GradeWatch owner's manual

Table of contents

  • About GradeWatch
  • Distribution
  • System requirements
  • Package installation
  • Microsoft Internet Information Service
  • ActiveState PERL
  • WinZIP
  • Updating configuration files
  • Grades database
  • Creating references to login pages
  • Optional customization of a login page

About GradeWatch

GradeWatch is an intranet software package, which utilizes a web server to display students' grades. The only user side software required is an Internet browser capable of displaying HTML tables. Netscape Navigator 3.0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 would do. Refer to the owner's reference for server's requirements. The login screen is generated by the package and consists of the course name, user name and password. After successful login student will see a table with information corresponding to his or her grades and common area corresponding to the course grade statistics. Instructor has access to each student grades, all students grades at once, can e-mail grades to one student or all of them, generate a mailing list from the roster, and access the software usage log for the particular course. All of that with one single power user password that can be set separately for each course. Please read the user's manual for more information on using the database.

Distribution

GradeWatch package was written by Aleksander Malinowski and Bogdan M. Wilamowski. It can be distributed freely under either GNU or Artistic license agreement. The other software mentioned here may be copyrighted by their producers. The distribution file is available from the main help web page.

System requirements

Server

You need a networked computer with a static IP address (the internet address of your computer.) You do not need to have a Internet name for your computer. (It would be nice to have one though.) The Arpa address (four dot separated numbers) would do. You will need to know this address or network name to refer to your GradeWatch from the web pages.

Server side software

GradeWatch database access program is written in PERL5 CGI-script. In order to run it you need to have an access to CGI-enabled web server which can run PERL5 scripts.

Client side

The web pages can be displayed by any table viewing capable web browser. They were tested both with Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, versions 3.0x or later. Pages use JavaScript enhancements but will also work properly if JavaScript is disabled. No Java support is necessary. Certainly no particular system requirements for the client computer - just need to be capable of running a web browser.
In case you need to be able to view grades in a text web browser such customization of the software is doable.

Package Installation

The program was written to be platform independent. However, the current installation package will work without any modification in Win32 environment powered by Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) and ActiveState PERL5 compiler. Server side active script page technology support is not required by the package. If you want to run your program on another platform feel free to modify it provided that original copyright information remains intact. Please send your modifications to the authors rather than redistribute the altered package on your own.

Win32 users

To install GradeWatch you need to unzip the zip file you downloaded. You may use for example WinZIP to unpack the files. If you did not make any alterations to the IIS server unpack the installation file to C:\ and preserve the directory structure. The following step by step procedure is advised. If some software is already installed you do not need to reinstall it.
  • Install Microsoft's Internet Information Server.
  • Install ActiveState PERL5.
  • Install WinZIP.
    • WinZIP or other software of similar functionality is necessary only to unzip the GradeWatch installation file.
  • Unzip the GradeWatch installation file.
  • Test if the web server is working properly.
  • Create and install data files for your courses.
  • Create links to the GradeWatch from your web pages or let your students know what is its web address.

Other systems

The instruction above is written for win32 operating systems. If you want to install this package on a unix system you need to make several minor alterations to the PERL scripts. In that case unpack all files to one directory first and then make appropriate changes. You may contact olekmali at bradley dot edu for help for your specific case.

Microsoft Internet Information Service (IIS)

Microsoft distributes IIS with Windows95SR2, Windows 98, and Windows NT. On WIndows 95 and Windows NT IIS is distributed in its older version as Personal Web Server (PWS.) You can also download IIS from the Microsoft web site free of charge. The version downloaded from Microsoft can be installed automatically without much hassle.
GradeWatch is not optimized in any way to work with microsoft software or on win32 operating system. Just the installation file you can download has directories and configuration set for this particular environment. The reason for this choice is that personal computers and win32 is the most common choice for desktop computers, and the idea of this software is such that every lecturer could use it on his or her own independently using a networked PC. If you need help with IIS contact your department IT representative or network administrator for assistance.

ActiveState PERL

ActiveState PERL5 is a free (GNU license) PERL compiler for win32 platform. IT is distributed in the form of self-extracting and self-installing file. In most cases no extra work is necessary after executing the downloaded distribution file and restarting the system. In case of Windows 95/98 or old version of IIS an additional step may be necessary to associate .pl extension with PERL scripts inside your web server. You will be able to determine if it is necessary if a test PERL script will not work properly. If you are running Windows 95 you will need DCOM from Microsoft to run this particular PERL compiler.

WinZIP

GradeWatch package consists of several text files and PERL scripts compressed into one file in zip format. If you are running Windows probably the most convenient way to unpack the file is to use WinZIP. WinZIP is a shareware program developed and copyrighted by Nico Mak Computing. If you do not find it useful you may uninstall it later. It is necessary only to unpack the installation file.

Updating configuration files

There are two text configuration files, each to be edited manually. Use of notepad text editor is suggested. If you would like to use your own favorite editor make sure that it can insert tabulation characters into the file.

gr_conf.txt

This file is used to specify the web server's administrator name, e-mail address and local e-mail server. Although configuring this file does not seem critical you must edit this file eventually in order for your system to work properly over long period of time. The file is a text file and has the following format.
  • # is used as a comment symbol, each line is truncated at this character  when read.
  • empty lines are ignored
  • each line consisting configuration information consists of a variable name, equal sign '=' and the variable value. Initial white space, white space around '=', and white terminal white space is truncated.
  • the order of variables in the file is not important
The following text is the original configuration which comes with the GradeWatch installation.
 
# GradeWatch main configuration file
# the format is as follows
# key = value

# to use as an e-mail for comments if no professor e-mail specified
webmaster      = olekmali@ieee.org

# used to send the grade reports to students
smtp-server    = bradley.bradley.edu

# used to determine remote access. Regular expressions ok.
local-network  = 136.176.*.*

gr_files.txt

The file has the format as described below. The columns in the file are TAB delimited. TAB and # are the only special characters. Everything in a line after # is a comment. Lines which do not have at least three columns are also skipped. Notepad or other plain text editor  capable of generating and preserving TAB characters is suggested as editor. The columns are:
  • course name as used in login menu and appear in the on-line report
  • full path to the text database file
  • privileged password for viewing this course data regardless of student id number
  • professors e-mail address (return address for mailing grades)
  • professors name, optional, space may be used among parts of the name
The following text is the original configuration which comes with the GradeWatch installation. It contains definition for one demo course. Adding new courses above this one sample definition is suggested.
 
# course   database file                    pass    e-mail              Name
demo   \inetpub\scripts\grades\demogr.txt   admin   olekmali@ieee.org   Aleksander Malinowski

Grades database

Creating or updating database is a simple process if certain rules are followed. The original developers' intention was to create something, which is quick to use, and does not take too much time to develop as well. To avoid entering data multiple times the Excel (or any other spreadsheet) file is utilized as a database. Each course has its own database file. However, to simplify the package and make it independent from any particular spreadsheet (especially Microsoft products which change the file format with each version) a tab delimited text file exported from your favorite software package is used.
Because such a text file does not contain all the information which is stored  in the original file two restrictions apply
  • the file must have some extra formatting information marking general information about the course such as column names, extra statistical information (maximum and minimum number of points) etc.
  • the file must be stored both in your favorite software package format and tab delimited text because all automatic formulas you entered into your spreadsheet are lost when the file is exported into text format.
Usually once a database is created it can be copied into new files and quickly adapted for new courses. A sample database was created using Microsoft Excel 97. You can download the binary file or look at its image in GIF format. You can also inspect quickly the database file shown as a table resulting report for a  student and instructor's report. You may also look at all three tables at once.

Read more detailed explanation of the grade database file format

Each time you modify the grades using your favorite spreadsheet you need to perform some extra work. After saving your data file as you usually would save it you need to save it once again as a tab delimited text file. Export it always to the same location which you specified in the GradeWatch configuration file and then make habit of immediately closing it to prevent re-saving it once again as the original database file with possible (I do not know your software) loss of some spreadsheet specific information.

Creating references to login pages

The database login page can be created in several ways. You can rely entirely on the login page automatic generation or save the generated page as HTML and post it on your web site. The first way is much easier if you are not accustomed much with creating web pages and modifying them later using HTML directly. The latter way allows you for easier login page customization and avoids occupying CPU each time somebody wants to see a login page.
In order to use the GradeWatch you need to create a web page with one of the following links:
  • http://YourServerIpAddressOrName/scripts/grades/gr_login.pl to get a login page with the course menu
    • sample link to author's server - http://sant.bradley.edu/scripts/grades/gr_login.pl
    • local link - works only if you are browsing this help file from a computer on which you have already successfully installed GradeWatch.
  • http://YourServerIpAddressOrName/scripts/grades/gr_login.pl?demo where demo is the course name
    • sample link to author's server - http://sant.bradley.edu/scripts/grades/gr_login.pl?demo
    • local link - works only if you are browsing this help file from a computer on which you have already successfully installed GradeWatch.

Optional customization of a login page

You may want to customize the login page so that it is consistent with your web site. To do that you can type the login page address mentioned above and once the page is displayed by your web browser you can save it locally as html file, and after customizing it post it on your web site. The login page has a form inside. You will need more complicated HTML editor or edit the saved page as a text file to modify the form submission address by adding the part indicated by bold font as in the following example 
action="http://YourWebServerAddrressName/scripts/gr_view.pl" 
which in case of the author's web site would be 
action="http://sant.bradley.edu/scripts/gr_view.pl" 
web page   main help file  user's manual   owner's manual  grades database  multiuser solutions