THE NEW ONLINE ELECTRONIC MARKSHEET

Topics covered in this document:

Electronic Marksheet Overview

The electronic marksheet was developed to aid in the collection and distribution of examination marks on a semester basis. This process involves the entry of coursework (in-course examinations) and final examination marks at the end of the semester for each course. This data is entered in the departments by individual lecturers (or Administrative Assistants in some cases) and an official University Marksheet is generated from the online system. Examiners are required to sign the printed marksheet as was done in the past and submit it to the Examinations Section. Each time a marksheet is printed from the online system a snapshot of the data printed on the marksheet is taken and stored where it cannot change. The snapshot is marked with a special unique code which is also printed on the marksheet. On receipt of the signed marksheet, the Examinations Section will load the marks generated on the marksheet by entering the unique code printed on the marksheet. The examination results will be published (electronically) to the student body on a schedule determined by the Examination Section.

About Online Electronic Marksheet

Unlike the first version, the new marksheet program is much more user friendly. It is similar in functionality but way more user friendly; we hope you will be far more comfortable with it than it's DOS predecessor. The new online marksheet has retained all the functionalilty of it's predecessor with a few added functionality and enhanced security.

This system will eliminate the previous printing evils (i.e. DOS printing problems) which used to plague the departments at examination times. There is no 'setup' involved; you are ready to go from day one. No CDs or diskettes are involved. Once a PC is connected to the intranet and have the latest version of internet explorer then it can be used. The new system offers a more efficient and precise printing solution.

Software Requirements

  • Internet explorer 6 and up
  • Adobe Acrobat reader

NB: Will only run on Inter net explorer not Netscape or Mozilla FireFox compatible.

 

GETTING STARTED WITH THE ONLINE MARKSHEET

Locating the Marksheet Option Online

From the UWI Staff Main Menu, select the [Enter Examination Marks] link located under the SEMESTERS 1 And 11 REGISTRATION sub-heading

Fig. 1 Marksheet link on the SRS web page.

This will take you to the 'Select Department' screen. Select the academic year and the department that the course belongs to.  Click the 'GO' button to submit the page for processing.

Selecting the Department

To select the department click on the department pull down menu. A list of departments will be displayed.  Choose your department from the list.

Selecting the Course

The maksheet for a course is broken in 'groups' based on the students' faculty and site. Select the course and the 'group' of students you will be entering marks for as shown in figure 2. For security reasons you are also required to re-enter your password on this screen. Clicking the 'submit' button will take you to the electronic marksheet.

 

 

 

CONFIGURING THE MARKSHEET TEMPLATE

By default each marksheet is supplied with a default template consisting of nine (9) examination questions, one (1) column for coursework, a column for examination total, the final percentage column and the final grade column. While this template might suit the vast majority of courses, it does not match how all courses are examined. In the faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences where practical examinations are given there might be a need to add a column for the practical component.

This option provides the user with the ability to add and delete columns to the marsheet. The user can decide which columns will get printed on the final marksheet. The user also has the option of determining  the size and precision of the data entered in each column.

Accessing the 'Configure Marsheet' Option:

This is found below the mark sheet by clicking the 'configure marksheet' button.

Customize columns

Each editable column (excluding the Percent, Grade and Id columns) are represented by a Physical Name and a logical name. As seen in the marksheet, the logical names can be edited; you can name the columns whatever you like or find meaningful. The logical name is what gets printed on the marksheet.

Set field lengths

Field length is the total number of digits including the decimal point that is allowed for a specific column. The maximum value for this field is 6 and the minimum value is 2.

Set decimal places

The 'Decimal Places' column indicates the maximum number of decimal places that will be permitted for a specific column. Valid values are in the range of 0 to 2. If you enter a value of 0, then only whole numbers will be allowed for that column. If you enter 1 then you will be permitted to enter numbers with up to 1 decimal places.

Display(Print) and set order

To have a column displayed on the 'printed' marksheet check the 'Print' box associated with the column. Columns whose print box is not checked will not be printed on the marksheet.

The 'order' column gives you the ability to determine the order in which the columns are displayed on the marksheet. Enter a number between 1 and 998 to order/sequence the columns to your liking.

Adding a column

To add a column, check the 'add' checkbox. Select an available 'physical' field and type in the name you want to give to the column under 'logical name'. All columns added have a default type of numeric. Indicate the length, number of decimal places, print option and column sequence number (order).

Fig 3 Shows the marksheet configuration window

 

MANIPULATING FORMULA ON THE EXAMINATION MARKSHEET

Fig. (4) This shows the formula configuration window for the for the mark sheet.

The online marksheet gives you the ability to associate a formula to any numeric column on the marksheet. Calculations entered can be quite simple or very complex.

When entering a formula you are required to reference the columns by using the 'physical field' names and NOT the logical field names. Logical field names are determined by you the user and sometimes these names are not unique; physical field names on the other hand are always unique and cannot change.  In this way you can actually change the names of one of your columns without affecting the formula.

A mapping of the 'logical' names to the 'physical' names of each column is displayed at the bottom of the page. In figure (4) above, the formula C11 = C01+C02+C03+C04 is equivalent to saying ExamTot = Q1+Q2+Q3+Q4. From the field mapping ExamTot is stored in C11, Q1 is stored in C01, Q2 is stored in C02, Q3 is stored in C03 and Q4 is stored in C04.

Adding a Formula

  • Determine the column that you want to enter a formula for and find its physical name. So if you wanted to enter a formula for the 'Exam Tot' you would select 'C11' from the list of fields. (Based on the example field mapping in figure 4 above).  From the mapping you can see that 'Exam Tot' is stored in the physical field 'C11'

  • On the right hand side of the equal (=) sign you would type the formula.

  • All the basic arithmetic operators are available to you when entering a formula. These are +, - , *, / for plus, minus, multiply and divide.

  • In addition to the basic arithmetic operators we have provided you with a number of other numeric functions. Some of these are:

    SUM(start_column:end_column).

    The sum formula is similar to the formula used in Microsoft Excel. It accepts two arguments a starting cell and an ending cell, and sums all the cells in the range. This method is best used for group calculations.

    Example: M=sum(C01:C09) means ExamTot = C01+C02+C03+C04+C05+C06+C07+C08+C09

    RND(numeric_expression,number_of_decimal_places).

    The RND or round function, rounds a numeric expression to a specified number of decimal places.

    Example: C11=RND(SUM(C01:C09)*60/100,0). In this example ‘numeric_expression’ is represented by ‘sum(C01:C09)*60/100’ and ‘number_of_decimal_places’ is 0. The value of sum(C01:C09)*60/100 is to be rounded to 0 decimal places. If the value return by ‘sum(C01:C09)*60/100’ is 54.4 it would be rounded to 54 and if the value of ‘sum(C01:C09)*60/100’ is 56.7 it would be rounded to 57.

    INT(numeric_expression).

     The ‘INT’ function returns the integer or whole number part of ‘Numeric_expression’. If numeric_expression returned 56.4 then the ‘INT’ function would convert it to 56, likewise the ‘INT’ function would convert 67.9 to 67.

    BESTOF(numbers_2_choose, number1, number2, number3, number4, ,,,,,, number20).

    The ‘BESTOF’ function returns the sum of the top (or best) 'numbers_2_choose' numbers from the list of numbers supplied.

    Example: BESTOF(4,C01,C02,C03,C04,C05,C06) would return the sum of the top (best) 4 marks from questions 1 to 6.

    Example: BESTOF(3,C01,C02,C03,C04,C05,C06,C07,C08,C09) would return the SUM of the top (best) 3 marks from questions 1 to 9.

    Example: BESTOF(1,C01,C02,C03,C04,C05,C06,C07,C08,C09) would return the top (best) mark from questions 1 to 9.

 Another Example:

‘CS999’ is examined as follows. Coursework is worth 40% of the final mark. The final examination has nine (9) questions each worth 20 marks. Students are required to do all nine questions. The final exam contributes 60% to the final mark for the course. Assume that the coursework mark is already converted to out of 40 before they are entered.

We would enter the following formula :

 C11=SUM(C01:C09)*60/180. The maximum that can be obtained in the exam is 180 since each question is worth 20 marks and there are 9 questions. The exam can only contribute 60% of the final mark so we need to scale the mark to a value out of 60.

 PERCENT=C10+C11. The percentage (PERCENT) is the sum of the coursework (C10, which is already out of 40) and the exam total (C11, which has been converted to a value out of 60).

The letter grade for the percent is automatically calculated for you.

THE PERCENT COLUMN IS ALWAYS OUT OF 100.

 

Deleting a Formula

To delete a formula select the cell and in the formula text box type the word DELETE then submit changes.

 

PRINTING FROM THE MARKSHEETS

Printing a Marksheet

  • Select the page size and orientation of the printed marksheet.

  • Select the 'Print Marksheet' button.

  • Click the link labeled 'Click here to view the marksheet'.See fig. (5).

Fig. (5) Shows the print marksheet link circled in red.

This link will take you to the print preview of the marksheet in PDF format; it may take some time for adobe acrobat reader to load. Since the report is in PDF format it can be manipulated using all the available functionality provided by the adobe reader.

Fig (6) Web PDF Document window

Click the print icon located in the top left hand corner of the window. A list of printers installed on your PC will be displayed. Select the appropriate printer and click the OK button.

Printing Statistics

This is similar to printing a marksheet. Click the button labeled 'Statistics'It requires the user to click the Statistics button from the marksheet menu.  The link on the print statistics window the will as the use to open or save the document, select open which will bring up the PDF document with the stats report .

PDF Print Dialog Box

This box will appear after you select the print option on the PDF document as shown below in fig. (7).

Fig (7) Shows the printer dialog box.

Note: Security feature in the online system may require the user to re-enter thier password whenever gardes are being submitted to the server. NB: Your are required to save every 15 minutes before the session times out as no auto save is available.

  
   

Prepared by:

B. McDonald
April 2005