Grades, External Grades, and Email

The grades page in WeBWorK has seen some changes for the next version (2.12).  In particular homework percentages are now displayed for each homework and a "Homework Totals" score is displayed as well.  This post also presents an existing feature which most people may not know about; how to display external grades in WeBWorK.

Grade Page

There have been a number of tweaks made to the grades page, as you can see below. 

The two main changes are the addition of a percent score for individual homework sets and a Homework Totals score for all sets.  The Homework Totals score is the total number of points earned out of the total available points.  In particular, it matches the score you would get using the Scoring Tools page if you selected all homework sets.  If you want to change the weight of a homework set simply change the value of all of the problems in the set.  (For example if you set the value of all the problems in the set to zero then the sets grade doesn't count toward the Homework Total.)  If you do something entirely different with your homework scores and don't want students to get the wrong impression from the Homework Total, you can turn the feature off in the Course Configuration page.  

Another feature, which isn't new but most people don't know about, is the ability to display external grades in WeBWorK.  The pertinent message on the grades page is

There is no additional grade information. A message about additional grades can go in in [TMPL]/email/report_grades.msg. It is merged with the file [Scoring]/report_grades_data.csv. These files can be edited using the "Email" link and the "File Manager" link in the left margin.

In particular lets use the Email link to create the following message and save it as report_grades.msg 

Hello $FN

Your grade for midterm 2 is $COL[7]

Your 6th week grade is $COL[-1]

Recall that when you are emailing students you can choose a Merge File to include data from a csv in your email.  The exact same macros are used in the report_grades.msg.  The list of available macros is: 

• $FN - first name
• $LN - last name
• $SID - student ID number
• $SECTION - student's section
• $RECITATION - student's recitation
• $STATUS - C, drop, withdrawl, audit, etc.
• $EMAIL - student's email address
• $LOGIN - student's login name
• $COL[3] - third column in merge file
• $COL[-1] - last column in merge file

As an aside, emailing students their WeBWorK grades periodically is a great way to make sure that they are paying attention to doing their homework.  

The merge file we use for displaying external grades, report_grades_data.csv,  is a csv with the same format that is produced by the Scoring Tools page.  In particular all of the csv's from the scoring tools page go in the "scoring" folder, which is located one directory up fro the "templates" folder.  The easiest way to add external grades is to download one of these scoring csv files, and edit it.  Delete all but the first six columns and then add new grade columns as you see fit.  Finally re-upload it to the scoring folder with the name "report_grades_data.csv".  The import part is that the first six columns are, in order,

1. STUDENT ID

2. LOGIN ID

3. LAST NAME

4. FIRST NAME

5. SECTION

6. RECITATION

You can put whatever data you want in the remaining columns. For example we might have a report_grades_data.csv file in the "scoring" directory with the following data.

STUDENT ID	LOGIN ID	LAST NAME	FIRST NAME	SECTION	RECITATION	Midterm	Final
admin	admin	Admin	Prof	9	10	67	89
teststud	teststud	Funky	Spoon	3	5	78	56
practice1	practice1	PRACTICE1	JANE	2	4	56	48
practice3	practice3	PRACTICE3	JANE	2	4	48	43
practice4	practice4	PRACTICE4	JANE	2	4	78	16
practice5	practice5	PRACTICE5	JANE	2	4	99	56
practice6	practice6	PRACTICE6	JANE	2	4	26	78
practice7	practice7	PRACTICE7	JANE	2	4	89	98
practice8	practice8	PRACTICE8	JANE	2	4	92	82
practice9	practice9	PRACTICE9	JANE	2	4	56	81

With the report_grades.msg above and this report_grades_data.csv file if we visit the Grades page we see the following at the bottom:

As a bonus, we can also send this message to all of the students using the Email page with no additional work. There is not currently a way to integrate external grades into WeBWorK so that they are included in course calculations, but this, at least, allows you to keep students up to date.