Gradebook Practice Exercise

Gradebook Practice Exercise

Reference
In any module of Registrar's Office, select Help, Online Manual from the menu bar, and select Registrar's Office Optional Modules Guide. Read the chapter on Gradebook. Also read the customized instructions sent to your school by Jackson Software.
To Export Class Information from Registrar's Office for Windows

In Utilities and Housekeeping, select File, GradeQuick, Create GradeQuick Import Files.
Indicate the class you selected or the teacher for the class you selected. Select the year and terms for your class, and mark the Print Control Report checkbox. On the Relationship tab, include any appropriate relation information.
Click OK, and look at the Control Report. The file(s) should have been exported to your GQWIN directory and the file extensions are .dat.
Look in your GQWIN folder to make sure the files are there.

Import into GradeQuick

If you use Site Manager with GradeQuick, open GradeQuick and select File, New from the menu bar. Select to import a roster, and then select the correct file from the list that appears.

Note: If you do not use Site Manager, it is possible to use the following steps instead. Make sure you follow the procedure your school requires. In GradeQuick, select File, Import, Import ASCII Delimited Roster, Data from the menu bar. Select Blkbaud, and then select the DAT file you just exported. At the next prompt, select Create New Class.

Highlight the first student in the list. Select Edit, Student Information to see information about the student and his or her relation that you selected for the export.
Select Edit, Class Information to see details about the class that were exported from Registrar's Office.

Filling Out the GradeQuick File

Click anywhere in the blank grid in the middle of the screen. Click Yes at the prompt to create a column for grades. Type "Quiz 1" or another appropriate name for the Name, 1 for the Term, and 100 for the total possible points (if that is your grading scale).
Enter grades for all of the students in this column (where you see the **).
Click in the grid again to create a second column. For example, you might call this one Quiz 2, Term 1, with 50 possible points. Create more columns as needed.
Enter grades for Quiz 2, etc.
Select View, Subtotals, and mark the Terms checkbox. Click OK. Now when you look at the grid, you see a column called SubTotal for Term 1. This column's information is what exports for Registrar's Office for the first marking column; for example QT1.
Highlight the first student's name. Select Edit, Memos, Edit Memo. Select Note to Student. Type grade comments in this block for export back to Registrar's Office. Comments may be up to 32,000 characters in length.
Save the file. The proper file extension is now .gbk.

Export from GradeQuick

Select Options, System Information. In the Grade Export Extension field, type IMP. This ensures that all files you export from GradeQuick have an .imp extension.
If you use Site Manager, select File, Send to from the menu bar in GradeQuick. You may have one or more options, depending on your school's customization of GradeQuick. Select Blackbaud or select one of the customized options. Refer to the customized instructions provided to your school by Jackson Software for more details.
Note: If you do not use Site Manager, you can use the following steps instead. Make sure you follow the procedure your school requires. Select File, Export, Custom Export, Blkbaud. The file name that appears is the same file name you imported, but now with an .imp extension instead of a .dat extension.

Look in your GQWIN folder to make sure the IMP file was created.

Import to Registrar's Office

In Utilities and Housekeeping, select File, GradeQuick, Import GradeQuick Files.
Make sure the path is c:\GQWIN, and check the file you wish to import. Mark only Quarter 1 or the correct marking columns for Marking Columns to Import. Mark the Print Control Report and Import Comments checkboxes. Select Quarter 1 if correct for the comments. Mark Print Comments on Report Cards.
Click OK. Look at the Control Report.
Open Grades and select the By Teacher tab. Pull up the teacher of the class you are working with and look at the specific class. You should see Quarter 1 marks for all the students that you graded in GradeQuick.
Mark the Comments option. You should see the comments that you entered for the first student in the GradeQuick file.

Next Term's Grades

Open the GradeQuick GBK file again. Create columns for Quarter 2 grades (the Term will be 2). Enter grades and comments, and send them back to Registrar's Office. Note that if you want to enter a new student comment, you must delete what has been previously entered.
Import the Term 2 grades from your GradeQuick file into Quarter 2 in Registrar's Office.
Create and import grades and comments for Quarters 3 and 4. Check Grades in Registrar's Office to make sure your grades and comments imported correctly.
In GradeQuick, select Grading, Grading Preferences. Mark Calculate Semester Totals. Indicate 2 terms per semester.
Next select View, Subtotals. Notice that there is a section for Summary Columns. If you use a Final marking column in Registrar's Office, then Year should be marked. If you do not use a Final marking column, unmark it.
Look at the very last column in your GradeQuick file. Notice that this column is called "Grade," and "Yr" should be indicated below the word "Grade." This is the column that corresponds to the Final marking column in Registrar's Office.
Send your GradeQuick file one last time, and import the grades into the Final marking column in Registrar's Office.

Questions

When you are having trouble importing GradeQuick files into Registrar's Office, what files will a customer support analyst ask you to send?
Sa.db, Blkbaud.etp, blkbaud.itp.
Who sends GradeQuick software to you?
You purchase GradeQuick through Blackbaud, but Jackson Software ships it to you with customized instructions for your school.
If I need assistance installing GradeQuick and setting up my new GBK files, whom should I call?
Jackson Software can assist you. Reach them at www.jacksoncorp.com, or at 1.847.835.1992.
Should I export GradeQuick files one at a time, or all at once? Why?
Any combination is fine, because the file names are permanent for each class section.
When I create GradeQuick import files, what are the files named after?
The Create GradeQuick Import Files utility creates a unique and lasting file name for each class exported to GradeQuick. The file name combines a unique course identifier based on the course ID and the class section number, or you can customize the file name. The course identifier depends on the length and uniqueness of the course ID, and the following rules:

File Name Rule Course ID Identifier

The course identifier defaults to the first six valid
characters of the course ID if it is unique.

Religion

English I

Religi

Englis

If a course identifier has fewer than six characters, a
dash (-) is added to the end of the identifier. Math Math-

If the course ID is not unique, fewer characters are tried down to a minimum of four.

English II

English III

Engli-

Engl-

After that, the first five characters of the course ID are followed by an added letter (A to Z).

English IV

English V

English VI

EngliA

EngliB

EngliC

Customizing the file name is simple. In Utilities and Housekeeping select File, GradeQuick. Select Customize GradeQuick File Names to view a list of all courses with their file name descriptions. To edit a GradeQuick file name, highlight the row containing the file name, and click Edit. Edit the file name on the resulting screen, and click OK to save your changes.

What are the advantages of using the Gradebook interface instead of Faculty Access?

You do not have to install Registrar's Office on each workstation.
You can install GradeQuick on Macs.
Multiple grade information can be entered and subtotaled in GradeQuick.

How many comments per student per class may be stored in GradeQuick?
32,000 characters
If I import grades from GradeQuick into Registrar's Office, then change the grades in my GradeQuick file, can I import grades again into Registrar's Office?
Yes, you can overwrite existing information.
Can I import comments from GradeQuick into Registrar's Office if I have not entered grades?
No.
Who should I contact for help setting up a custom report within GradeQuick?
Jackson Software.
What does the control report do?
When you create GradeQuick import files, one file per class is created. The Control Report lists all the files for each teacher. If more than one teacher is assigned to a class, the file for that class is included in each teacher's list. You can print teacher lists on separate pages by marking the Print One Teacher Per Page checkbox. This checkbox is enabled only if Print Control Report is also marked.

How can I tell from GradeQuick if a student drops a class in Registrar's Office?
If your school uses Site Manager and someone updates the GBK files with fresh data from Registrar's Office, the next time you open the class file in GradeQuick a message appears telling you which student has dropped the class. Also, the notation DR appears in the student's row in your GBK file. When you see the DR, you can safely delete the student from your GBK file without messing up his grades in Registrar's Office.

If you do not use Site Manager, the student continues to appear in GradeQuick when you export files from Registrar's Office for any term he was enrolled. Do not remove his name. He does not appear in GradeQuick when you export files from Registrar's Office only for terms in which he has no grades or attendance records.
Is there a way to protect GBK files from being overwritten by outdated copies?
Always use the check-in and check-out features in GradeQuick to create portable copies of GBK files, for instance if you take files on diskette home to enter grades on weekends. Select File, File Management from the menu bar.

When you bring a copied file back to the school and try to update the original with your updated copy, the check-in process prompts you to carefully select which file is current.

Source: Blackbaud's Academically Speaking bulletin.

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Last modified: October 31, 2005
Yannis Grammatis