Extra Assignments:

The Administrative Control Application gives instructors the ability to develop and administer course assignments which lie outside textbook and testing, such as Papers, Labs, Extra Credit Activities, etc. Categories for labeling or describing such assignments are highly flexible, with the only requirement being that they contain a minimum of 6 characters for each category. Various point credits may be assigned to each assignment category and class results may be totalled, averaged, or exported in Excel spreadsheet format for external manipulation.

To begin the process of working with custom assignments use the "Connection" menu at the top left of your screen to select "Assignments":

 

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Creating and Naming a New Assignment:

The first thing you will encounter when taken to the Assignments screen is a Help message describing the process of creating and managing assignments, as illustrated below. To close this help message simply click anywhere inside the message field: 


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As the help message suggests, the first thing you must do is to select (again) the course section with which you wish to work by using the "Show Data for..." option of the Database menu, as illustrated:

 

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After selecting a section with which to work, the existing data for all students assigned to that section will appear. If you are just setting up your first Assignment, a dialog will appear telling you that you must create at least one assignment and name it at this time as illustrated below:



Other assignments may be added later and the process for this is described in a subsequent section below.

 

Naming your new Assignment and Giving it a Point Value:

Acknowledging the requirement to create at least one assignment will bring a second dialog requesting the name or category you wish to give to your first (new) assignment:



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In the illustration above the first assignment being created is being named "Laboratory 1" and when the "OK" button is clicked another dialog appears asking for the maximum number of points you wish this assignment to be worth for grading purposes:



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Once the assignment has been named and its maximum points assigned, you will see the label for this assignment added to the spreadsheet that was loaded with your student information. Only the assignment components of this spreadsheet are editable from the Assignments screen, so let us now consider this process.

Working with the Assignment Spreadsheet:

Once you have created at least one assignment category, you may edit its name, its assigned point values, or create new additional assignment categories. Any time your cursor pauses over a category title bar on the spreadsheet, a reminder pop-up appears suggesting you may click on the assignment category header to obtain a menu for editing purposes:

 


 

As the note suggests, clicking on this (or any other) assignment category will display an editing menu, as illustrated below:

 

As this menu suggests, you may Rename your currently selected assignment, Delete it from your list, Insert a new category (inserts a new category to the left of the currently selected category), Add a new category (adds the new category at the end of the existing listing), or Edit the Maximum Score assigned to the selected category. If you select "Add New Category" you will see a dialog for first typing the name of the assignment and then another for giving it a maximum value as you did for your first assignment category:


 

Posting Points for Students:

Posting points for students is as simple as clicking on the appropriate cell in the spreadsheet where the student and assignment intersect, then typing in the actual value that student earned on that assignment, as illustrated:

 


 

Saving Your Postings to the Server:

As with most computer applications, modifying data or configurations requires subsequent Saving that work for it to become permanent. To save any modifications, whether assignment category edits or student score postings or both, use the Data Source menu selection of "Post the Data" as illustrated below:

 


 

Checking Maximum Scores for Assignments and Manipulating Data:

If you need to review what maximum values you have allocated to each assignment, there are two methods for bringing up a summary of categories and corresponding scores. First, you may use the "My Tables" menu to show Maximum Scores, or alternatively there is a small round "button" at the far right of the assignments labels just above the vertical scrollbar that accomplishes the same thing. Either will bring you the following type dialog:

 




 

The"My Tables" menu also affords some simple opportunities to manipulate your data, including exporting them as an Excel spreadsheet readable file.




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