Online Grading System
The Development of an Online Grading System
by
Mary Jane Santos
Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of BS Information Technology
Integrated College of Business and Technology
December 2010
CHAPTER 1
The Problem and Its Background
Introduction
In essence, grading is an exercise in professional judgment on the part of instructors. It involves the collection and evaluation of evidence on students' achievement or performance over a specified period of time, such as nine weeks, an academic semester, or entire school year. Through this process, various types of descriptive information and measures of students' performance are converted into grades or marks that summarize students' accomplishments. The increasing usage of computers in the mid and late 90’s gave way for the birth of a new technological advancement that had assisted teachers and professors to easily compute for grades, the digitization of spreadsheets. The main advantage is speed, since no manual calculations are needed, and confirmation of grade for any further necessary alterations can also be performed more quickly than traditional means. Managing grades had become easier for instructors when using electronic spreadsheets. With the advancement of information technology at the turn of the millennium, the Internet suddenly became an important aspect for local and global connectivity. Because the world’s PCs were logically connected through the Internet medium, communication had been easier with the use of E-Mail, ICQ, message boards and other communication programs. As the technology’s complexities and bandwidth arise, so does the need for software to utilize them. From basic text and images, innovation pushed web sites to include tools for specialized services. The need to inject applications to the fundamental web pages gave birth to server-side scripts like PHP, and database applications like MySQL. In turn, specialized online systems for
by
Mary Jane Santos
Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of BS Information Technology
Integrated College of Business and Technology
December 2010
CHAPTER 1
The Problem and Its Background
Introduction
In essence, grading is an exercise in professional judgment on the part of instructors. It involves the collection and evaluation of evidence on students' achievement or performance over a specified period of time, such as nine weeks, an academic semester, or entire school year. Through this process, various types of descriptive information and measures of students' performance are converted into grades or marks that summarize students' accomplishments. The increasing usage of computers in the mid and late 90’s gave way for the birth of a new technological advancement that had assisted teachers and professors to easily compute for grades, the digitization of spreadsheets. The main advantage is speed, since no manual calculations are needed, and confirmation of grade for any further necessary alterations can also be performed more quickly than traditional means. Managing grades had become easier for instructors when using electronic spreadsheets. With the advancement of information technology at the turn of the millennium, the Internet suddenly became an important aspect for local and global connectivity. Because the world’s PCs were logically connected through the Internet medium, communication had been easier with the use of E-Mail, ICQ, message boards and other communication programs. As the technology’s complexities and bandwidth arise, so does the need for software to utilize them. From basic text and images, innovation pushed web sites to include tools for specialized services. The need to inject applications to the fundamental web pages gave birth to server-side scripts like PHP, and database applications like MySQL. In turn, specialized online systems for