SM-Marks 2: Tutorial

SM-Marks Tutorial

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This is a tutorial to make you familiar with the features and capabilities of SM-Marks. Before beginning it is helpful to understand that SM-Marks is different from other markbook programs you may have used before.

Overview

SM-Marks stores student results in a markbook file that can do calculations and print the results. When started SM-Marks shows an empty markbook. In the New menu there are commands to make new classes, students, and tasks. In the Edit menu commands are also able to edit or delete the details of existing classes, students, and tasks. All names are entered or edited in the grid that displays the markbook.

For example, before entering students a class should be created. Choose the New|Class command, type the name of the class, press the Up arrow key to move the teacher name cell. Then type the teacher's family name and press the Tab key. Then type the teacher's given name. This process can be repeated for each class as required. Note how the Tab key was used, this is necessary because when entering or editing the text in a cell the Left and Right arrow keys only move the text cursor within the cell.

Students and tasks can be created in a similar way with the New|Student and New|Task commands. When students are created they are placed in the current class, which is shown either at the bottom of the SM-Marks window, or in the View menu. In contrast, a task always applies to all classes.

Results can be entered by moving the current cell with either the arrow keys, Tab key, or Enter, to the required position and typing the result. With SM-Marks the results entered do not need to be numbers, although calculations can only be done on numerical values.

Calculations can be stored in any task that does not contain raw results. The Help|Calculation assistant command sets the calculation stored for a task. Every calculation requires the setting of the affected classes and tasks used. Usually a calculation affects all classes, although it is possible to restrict it to some of the classes. Every calculation requires at least one task to be used and some, such as Weight, can use many.

There are different methods that are popular for doing calculations that combine results with different weights. SM-Marks is able to do all the usual methods, but it is important ensure that SM-Marks is set up correctly to do the calculations that you require. After a new installation, results are generally standardised before weighting, although this can be turned off for all calculations or on a task by task basis.

As well as weighting, SM-Marks has calculations that can give the sum of the tasks, change the task maximum, assign grades and positions, and do complex linear mapping. For some of the calculations, such as Standardise there are default values that are used but which can be changed in the Edit|Preferences command.

To print information from a markbook there are several print commands. For a list of students in each class, there is the Print|Marks command. When printing SM-Marks generally prints what is in the main window. This means that a sorted class list can be printed, by first using a Tools|Sort students command and then using Print|Marks. As with all the print commands, a preview is shown before printing. This preview can show the preview page at different sizes and has the actual Print button on the toolbar that sends the pages to the printer.

The Print|Statistics and Print|Student statistics commands are useful when either class or individual student statistics are required. All Print commands make use of the tagging feature of SM-Marks. Classes, students, and tasks can all be individually tagged to restrict some commands to only the tagged items. Tagging is done with either the mouse or the commands in the Action menu. For example, if some students are tagged, only those students are printed with the Print|Student statistics command. When estimating results only the tagged tasks are used. Tagging is also used when moving students from one class to another.

When copying information to the Windows clipboard with the Edit|Copy command, only the tagged tasks and students are copied. Although, if no students or tasks are tagged, then by default all the information in the SM-Marks window is copied to the clipboard. By using the Edit|Copy and Edit|Paste commands results can be copied from one markbook to another. This is done by running SM-Marks twice as explained in the "How do I" section of this documentation

Using the Edit|Copy and Edit|Paste commands is a simple and quick way to transfer information between SM-Marks and other applications such as the Excel spreadsheet. If the Windows clipboard is not a suitable way of transferring the information from one application to another there is also the File|Import and File|Export commands. Student information can be imported from OASIS, if necessary.

There are several commands not mentioned in this overview. There are ways of making backup markbooks, moving and changing tasks widths on the screen, finding students when the class in unknown, and controlling the way students are sorted.

Markbook Organisation

SM-Marks organises your student results into a series of rows and columns. One row for each student, and one column for each set of task results. One markbook file should store all the results for one subject year grouping. For example, one markbook named 8ENG96 might contain all the students in year eight and all their results for English.

Each markbook file can group the students into separate classes for flexibility in doing calculations and printing results. Each task in the markbook is given a name and a maximum mark. The results stored can be any number between zero and the maximum mark, inclusively. Tasks can also store limited amounts of other information that can be textual in addition to numerical.

Once raw results have been entered into some tasks, additional tasks can be created that automatically perform calculations of the results to produce various totals and grades. At any time the students and results can be printed in various combinations for a permanent copy of the results produced.

Installing and starting SM-Marks

To install SM-Marks on computer, do the following steps:

Close any applications that are already running
Click on the Start button, and then select Run.
Choose the Browse button to change to the folder with the downloaded file SmkinstC.exe.
Select SmkinstC.exe and choose Open.
Choose OK.
Wait for the InstallShield to finish preparing to install.
Follow the prompts until the installation is finished.

The first time you install SM-Marks it is recommended that you accept the standard destination of the C:\Program files\Smmarks2 folder.

Once installation is complete you are ready to run SM-Marks for the first time. You can start SM-Marks from the Windows Start button by choosing Programs|SMPCS Apps|SM-Marks 2.

When you need to exit from SM-Marks choose the File|Exit command. SM-Marks automatically saves all changes made.
In this document instructions such as "choose the File|Exit command" indicate to choose the Exit command in the File menu. Or if you prefer, some commands have a button on the toolbar for the same action.

One way to learn how to use SM-Marks is to try some of the features and commands with some real data. By using a few of the basic commands you will learn the principles behind the operation of all the commands in SM-Marks. The way SM-Marks is designed means that the skills learnt for one command can be applied to other similar commands with predictable results.

Here you will learn how to:

Create a markbook file
Enter classes, students, tasks, and results
Save a markbook
Print a class mark sheet
Use the Average command

Creating your first markbook

When you run SM-Marks what you'll see is the menu window, menu and tool bar, and status line. Choose the File|New command to create an empty markbook, the markbook has no classes, students or tasks. To add students to the markbook you must first create a class. Click on the Edit menu and select the Class command. Type,

10S1

and press the Up arrow key. Then type,

Green

and press Tab. The type,

Sue

A class with that name is added to the markbook. If you want to make another class, do the steps again.

You can now add students to the class. Click on the New menu and select the Student command. Type the student's family name of,

JONES

and press Tab and then type the given name,

LEONIE

By repeating these steps, type in the following list, pressing Tab after each family name and then entering the given name. You do not have to use the mouse to choose the New|Student command you can use the keyboard by holding down the Alt key and pressing N. After releasing the two keys press S.

MILGRAM MIKE
JACKLIN JEAN
ALI MOHAMAD
WIRTH NIKLAUS
BLAISE SUSAN
ABBOTT PETER
LARSON GARY
CHEN STEVEN
MCMAHON SCOTT
PAK TRISHA
CRAWFORD JOAN
ELLUL JACQUES
SILVA DAN

Saving your first markbook

After typing some data, it's a good idea to save it to disk. To do this, choose the Save command from the File menu. An easier method would be to use the shortcut for File|Save, which is Ctrl+S. Another shortcut is the fourth button on the toolbar below the menu.

The first time a new markbook is saved you must give the markbook a name, so in the File Save As pop up type the name 10Science and press Enter. You may note the name and location where the markbook is saved is shown along the top of the SM-Marks window.

Entering results

To enter results, you must first create some tasks to store the results. To create a task, click on the New menu and select the Task command. A new task is made called Task name.

In the grid, type the name of the first task,

Exam one

and press Down arrow. Then type,

100

and press Enter. The task maximum sets the upper limit for a result in the task. You can create another task now by choose New|Task again and typing another name,

Exam two

press Down arrow to move to the Maximum line. Type,

50

You could create more tasks by repeating the steps, but for now two tasks is enough. Since there are now some students and tasks, a dotted line appears around appears the cell that is the current student and task. Press the arrows to move the current cell around the markbook. Try pressing the arrows and watch how the outline moves. Move the current cell to the top student and the first task.

To store some results click on the row of the first student in the first task. Type the following results, pressing Enter after each one. Don't press Enter after the last result.

61
78
91
45
49
57
82
Absent
66
79
74
50.5
60
78

If you have made a mistake with one result you can press the Up arrow to move to the previous student. By pressing the arrows you can move to where you want enter results. Move to the first student and the second task and enter these results. When entering the numbers below, note what happens when you try to enter 55 for Dan Silva. A warning message appears on the status line because the result is larger than the task maximum. When this happens you can type over the result with the correct number which should be 25.

45
31
49.5
29
34
21
47
12
35
28
32
40
55
44

Also did you notice that the results which had figures after the decimal point were rounded to the nearest whole number. All new tasks are set to show all numbers to 0 decimal places, but you can change this at anyt ime with the Edit|Decimal places command. After entering the results, press Ctrl+S to save the markbook.

Doing a calculation

Now you're going to do a simple calculation on the results that you have entered. Suppose you want to add the two tasks together to create a new set of results. You want the total to be an average of the two tasks as a percentage.

The Calculation assistant, is the easiest way to do a calculation. It leads you though the steps in setting up a calculation.

Choose the Help|Calculation assistant command. This command begins with an introduction and has a button labelled Next. Read the introduction and click on Next. You can now select the two tasks to be added as percentages, you do this by clicking in the small rectangle next to the name of each one. In this example there are only two tasks to choose from, although if there are many tasks in the markbook you may need to scroll through the list to find the tasks required.

Now click on Next, here you choose whether to make a new task to store the calculation, which is the Yes option which is already selected, so just click on Next again. In the next step type,

Average one two

as the name of the task to be created and used to store the calculation results. You can see the task maximum is 100, which is the maximum required, so click on Next.

The type of calculation you require must now be selected. We want to average the tasks as percentages, so select the second option "Add the tasks as percentages". Generally, most calculations in markbook affect the results in all the classes so on the next step, leave the "Yes, affect all classes" selected and click on Next.

The last step shows a summary of the all the steps so far. To average the tasks "Exam one" and "Exam two", to do the calculation on all the classes, and to store the results of the calculation in a new task called "Average one two".

You may also notice that the Next button has changed to Finish. If you wanted to go back and change any of the steps of the calculation you could choose the Back button to return to a previous step. You may look at the previous steps now, by clicking on Back a few times, but don't actually change anything. Then click on Next until you return to the step with the Finish button.

Click on the Finish button and SM-Marks immediately averaging the two tasks and storing the results in the new third task. After a moment the command is complete and the new task is filled with the results. Now is a good time to save the markbook.

Printing results

For SM-Marks to be useful, it is often necessary to print the students' names and results onto paper. The Print menu has several commands that can print the information in different ways. Click on the Print menu, Marks is the most useful print command.

Before actually choosing any of the print command you must select the tasks to be printed. The way you select tasks is by "tagging" them. There are commands in the Action menu that can tag different items in SM-Marks. The tags are shown on the top row of the main SM-Marks window. If a task already has a tag, choosing the Action|Tag task command again removes the tag.

There is an easier way to tag a task that doesn't require the commands in the menu. Instead, click on the row above each task name for each of the tasks. Tag each of the three tasks by clicking in the top row for each one, and you will see a small tag appear for each one.

Choose the Print|Marks command. The page preview appears and shows you what the printed page will look like. On the toolbar of the preview move the mouse over the buttons and keep it still above each one. After a second, small note pops up indicating what each button does. For now find the button labelled Show grid lines, it is near the Help menu, and click on it. The preview then has lines added to it.

Make sure that the printer is on and then choose the Print button. The page is then sent to the printer and after a few seconds it starts printing. If you do not have a printer attached you should skip this step.

Using the help

The SM-Marks help is supplied as an Adobe Acrobat file. Choosing the Help|Contents command opens the file in the Acrobat reader. If you do not have Acrobat installed on your system, you can download it from here.

The first page of the Help file lists the different sections. By clicking on the section heading you can go directly to the first page of that section. After the Contents is the detailed Index, that lists every topic by page number. The page numbers refer to the page number at the bottom of each page, not the number as shown in the Acrobat reader. You will need to take this into account when using the index on screen, but when printed the page numbers are accurate.

All the features of the Acrobat Reader can be used when viewing the Help. You can search for pieces of text with the Edit|Find command or print all of part of the guide if you want. The Help is designed to be read in sequence, although the "Command Reference" section need only be dipped into, as you need to understand specific commands.

The "How do I" section has the answers to commonly asked questions about SM-Marks and is a recommended first stop if you have a question about the program that you cannot figure out. If you previously used version one of SM-Marks, the "SM-Marks 2 for SM-Marks Users" section will also be helpful.

Spend a few minutes now looking through the Help information. To leave SM-Marks, choose the File|Exit command.

Summary

You now know enough to use SM-Marks on a day to day basis. You can:

Enter and edit students, tasks and classes
Do basic calculations
Print marks

With the undo feature at your disposal you can:

Try out different actions and experiment with the program without the risk of messing up.

There is a second tutorial that covers working with outcomes. Click here to do it next.