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Design question

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    #1

    Design question

    I am using A5 as a grade record keeping system for high school classes. I like the reporting features of the database but miss the ease of using a spreadsheet. Right now I have five tables linked in a set. One table holds student demographics for various reports such as attendance and other kinds of check list items. I can set them to print info for students who are not withdrawn or who meet other criteria. The other four tables hold grades from each of the four quarters and the set combines for semester averages and final grades.
    One of the issues that I have to deal with is the fact that some students transfer in at various points during the year. This means that I must post some kind of transfer grade and they may not have a grade for a particular test. This means the averaging process needs to ignore certain field when it figures grades. I solved that problem by having a counter tied to each grade field that indicates a one or zero depending on the whether the field is blank or not. This allows me to view the data in a speadsheet kind of view. It also makes data entry easier. I am also dealing with the changeover from A4 v6 to A5 v3. I would prefer to wait for version 5 rather than upgrade (and pay)twice.
    My other consideration is to develop a table that deals with tests since not every test is given to every class. (I teach several subjects -- Chorus, Music Theory, Keyboard and Humanities. The keyboard class is the most problematic since it is individually paced and I can have the students in ten different places at the same time. I am beginning to wonder if an invoice model might be more practical but am not sure if I can get the speadsheet view that is so comfoprtable for data entry.
    I can't send an attachment at this time because everything I have has live data and confidentiality rules don't permit me to do something like this.
    I anyone is using A5 in this fashion, I'd like some input as to what has worked well.
    Thanks in advance
    Jim

    Tags: None
    #2
    RE: Design question

    James,

    The spreadsheet view should be no problem using a browse and can be printed using a tabular report. You can download the amortization application from learn alpha.com to see a spreadsheet view in action in a browse and a report.

    Regarding your layout, I'd place all grades in the same table and differentiate courses and quarters with fields in the table. It's a straightforward matter to filter the grades by course/quarter/year/student to get the grades you want shown and averaged. At the end of the year, you could copy the completed courses to another table to hold retired records and start over in the active tables for a new year.

    If you want to post something, copy the application to another folder. Go into the copy and change the names to nonsense names and post the copy. Then we can't tell who is who.

    Your method of dealing with the transfers-in seems to be the way to go.

    Comment

      #3
      RE: Design question

      Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look at the mortgage application and try to adapt what I can. It takes a bit of time to copy dummy information into the application but I know it makes it easier for people to give advice when they see the plan in action.

      Comment

        #4
        RE: Design question

        Jim, two quick comments...

        1) Having separate tables for the four quarters seems unnecessarily complex to an outsider like me. Why couldn't you put the entire year in one table, and then use begin and end dates to filter reports at print time? The same layout could do a month, a quarter, a semester, or the entire year, depending on what begin and end dates are specified by the user...

        2) I keep the attendance in our church Sunday School program, and became quickly bored entering true or false into weekly attendance records for all kids in the program. Now, I've designed a form which contains a variable field in which I insert the class date. It has 45 checkboxes, linked to 45 student name variables. It has a button which prompts the user to specify the name of the class. The button's script then scans the students and extracts those in this class, sorts them, and then populates the array of student name variables on the form, next to each of the checkboxes. The user then compares this list with the class roster and checks are inserted for those who attended. Nothing is needed for the ones who're absent. A separate button saves this information as a series of new records in the attendance table. If a student rec'd a checkmark his record for that date is set to true (meaning he or she attended). Otherwise, the student gets a record with the attended field set to false... meaning he or she was absent. In your case if most of your students are present you might want to reverse this, and just check the absentees. The process goes very, very quickly. I'll be glad to show it to you if you think it would help.

        -- tom

        Comment

          #5
          RE: Design question

          I haven't entered the world of attendance yet -- I'd like for a kid to be able to walk in the room and type in their ID number and I don't have to mess with it at all except to print a daily absentee list. I would like to see your program though -- I hope to make the next meeting of the Tampa Bay area users.
          Thanks for the reply

          Jim

          Comment

            #6
            RE: Design question

            Jim, I'm not so sure I'd turn the students loose on my database. Might do better to take the roll yourself, and then either enter yourself, or get help from a trusted assistant.

            I look forward to seeing you next week.

            -- tom

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