ICT PROJECT

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12AS4                          

AS ICT Project:

Electronic Marks Tracker

   

Analysis        

Design        

Choice of project        

Initial design        

Front end Menu        

Enter Marks        

Auto open and auto close macro        

Student List        

Evaluation        


Analysis

Introduction

Ms Gammon is my user. She belongs to Sir John Cass Secondary School.  She is a deputy head teacher and also teaches mathematics.  As a deputy head teacher she makes sure that all students get to lesson on time.  

My user has a lot of work and responsibilities:  

  • As a maths teacher she makes sure that her group come to class regularly.
  •  She gives her students coursework to do and gives marks to each student.  She will then record their marks into her mark book to make sure that all students have done their work to the required level. These marks are needed to help her come out with predicted grades.
  • As a deputy head teacher she helps year nine students to choose a right option when going to year ten.
  • She also helps student who need help by organizing extension classes for them.

She uses a paper-based system to do her marking work. These make it difficult to complete her work on time, especially the calculation of percentages attained in marked work and grades obtained overall.  She also uses the system to help her decide which students need help, whether parents need contacting, whether other action is required e.g. Detention.

My user encounters a lot of problems using the current system:

  • The mark book can get lost.  
  • The calculations of percentages and grades are sometimes not accurate.
  •  The names of students are not in order, this therefore make it difficult for her when recording marks and finding information.
  • The biggest problem is that working out percentages and grades is very time- consuming and often inaccurate.

I will help my user to solve her problem by:

∙        I will put the names of student in alphabetical order.

∙        I will create a system, which will automatically calculate the percentage and grades of each student.   This system will therefore make her work more accurate and easy to use.

  • It will enable her to make the management decisions that she uses to support student learning.
  • I will create a system, which will automatically convert total marks into a percentage and from the percentage automatically generate an overall grade.

Description of the Current System

 Ms Gammon teaches year 7 to 11 students for maths but the year I will be concentrate on is year 11 students. The level she is teaching now is higher tier for year 11 students in mathematics. Year 11 students are studying for GCSE qualification, and they are grading scale are A*, A, B etc.  Year 11 student do three tests year these tests help Ms Gammon to decide which grade each student will achieve during GCSE qualification. When the marks are in numerical e.g.14 out of maximum mark 20, the percentage grade boundaries she used e.g. 85%+ is A*, 80%+ is A, 75%+ is B etc.   There are 16 boys and 12 girls, which make overall of 28 students in her class.  Before I interviewed with Ms Gammon, I prepared my interview list to enable me to ask her questions about how her current system works and the problems of her current system.

Ms Gammon’s mark tracking system is paper based and filled in manually.  These therefore make it difficult of complete her work on time, especially the calculation of percentages attained in marked work and grade obtained overall.  She uses the system to help her decide which of her students, who need help, whether parents need contacting or whether other action is required.

Problems with Current System

By interviewing Ms Gammon, I found out what her problems are with her current system. These include:

  • The current system is inaccurate and most of the time she makes mistakes. For example, when she is working out percentage and grades for each student, she often makes calculation errors.
  • It is very time consuming, especially the calculation of percentages attained in marked worked and grades obtained overall.
  • As the names of students are not in order she finds it difficult to find the student to record a mark.
  •  As the tests always have different maximum marks e.g. 13,15, she found it difficult to convert number into percentage.
  • The mark book can get lost.

Interviewed Questions

  1. What is your position at this school?

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  1. What type of system do you use for your mark tracks?

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  1. What method do you use to mark your student work?

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  1. Do you compare boys and girls performance

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  1. Do you analyse your students performance

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  1. What problems are you facing with your current system?

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  1. How would you want your current system to be improved?

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  1. What do you think is the major failings in your current system?

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  1. Have you ever used a computer for tracking marks?

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  1. It is important that you give samples of any documents used in your current system. Can you provide any?

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  1. Is there a floppy drive in your computer?

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  1. Is there a CD ROM drive in your computer?

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  1. Do you have a printer?

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  1. How certain are you when using computers?

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  1. How certain are you when using Excel?

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  1. What features and functions are you aware of in Excel?

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  1. How do you work out the percentage of your students’ marks?

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  1. Do you keep all your records?

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  1. Do you need any security in your new system?

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  1. Do you have any additional questions

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Statement of User Requirements

Ms Gammon feels a computerised system will solve some of her current problems as she thinks she has some knowledge about Excel.  She feels I will be able to create an effective, fast, and easy to use automated system to calculate her student’s marks for her, which will enable her to solve her problem. Thee are the following things she expects to get from a computerised system.

Input

  • She wants the new system to enable her to make management decisions that she uses to support student, which need help, whether parents need contacting, whether other action is required e.g. Detention.
  •  The system should automatically calculate the percentage and grades of each student. This system will therefore make her work more accurate and easy to use.
  • Ms Gammon wants the new system to be able to enter student personal details, e.g. DOB, tutor group, surname, etc.
  • She wants the new system to be able to edit student personal details. Also she wants the system to able to delete student personal details if a student move form her teaching group.

Output

  • Ms Gammon wants the new system to use colour coding when displaying grades of each student, e.g. Green for A*, Blue for A etc.
  • Ms Gammon would like a report facility where she can select a student from a list and the report will show the student’s name, gender, from group, overall percentages mark, grade obtained and an automatic comment on progress.
  • The system should be able to produce chart, which will analysis student overall performance and also compare girls’ and boys’ performance.

Processing

  • The system will put the names of student in alphabetical order.
  • Ms Gammon wants the new system to automatically convert numerical marks to percentages.

Storage

  • Ms Gammon wants the new system to be able to store 40 students’ personal detail and also store results for up to 70 tests.
  • Finally, the new system should not be used by anyone else except Ms Gammon, so I will make sure her system is safe by creating security code.

Source Documents

The source document that I have provided is a copy of marks book that Ms Gammon uses to record her student marks.  As you can see there is a lot of data to be inputted by hand.  This is one of the problems that Ms gammon has. The calculations of total mark and overall have to make using calculator, which is time consuming.


 Data Flow Diagram (level O)

        

        

                

        

        

        

 

Data Flow Diagram (level 1)

        

                

        

                


 

Objectives of the new system

The new system will perform the following tasks:

  • It should be able to identify students with poor performance by using a visual alert.
  • Ability to edit incorrect mark, so whenever Ms Gammon make an accidental mistake, she will have the ability to correct it.
  • The system should be able to produce average performance percentage of each student for her class.
  • It should have the ability to Edit and Delete students’ details if required, thorough the use of data forms.
  • Easy and clear to use.
  • It should automatically calculate percentages and grades from the inputted a student marks and maximum mark available for each test.
  • Cell, formulae protected to prevent accidental delation.
  • It should automatically work out a student’s grade, based on overall percentage for all tests taken.
  • It should be able to generate an automated report for students showing student performance.
  • Password (security) on file access.
  • It should automatically colour code student grades.

User Skill Level

Ms Gammon has used Microsoft Excel but does not use it to calculate percentage, and grades of her marks.   She is an average user, which means she does not understand most of the advanced features. Such as Vlookup, IF Statement, Macros, etc.

Project Constraints

Ms Gammon uses school standard PC that I will be using to calculate percentages and grades for the new system.  It has a four processor, which has 512 MB of RAM and 30 GB hard disk.  It has Microsoft software including the excel 2000.  Ms Gammon Pc has CD Rom, USB and floppy drive, which are also connected to school network.  This will make my work to be easy when loading the new system onto her computer because I can store it on the CD or floppy disk and transfer the system.   Ms Gammon has printer in her office, which will be used to print out reports of student performance

Performance Criteria

These are the performance criteria that are going to be used in the new system that Ms Gammon asked for:

  • Ms Gammon will be able to correct mistakes that she might make during marking, this will make the system to be more neatly presented and pleasant.
  • It should be able to add and delete students if required.
  • The system will generate automated reports of each student by click of a button showing their performance that can be sent to parent.
  • It will be easy and clear to use.
  • The new system will produce an average performance percentage for each student. And also it will automatically convert numerical marks to percentages.
  • It should have protection to prevent accidental deletion of important formulae, numbers, table, chart and text.  All the sheet and cells in the system must be protected with security to prevent these.
  • Graph and charts should be generated quickly and easily to compare boys and girls performance, All student and by form.
  •  The new system will not take more than 4seconds to view performance and grades for each student.
  • The system will generate automated colour coding when displaying grades of each student.
  • The system will store 40 student personal details, and also store results for up to 50 tests.
  • Ms Gammon will be able to select student from a list and the report will show the student’s name, gender, overall percentage mark, grade obtained and an automatic comment on progress.


Design

 Choice of Software

I think that Microsoft Excel is the best option of software because it has got many features such as:

  • It has advanced functionality such as pivot table, sort, forms, Vlookup, average, write protection. Which will make things more automated for the user.
  • Pivot: this will hold table for charts.  This will not need to be seen by the user.  When they select the chart that they require on the student summary sheet, the pivot table on the sheet will change to represent that choice. It will also used to summarise archive data for use in charts showing:
  1. By gender
  2. Form
  •  Data entry form will be able to edit and delete student records.
  • Conditional formatting will allow automatic shading of cells to give visual message for highlighting grade attained and also table displaying student grades.
  • Macros can be used to perform complex tasks at the press of a single button..
  • It can perform complex calculation such as working out the grade for each student.
  • User Forms for controlling actions with macros using buttons.
  • Chart /Graph: can be used to display output of information such as averages, predicted grades etc.
  • The user wants the system to be as error-free as possible. Excel’s Validation facility will allow me to set up range validation to control data input when entering student personal details, overall mark etc.
  • Protections of cell so that user cannot accidentally delete information.  
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Statement of Input, Processing & Output requirement

The input would be:

Personal Details:

  • First name
  • Surname
  • Gender
  • Date of Birth
  • Form
  • Roll number

Student marks:

  • Assignment marks

Maximum /minimum mark

  • Grade Boundaries

The Processing would be:

  • Calculating the grades through a Vlookup to the grade boundaries table.
  • Sorting, grouping and summarising data with a pivot table.
  • Calculate the average of total marks
  • Using Vlookup work out a grade for the average.

The output would be:

  • Pivot Chart/Graph showing comparisons between gender, form-by-form and overall year group ...

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