<![CDATA[<p>How does the Grade Book work?</p><p><span id="bodyfont" style="font-family:Verdana; font-size: 10pt;"><p>If an instructor or teaching team requests the Grade Book optional feature for a course <strong>web</strong><em>Café</em> Classic room, an eRoom Database (one of the items you can make using the "create" button) entitled "Grade Book" will be set up in the room's Instructor Folder. Students are given a "My Grades" link in the top-level folder of the room. They can click it to get a list of any grades that have been posted. Because the Grade Book is stored in the private Instructor Folder, students will not be able to see anyone else's grades, only their own.</p>
<p>The Grade Book has one database "entry" (row) per enrolled student with a Wharton account. The teaching team may create as many fields (columns) as needed for assignments. The table of rows and columns is known as the summary view, which includes a link to <a href="http://webcafe.wharton.upenn.edu/guide/gradebook.html" target="_blank">instructions</a> for using the Grade Book.</p>
<p>A few columns are predefined. The first column is the student's name; the next two columns are a hidden "sort name" column (last name first) for ease of use when exporting, and the course section. The rest of the columns can be set up by you; these columns can be assignment scores, test scores, paper scores, free-form feedback from you, etc. However, don't create a column for the unofficial final course grade. Faculty submit final course grades through a different system, <a href="http://onlinegrading.wharton.upenn.edu/" target="_blank">Wharton Online Grading</a>; the University <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/registrar" target="_blank">Registrar</a><font size="2"> will then distribute approved final grades using PennInTouch, transcripts and other systems of record.</font></p>
<p>You can easily add columns by using the Grade Book's "edit" button (above the summary table), then choosing "Add a field." Once columns for assignments are set up, grades can be filled in using the "enter grades" button, which allows you to enter grades within a column for one student, checked-off students, or all students. </p>
<p>The Grade Book will:</p>
<ul>
<li>Show a student only her/his own grades, via the "My Grades" link in the top-level folder of the <strong>web</strong><em>Café</em> room. <br />
</li>
<li>Have student rows set up based on current enrollment and then be updated periodically, along with the membership of your <strong>web</strong><em>Café</em> room, as enrollment changes and as students obtain accounts. <br />
</li>
<li>Allow the teaching team to easily export the grade book to Excel using the on-screen "export" button, which produces a CSV (comma-separated value) representation of the grade book. On many computers this opens automatically in Excel; by resaving the file in Excel .XLS format, you can establish an "extract" file for preparing final course grades for upload to Wharton Online Grading. (<em><strong>NOTE:</strong> Please do not post final course grades to the </em><strong>web</strong><em>Café</em> <em>Grade Book; the Registrar distributes final course grades to students via transcripts and related systems of record such as PennInTouch.</em>)<br />
</li>
<li>Allow the teaching team to hide grade book information from students as needed, either on a per-field (just by not specifying a value), per-column (by putting parentheses around the column name), or a temporary "hide everything" basis (this last is done by setting "Read only" access on the entire Grade Book). <br />
</li>
<li><font size="2">Allow use of numbers, letters, dates or free-form feedback. <br />
</font></li>
<li>Allow exclusion of columns from appearing in the summary to save space on-screen.<br />
</li>
<li>Replace the use of Wharton Online Grading for submitting preliminary final course grades for approval. </li>
</ul>
<p><font size="2">The Grade Book won't:</font></p>
<ul>
<li>Include rows for students who have not obtained the Wharton account necessary for <strong>web</strong><em>Café</em>.<br />
</li>
<li>Do any weighting, averaging, curving, or other mathematical calculations on its own (instead, since grades can be exported to Excel, you may perform calculations using your preferred tools). If you need to share summary statistics with students, you can post them elsewhere in <strong>web</strong><em>Café</em>-- for example, in an Announcement or a Note.<br />
</li>
<li>Allow for more than one Grade Book per <strong>web</strong><em>Café</em> room; however, the Grade Book can be shared by the same course sections that share the room as a whole. </li>
</ul>
<p>Importing of grades from Excel is possible but requires following a special workflow described in the Grade Book <a href="http://webcafe.wharton.upenn.edu/guide/gradebook.html#import" target="_blank">instructions</a>. In short, you export the Grade Book; add a column both in the exported .CSV sheet and in the database; fill in the column; delete the current contents of the Grade Book; and, finally, import the edited .CSV sheet.</p>
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