who likes to either weight the midterm exam to be one half the
value of the final exam or weight the final exam to be one half the
value of the midterm exam depending on which way turns out better
for the student--then you can analyze and print the grades
using one scheme, you can use MAIN MENU OPTION I to change weights,
and then you can analyze and print the grades using the other scheme.

If you have more than one section of one particular course and you
would like to have the two sections listed together because they
have the same assignments and take the same tests, then you can
establish one class file for all the sections. If you want the
students from one section to be listed on your class list separately
from those students in another section, just use a prefix for each
student name when you enter the student name. Jerry Smith from your
first section could be entered as 1 Smith, Jerry and
Sally Jones from your second section could be entered as
2 Jones, Sally. In this way the names from your first section will
be separated from the names from your second section when the names
are alphabetized.

If you like to drop grades at the end of a semester or year, but
you would also like to show students how well they are doing before
the end, you can TEMPORARILY DROP some grades, get a listing of
grades to show the students, but do not make the TEMPORARILY DROPPED
GRADES permanent. You can wait till the end to make them permanent




so that if students receive lower scores later in the semester, the
new lower scores can be dropped and the old scores will not be lost.

If the time has come to assign final grades in a course, you may
wish to get a listing of all your students' grades with MAIN MENU
OPTION H, get a listing of the maximum possible scores and grade cutoffs
with MAIN MENU OPTION I, and get one or more statistical reports using
MAIN MENU OPTION K. Together, these lists will give you as much
information as possible to aid in your final grade assignments.

GRADE GUIDE is compatible with standard DOS I/O redirection.
This means that all the key strokes which you would press during a
session with GRADE GUIDE could be stored in a DOS text file. Then
you could run the GRADE GUIDE program by accepting input from that
file. For example if you have a file "input.dat" which reads :

bmath
cyaAlan
Jean

nqq

Then entering :
gradegid
at the DOS prompt would create the new class called MATH with 2 students.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= VERSION 1.2 CHANGES =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The following changes have been made to GRADE GUIDE version 1.0 in
preparing version 1.2.

Users may now have GRADE GUIDE read names and grades of students from
DOS text files. (See the discussion in the section on MAIN MENU
options.)

The default directory on any drive may now be changed in the FILE MENU.

GRADE GUIDE now asks you if you want to get the
"Are these grades correct (Y/N) ?" message after entering each student's
grades.

GRADE GUIDE now sends a form feed to the printer AFTER the printing of
a table of names or grades rather than BEFORE as it did in version 1.0.

GRADE GUIDE now asks you to confirm that the printer is on when you
choose to print in MAIN MENU option K if you have not yet used the
printer.

GRADE GUIDE now ignores all line feed characters (ASCII 10).

Some unusual program behaviors have been made more reasonable.

GRADE GUIDE now prints a message if the GRADEGID.000 file is not
in the default directory of the default drive.

GRADE GUIDE's beep has been shortened.