As for hardware/software there won’t be any problem as I go down their office every day to do my work, so the application will be the same. I will be using a Windows XP, Pentium IV for my processor. For backup I might use a CD-R because you can’t delete data in any form, or I might use a memory card that you can update always. Both these options are much better and safer than storing data in floppy-disks, firstly a floppy has got many ways to be damaged and secondly it has only 1.44 MB as compared to a memory card/CD-R, they have around 600/700 MB each.
Most of the information is already given to me. But since I don’t know how the vice-principal would like it (layout) or if he would want to add any thing else, for this I will have to ask the vice-principal. The best approach would be if I send him a questionnaire.
DESIGN:
Now after I have got back my questionnaire, I will start my work without any delay. I want the computer to show the grades attained of each student and the grades expected in a table there after in a graph/chart. After I have made my rough copy I will make a print out or make a slide show for the vice-principal.
Firstly I will give a short explanation of my record system that I am about to make. As I have chosen Microsoft Excel I will divide my system up into three sheets. The first sheet containing the names of all the students and showing only the grade obtained in the GCSE exams, the second sheet will contain the report of the whole class of a specific subject and so on.
Now first of all in the first sheet as I said would contain the names of all the students and displaying the grades obtained. The column in which the grades will be; the heading i.e. English, Science etc shall be links to their sheet and they will also have the formula which connects them to their own sheet, so if you were to change the grade in the report it would automatically change in the first sheet.
So now the second sheets and onwards the tables, in the
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1st column will have the administration number.
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2nd column will have the names.
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3rd column will have the class results.
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4th column will have the test results.
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5th column will have the mock results.
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7th column will have the totals of all these results. “SUM function”
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9th column will have formula to show the expected grades based on the class results. “IF function”
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11th column will have the percentage obtained in GCSE exams.
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12th column will have the formula showing the grades. “IF function”
* Note: columns 6, 8 and 10 are merged so to space out the results for easier understanding of table. USE/IMPLEMENT:
I have now done my work on Microsoft Excel, so I will show how the table looks like.
This is the table in sheet 1 which gives all the grades obtained:
Table, sheet 2:
Table, sheet 3:
You can see from these few tables that wrong information can be entered easily. (look at the highlighted areas, the light bleu ones are where the wrong information is entered and the dark blue areas are the results, we also must remember that WYSIWYG). To stop this happening I will highlight those cells in MS EXCEL where they have to enter the data, there after I will go to (Data the drop-down list in the menu bar) Validate and will enter i.e. for the administration number text length 5 for the (class results, tests and mock exams) decimal between min 0 to a max 30, for the total the same but max number 90, and as for the percentage the same process again but whole numbers and a max of 100. The same rule will apply for all the 5 sheets.
With the validation check you can’t enter anything wrong, so:
SHEET 1:
You can see that the highlighted cell contains a formula, what this formula does is that when you change the marks in any other sheet then automatically the grades will change here.
SHEET 2:
You can see in the highlighted cells that I have used the “SUM formula”, used for adding.
SHEET 3:
Here I have used the if formula, the reason for this is that by looking at column c, d, e, you can see that the teachers have given one result by looking at how they work in class, so therefore I have created this formula; by combining this results (i.e. column C, D, and E) you can get to know the grades which the student might attain.
SHEET 4:
Here again I have used the “IF formula”, but this time I have used it to give grades.
SHEET 5:
Here you can see that the highlighted cells have bee sorted alphabetically (see “sort ascending”), not according to the administration number.
EVALUATION:
As you look back you will see that I didn’t really make any mistakes in the project itself, the only thing which gave me a bit of trouble was that as the vice principal said the chart wasn’t necessary, so I thought that I will make a chart so that the average of the results obtained can be seen, but unfortunately the results were in grades so I could have made the chart in another layout by changing the value of the x axis and the y axis. I told the vice-principal if he would like the chart in another layout. He told me to leave it as the staff would find it hard to mark it that way. Further I had no more problems, the results being that I handed the work in before he had expected it. He was pleased and assumed that I might be able to take up a permanently job if I would be fond of it.
Aasim Hussain
ICT Coursework
Sunday 18/04/04
