...
I know of several others who find these problems a big issue.
JG
Linton Corruccini, Physics, via email to Kristi Case:
Kristi,
Please ask to fix the grade submission software so that it will upload standard Excel files in .xls format (not just .csv format). The submission page currently is very fussy and will not accept files that I convert to .csv format.
Linton
Carlito Lebrilla, Chemistry, Professor
Also, Erid Dodds, Head TA
5/11/05
Carlito teaching both large multiple section courses as well as smaller (15-20 students) graduate level courses. Eric Dodds is his head TA this quarter.
- Primary needs for the 2 series online labs is ensuring that reports are understood by TA's and functioning properly and to load final lab grades into MyUCDavis.
- They rely on Gradebook for most Chemistry courses. The Chemistry department is fairly proactive and has been using Gradebook for years.
- There are many difficulties encountered in Gradebook - primarily due to issues of joining. They must often create as many as 17 gradebooks for a quarter. The instructor must assign proxies to each section twice - once for the head TA and once for each TA. This is a hugely redundant process since the instructor must do it (cannot have his head TA do it due to permissions.) There is no mass proxy tool so it is time-consuming and tedious.
- The second redundancy is that they can copy a gradebook from a previous quarter or from the current quarter, but they must do this once for each section. There is no method to copy to all gradebooks in the course. The redundancy occurs because they must keep each section separate to limit TA access to only their sections. It's a tedious process for multiple sections of 17 or more.
- Their grading process makes use of the letter grade cutoffs at the end of the course very difficult. The head TA downloads each of the sections and then combines them into a single spreadsheet. He uses Excel to sort and to create stats and graphic displays for the instructor. (The graphs and stats portion has been pre-programmed in Chemistry for long-term usage.) The instructor then determines the grading cutoffs for this course. The instructor and head TA then enter the cutoffs for each of the 17 sections manually. (The TA does not think he can enter cutoffs - function may be limited to instructor.) This is another repetitive process.
- It would be much easier if they could join the gradebooks at the end of the quarter (after all TA's have updated their sections grades), but they have been warned that the joining process may cause grades to be lost.
- The ability to safely join sections during the final grading process is a key issue.
- They do use the global function to assign recommended grades and then review and make changes as needed for special circumstances (e.g., student misses a mid-term but has a doctor's excuse.)
- Primary functionality would be the ability to view Gradebook with both options - individually, by section and also as a course. TA's previous experience was with an instructor that wanted him to join the gradebook and then enter each TA's information - this was NOT a good experience.
- The instructor was unaware if there was a notification process (to his department Zordept) in the Gradebook submission process.
- Instructor keeps spreadsheets stored locally and hard copies are stoede in the front office. Carlito waits a few days before submitting final grades but does not display the grades to students prior to submission.