Assignment/ Gradebook suite

Motivation:

The Assignment/Gradebook suite will extend the usefulness of Drupal in academic settings. Currently, Drupal is a very useful tool in setting up a student-centered learning environment, but it provides few structured options for educators who need to provide feedback on student work. The Assignment/Gradebook suite will give educators a flexible set of tools for planning, responding to, and assessing student work.

Description:

The Assignment/Gradebook suite will allow instructors to create assignments. Students will be able to respond to assignments, and instructors will subsequently be able to provide both a grade and written feedback on student work. While the course instructor will be able to see all student work, students will only be able to see their own work. Additionally, teachers will have the option of showing students an in-progress grade, or just sharing comments. Teachers will also be able to export grade info in csv format (for use in spreadsheets) and all comments to txt files (for use in narrative grade reports). As a security measure, student grades will be protected behind an additional login.

The spec for the Assignment/Gradebook suite covers a lot of ground. Because the project covers such a broad range of functionality, it allows the student a degree of choice over their specific involvement in the project. We want people to work on things that interest them. The first step (see Roadmap below) in the project involves meeting with the student to narrow the scope of work down to a set of clearly defined, mutually agreed on goals. In short, the SoC work will cover some of the functionality described in this spec, and the student will be actively involved in shaping the scope of their project.

The Assignment/Gradebook Suite will consist of a set of complementary modules:

• Assignment -- the assignment module will allow instructors to create assignments. These assignments will appear on a course calendar
• Submission -- submissions will be generated by students in response to a specific assignment
• Gradebook -- the gradebook module allows instructors to provide feedback on, and grade, submissions. The gradebook module also provides instructors the option to set different types of assignments (test, quiz, presentation, paper, etc), and to specify the percentage of each assignment type in determining the course grade.
• Attendance -- a module to keep track of student absences
• Report -- a module to specify what attendance and grade details are visible to students within the course.

Criteria:

The Assignment/Gradebook Suite will be successfully completed when:

1. An instructor can create an assignment.
2. A student can respond to that assignment.
3. The instructor can grade and provide written feedback on student submissions.
4. Attendance records can be entered and viewed within reports.
5. A report can be generated showing student grades.

Roadmap:

1. Initial meeting to clarify the scope of the project.
2. Create UI mockups for the various forms required by the different modules.
3. Set up the schedule for code reviews.
4. QA testing and usability feedback.
5. Final revisions.

Comments on this proposal

Excellent and much needed module
Eagle-i - May 5, 2006 - 22:35

Great plan / roadmap. We just started with setting up our online schoolsite and are still working on the different courses (sub) sites, but have been waiting for a module like this.

Question:
How is this module going to keep track of grades in different courses? Is this a gradebook per course? (i asume). or an overall gradebook in the school site?

Reason for this question is the schoolsite is our main site for admin / admission purposes and the different course sites are the actual work sites that can be emptied after completion of the course for a new start. (first work could be exported to a back up site or ....)
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Introductions are in order
rwohleb - May 25, 2006 - 04:21

Hi all. I'm the student selected to work on this project. I have some previous LMS development experience that I am hoping will allow us to bring the best of the LMS world to the BEST CMS framework on the planet.

The design of the gradebook is currently being discussed. We hope to build upon the successes and failures from Moodle and other LMS projects. Please feel free to send ideas and requests to me.
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Will you be publishing the 'plan'?
gmak - May 25, 2006 - 14:01

It would be great if we could see your 'plan' as you develop it and give some feedback on the process. As a University course director, I can see that those of us in Higher Education may have different needs from those in primary and secondary, so it would be great if the system were flexible enough to allow some 'tuning' to specific educational levels and needs.

Really looking forward to what you come up with!
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Gradebook for all
rwohleb - May 25, 2006 - 16:13

We have people involved in the project that come from both K-12 and higher education backgrounds. Our goal is to create a gradebook that is flexible enough to be THE Drupal gradebook.

We are still in the early planning stages. I'll attempt to keep the community informed as we progress.

We are really excited to be taking another big step towards bridging the Drupal and LMS crowds.
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RE: Our goal is to create a
bonobo - May 25, 2006 - 17:03

RE:

Our goal is to create a gradebook that is flexible enough to be THE Drupal gradebook.

Ditto that -- as one of the mentors on this project, we will be working to create a tool that balances flexibility, ease of use, and a broad range of applications.

Cheers,

Bill

-------
http://www.funnymonkey.com
Tools for Teachers
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count me in as one is very
jayhawksean - June 12, 2006 - 11:31

count me in as one is very excited about this project. i am not big on Moodle, but i am also not big on Blackboard. unfortunately, i have been using BB only for the gradebook up to this point. i actually like the Assignment Manager in BB's gradebook. i like that i can have my students upload assignments and then i can download them all at once. i don't know if this type of thing is planned, but that would a very nice feature to include.

but, at this point i would be happy just to be able to move out of BB completely. i was already planning to shift to Drupal this fall (and, i already had your site bookmarked). good luck folks!

-Sean Lancaster (link to my ed tech blog)

P.S. I would be more than HAPPY to beta test.
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