Category : Science and Education
Archive   : GMS.ZIP
Filename : GMS.MAN

Introduction


For many years, Elementary School teachers have been required to
maintain an ongoing table of their students' grades. As in most
schools, teachers have an average of 30 students, and between 5 to 7
subjects. This adds up to a lot of book-keeping, in addition to a
teacher's busy schedule of grading papers, planning lessons, and
holding conferences with parents and other faculty. The Grade Managing
System (GMS) was designed with these teachers in mind.

GMS is a comprehensive grade keeping system, allowing a variety of
tasks to be performed on a teachers grade data. A teacher merely enters
his/her students' grades as they are calculated, and GMS stores them on
disk for future reference or alteration.


The grades can be averaged at any time to provide an estimate of
the students' progress through the semester/quarter and these results
can be printed for filing purposes. Assignments can be grouped so that
any type of assignment (tests, quizzes, homework, etc.) can be weighted
more heavily than another. Up to six different assignment types can be
assigned, each with their own individual weight. When report card time
comes, the teacher will no longer have to add each assignment type up
separately and then weight each of these sub-totals. At the touch of a
single key, your computer will perform this mundane task, and display
your information hundreds of times faster than you could possibly do it
yourself.

The grade data can also be printed in a variety of formats. A table
can be printed with all of the students' grades for a particular
subject, one can be printed for a single student and his grades in all
of the subjects, and the averages can be printed for all students in a
particular subject. If your printer has a tractor feed, The holes on
the left side of your printout will fit nicely into the standard grade
book binder, allowing your output to even replace the current forms
that hold the data.

Finally, GMS will set up your data disks for you. It contains a
student editor and a subject editor, allowing you to tailor your class
list or subject list at any point in the term. After entering your
class list and the list of subjects, each subject profile is then
created on your data disk, and you are ready to use the Grade Managing
System.









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Table Of Contents





Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

1. Setting Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2. The Menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

View Student Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Edit Subject Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Print Portfolio Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Prepare Disks for Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Utilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3. Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7


Section 1

Setting Up


Upon receiving your distribution diskette, there are a few
questions you must answer in order to allow the system to work
properly. The first, and most important is where will the GMS reside.

When you first insert the diskette and start GMS, a routine called
install must be executed. This is done by typing

INSTALL .

must be replaced with the drive letter of the disk drive
that you wish to install GMS on. If you have a hard disk, you will want
to install GMS on this disk.

Example: A:INSTALL C

If you have 2 floppy disk drives, insert your distribution disk
into Drive B:, and with a blank, formatted disk in Drive A:, type

B:INSTALL A

If you only have a single floppy drive, the procedure is a little
more complicated, but not difficult. Put your distribution diskette in
Drive A:. Now, type "B:" and the ENTER key. Although you do not have a
second floppy, the computer will pretend that you do, and will respond

INSERT DISKETTE IN DRIVE B: AND HIT ANY KEY TO CONTINUE

At this point, simply hit any key. The computer now thinks that the
disk in your Drive A: is actually the disk in Drive B:. Now type

INSTALL A:








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The computer will respond:

INSERT DISKETTE IN DRIVE A: AND HIT ANY KEY TO CONTINUE

Remove your distribution diskette, insert a blank formatted diskette
into drive A:, and hit any key. The computer will now ask you several
times to swap disks by displaying the above message. Just remember that
whenever it says to insert into drive B:, you must insert your
distribution diskette, and when it says to insert into drive A:, you
must insert your blank diskette.


When GMS has been installed, the DSI logo will be displayed on your
screen, and you have completed the first phase of installation.

The second phase involves letting the program know where its data
disk is, and what kind of printer you are using. The system first asks
you where you would like your data disk to be. Enter the letter of the
drive you would like the data do be stored on. The GMS data is stored
on the root directory of the disk you specify, so it would be a bad
idea to select you hard drive for storing the data.

Next, the program will display a list of printers it supports. Use
the cursor keys to highlight your printer, and press the ENTER key.
GMS saves this information into a file called GMS.CFG. If at any time
in the future, this information should change, you can delete this file
and run GMS. It checks for the file, and if it is not found, GMS will
go through this configuration process again.

You are now ready to begin with the program. Remove your distribution
diskette, and store it in a safe place.












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Section 2

The Menus

The Grade Management System consists of a series of menus. The main
menu directs your to the major functions of the system -- Editing
Grades, Printing Grades, Setting up New Disks, and General Utilities.
The individual functions of each of the menu selections will be
detailed in this section.

1. View Student Portfolio

This option allows you to select a student in your class, and
view all of his grades for each subject at one time. Upon
selecting this option, a list of all of the students in the
class will be shown on the screen, with the first name
highlighted. Use the cursor key to highlight the name of the
student you wish to view, and press the ENTER key. The
students records will be loaded, and displayed on the screen.

Once the information is displayed on the screen, you can move
about the table with the cursor keys. The HOME key will take
you to the very top of the table and at the first grade
position. You may not edit any grades in this mode, however.
This option is strictly a view only procedure. Once you have
examined the student's grades, pressing the F-10 key will
leave the option.
















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2. Edit Subject Portfolio

This option allows you to select a subject, and view the
grades of all of your students. Upon selection of this
option, a list of all of your subjects will be shown on the
screen, with the first one highlighted. Use the cursor key
to highlight the name of the subject you wish to view, and
press the ENTER key.

At this point, GMS will look for the assignment types for this
subject. An assignment type is a single letter code for a
type of assignment (Homework, Test, Quiz, etc). GMS uses
these assignment types to know how much to weight each
grade. If GMS cannot find your assignment types, it will ask
you to re-enter them. You may select up to six different
assignment types for each subject. Simply type in the letter
that you want associated with an assignment, and is
respective percentage of the total grade. Keep repeating
this until you have accounted for 100 % of the grade, and GMS
will store these away. If you make a mistake, press the
BACKSPACE key until the cursor rest underneath the errant
field, and type the correct entry. Then you must retype the
remaining fields until the percentages add up to 100. The
students' records will then be loaded, and displayed on the
screen.

Once the information is displayed, you can move about the
table with the cursor keys. The HOME key will take you to the
very top of the table and at the first grade position. To
edit grades in this mode, two conditions must be met.

First, an assignment type must be established. This is
accomplished by pressing the F-1 key. The cursor will jump
up to assignment line, and allow you to enter the
assignment's type. The letter entered here must be one of
the ones entered previously in the assignment types section,
or you will hear an error bell. Upon entering a valid
assignment type, the cursor will return to its place on the
table.




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The second condition is that the perfect score must be
established. This is accomplished by pressing the F-2 key.
The cursor will jump up to the Perfect Mark line, and allow
you to enter this field. The perfect mark field reflects the
highest possible numerical grade that could be received on
this assignment. GMS will use this number to calculate a
students percentage on each assignment in tabulating
averages. Enter the perfect mark, and press return (If the
number is a 3-digit entry, GMS will automatically enter it
for you).

After meeting these two conditions, you may enter all of the
students' grades for this assignment. The editor is designed
so that upon entering a student's grade, the cursor will drop
to the next student below in the same assignment column.
This will aid in entering all of the grades on an assignment
more efficiently. As in the VIEW STUDENT PORTFOLIO option,
the HOME key will take you to the top of the table.

The F-9 key has its own special function. Upon pressing it,
the averaged grades will be displayed on the screen. There
are two columns that are displayed here: the Raw Average
column, and the Weighted Average column. The Raw Average
column reflects the un-weighted average of all of the
existing grades. The Weighted Average column will display
o_n_l_y_ _i_f_ there is at least one assignment recorded with each
assignment type. This column will display asterisks if this
criteria has not been met. Otherwise, the column will
display the weighted average of all of the grades recorded.

The F-10 key will ask you if you wish to save your changes
before leaving the table. Upon answering the question, you
will be sent back to the main menu.










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3. Print Portfolio Information

This menu option will branch off to GMS's printing menu.
There you are allowed to select one of three printing
formats: by student, by subject, or averages. The first
option will request the name of the student. This is done in
the same way as the VIEW STUDENT option, by highlighting the
student name. GMS will then print the table as you saw it in
the VIEW STUDENT option. The second option requests the
subject name, and will print the table as it was seen in the
EDIT SUBJECT option. The third selection requests the subject
name, and prints the averages for each student for that
particular subject.


4. Prepare Disks For Use

This option will lead you through the steps that need to be
performed in order to set up your data disk. This selection
m_u_s_t_ be done prior to any of the first three main menu
selections. The first task is to enter you class list. The
names need not be in alphabetical order, because GMS will
alphabetize them if you wish later on. For now, enter each
name, ending with the ENTER key. After you have entered all
of the student's names, press the F-10 key. GMS will ask you
if you wish to alphabetize the names. After your response to
this question, GMS will store the list on your data disk.
You will then need to enter the names of your subjects.
Enter these in the same manner as with the students, pressing
F-10 when all of the subjects have been entered. Here, GMS
will join your class list with each of the subjects, and
create your tables. GMS will save this data on your data
disk, and it is now ready to be used with the rest of the
options on the main menu.


5. Utilities

This selection will take you to the Utilities Menu. Here, you
can edit your class list, your subject list, or your
assignment types for any subject. The entry screens are the
same as they were when you initially entered the information.
Typing 9 at this menu will return you to the main menu.

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Section 3


Ordering Information

If you would like to obtain a copy of GMS, send a check or money order
with your name and address for $19.95 to our office. Don't forget to
specify that you want GMS, as we have several packages available. Also
specify the type of disk drive you have (3.5 or 5.25, HD or 2D).


Digital System Innovations
5001 Naples Avenue
Beltsville, MD 20705





Please allow 1-2 weeks delivery, however most orders will be
shipped overnight.
















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