Notes from QA test reports indicate the need for further tests to clarify Smartsite performance.
If we have the time, follow up on these notes.
Nancy, by email July 31, chapter 71:
Gradebook observation - class average (gradebook items) does an average of the total scores divided by the number of students. I noticed this in averages of 2 tests I did, where some people had not submitted tests yet, which gave 0s for their scores. this brought the class averages WAY down below what the average would have been had the total scores been divided by the number of submissions. oddly, there is also a log sheet on the gradebook items summary page for each of the tests, indicating a 0 score was recorded by me when I should have had nothing to do with the scoring. the scoring should have been done automatically in tests & quizzes.
the only commonality in these 3 students was they were added to the site after I had been playing around on it for some time, when I needed extra bodies to populate groups/sections.
Note: these grades are occurring from graded items outside of Gradebook, e.g., quizzes.
Nancy, by email July 25, chapter 67:
Assignments observation - after creation, some items seem to take longer than I remember to show up on the site. for example, in creating graded and ungraded assignments, the graded ones showed up almost immediately in the assignments list. the ungraded one tool a long time...like perhaps more than 30 minutes. despite clearing the cache, reloading and login & out.
8/2/07 - Tested with new course. Created 3 assignments: 1 graded to GB, 1 graded not to GB, 1 ungraded. Logged in as student. All 3 assignments are visible - no lagtime in display. _LJW _
Forum observation - it would appear, as/experiences today, that GRADING a submission in forum/topic does NOT constitute READING it. or at least as far as the sakai program is concerned. as faculty, I graded a number of topic submissions, they showed as being graded in gradebook, but were still identified as unread in the forum tool.
Topic observation - when you create the forum/topic and designate it is to be graded, there is no gradebook entry. additionally, you cannot grade the topic without associating it with an item in gradebook. luckily, another part of the play was to simply create an items in gradebook, which I had already done. so I associated each topic with one of the gradebook items and THEN I could grade them.
Nancy, by email July 24, chapter 66:
Topic observation - it isn't obvious to me that, in order to have the topic graded, it HAS to be associated with a gradebook assignment. when you're creating, you aren't asked for one. however, in order to grade you HAVE to associate it with one. which explains why, after creation, the forum item is NOT seen in gradebook.