Notebooks

Notebook represents an electronic sheet used for entering messages for individual students of up to 3.000 characters each.

Students can access their notebook records provided you make the notebook accessible to them. You can also deny students' access to the notebook if you, for instance, plan to use it exclusively for your own purposes. The notebook contents can also be attached to a mail message sent to students, in which case each student receives the message with only his/her notebook record enclosed.

Notebooks can also be utilized for storing students' interim results, scores, etc. Provided a student's score is entered into a notebook and it is to be used in some calculations or operations based on these (addition, statistics, graph, etc.) later on, it must be marked with an asterisk (e.g. *23, *-1, *5.4, etc.). Teachers can also use notebooks for grading based on the grading scale entered into IS as well as the transfer of grades into * the evaluation form.

Teachers often use notebooks to:

• post and store notes related to essays, tests, exams, etc.
• post and store comments regarding assignments submitted
• post and store information pertaining to rooms where examinations are to take place and their sitting arrangement (sent by e-mail prior to the examinations)
• post and store scores

Provided you plan to have your students' tests graded by your assistant, please ensure he/she has been appointed (specified as) an 'assistant' for the course in the Course Catalogue. To do so, use the following path:

After being assigned to the course as 'assistant', he/she will be allowed to administer the notebooks created under the course.

To create a new notebook, click on 'create' situated in the 'Notebooks' section (placed on the main Teacher page). Providing you wish to perform any other notebook-related operation, select the appropriate notebook first.

To perform a notebook-related operation, go to the 'Notebooks' section:

The following options are available:

• New: create | create by copying | create a new notebook filled with evaluation taken from another course
• Change settings: settings | add a student | remove a student | remove a notebook
• Edit contents

When creating a notebook, you will be asked to enter its name, specify whether the notebook contents and statistics (students' scores and their score-based positions amongst the others) should be accessible to students. You should also specify whether you want the missing students (programmes of studies) to be added to the notebook during the validation process. It is not advisable to create any notebooks during the first few weeks of the term when the list of students enrolled in the course is not complete. Nevertheless, if you decide to do so anyway, remember to validate it (for further information, see the validation section below). To create a notebook for several courses, select these before entering the Teacher application.

After entering a notebook for the purpose of editing its contents, you can browse the list of students enrolled in the course and some additional information associated with these such as the fields they have enrolled in, types of completion they have selected, and their grades gained for the course (if there are any). Provided you have selected more than one course or notebook, the codes of the courses and names of the notebooks are displayed as well. The application also allows you to add and remove the contents-sent flags.

Provided you decide to create a new notebook containing a certain group of students sharing certain common characteristics selected with one (or more) of the filters, you will be offered the option of 'I want all the students enrolled in the course to be included in the notebook.' To keep your filter(s) active, do not check this option. Besides, you should also select 'do not add missing students (programmes of studies) to the notebook during the validation process' in order to prevent the filtered list from changing. For further information, see the validation section below).

The application 'send e-mail' sends an e-mail message to the students contained in the notebook and inserts the relevant contents (related to a concrete student) in the place that you mark with the <BLOK> tag. The main body of the message is saved for later use. To go to the e-mail-sending application, use the following path:

If you are sure you do not want to use the message as a template in the future, you can select 'send the message without saving it'. When entering the application, you are offered the messages you and your colleagues sent in the past. These can be used as templates for your new messages. Clicking on 'save the message as a new one (do not rewrite the original used)' will save the new message. This newly saved message can be deleted any time you see fit.

Contents-Sent Flag

Notebooks support the use of contents-sent flags, which are always student-specific. The contents-sent flag is added to the student's name each time the notebook contents are sent to him/her in an e-mail message.

To exclude some students from the list of those to whom the notebook contents is to be sent, please select the 'do not send the message to the students with the contents-sent flag' option. This is how you can prevent the students who have already received the message from receiving it again. This option is, however, disabled by default, i.e. the message is sent to all the students making up the notebook unless you enable it.

Before sending the notebook contents to your students, you can also select the 'do not add the contents-sent flags to the notebook after sending the message', which causes the flags not to be added.

To remove all the contents-sent flags from the selected notebook(s), please use the 'Removing Contents-Sent Flags' reference. Provided you only want to remove some of the flags, use the page for editing the notebook contents (click on 'Edit contents' and uncheck 'contents sent').

Positioning Notebook Contents within E-mail Message

The notebook contents can be appended to the end of the message you are sending to your students (default mode) or it can be inserted in the place you mark with

<BLOK>

This insertion, however, can only be done once per message. The contents is always placed on a new line, i.e. enclosed in tags used for starting a new paragraph. Here is an example:

Subject: Mid-Term Test Results (May 15, 2006)
	    Text of the message:
	    Dear students,
	    your mid-term test scores turned out to be lower than I had expected. Many of you erred in Problem 2 and thus I have decided to devote part of my next 
      lecture to it and provide you with the right solution. Enclosed are your personal scores for the individual problems you were asked to solve as well as 
      the total: <BLOK>
	    All the best
	    Michal Brandejs

The <BLOK> tag is subsequently replaced with the contents associated with a concrete student and the message gets, for instance, the following form:

Dear students,
	    your mid-term test scores turned out to be lower than I had expected. Many of you erred in Problem 2 and thus I have decided to devote part of my next 
      lecture to it and provide you with the right solution. Enclosed are your personal scores for the individual problems you were asked to solve as well as 
      the total:
	    3 -2 1.5 2 4 *8.5
	    All the best
	    Michal Brandejs

Each time the notebook contents are sent to students, the application does so only once for every one of them. Therefore, even if a student is enrolled in more than one programme of studies, he/she only receives one message every time the contents are sent. Provided a student is recorded only once in the notebook, it is only the notebook contents that are appended to the end of the message or inserted in the place marked with <BLOK>. Nevertheless, if a student appears in the notebook more than once, it is also his/her studies-related identification strings and the code of the course that are added to all the notebook contents associated with the student.

Entering evaluation with the notebook contents displayed represents an alternative way of entering evaluation (grades). The application allows you to display the contents of the selected notebook(s) in the evaluation form. Thus, you can base your students' grades on their notebook(s) contents and, at the same time, enter these in the evaluation form without switching between windows loaded with the evaluation form and the notebook(s) separately.

To be able to enter your students' evaluation information with the contents of a notebook displayed, please use the following path:

Select the notebook(s) whose contents you want to display in the evaluation form. You can also choose between two possible ways of doing so - either on a separate line or in a column. Logically, the separate-line mode is suitable for the situations where the notebook contains a lot of information. It is possible to switch over between the display modes by clicking on 'select some other notebook(s)' and checking or unchecking 'Display contents on a separate line'.

Some users can also activate the option 'Is 'requirements fulfilled' recorded in a notebook?' in the Course Catalogue. Provided this option is enabled, you will be prompted to create such a notebook. Subsequently, this kind of notebook, when displayed in the evaluation form, can be used for checking whether a student gained the auxiliary 'requirements fulfilled' or not.

The notebook can be used for entering and storing a wide range of information. When used for storing scores and performing operations based on these, the application searches for the following sequence of characters: asterisk (*), digit(s), minus sign (-), decimal point (.) or decimal comma (,).

The number of times this sequence is used and its location do not matter. Here are a few examples of the right score records:

*23
             *-14
             *3.5
	     *8,2

The score, which should always be preceded by an asterisk, may be positioned anywhere in the text. Hence, even the following are admissible:

The score gained for Task 1 is *3.5, the score for Task 2 is*8 and that for *Task* 3 is *100.

Provided there are several scores entered for the same student in the same notebook, these are added up before being used by any other operation. Therefore, the total calculated from the scores listed in the previous example is 111.5 since it is 3.5, 8, and 100 that enter the addition. The digits not following an asterisk immediately are ignored. The same applies to the asterisks which are not followed by a digit, minus sign, decimal point or decimal comma.

You can also use negative numbers as well as the decimal ones (which must contain a decimal point or decimal comma. In calculations, numbers are usually rounded to two decimal places.

The score-processing application only works with the records containing at least one score (a number preceded by an asterisk). Provided it detects more than score in the same record, it adds them up before using them for other operations. Moreover, the application uses the scores for providing statistical information and displaying a graph based on it.

The notebook can also be used for storing the students' final grades, each of which must be marked with the 'at' sign (@). The grades that can be used are the following:

-,1,2,3,4,A,B,C,D,E,F,N,P,U,V,Z

(lower case is also admissible). Provided you want to enter several grades into the same notebook record, each of these must be preceded by the 'at' sign as it is the case with the following example:

@F @E

It is also possible to use the application that assigns each student a grade based on his/her score stored in a notebook. To go to it, use the following path:

The application requires that you specify the grading scale you want it to use. That is, you will be prompted to enter the minimum score for each grade the student must reach in order to be assigned the grade. The scores you enter here will be saved as default ones for all the other selected courses (the application can be accessed even after you select more than one course).

The notebook used by this application must contain scores in the right form, i.e. preceded by an asterisk (*), since otherwise the grading process is not be carried out properly. Provided there are several scores occupying the same line, these are added up before the grade is calculated. The application creates a new notebook and copies into it the contents of the selected one. It appends the student's grade (evaluation) (marked with '@'), which is based on his/her score, to the end of the copied string.

Using the application, you can also select from the following options: 'do not add any grades (evaluation) to the students who have already gained some' and 'use '@-' if no score is found'

Provided you select the former, no other grade (evaluation) will be added to the records already containing some (marked with '@'). If you select the latter, @-' (absent) will be added to the records of the students with no score found.

The application used for the evaluation transfer loads the notebook you have selected and searches for all the grades (evaluation) marked with the 'at' sign (@). Provided there is more than one grade recorded for the same student, these are transferred in the same order.

The evaluation transfer always adds the grades stored in the notebook to the ones in the evaluation form. Therefore, if you run the application more than once using the same grades, it will add these to the ones previously transferred, which may be undesirable. Hence, provided you want to replace the grades (evaluation) contained in the evaluation form rather than add to them some new ones, you should do so by importing the new grades (using the grades-importing application).

Once you run the application, a test transfer is carried out and a list of error messages is displayed. Clicking on 'Transfer the grades (evaluation)' executes the error-free transfer operations.

Addition of scores stored in different notebooks creates a new notebook into which the scores stored in the notebooks previously selected are copied together with their calculated totals.

Automatic Addition of scores stored in different notebooks creates a new notebook into which the scores stored in the notebooks previously selected are copied together with their calculated totals. Moreover, the totals are automatically re-calculated every hour.

After entering one of the applications, you are prompted to select the notebooks the scores of which you want to add up. The table offers you only the notebooks containing some scores.

The newly created notebook only contains the students whose score(s) is (are) stored in at least one of the notebooks entering the addition. Provided you check 'only those with a score', it is only the students with a score(s) recorded in all of the selected notebooks that will be included in the calculation and the new notebook (the one containing totals).

The newly created notebook lists information in the following format:

23|  -2|12.5|    |  10|  *43.5

In this particular example, five notebooks entered the addition while in the fourth one no score was found for the student. The number following the asterisk represents the student's total, which is 43.5. The vertical bars separate the scores of individual notebooks.

The operation of customized addition results in the creation of a new notebook containing results of the mathematical operation specified in the so-called bc script.

After entering the application allowing you to perform the aforementioned operation, you will be provided with a list of all the notebooks available under your course. It is only the ones containing scores in the form of '*34' that can be used for the purpose of customized addition. Provided you check 'only those with a score', it is only the students with a score(s) recorded in all of the selected notebooks that will be included in the calculation and the new notebook (containing totals). Provided you only want to include in the calculation the students listed in certain notebooks, check the latter in the only students in selected notebooks column. Consequently, it is the students with a score recorded in at least one of the notebooks selected that will be included in the calculation and the new notebook.

Besides the simple additions, the bc script allows you to perform more complicated mathematical operations.

Example of use: Your students have taken two tests with the maximum score of 100 each. Their scores are stored in two notebooks with the codes of test1 and test2. You can use the bc script to calculate totals (which are subsequently uploaded into another notebook) from the values of the two test notebooks in the situation where you want the values to contribute to the final total in, for instance, the following ratio: 25 percent of the test1 value and 75 percent of the test2 value. Moreover, you might want each student to reach, for example, at least 80 percent of the final total since otherwise he/she should not be allowed to complete the course. In such a situation, your bc script should look like this:

print "*"; 0.25*test1 + 0.75*test2;
if (0.25*test1 + 0.75*test2 >= 80) print "@Z" else print "@N"

Enter the code into the Enter a custom bc script field and run the script.

The newly created notebook should contain the totals in the form of, for instance, '*12.3' as well as the final evaluation (Z or N - standing for 'requirements fulfilled' and 'requirements not fulfilled' respectively). This evaluation can subsequently be transferred to your evaluation form.

The contents of a notebook can be printed out on a properly configured printer (in the event of technical difficulties, contact your local Computer Laboratory) or it can be saved in a postscript file. Printing can be done in the line mode or the column one.

The notebook-exporting application creates a file that can be edited outside the Information System with the aid of Excel or other similar programs. After editing the file contents, you can upload (import) the new data back into the notebook.

The file generated by the exporting application contains several columns listing information in the following order:

1. student's personal identification number (učo)
2. student's surname and name
3. abbreviation denoting the student's field(s) of study
4. course code
5. tags 'opak' and 'znovu' provided the student repeats the course and 'isp' if he/she has a customized study plan
6. type of completion selected
7. Information System identifier - Must not be modified!
8. text (score) to be uploaded into the notebook

The contents-importing application requires the presence of the columns F (No. 6) and H (No. 8). The others are optional. If you change or delete an identifier, it will not be possible to import the contents.

The importing application allows you to upload (import) the data you have edited on your computer with the aid of Excel or other similar programs into the selected notebook.

The application is used to upload into the Information System the file generated by the notebook-exporting application. To keep the file functional, you should preserve in it the column containing the information identifying the students' programmes of studies and the course(s). The importing operation rewrites the current contents of the notebook stored in the System. The changes thus made are irreversible.

When saving the file in Excel, you must do so in the text (tab-delimited) format. The application will not accept a file saved in Excel sheet format.

One file may only contain a notebook of one name even if the notebook belongs to several courses. However, while importing the file, you must select all (or more of) the courses contained in the file, i.e. all the courses for which you want to upload the notebook contents must be listed at the top of the page. If this is not the case, you will probably receive an error message reading 'You are not authorized to work with this course'.

When a file containing the notebook contents is being imported, it is only some of its columns that are used. The columns are tab- or colon-delimited and they are labeled with numbers starting from 1. The notebook-importing application requires the presence of two (or three) of the columns. One of these contains identifiers encapsulating the information related to the course, term, student and his/her programme of studies and enrollment. This information must not be changed during the process of editing the file, i.e. outside the Information System. The first number of each identifier represents the student's identification number (učo), which is followed by the code of the course. There is also some other information included in the identifier, which is used for detecting the modifications made unwittingly and marking these as errors. Please specify the ID number of the column that contains the identifier (required). The default value represents the ID number of the column in which the exporting application inserts the identifier.

Another column required is the one containing the notebook contents. You can specify several columns as those containing it (using their numbers) provided you have edited the exported notebook file in Excel. The operation importing the notebook merges the contents of all the specified columns (using spaces as separators).

Provided you use the notebook for entering more than one line of text per student, the exporting application creates the so-called supplementary lines to store the additional text in (applies only to the files exported in the text format with the columns delimited by colons, not those in the Excel format). The supplementary lines can be found in the first column (these begin with the vertical bars ('|')). The notebook can also be imported in this format.

It is advisable to perform the notebook-importing operation at least twice - first without saving (use the default option 'try without saving - used for checking purposes'). This will prevent the application from making any changes in the IS record and all the error messages and other important information will be displayed to you.

Provided you select 'import and save', all the correct records in your file will be uploaded into the System. The wrong ones will not be saved.

If you remove some lines from the file generated by the exporting application, the importing procedure will keep the notebook contents (stored in the System) associated with the students deleted from the file unchanged. In such a case, it is only the contents associated with the students (and courses) specified in the identifiers that will be re-written.

Provided you need to put '*' in front of score values (done when you plan to use these for some arithmetic operations in the future) occupying a certain column, proceed as follows (applies to Excel): select the column and go to Format -> Cells -> Number -> Custom -> and enter into the Type field the following:

"*"#

The list of students compiled in a notebook at its creation might not always correctly reflect the enrollment status later on since some new students usually enroll (while others cancel their enrollment) in the course during the first weeks of term. Besides, some students may cancel their enrollment even later. That is why it is advisable to validate the notebook and thus update the list of students it contains. Provided some inconsistencies are found, the Information System displays a table similar to the following one:

Operations:

Automatic validation:

This operation is performed automatically once you enter the validation application. It removes the inconsistencies stemming from the situations teachers do not usually find of particular importance such as cancellation and subsequent resumption of student's enrollment, interruption of student's studies, his/her change of programme of studies, etc. The application displays a list of operations removing these inconsistencies. Teachers are recommended to skim through these. Provided you find anything unclear, feel free to contact the appropriate Office for Studies (https://is.muni.cz/studijni/).

Adding students to a notebook:

The application may suggest that you add some students to the selected notebook. These are usually the ones who enrolled after the notebook was created. If you do not wish to add new students to your notebook (because it has been created, for instance, for a certain seminar group), check 'do not add missing students (programmes of studies) to the notebook during the validation process' when creating the notebook. The option can also activated for the notebook already created via the settings reference placed in the Notebooks section.

Removing students from a notebook:

The validation application may also suggest that you remove some students from the selected notebook. When doing so, however, you should proceed with prudence. That is, you should not execute the operation in the situations where the date on which a student's status of studies last changed is comparatively recent since such a student might only be being transferred from one programme of studies to another. Removing such a student from the notebook might consequently result in an undesirable loss of information associated with him/her.

If there is no inconsistency removable by an operation (one of the aforementioned ones), the operation is not offered for execution.