Serving Grades Over the Internet

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a grade server that allows college students to access their grades over the Internet from the instructor's home page. Using a CGI (common gateway interface) program written in Visual Basic, the grades are read directly from an Excel spreadsheet and presented to the requester after he/she enters a password. The grade for each quiz, assignment, test, etc. is presented along with the class average and rank for each. Student feedback has been positive. Highlights include how to use and set up the grade server, how the grade server is implemented, and how it can be modified to allow for different spreadsheet formats other than Excel. The configuration file and the source code of the main module are provided, and sample screen displays are included. (AEF)