[Building Sakai] grade book / grade book 2 compatibility

Mon Apr 16 14:09:07 PDT 2012

I agree with that in a perfect world, but even so, you would have
mysterious calculations happening in the other tool that doesn't have
the feature that is manipulating the score and would be confusing to
users.

-Bryan

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 5:03 PM, Aaron Zeckoski <azeckoski at unicon.net> wrote:
> Maybe it just means they should develop that feature in the service
> and then if GB1 wants to use it they can. I think the key here is that
> the tool should really only do UI rendering stuff and anything related
> to the logic of the gradebook (calculations, storage, etc.) should
> really be in the service.
>
> -AZ
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 4:47 PM, Bryan Holladay <holladay at longsight.com> wrote:
>> I think it's unreasonable to expect these two tools to work the same
>> and be 1:1 on features.  Let's say there is a feature X that GB2 wants
>> to implement that modifies how the grades are calculated.  Does that
>> mean in order for that feature to be included into GB2, that they are
>> required to write the equivalent feature for GB1 in order for the
>> calculations to be the same in a site that is running both tools.
>>
>> -Bryan
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Matthew Jones <matthew at longsight.com> wrote:
>>> We probably should figure out the best way to handle this. This is the only
>>> tool that I know in Sakai of where the new tool depends on the data model
>>> and services for the old tool but also does some things differently and
>>> doesn't implement everything.
>>>
>>> There was another local feature request that we implement "grade assignment
>>> overrides" and what this would do is allow an instructor to override a grade
>>> that comes from an external tool in the gradebook without going back to the
>>> external tool. If we had a new field and data element for this, then it for
>>> sure would cause an inconsistency betweeh GB1 and GB2.
>>>
>>> The only other way I could think of to implement this idea would be to have
>>> each tool that publishes grades to gradebook (assignments/assessments) not
>>> use their local copy of the grade data if they were linked to the gradebook,
>>> instead reading and relying on the gradebook data. This is kind of how
>>> Assignment 2 works, requiring you to link up your Assignment 2 assignment to
>>> an entry in the Gradebook if you want grading.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure why assessment and assignment originally stored their grades?
>>> Maybe because they were written before a central gradebook existed? I feel
>>> like I'm leaning more on the option of not changing the data model
>>> (overrides) and instead either modifying every tool as described to not have
>>> externally maintained data (so that the data can be edited both in Gradebook
>>> and in the tool that created it), or changing the API so that the tool can
>>> make the decision for compatibility with some tools that aren't converted,
>>> and just converting the important core tools.
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 14, 2012 at 2:47 AM, Matthew Jones <matthew at longsight.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I think it's cause some of the calculations of the final grades specially
>>>> were done in the user interface layer for Gradebook2 rather than in the
>>>> edu-services layer. And some of the features that I'd mentioned (extra
>>>> credit, drop lowest/highest and probably others) were added afterward
>>>> (mostly by Bryan) to the actual edu-services for gradebook [1] [2], but the
>>>> implementation and the calculation likely wasn't identical. And unless you
>>>> had the newest (trunk) version of Sakai, it likely would be missing some
>>>> calculations that Gradebook2 has.
>>>>
>>>> And also for instance Gradebook2 doesn't support keep highest/drop
>>>> highest, which was also added [3]. So depending on which options the
>>>> instructor used the grades may appear different in the final calculation,
>>>> which could be concerning to a student. The actual points though would be
>>>> the same and nothing would be lost or missing.
>>>>
>>>> [1] https://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-19964
>>>> [2] https://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-21225
>>>> [3] https://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/GRBK-669
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Apr 14, 2012 at 2:22 AM, Steve Swinsburg
>>>> <steve.swinsburg at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Interesting, a notice should definitely be made about this. I've used
>>>>> them in the same site and didnt notice anything strange, but it was only for
>>>>> simple grading.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't understand how the calcs can be different though...
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers
>>>>> Steve
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>
>>>>> On 14/04/2012, at 11:48, Matthew Jones <matthew at longsight.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Agreed, both of these use the same basic data model, however there are
>>>>> some features that are may be present in Gradebook2 (or even in Gradebook)
>>>>> which aren't implemented in the other. So if one class was using both tools
>>>>> in the same site the calculations could be wrong. The one I know that was
>>>>> different was drop highest and lowest. This was for sure implemented
>>>>> differently in GB1 verses GB2. It wasn't even present in GB1 until 2.9.
>>>>>
>>>>> GB1 in trunk also has some features for extra credit (
>>>>> https://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-21225 ) and GB2 also has these but
>>>>> implements these differently so like Bryan said if you're using one of the
>>>>> tools in one particular version of Sakai you might see one set of scores and
>>>>> another set in the other tool, which can be very confusing for students.
>>>>>
>>>>> At Michigan we'd generally strongly recommend that if an instructor
>>>>> placed Gradebook2 that they remove Gradebook. I even wanted to put up a
>>>>> warning message on both tools that notified the instructor pick one and
>>>>> either hide or remove the other if both were placed.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Matthew
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Steve Swinsburg
>>>>> <steve.swinsburg at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've used both tools in the same site and haven't had an issue so far.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers
>>>>>> Steve
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 14/04/2012, at 6:37, Bryan Holladay <holladay at longsight.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > I haven't tested lately, but for the most part the two tools don't
>>>>>> > work well together (i.e. if you put both GB1 and GB2 in the same
>>>>>> > site).  They use the same edu-services layer, however, there are
>>>>>> > discrepancies on which data columns they use (some overlap),
>>>>>> > calcuation methods, etc that cause them not to sync well (especially
>>>>>> > for more complex GB settings).  It would be nice to see those resolved
>>>>>> > (and theoretically it should be possible), but it may be a huge task
>>>>>> > given the complexity of the calculations and data structures.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > -Bryan
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Charles Hedrick <hedrick at rutgers.edu>
>>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>> >> As far as I can tell, Gradebook and Gradebook 2 use the same basic
>>>>>> >> data. To what extent are they compatible? GB 2 has a couple of additional
>>>>>> >> features, but they are being moved to GB, partly in 2.9 and partly in 2.10.
>>>>>> >> Are the two systems compatible as long as only features that are available
>>>>>> >> in both are being used?
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> We currently have both available. GB 2 has more features, but we've
>>>>>> >> seen issues with it on some devices. If we could tell students that they can
>>>>>> >> see the data in GB even if the faculty member uses GB 2, that would be
>>>>>> >> helpful.
>>>>>> >>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>
>
> --
> Aaron Zeckoski - Software Architect - http://tinyurl.com/azprofile