TEA (TM) Teacher's Assistant (TM) George Toft Makakilo, Hawaii The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- GBT Publishing 92-902 Welo Street, #94 Makakilo, Hawaii 96707 Copyright (C) 1989 - 1993 George R. Toft. All rights reserved. Except for Shareware distribution, no part of the contents of this manual may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without the written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. Every effort has been made to supply complete and accurate information. However, neither the author, nor the publisher assumes responsibility for its use, nor for any losses arising therein. The following trademarks are used in this manual. No infringement is intended, and no endorsement of this product is implied, or to be inferred by their appearance herein: IBM is a registered trademark, and PC, XT, AT, PS/2 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. TEA is a trademark of GBT Publishing as it applies to its Teacher's Assistant computer program. Teacher's Assistant is a trademark of GBT Publishing. The rights to this program and manual are available. Kindly contact the publisher at the above address, Attention: Acquisitions. - Page 2 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- No-Nonsense License GBT Publishing (The Publisher) licenses the enclosed program and manual as provided below. Shareware distribution gives you a chance to try software before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue using it, you are expected to register. Individual programs differ on details -- some request registration while others require it, some specify a maximum trial period. When you register The Teacher's Assistant, you get more than the simple right to continue using the software, you will receive: one year of product support; a free program update for any serious error you find and report; and notification of product updates and discounted upgrades. Copyright laws apply to both Shareware and commercial software, and the copyright holder retains all rights, with a few specific exceptions as stated below. Shareware authors are accomplished programmers, just like commercial authors, and the programs are of comparable quality. (In both cases, there are good programs and bad ones!) The main difference is in the method of distribution. The author specifically grants the right to copy and distribute the software, either to all and sundry or to a specific group. For example, some authors require written permission before a commercial disk vendor may copy their Shareware. Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. You should find software that suits your needs and pocketbook, whether it's commercial or Shareware. The Shareware system makes fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy. And because the overhead is low, prices are low also. Shareware has the ultimate money-back guarantee -- if you don't use the product, you don't pay for it. DISCLAIMER - AGREEMENT Users of Teacher's Assistant must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "The Teacher's Assistant is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of Teacher's Assistant." Teacher's Assistant is a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with your friends and collegues, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of - Page 3 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. If you find this program useful and find that you are using Teacher's Assistant and continue to use Teacher's Assistant after a reasonable trial period, you must make a registration payment of $20.00 to GBT Publishing. The $20.00 registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. You must treat this software just like a book. For example, this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another. Just as a book cannot be read by two different persons in two different locations at the same time. Commercial users of Teacher's Assistant must register and pay for their copies of Teacher's Assistant within 30 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site-License arrangements may be made by contacting GBT Publishing. Anyone distributing Teacher's Assistant for any kind of remuneration must first contact GBT Publishing at the address above for authorization. This authorization will be automatically granted to distributors recognized by the (ASP) as adhering to its guidelines for shareware distributors, and such distributors may begin offering Teacher's Assistant immediately (however, GBT Publishing must still be advised so that the distributor can be kept up-to-date with the latest version of Teacher's Assistant). You are encouraged to pass a copy of Teacher's Assistant along to your friends for evaluation. Please encourage them to register their copy if they find that they can use it. All registered users will receive a copy of the latest version of the Teacher's Assistant system. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE YOU HAVE READ THIS AGREEMENT, UNDERSTAND IT, AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY IT. YOU FURTHER AGREE THAT, UNLESS OTHERWISE EXPRESSLY AGREED TO IN WRITING, IT IS THE COMPLETE AND EXCLUSIVE AGREEMENT BETWEEN US WHICH SUPERSEDES ANY DEMONSTRA- TION, ADVERTISEMENT, AGREEMENT, ORAL OR WRITTEN, AND ANY OTHER COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN US OR BETWEEN YOU AND THE PUBLISHER REPRESENTATIVE RELATING TO THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS AGREEMENT. - Page 4 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Ordering Information The Teacher's Assistant is available in three forms. The first form is a set of TEA evaluation diskettes and limited license for $10.00. These diskettes do not include registration, nor a printed manual. The fee merely covers diskette duplication, postage and handling. This package does come with a short-term EVALUATION LICENSE, and a manual on diskette. This $10.00 licensing fee will be credited toward the regular licensing fee or shareware registration when you include a copy of your receipt from GBT Publishing. The second form is Regular (or Commercial) Licensing, for $39.95 (plus shipping and handling). These diskettes include the commercial version of TEA, support files, and three ring bound documentation. The program includes a perpetual REGULAR LICENSE. The third form is shareware licensing. Users registering the shareware version of this program are entitled to register it for $20.00 (plus shipping and handling). Purchasing a regular license for the Teacher's Assistant entitles you to these benefits: - A printed, illustrated manual; - A one-time customization of TEA; - One year of product support; - A free program update for any serious error you find and report; and - Notification of product updates and discounted upgrades. Registering your shareware copy of the Teacher's Assistant entitles you to these benefits: - One year of product support; - A free program update for any serious error you find and report; and - Notification of product updates and discounted upgrades. Please use the enclosed order form (Appendix E) when placing an order. Use additional copies of the order form if necessary. CompuServe Users: You may register your copy of Teacher's Assistant on-line. Simply GO SWREG at any ! prompt, then select option 1, "Instructions to Register Shareware." This program's registration number is 1031. ORDERS OUTSIDE THE United States: When ordering from outside of the United States, send a check or money order drawn on a U.S. bank in U.S. dollars (NO COD'S PLEASE). We can accept non-US currency, however, you must include an additional 25% to cover conversion and collection costs. Insufficient remittance will be returned without being processed. Please include an additional - Page 5 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- $5.00 for each item ordered to cover postage on orders delivered outside the U.S. - Page 6 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Corporate, Government and Quantity Purchases April 1st, 1993 Quantity discounts and licensing agreements are available to organizations and government entities that wish to use TEA on multiple computers. Purchases of less than 100 copies are considered quantity purchases and include the discounts listed below. Purchases of over 100 copies may be handled as quantity purchases or through licensing agreements. Licensing agreements are implemented as contracts allowing internal duplication and distribution of a specific number of copies. Technical support is provided to a contact in the licensed organization, who then provides internal support. Purchase orders are only accepted in amounts over $100.00 from approved organizations. All other orders must be prepaid. For additional information or for details regarding unlimited licenses, please contact GBT Publishing at the address in the front of this manual. DISCOUNT SCHEDULE SUB TOTAL DISCOUNT $10 - 500 none $501 - 1,250 10% $1,251 - 2,500 15% $2,501 - 5,000 20% Prices and discounts are subject to change at any time without notice. Discounts are not cumulative and apply to single orders only. - Page 7 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- The author would like to extend his appreciation to the most important person in this project: Donelle, my devoted wife, for indulging me the time -- which belonged to her -- to devote to the Teacher's Assistant. - Page 8 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents No-Nonsense License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Ordering Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Corporate, Government and Quantity Purchases . . . . . . . . 7 Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Product Support; Extended Product Support; About This Manual; Program Overlays Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 What Is TEA?; What this program will do for you; What this program cannot do; Philosophy Behind the Development of TEA Program Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Licensing Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Legalities Where to turn for help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 A Note Regarding the Tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Program Installation; Starting Up TEA; Floppy Disk Users; Why You Should Use a Hard Drive How to Run TEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 General; On-Line Help How to Stop The Teacher's Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 When You've Finished; Before You're Finished Major Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Overview of The Teacher's Assistant, and Basic Operations; Exam Bank Management; Test Script Management; Test Generation; Student Management; Gradebook; Program Security; Miscellaneous Administrative Actions; Quitting TEA Student Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Tutorials Gradebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Tutorials - Page 9 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Exam Bank Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Tutorials Test Script Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Tutorials Test Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Tutorials Program Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Tutorials Miscellaneous Administrative Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Discussion; Tutorials Quitting TEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Discussion; Tutorials Comprehensive Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Tutorials Appendix A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Exam Bank Planning Worksheet Appendix B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Test Generation Script Language Appendix C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Answers to Commonly Asked Questions Appendix D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 TEA Technical Specifications Appendix E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Product Support and Forms; TEA Evaluation Form; TEA Customization Request Form; TEA License Transfer Form; TEA Order Form Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 - Page 10 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Preface Shareware Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue using it, you are expected to register. Individual programs differ on details -- some request registration while others require it, some specify a maximum trial period. With registration, you get anything from the simple right to continue using the software to an updated program with printed manual. Shareware authors are accomplished programmers, just like commercial authors, and the programs are of comparable quality. The main difference is in the method of distribution. Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. You should find software that suits your needs and pocketbook, whether it's commercial or Shareware. The Shareware system makes fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy. And because the overhead is low, prices are low also. Shareware has the ultimate money-back guarantee -- if you don't use the product, you don't pay for it. Product Support If you mail in your registration form, contained in Appendix E, you will be entitled to one year of product support. You may write to us or call us with any problems you are having. Our telephone number will be provided with your registration package. Write to us at: GBT Publishing TEA Product Support 92-902 Welo Street, #94 Makakilo, Hawaii 96707 When you write, please include your registration number, the program version, and a concise description of your problem. If you discover a flaw in the TEA program, we will correct the problem, and send you a new update, free of charge. You may contact us electronically, either through CompuServe Information Service, or via Internet. Our addresses are shown below: CompuServe 74716,476 Internet 74716.476@compuserve.com - Page 11 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Extended Product Support You may continue your product support for TEA beyond the first year for $20.00 per year per registered copy of TEA. Quantity discounts apply -- write for details. About This Manual This manual was written with ease of use in mind. Our research indicates most people prefer three-ring bound manuals over all other manuals because this type of manual stays open while you use the computer. It also allows you to make field changes to the manual, which keeps our cost down, and keeps your cost down. Also, to make learning the Teacher's Assistant easier, this manual devotes an entire chapter to each TEA concept or function, and includes several tutorials on that function. The first chapter describes the Teacher's Assistant, the hardware and software you need to use this program, and it lists the files used by the Teacher's Assistant. Chapter two tells you how to install the Teacher's Assistant. It covers both hard drive and floppy drive installation. It also explains the on-line help function. Chapter three provides an overview of TEA's major functions. These overviews are available in the on-line help. Chapter four through ten details each function. At the end of each chapter is a tutorial demonstrating each of the functions discussed in that chapter. Chapter eleven describes how to quit the TEA program, and why TEA might not let you quit. Chapter twelve wraps up the tutorials in chapters four through ten in a comprehensive tutorial. This final tutorial will guide you from setting up your gradebook to printing final grades in a simulation of a school semester. Appendix A is an exam bank planning worksheet. It is provided so you may properly plan your exam bank to allow for future expansion, yet minimize the amount of disk space used. Appendix B is the test generation script language reference guide. Each command is listed with all possible parameters, including an explanation of what the command does. - Page 12 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix C answers commonly asked questions. If you have any questions that are not answered in this manual, please send them to us on the feedback form in Appendix E. We will try to respond to your questions within ten (10) business days from the date of receipt. Appendix D lists TEA's technical specifications and notes which specifications you can have changed. When you register your program, you may have your version of TEA customized to fit your particular needs by filling out a customization request form. Appendix E contains a registration form, an order form, a feedback form, a customization request form, and an extended product support form. These forms may be copied as necessary. Program Overlays The Teacher's Assistant loads in program modules as they are required, and unloads those that are not. Without this technique, TEA would be over 500K in size, it wouldn't run from a 360K floppy diskette, nor would it run on many computers. Therefore, for hard drive operation, all of the following files must reside in the same subdirectory, and must never be deleted: TEA.EXE TESTGEN.EXE MANGBANK.EXE MANGSTUD.EXE GRADE.EXE BRUN45.EXE These files are required for program operation, and must not be deleted: PASSWORD.TEA HELP.TEA CONFIG.TEA SPOOLER.TEA COMMON.TEA A good rule of thumb is: If the file extension ends in .TEA, don't mess with it. - Page 13 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Introduction What Is TEA? The Teacher's Assistant(TM), or TEA as it is called in this manual, is a menu-driven, integrated, student database, gradebook, exam bank manager and test generator. What this program will do for you TEA will help you with the following: - Manage a list of students, including the student's address, phone numbers, parent's names, and comments; - Operate a gradebook using the student list; - Manage up to 80 exam banks, each capable of holding hundreds, or thousands of questions and answers, limited only by available disk space; - Manage test generation scripts which will allow you to create tests from your exam bank using three different methods; - Print the test and answer key to your system's primary printer; What this program cannot do TEA cannot grade tests nor test the student interactively. Other than that, this is a very capable program. Philosophy Behind the Development of TEA Wherever possible, we have made great effort to give you all the help you could possible want or need to operate TEA without using the manual. To this end we have provided a one line help window at the bottom of each menu giving you a brief description of what the highlighted menu choice does, and we have provided detailed help screens which you may access by pressing the F1 key. We have also tried to make this program easy to use and have arranged the menus logically according to function. The major functions in each module were arranged with this concept in mind, therefore, as long as you are working within one module, you won't have to load any of the other modules. Hard drive users will hardly notice this module swapping. We use the screen to its fullest advantage by balancing the data and white space; and by using pop-up windows to present urgent or short term messages, and to collect data from you. - Page 14 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- This program and user manual are the product of several thousand man-hours of research and hard work, and we take pride in our products. We acknowledge there may be flaws in either the logic or the program coding, however, should you find an error or inconsistency of any kind, we would appreciate hearing from you. Please feel free to use the evaluation form at the end of this manual (Appendix E). Your letter will be answered with either an explanation as to why the program works as noted, or we will correct the problem. If you have registered your copy of TEA, we will send you the correction without charge. To further support our product, we are offering a one-time customization of TEA to fit your particular requirements at no additional charge. To take advantage of this offer, you must be a registered user of the Teacher's Assistant, and you must fill out and return the TEA Customization Request Form, found in Appendix E. We will send you your own version of TEA with the capacities you specify. Program Requirements TEA requires an IBM PC/XT/AT/PS2 or compatible with at least 384K RAM, and either two floppy drives or one hard drive and a floppy drive (hard drive is highly recommended). The computer must be ______ operating under MS-DOS version 2.11 or above. Any display adapter may be used except the IBM monochrome display adapter -- you may use either a CGA/EGA/VGA graphics adapter and monitor, or a Hercules compatible monochrome card and monitor. A Microsoft compatible mouse is optional. Licensing Information This program has a commercial version, intended for institutional use. However, we have decided to market it using the shareware channels, also. You may copy this program and distribute it to your colleagues, friends, associates or electronic bulletin boards. Please register it if you find it useful. The licensing fee was intentionally kept low to promote its sale and avoid its theft. Remember, shareware users get a substantial discount off the retail price. Legalities This program and this manual are copyrighted materials and have been registered with the Register of Copyrights. It is the intellectual property of the Publisher, and is licensed, not sold. - Page 15 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Title 17, United States Code (Copyrights), governs the duplication of this material. This law allows you to make one archive copy of each original diskette. Severe penalties may be incurred for violations of copyright and trade secret laws. - Page 16 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Where to turn for help In all cases, we have tried to make this manual and the TEA program as easy and obvious to use as possible. However, an occasion may arise where you will need assistance. You have three places to turn to for help: 1) Online help which is obtained from any menu by pressing the F1 key; 2) This manual; and 3) the Publisher. Assuming the first two options don't help out enough, and you have registered your copy of TEA, you may call or write to us and discuss the problem. If you write, please include your address and full telephone number in case we need more information regarding your problem. A Note Regarding the Tutorials The tutorials are written in an easy-to-follow instructional format. Each paragraph contains one instruction, and it may or may not contain an explanation of what you are doing. Usually, if the step is complicated or new, the paragraph will explain what you are doing and why. Minor steps, such as telling you to select "Gradebook" from the "Main Menu" warrant no explanation. The tutorials are meant to be used consecutively from beginning to end. You should begin with tutorial one, and proceed until you have completed all of the tutorials in order as each tutorial builds upon the knowledge of the previous tutorials. You may stop at the end of each chapter. The first tutorial in each chapter assumes you have just started up the computer, and are ready to begin using the Teacher's Assistant. - Page 17 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Getting Started Program Installation Installation is straight forward and simple. Floppy drive users have no installation procedure. Hard drive users should follow this procedure: 1. Ensure you are logged onto your hard drive. Type "C:" and press the Return key. 2. Make a directory called "TEA" on your hard drive. Do this by typing "MD C:\TEA" and press the Return key. 3. Log onto this new subdirectory by typing "CD C:\TEA" and press the Return key. 4. Copy all of the files from the first four TEA diskettes, that is, the program diskettes, not the user manual diskette. First insert TEA diskette number 1 in drive A:, type "COPY A:*.* C:\TEA" and press the Return key. Repeat for the other three TEA diskettes. Starting Up TEA With a Hard Drive Log onto your hard drive and subdirectory containing TEA, type "GO" and press the Return key. TEA will load and present the opening screen. A few seconds later the TEA Main Menu will appear. Floppy Disk Users To run the Teacher's Assistant, insert the TEA diskette in drive A:, log onto drive A: by typing "A:" and pressing Return, then type "GO" and press the Return key. TEA will begin to load. OPERATION NOTE: You will be required to exchange diskettes when using different sections of TEA. (TEA is too large to fit onto one diskette, so it uses modules that are swapped in and out of memory as required. See the discussion on module swapping above.) TEA will prompt you when to exchange diskettes, and inform you which diskette to insert. The new module will load, which will take 10-20 seconds. It will run as soon as it is loaded and remain in memory until a new module is needed. Why You Should Use a Hard Drive Because of TEA's enormous size, the use of a hard drive is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. This reduces the amount of time required to load the modules (see floppy drive users above) to just a few seconds, - Page 18 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- and eliminates the need to swap diskettes. - Page 19 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- How to Run TEA General TEA is operated using the keyboard and the mouse. If you don't have a mouse, you may use the arrow keys instead. To move your wide-bar cursor in a menu, move your mouse up or down, or use the up arrow or the down arrow on the numeric keypad. To select the choice highlighted by the wide-bar cursor, press either the left mouse button (never use the middle button, if you have one) or press the Return key. The right mouse button acts as the Escape key. When you are entering data in a data entry window, TEA may or may not present a default value. To use this value, just press the Enter key. To change part of the value, backspace over that portion you wish to change and retype it. To completely erase the value and enter your own, press the Home key and type in your new value. These topics are covered in greater detail in chapter three. On-Line Help Detailed help screens are available from each and every menu and are accessed by pressing the F1 key after you have positioned your wide-bar cursor on the desired menu choice. Each detailed help screen provides an overview of what can be done if you select the current choice, and in some cases provides a step-by-step procedure for you to follow. Pressing the Escape key will clear the help screen and return you to the menu. Several pages of general help for the Teacher's Assistant is available from the main menu. Detailed help for using the TEA editor is available from within the editor by pressing the F1 key. How to Stop The Teacher's Assistant When You've Finished When you have completed everything you want to do using TEA, merely press the Escape key until you are at the Main Menu, then move the wide-bar cursor to "Quit" and press the Enter key. Before You're Finished - Page 20 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unfortunately, there is no provision for saving intermediate results (such as a test) and resuming at a later time. Quitting is the same as above. Do not attempt to reboot the computer by using the Control-Alt-Delete key sequence. - Page 21 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Major Functions Overview of The Teacher's Assistant, and Basic Operations You may navigate through the menus either by using the arrow keys and pressing [Enter], or using the mouse and pressing the left mouse button. The right mouse button acts as the [Esc] key, and will move you up one level in the menu. Never use the center button (if it is available on your mouse) this will lock the left button down and feed a constant stream of [Enter] keys into TEA, producing unpredictable results. TEA uses a file selection screen that arranges files or choices in a five by sixteen matrix. You may select one of these choices by using your arrow keys or mouse, and pressing the [Enter] key or the left button. Pressing the right button is the same as the [Esc] key, and will let you escape from the selection menu. Data is entered in a data entry box, which is a box with a cursor in it. Sometimes data will already appear in the entry box. If you want to use that piece of data, just press the [Enter] key. If you want to edit it, use the [BACKSPACE] key to back over the data, type in your new data and then press [Enter]. If you want to erase all of the data, press the [Home] key, enter your new data and then press [Enter]. TEA comes with a full screen editor to edit text while using TEA. The program editor is used to edit questions, answers, and script files from within the TEA environment. Then editor is a text editor with word wrap capabilities. It uses the function keys and the cursor keys as shown below: Key Function cursor keys Moves cursor one character in selected direction. Home Moves to beginning of current line. End Moves to end of current line. Pg Up Moves up one page in edited text. Pg Dn Moves down one page in edited text. Ctrl+Home Moves to first line in file, first column. Ctrl+End Moves to last line in file, first column. Ctrl+PgUp Moves to top of file, last column. Ctrl+PgDn Moves to bottom of file, last column. Ctrl+Left Moves cursor one word to the left. Ctrl+Right Moves cursor one word to the right. Ins Toggles the insert mode from insert to overwrite and back. Del Deletes the character under the cursor. BACK SPACE Deletes char to left of cursor and moves left. - Page 22 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- F1 Pressing F1 will give you these help screens. F9 Aborts editing. All changes are ignored. You must verify your intention to abandon the edit prior to leaving the editor. F10 Ends editing. All changes take effect and are permanent. TAB Moves cursor to next tab-stop (every 8 columns). Ctrl T Deletes the entire word under the cursor. Ctrl X Deletes the rest of the line beginning at the cursor. Enter Terminates a line and prevents word wrapping from occurring after that point on that line. Useful when creating tables, columnar questions or multiple choice questions. Keep in mind this is only a text editor. It is not a word processor, nor was it ever meant to be. It cannot perform searches, spell checks, word lookups, nor any of the other traditional word processing functions found in more elaborate editors. The 25th line of the display is the status line. It provides some useful information about the file you are editing. On the left it tells you that pressing [F1] will give you help, [F9] aborts editing, and [F10] quits and saves your changes. It shows your cursor position, your percent full, status of the insert (and overwrite) mode, and whether or not the question is deleted or not (as determined by point value). "Aborting" means you will leave the file intact, with no changes. You will be given the opportunity to confirm this action before it takes place. "Quit and save" takes all of your changes and applies them to the text you are editing. On the last line is the insert mode flag. When you first enter the editor, the insert mode will be on and the word "INSERT" will appear on the status line. To enter the overwrite mode, press the [Ins] key on the keyboard -- the word "INSERT" will change to "ovrwrt" and the editor will overwrite the text under the cursor. In the insert mode, any text you type will push the text to the right of the cursor to the right and insert your text in its place. In the overwrite mode, your text is placed on top the current text. These two operations are similar to most word processors and text editors. Associated with the insert mode is word wrapping. Unlike most text editors, this one has a limited word wrapping capability. When the text on the line your are working on exceeds 72 characters in length, the last word in that line will be placed - Page 23 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- on the beginning of the next line. The only exception is if you are entering a continuous stream of characters without a space, the line will be broken at the 72nd character and the line of characters will continue on the next line. TEA is divided into the eight major sections that follow. These are also the first eight menu items. Some of these items are contained in other program modules. For example, Manage Exam Bank and Manage Test Script are both contained in one program to minimize program loading for floppy drive users. Exam Bank Management This allows you to perform the following functions: - Create new exam banks from scratch; - Edit the content of either questions or answers; - Add questions and answers to an exam bank; - Delete questions and answers from an exam bank; and - Select another exam bank. Note: Exam bank removal is performed under Program Security using the "Wipe Exam Banks" function. These functions are described in detail below. Select another exam bank: This selects another exam bank to work on. Selection is made using the mouse or the keyboard by placing the widebar cursor on the exam bank you wish to use. Create new exam bank: This creates a new exam banks from scratch. You must specify the maximum question length, whether or not the answer key will be available, the maximum number of questions allowed in the exam bank (which can be changed), the name of the exam bank, and the number of categories. Then, for each category, you will inform the Teacher's Assistant of the category's name, the category's starting question number, and the category's ending question number. TEA will offer some advice during this process (such as how many questions you can have based on disk space, and category numbers). After this process is complete, you may enter your questions and answers. - Page 24 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Note: To remove an exam bank, go to Program Security and use the "Wipe Exam Banks" function. DO NOT USE DOS to delete an exam bank. Edit questions and/or answers: This allows you to edit the questions and answers in the current exam bank. The question format is very specific: Line 1 is the exam bank name with the point value in parenthesis on the right side of the screen; Line 2 must be blank; the rest of the lines are provided for the body of the question. The answer format is also specific: Line 1 is the exam bank name and the word "ANSWER"; line 2 is also be blank; and lines 3 onward are used for the text of the answer. Add questions and answers: This allows you to add question and answers onto the end of the exam bank. If there is no room at the end of the exam bank for the question, you will be informed, and the exam bank will remain untouched. Delete questions and answers: This allows you to delete questions and answers from the selected exam bank. Question deletion can be accomplished in two ways: 1) Setting the point value to zero (by editing the question), and 2) using this function, which permanently removes the question from the disk. Test Script Management By using this option, you may: Create new test scripts from scratch; Edit old test scripts using the editor; and Delete old test scripts from disk. These functions are described in detail below. Create new test script: This creates new test scripts. Test scripts may be created - Page 25 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- either by editing the test script directly, or by having the computer assist you. If you choose to edit the test script directly, you must be familiar with the test script language (see user manual). If you have never created a test script, or are still new at it, please allow the computer to help you -- the syntax will be perfect which will prevent confusion and aggravation later. NOTE: TEA will verify the syntax of the script for you after you have edited it, however, TEA will not check the semantics of the script -- this is done during test generation. The script language is simple, so if what you say is reasonable, you shouldn't have any problems. Editing old test scripts: This allows you to edit a previously existing test script. Familiarity with the test script language is required. You will be presented a list of test scripts from which to choose. After you have made your choice, you will be allowed to edit it, then returned to the Manage Test Scripts menu. NOTE: TEA will verify the syntax of the script for you after you have edited it, however, TEA will not check the semantics of the script -- this is done during test generation. The script language is simple, so if what you say is reasonable, you shouldn't have any problems. Deleting old test scripts: This deletes old test scripts from the disk. You will be presented a list of test scripts from which to choose. After you have made your choice, you will be allowed to verify its deletion, then returned to the Manage Test Scripts menu. NOTE: If you accidentally delete a test script, TEA cannot bring it back for you. However, you may be able to recover it with the simple file undeletion tools, such as Norton's Quick Unerase, provided you exit TEA immediately and perform no more writes to the disk. Test Generation This is the heart of the test generation module. Here you can - Page 26 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- select which test script to use, create a test from that test script, then print the test and answer key. This is described in detail below. Select Test Script: This selects which test script you will use when generating a test. It uses the standard TEA file selection menu. Generate Test: This generates a test based on the test script you've chosen (if you haven't chosen one, you will be given that opportunity). The resulting test is stored on disk as the "working test." After it is generated, you may print the test and answer key. Test and Answer Key Printing: This takes the last test that was created and prints it. First, you will need to generate the test. Then you may select whether you want to print then test, the answer key, or both. Student Management You can completely manage your list of students by: Adding Student data; Deleting Student; Displaying Students by summary (Name, ID), or by all information; Printing Students by summary or by all information; and Selecting a New Course for student management. These functions are described in detail below. Add Student Data: This adds a new student to your student list. The data stored in the student database is as follows: Students name; Student's ID; Type of ID (SSN or other number); Parent's name; - Page 27 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Parent's phone; Parents address; and Three lines of comments. After you add a record, the alphabetical index is updated, and the data is saved on disk. Delete Student: This deletes students from the student database. First, select which student you want to delete, then verify the deletion of that student. After you verify that student's deletion, the student will be permanently removed from the database. After your record deletion, the alphabetical index is updated, and the record is removed from disk. Edit Student: This edits a student's record. First, select which student you want to edit, then change the desired data. See Add Student Data above for the data stored in the database. After your changes are made, the alphabetical index is updated, and the data is saved on disk. Display Student: This scans through your students, and upon command, retrieves their entire record. The records are stored in alphabetical order. Print Student: This prints out your students. The printout may either be the summary report with the student's name and ID with 60 students per page, or the detailed report with all student information, one student per page. The "summary data only" report allows you to quickly view all your students on a page by printing only their name and ID number. The students are printed 60 per page. The "all information" report prints the entire student record for all students. Records are printed one per page to allow for neat additions and deletions to your hard copy - Page 28 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- student binder. Select New Course: This selects the student list from other courses. You must set up these courses before you can manage their students. You must select a course before the Teacher's Assistant will allow you to use any of the management functions. Gradebook This is a typical gradebook where you can: Enter or edit student's grades; Curve the grades; Display the gradebook; Print the gradebook; Configure grade weights; and Change the student display and printing order to either alphabetical or grade point order. These functions are described in detail below. Enter/Edit grades: The gradebook is presented spreadsheet style where you can view, enter, and edit grades. Curve grades: This displays a graph of the class' performance on the screen and allows you to move the curve as you see fit. First, select the grade column to curve by using either your mouse or arrow keys. Next, you will be shown a graph of the grades. Finally, you move the graph to where you think the curve is best. When you have moved the curve to the desired location, press [Enter] and the changes will be applied to the grades. You may press [Esc] to abort at any time. Note: The graph's X axis runs from 0-200 points. This is the maximum number of points allowed for your assignments. The Y axis runs from zero up to the number of times the median grade occurred. For example, if the median score was 90, and eight students received a 90, the Y axis will range - Page 29 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- from 0-8. You must apply the curve to grades after they are entered into the gradebook. This function permanently changes the grades in the gradebook. You may undo the changes by moving the curve exactly the same amount in the direction opposite the original change. Display Gradebook: This displays the gradebook on your screen similar to Edit/Enter grades, except when you press [Enter], you will exit the display. The grades displayed are after curving, and the student's G.P.A. is displayed on the right side of the screen. Print Gradebook: This prints the gradebook in the same format as it appears on the screen. The grades displayed are after curving, and include a running average of both the students GPA and the assignments. No effort is made to compress the printout (due to the wide variety of printers in use). You have four ways to print the gradebook: Entire gradebook with student's name; entire gradebook with student's ID; final grades with student's name; and final grades with student's ID. These options are discussed below. Print Gradebook This prints the gradebook for all students in the current course on the system printer. Print Final Grades This prints only the final scores (the GPA) for all students in the current course on the printer. Print Grades Using Student's ID This prints your gradebook or final grade list by the student's ID. This ensures anonymity for the student. Print Grades Using Student's Name - Page 30 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- This prints your gradebook or final grade list by the student's name. Obviously, there is no anonymity for the student, and is strongly discouraged except for the instructor's personal use. Configure Grade Weights: This changes the weights of the assignments, and alters the final grades accordingly. The grade weights are presented in a grid 10 cells wide, and up to six cells high. The very last cell is the sum of all of the grade weights, and the rectangle is the number of grades currently assigned in the gradebook. You may use your mouse or cursor keys to move the highlighter to the desired box to change its value. To remove the last assignment, merely set its weight to zero. The assignment counter will decrement and the sum counter will decrease according to the value of the assignment that was deleted. To delete an entire assignment, set its grade weight to zero. You may wish to zero out the grades in the gradebook, but you must zero out that assignment weight or that assignment will be counted toward the student's GPA. Change Student Order: This changes the student ordering to either Alphabetical or Grade Point Average (GPA) order. This function affects the gradebook display as well as the grade report print outs. These functions are described in detail below. Change Student Order - Alphabetical Order This sets up your gradebook to display the students in Alphabetical order. Your other alternative is to arrange it in Grade Point Average (GPA) order. Change Student Order - GPA Order This sets up your gradebook to display the students in Grade Point Average (GPA) order. Your other alternative is to arrange it in alphabetical order. - Page 31 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Manage Courses: This adds courses to and delete courses from your gradebook. Also, you may edit the data for a particular course, such as the courses' title, the course number, the number of grades in the course, or the number of assignments the students have been graded on so far. You may have up to 80 courses in your gradebook. This number may be reduced by the amount of free disk space you have remaining on your gradebook disk. These functions are described in detail below. Select Course This selects the course you will be using in your gradebook. Add Course This adds a course to your gradebook. You will give the courses' name, and its abbreviation. Delete Course This removes a course from your gradebook. This means both your grades and students for that course will be removed. You will have to verify your intention by entering "REMOVE" where the word "STOP!!" is displayed. After you have verified your intent, all grades are removed and the blank gradebook is saved to disk. Modify Course This changes a courses' name, abbreviation, the number of assignments that have been graded, and the number of assignments that will be graded. Remove All Courses This erases all of the grades and all of the students held in the gradebook for all of the courses. - Page 32 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You will have to verify your intention by entering "REMOVE" where the word "STOP!!" is displayed. After you have verified your intent, all grades are removed and the blank gradebook is saved to disk. Program Security This changes each of the passwords for the main areas and also wipes exam banks from the disk. The passwords are for added security, and may be blank if you do not desire to password protect areas of the Teacher's Assistant. Wiping the exam bank removes all traces of the exam bank. Note: This procedure is final -- all data in that exam bank will be permanently removed. These functions are described in detail below. Change System Passwords: This changes all of the passwords in a given area. They are initially set to all blanks, which inhibits their use. If you want to implement any given password, you may do so by changing that one password. When you change a password, you will be presented with your old password, and asked to enter your new password. Your password may be up to 30 characters long and must be the normal keyboard characters only (no extended or control characters). Passwords are case sensitive ("Password" is different from "PASSWORD"). To inhibit password protection from any one area, merely clear its password by pressing the [Home] key (which will clear the new password box) and pressing [Enter]. Wipe Exam Bank: This permanently removes an exam bank from the data disk. Due to the dangerous nature of this function, you will have to verify your intention before the Teacher's Assistant will wipe the exam bank. If an exam bank is selected for wiping, it is overwritten with a pattern of one's and zero's three times, written with a pattern, and then the pattern verified. Finally, the portion of the disk where the exam bank resided is formatted and the disk space is returned to the operating system. There is no known method available to recover the exam bank once wiped. Not even Paul Mace nor Peter Norton could bring it back and they're good at what they do! - Page 33 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Miscellaneous Administrative Actions This contains the miscellaneous administrative commands for the system including: Exam bank usage profile; Reset exam bank usage counter; Print Queue control by cancelling all printing, or suspend printing, or resume printing after it has been suspended; Create student and course disks; and Reconfigure disk drives. These functions are described in detail below. Exam Bank Usage Profile: This function graphs which questions are being selected by the Teacher's Assistant, and the distribution frequency by using a bar graph. This chart uses the computer's graphics ability (Hercules monochrome or CGA/EGA/VGA) for its presentation. You will have to select a new exam bank prior to its usage being graphed. Reset Exam Bank Usage Counter: This resets, or clears, the question counter. This allows you to put the bar graph back into perspective after extensive use. Periodic use of this function is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Print Queue Control: The print queue is where all printing is sent to from within the Teacher's Assistant. Whenever you print a test, or a grade report, it first goes to the queue, then to the printer. The queue runs in the background and allows you to continue using TEA, instead of waiting for your printer to catch up. This feature is totally controlled by TEA and is independent of your printer. The print queue functions are described in detail below. Cancel Printing This cancels all printing, and clears the print queue. All printing that has not yet printed is lost. - Page 34 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Suspend Printing This suspends printing operations until you instruct the print queue to resume printing. If a printing error occur, the print queue will automatically suspend operations, and pop up a window to inform you of this fact. Resume Printing This resumes printing operations after they have been suspended. This function cannot resume printing after you cancel it it only works if you suspend printing, or if TEA suspends printing due to a printer error. Create "Courses & Student" Disk: Before you can save your course information, you must prepare your student disk to receive the course information. This function allows you to prepare a formatted floppy (or hard) disk for use as a student disk. Reconfigure Disk Drives: This changes the data path for your gradebook and exam banks, and you can change the location of the TEA system files. You will be presented with the data path, and the TEA path, with an explanation of what they do. You may change either or both paths. The data path will become effective immediately, but the TEA path will go into effect the next time TEA is started up. Quitting TEA Selecting Quit from the main menu quits your current Teacher's Assistant session and returns you to either MS-DOS or the menu program that called TEA. - Page 35 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Student Management Student management allows you to manage a student database. The database contains the following information: student's name, student's ID, type of ID (SSN or other identifier), parent's name, parent's phone, parents address; and three lines of comments. Database operations include: add, edit and delete student data, display summary information (student name and ID) or complete information, and print student summary or complete information. The student database is important as it is closely linked to the gradebook (see chapter 5). The gradebook calls upon the student's name and the student's ID when displaying and printing grades. The database is maintained in alphabetical order based on the student's last name. Each time you add or delete a student, or edit a student's information, the database is re-indexed to ensure the alphabetical order is maintained. The database is intended to be your primary student data bank. You should print out each complete record for backup purposes, and store these print-outs in a secure location to comply with the Privacy Act of 1974. Likewise, the "Courses and Students" Disk should also be stored in a safe location. The student database is comprised of one or more student lists. Each student list is loaded into memory after you select a course to use. If you do not make a course selection, TEA won't let you access the student database. Before you can use the student database manager, you must create a "Courses and Students" disk. You will create it from the "Miscellaneous Administrative Actions" menu (see Chapter 10). (The create "Courses and Students" disk function is stored in the miscellaneous administrative are because it involves both the student database and the gradebook functions of the Teacher's Assistant.) Add Student Data This allows you to add a new student to your student list. The following data is kept in the student database: Students name; Student's ID; Type of ID (SSN or other identifier); Parent's name; Parent's phone; - Page 36 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Parent's address; and Three lines of comments. Whenever you make any changes to the database, the alphabetical index is updated, and the data is saved on disk. To add data to the database, insert your "Courses and Students" disk in your data drive, select "Add Student Data" and press [Enter]. TEA will prompt you to enter all of the above information, then it will ask you to confirm the addition of this record to the database. When you affirm adding the record, it will be added and the alphabetical index will be updated. Delete Student As some students are transferred during the semester, you may want to delete students from your database. This function deletes students from the student database. To delete students from the database, select "Delete Student" and press [Enter]. Next, select which student you want to delete, press [Enter], then verify the deletion of that student. After you verify that student's deletion from the database, the student will be permanently removed from the database, and the alphabetical index updated. Edit Student Since student data sometimes changes, this function allows you to edit a student's record. You can change any field in the database. Select "Edit Student" and press [Enter]. Use either your mouse or arrow keys to move through the students. To see a student's record, press either the [/] or the [?] keys. When you are done examining the record, press [Esc]. Continue this process until you find the record you want to edit, press [Enter], and change the desired data. To keep the data in a field, just press the [Enter] key. To change it, backspace over the data to the point you want to change, or clear the field by pressing the [Home] key, and re-enter the entire field. After you have edited the last field, TEA will ask you if you want to update the database with this record. If you confirm the update, the alphabetical index is updated, and the data is saved on disk. When you are done editing records, press [Esc]. Display Student - Page 37 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- This allows you to page through your students, and upon command, retrieve their entire record. The records are stored in alphabetical order. Select "Display Student" and press [Enter]. Use your mouse or arrow keys to move through the students. To see a student's record, press either the [/] or the [?] keys. When you are done examining the record, press [Esc] or [Enter]. Continue this process until you are done, then press [Esc]. Print Student This prints out your students. The printout may either be a summary report with the student's name and ID, or the detailed report with all available student information. The summary report allows you to quickly view all your students on a page by printing only their name and ID number. 60 students per page are printed. The all available information report prints the entire student record for all students. Records are printed one per page to allow for neat additions and deletions to your hard copy student information binder. Select New Course This allows you to access the students from other courses. You must set up these courses before you can manage their students. If you haven't selected a course yet, you must do so before the Teacher's Assistant will allow you to use any of the management functions. When you select a new course, you will be presented with the standard TEA file selection menu. Use your mouse or arrow keys to select the course you want to use and press the [Enter] key. Tutorials Tutorial 4-1 - Create "Courses and Students" disk Learning Objectives: You will learn how to create a "Courses and Students" disk. This disk will store all your student, course, and gradebook information. - Page 38 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- What You Will Need: You will need a blank, formatted floppy diskette. Label this diskette "Courses and Students." This will be your Courses and Students disk for the rest of these tutorials. Tutorial: Start up TEA as described in chapter 2. Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Miscellaneous Administrative Actions" and press [Enter]. Select "Create `Courses and Students' disk" and press [Enter]. TEA will advise you that you will erase all of your current courses and students, and all information on the disk you insert in drive A:. This procedure will erase all information on the floppy disk, so you can use this feature to recycle your old Courses and Students disks, after they are no longer needed. Insert a blank, formatted disk in drive A: and press [Enter] to create the Courses and Students disk. The Teacher's Assistant will access drive A: and set it up for becoming a Courses and Student disk. What You Have Learned: You learned how to create a Courses and Students disk. You also learned how to recycle your previous Courses and Student disks. Tutorial 4-2 - Create a Course For the Student Database Learning Objectives: You will learn how to set up a course for the student database, and why it is necessary to do so. What You Will Need: - Page 39 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 4-1. Tutorial: Note: To set up our student database (tutorial 4-3), we must first create a course to enroll the students into. Therefore, we will create a course, then add students to the course. This tutorial creates the course, and the next tutorial will add students to this course. The student database management functions could not be included with the Gradebook due to program size constraints - we want this program to fit on as many computers as possible. Select "Use Gradebook" from the "Main Menu" and press [Enter]. Select "Course Management" and press [Enter]. Select "Add Course" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will prompt you to insert your "Courses and Students" disk. If you haven't already done so, insert it in drive A: now, then press [Enter]. TEA will display two boxes: one to put the name of the course in, and the other to put its abbreviation in. Enter "Tutorial Number 4-2" in the course name box and press [Enter]. Enter "TUT4-2" in the abbreviation box and press [Enter]. Finally, TEA will ask you to verify your intent to add this course, and TEA provides "Y" as the default answer. Press [Enter]. TEA will flash on the screen "Saving courses," then return you to the "Course Management" menu. Press [Esc] until you return to the top menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to set up a course for the student database, and why it is necessary to do so. Tutorial 4-3 - Adding Students to the Database - Page 40 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Learning Objectives: You will learn how to add students to your database. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 4-2. Tutorial: Note: If you haven't reviewed Tutorial 4-2 recently, do so now. Select "Manage a List of Students" from the "Main menu" and press [Enter]. Select "Add Student Data" and press [Enter]. The student's name we will enter is "George E. Porgy." The Teacher's Assistant will ask you for the student's name. Enter the first name (George) followed by [Enter], the middle initial (E) followed by [Enter], and the last name (Porgy) followed by [Enter]. TEA will ask you for the student's ID. Depending on your school system, this will either be the student's social security number (SSN) or some arbitrary number. In this case, we will use some arbitrary number, 12345 ABC. Inform TEA that we are using something other than a SSN by typing "O" and pressing [Enter]. Then type "12345 ABC" and press [Enter]. TEA will ask you for the student's parent's name. Enter "Mr & Mrs Porgy" and press [Enter]. TEA will ask you for the parent's phone number, and it will present "(000) 000-0000" with the cursor on the first zero. Enter "6025551212" and notice how the cursor skips over the parenthesis and the hyphen. Press [Enter]. TEA will ask you for the parent's address. Enter "123 Main Street" for the street address and press [Enter]; "Phoenix" for the city and press [Enter]; "AZ" for the state and press [Enter]; and "85200" for the ZIP code and press [Enter]. One of TEA's handy features is you don't have to capitalize the state - TEA will automatically capitalize it for you. You could have entered "az" for the state and TEA would have made it "AZ" for you. - Page 41 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, TEA will ask you for three lines of comments. You may enter anything you like. For this tutorial, enter "This is a sample record." Press [Enter] three times. TEA will present the entire record with the new data in bold, and ask you if you want to add this record. If you say no, it will be discarded. Press "Y" without pressing [Enter]. TEA will add the record and re-index the database, and it will inform you as these actions occur. Using the information you learned in this tutorial, add five more students to your student list. Make sure three of them have last names beginning with the letters A through O. The other two names may begin with R through Z. What You Have Learned: You learned how to add students to your database. Tutorial 4-4 - Edit a Student in the Database Learning Objectives: You will learn how to edit a student's record in your database. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 4-3. Tutorial: In this tutorial, George E. Porgy has move to a new address. You will change his street address in his student record. Select "Manage a List of Students" from the "Main menu" and press [Enter]. Select "Select Course" and press [Enter]. Select TUT4-2 and press [Enter]. This should be the only course on your disk. Select "Edit Student Data" and press [Enter]. - Page 42 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Using the arrow keys, move the student list up or down until George E Porgy is between the selection arrows, then press [Enter] to begin editing. Press [Enter] seven times until you get to the street address. Change it to "390 Broadway Avenue" and press [Enter]. Hint: You can clear the entire field by pressing the [Home] key, then enter the new address. Press [Enter] six more times, make sure the address was changed, then press [Y] to accept the changes to this record. You will be at the Student Selection menu. If the address was not changed, answer [N] and restart with the `Select "Edit Students Data" . . . ' step above. If you needed to edit any of the other fields, you would have changed them just like you changed the address field instead of pressing [Enter]. Pressing the [Enter] key without making a change keeps the data intact. What You Have Learned: You learned how to edit a student's record in your database. Tutorial 4-5 - Scan the Database Learning Objectives: You will learn how to recall any student's record in either the "Edit Student" or the "Display Student" mode. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 4-4. Tutorial: Select "Manage a List of Students" from the "Main menu" and press [Enter]. Select "Select Course" and press [Enter]. Select TUT4-2 and press [Enter]. This should be the only course on your disk. Select either "Edit Student" or "Display Students" and press - Page 43 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- [Enter]. Using the arrow keys, move the student list up or down until the student selection arrows point to any student whose record you wish to view. In this example, move the student list to select George E. Porgy. To recall the student's record, press either the question mark ([?]) or the [/] key (unshifted question mark). The student's complete record will be displayed for you. Press any key to return to the student scan. To quit the scan, press the [Esc] key. You will be returned to the "Student Management" menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to recall any student's record in either the "Edit Student" or the "Display Student" mode. Tutorial 4-6 - Delete a Student in the Database Learning Objectives: You will learn how to delete a student from your student database. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 4-5. Tutorial: Select "Manage a List of Students" from the "Main menu" and press [Enter]. Select "Select Course" and press [Enter]. Select TUT4-2 and press [Enter]. This should be the only course on your disk. Select "Delete Student" and press [Enter]. Using the arrow keys, move the student list up or down until the student selection arrows point to the student whose record you wish to delete. In this example, move the student - Page 44 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- list to select George E. Porgy. Press [Enter] to select the student to delete. The Teacher's Assistant will box the student you have selected and ask you if you really want to delete that student. Press [Y] to delete the student's record. TEA will inform you that it has deleted that student and it is saving the student list to disk. TEA will return you to the "Student Management" menu. You may use "Display Students" to verify George E. Porgy's record no longer exists in the database. What You Have Learned: You learned how to delete a student from your student database. Tutorial 4-7 - Printing Student Information (Summary) Learning Objectives: You will learn how to print the student's summary information from your student database. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 4-6. Tutorial: Select "Manage a List of Students" from the "Main menu" and press [Enter]. Select "Select Course" and press [Enter]. Select TUT4-2 and press [Enter]. This should be the only course on your disk. Select "Print Students" and press [Enter]. Select "Summary (Name, ID)" and Press [Enter]. The students names will scroll by on the screen. As they are displayed on the screen, they are also being sent to your printer's print queue. As your printer is ready to accept data, the print queue will give it more. The print queue runs behind - Page 45 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- the scenes so you may continue using the Teacher's Assistant without having to wait for the printer. TEA will return you to the Print Students menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to print the student's summary information from your student database. Tutorial 4-8 - Printing Student Information (All) Learning Objectives: You will learn how to print the student's complete information from your student database. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 4-7. Tutorial: Select "Manage a List of Students" from the "Main menu" and press [Enter]. Select "Select Course" and press [Enter]. Select TUT4-2 and press [Enter]. This should be the only course on your disk. Select "Print Students" and press [Enter]. Select "Summary (Name, ID)" and Press [Enter]. The students names will scroll by on the screen. As they are displayed on the screen, they are also being sent to your printer's print queue. TEA will return you to the Print Students menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to print the student's complete information from your student database. - Page 46 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Gradebook This is an electronic gradebook where you can enter or edit student's grades; curve the grades; display the gradebook; print the gradebook; configure grade weights; and change the student display and printing order to either alphabetical or grade point order. The gradebook is set up similar to a spreadsheet. The student names are listed in the first (or left-most) column, the cumulative average is in the last (or right-most) column, and the grades for each assignment are in between. If you have more grades than can be displayed on the screen at one time, the two grades on either side of the currently selected grade are shown. Likewise, if you have more students than can be displayed on the screen at one time, the five students on either side of the current student are displayed. Each column is properly titled, so you know exactly what information is in each column. Each grade weight is displayed along with the top title in the grade column, and the average grades for each assignment are displayed along the bottom of the screen. Movement in the gradebook is the same as in the other parts of the Teacher's Assistant. You may use either your keyboard, or your mouse. The current student is always in the middle of the rows, and the current grade is highlighted in the center of the screen. You may move the current grade anywhere from the first grade entered up to the last assignment. Obviously, you will have to create some assignments, and determine their weighting toward the final grade. Enter/Edit grades Here the gradebook is presented spreadsheet style where you can enter and edit grades. Only the raw grades are displayed and should be entered. Curve grades This displays a graph of the class' performance on the screen and allows you to move the curve as you see fit. First, you select the grade column to curve by using your mouse or left and right arrow keys. Second, you press [Enter]. You will be shown a graph of the grades. - Page 47 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Third, you move the graph to where you think the curve is best. When you have moved the curve to the desired location, press [Enter] and the changes will be applied to the grades. You may press [Esc] to abort at any time. Note: The graph's X axis runs from 0-200 points. This is the maximum number of points allowed for your assignments. The Y axis runs from zero up to the number of times the median grade occurred. For example, if the median score was 90, and eight students received a 90, the Y axis would range from 0-8. You may apply the curve to grades only after they are entered into the gradebook. This function permanently changes the grades in the gradebook. You may undo the changes by moving the curve exactly the same amount in the opposite direction as before. Display Gradebook This displays the gradebook on your screen similar to Edit/Enter grades, except when you press [Enter], you will exit the display. Print Gradebook This prints the gradebook as it appears on the screen. The grades displayed are after curving, and a running average of both the students and the assignments are printed. No effort is made to compress the printout (due to the wide variety of printers in existence). You have four ways to print the gradebook: the entire gradebook with student's name; the entire gradebook with student's ID; final grades only with student's name; and final grades only with student's ID. These options are discussed below. Print Gradebook This prints the gradebook for all students in the current course on the system printer. The gradebook is divided into sections, then each section is printed. The students' names will appear on the left of each of the printed sheets. Print Final Grades This prints the only the final scores (the GPA) for all students in the current course. The students' names will appear on the left of the printout, followed by the final score. - Page 48 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Print Grades Using Student's ID This prints your gradebook or final grade list by the student's ID. Only the student's ID will appear on the left of the printout. This ensures anonymity for the student. Print Grades Using Student's Name This prints your gradebook or final grade list by the student's name. The students' names will be printed on the left side of the printout. Obviously, there is no anonymity for the student, and is strongly discouraged except for the instructor's personal use. Configure Grade Weights This allows you to weight the assignments according to importance or difficulty, and alters the final grades accordingly. The grade weights are presented in a grid 10 cells wide, and up to six cells high. The very last cell is the arithmetic sum of all of the grade weights, and the oblong box is the number of grades currently assigned in the gradebook. You may use your mouse or cursor keys to move the highlighter to the desired box to change its value. To remove the last assignment, merely set its weight to zero -- the assignment counter will decrement and the sum counter will drop according to the value of the assignment that was deleted. To delete an entire assignment, set its grade weight to zero. You may wish to zero out the grades in the gradebook, but you must zero out the weight or that assignment will be counted toward the student's G.P.A. Change Student Order This changes the student ordering to either Alphabetical or Grade Point Average (GPA) order. This function affects all gradebook displays and grade report print outs. Change Student Order - Alphabetical Order This sets up your gradebook to display the students in Alphabetical order. The Teacher's Assistant uses the IBM - Page 49 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- extended ASCII codes for determining alphabetical order. Change Student Order - GPA Order This sets up your gradebook to display the students in Grade Point Average (GPA) order from highest to lowest. Manage Courses This allows you to add courses to and delete courses from your gradebook. In addition, you may edit the data for a particular course, such as the courses' title, the course number, the number of grades in the course, or the number of assignments the students have been graded on so far. You may have up to 80 courses in your gradebook. This number is limited by the amount of disk space you have remaining on your gradebook disk. Select Course This selects the course you will be using in your gradebook. Add Course This allows you to add a course to your gradebook. You will give the courses' name, abbreviation. The abbreviation is what you will see when you select a course in the course selection menu. Delete Course This removes a course from your gradebook. This means both your grades and students for that course will be removed. You will have to verify your intention by entering the text "REMOVE" where the word "STOP!!" is displayed. To make sure you really want to do this, you will have to repeat entering "REMOVE" in the "STOP!!" box. After you have verified your intent, all grades are removed and the blank gradebook is saved to disk. Modify Course This allows you to change a courses' name, abbreviation, the - Page 50 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- number of assignments that have been graded, and the number of assignments that will be graded. Remove All Courses This erases all of the grades and all of the students held in the gradebook for all of the courses. You will have to verify your intention by entering "REMOVE" where the word "STOP!!" is displayed. Again, you will have to repeat this text replacement to make sure you really want to remove the courses. After you have verified your intent, all grades are removed and the blank gradebook is saved to disk. Tutorials Tutorial 5-1 - Configuring Grade Weights for TUT4-2 Learning Objectives: You will learn how to set up the grade weights for any course. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 4-8. Tutorial: Start up TEA as described in chapter 2. Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Use Gradebook" from the Main menu and press [Enter]. Select "Course Management" and press [Enter]. Select "Choose a New Course" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will prompt you to insert your "Courses and Students" disk in drive A:. Do so and press [Enter]. TEA will present you with your list of courses (TUT4-2). - Page 51 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Select TUT4-2 and press [Enter]. Press [Esc] to exit the "Course Management" menu and go back to the "Gradebook" menu. Select "Configure Grade Weights" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will present you with a 5x10 field of boxes with "0%" in each box. The upper left box will be highlighted. This is you current grade weight. At the lower right is a rectangle with the text "# grades = 0" in it. The square immediately to its left is the percentage sum counter for the grades. As long as this box is less than 100%, you can add assignments to the gradebook. Change the current grade box to 10% by pressing [Enter], typing "10" and pressing [Enter] again. Notice how the percentage sum box now indicates 10% and the grade counter is 1. Move the highlighted box to the right one box using your right arrow key or your mouse. Change its value to 15% using the same method as in the previous paragraph. The percentage sum box now shows 25% and the grade counter is 2. Move the highlighted box right one more box. Change its value to 25%. The percentage sum box now shows 50% and the grade counter is 3. Move the highlighted box to the right one more box. Change its value to 10%. The percentage sum box now shows 60% and the grade counter is 4. Move the highlighted box right one more box. Change its value to 40%. The percentage sum box now shows 100% and the grade counter is 5. Move the highlighted box right one more box. Change its value to 10%. Since this will make the percentage sum counter greater than 100%, TEA will inform you of this error, and it will maintain the box's previous value. Press [Esc] and you will return to the Gradebook menu. Note how TEA pops up two messages: "Saving grade weights" and "Re-indexing students." When you change the grade weights, you will be affecting the grade point averages for each student. TEA recalculates the GPA for each student and updates the GPA index. What You Have Learned: You learned how to set up the grade weights in your - Page 52 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- gradebook. You also learned that the sum of the individual grade weights cannot exceed 100%. Finally, you learned that TEA re ndexes the GPA index after any change to the grade weights. Tutorial 5-2 - Enter Grades for TUT4-2 Learning Objectives: You will learn how to enter grades for each student in your gradebook. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-1. Tutorial: Select "Enter/Edit Grades" and press [Enter]. The current grade will be the one that is underlined or marked in blue. Press [Enter] to enter a grade for the first student. A window will pop up in the upper left corner of the screen stating the current value and asking you for a new value. Type "95" and press [Enter]. You have just entered your first assignment grade. Notice the layout of the gradebook screen. Across the top you have the grade weights. Along the bottom you have the average of each assignment. At the far right (under the heading " Avg ") is the cumulative grade point average for each student. And at the far lower right corner (above the " class ") is the average of the GPA's. Also notice the instructions at the bottom of the screen. You may use your mouse or arrow keys to navigate all around the gradebook, and you can press either [?] or [/] to retrieve the current student's record. Enter the first assignment grades for the rest of the students. Press [Esc] to leave the gradebook. What You Have Learned: - Page 53 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You learned how to enter grades for each student in your gradebook. You have also learned how the gradebook display is arranged to show you important information. Tutorial 5-3 - Modify Course Title Learning Objectives: You will learn how to change a course's title and its abbreviation. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-2. Tutorial: Select "Course Management" and press [Enter]. Select "Modify Course" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will prompt you to enter your "Courses and Students" disk in drive A:. Do so and press [Enter]. Change the name of the course from "Tutorial Number 4-2" to "First Test Course" by pressing [Home] and typing the new title. When you have finished typing the new name, press [Enter]. Change the abbreviation from "TUT4-2" to "TUT-101" by backspacing over the last digit and typing "01" and then press [Enter]. Notice how TEA presents you with some information about the number of students enrolled, the number of assignments that have been graded, and the total number of assignments so far. At this time you do not want to change them, so press [Enter] three times. TEA will ask you to verify the information on the screen is correct. Press [Y]. The new course information will be saved to your "Courses and Students" disk. Select "Select a New Course" and press [Enter] to verify - Page 54 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- your change. "TUT-101" will appear in your course selection menu. Press [Esc] to escape without selecting the course. What You Have Learned: You learned how to change a course's title and its abbreviation. Tutorial 5-4 - Remove a Course Learning Objectives: You will learn how to remove a course from your gradebook. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-3. Tutorial: Since you have only one course at this time, and we don't want to destroy TUT-101, you will have to create a new course to demonstrate course removal. If necessary, review Tutorial 4-2 on creating a course for the gradebook. Create a new course. The new courses' title will be "Tutorial Number 5-4" and "TUT-29" will be its abbreviation. You should be in the "Course Management" menu. Select "Delete Course" and press [Enter]. The course selection menu will appear with "TUT4-2" highlighted. Press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will warn you that you are about to delete a course. To proceed beyond this point, you must enter "remove" in the box where "STOP!!" appears. Press [Home] and type "remove" and press [Enter]. ("Remove" may be in upper or lower case.) Again, TEA will ask you to consider your decision. This is because deleting the course will also delete all students associated with the course. Type [Home] "remove" and press [Enter] to proceed. - Page 55 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- TEA will inform you that the students are deleted and return you to the "Course Management" menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to remove a course from your gradebook. Tutorial 5-5 - Edit Grades Learning Objectives: You will learn how to edit the grades in the current course. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-4. Tutorial: Select "TUT-101" (review tutorial 5-2 if necessary). From the "Gradebook" menu, select "Edit/Enter Grades" and press [Enter]. Your highlighter will be on the first grade of the first student. Note the classes' average and the student's averages. Press [Enter] to change the first student's grade. TEA will present a grade of "95." Change it to "85" and press [Enter]. Note how the classes' and the student's averages changed with the new grade. Note: Editing a grade and entering a grade are identical procedures. Entering a grade is usually done when no grades have been entered for a given assignment. Press [Esc] to save the gradebook to disk and return to the "Gradebook" menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to edit the grades in the current course. - Page 56 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tutorial 5-6 - Curve Grades Learning Objectives: You will learn how to apply a curve to an assignment in the gradebook. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-5. Tutorial: Referring to Tutorial 5-2, enter a series of low grades for the second assignment in TUT-101. Select "Curve Grades" and press [Enter]. Use your mouse or arrow keys to move the current grade over to the second assignment. Press [Enter] to select the second assignment for curving. The computer will shift into the high resolution, monochrome mode (even with CGA/EGA/VGA computers) and show you a graph of the grade distribution for the second assignment. Use your mouse or arrow keys to move the entire graph to the right until you think it looks correct. Press [Enter] to apply this curve to your grades. (As usual, pressing [Esc] will allow you to escape without affecting your grades.) The computer will shift back to the text mode, and the Teacher's Assistant will be in the "Gradebook" menu. Select "Display Gradebook" and press [Enter] to review the effects of your curving operation. What You Have Learned: You learned how to apply a curve to an assignment in the gradebook. Tutorial 5-7 - Edit Grade Weights Learning Objectives: - Page 57 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You will learn how to edit the grade weight table for a course. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-6. Tutorial: Review Tutorial 5-1. This is the same as configuring the grade weights. Remember, you cannot exceed 100% in your percentage sum counter. What You Have Learned: You learned that editing the grade weight table for a course is exactly the same as configuring the grade weight table. Tutorial 5-8 - Discount an Assignment Learning Objectives: You will learn how to discount, or throw out, an assignment. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-7. Tutorial: This operation is used in those rare cases where you may have to throw out a grade for one reason or another, but want to remember what each student received. Review Tutorial 5-1. This operation is identical except you are going to change one of the grade weights to zero. Enter some test scores for the third and fourth assignments. Note the cumulative scores for each student. Return to the "Gradebook" menu. - Page 58 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Select "Configure Grade Weights" and press [Enter]. Move the highlight box over to the fourth grade weight (10%). Press [Enter] to change it. Change its value to zero by pressing [Home] and [Enter]. You still have five grades, but your percentage sum counter is only 90%. There are two ways to get the 10% for assignment four back into the system: Entering the 10% at the end, in the sixth assignment; or, changing the fifth assignment to 10%, and changing the sixth assignment to 40%. The easiest method is to make the sixth assignment 10%, and remember that assignment six is really assignment four. Since this should be an infrequent operation, you should be able to remember it. What You Have Learned: You learned how to discount, or throw out, an assignment. Tutorial 5-9 - Change Student Order Learning Objectives: You will learn how to change the student ordering from the default of alphabetical to arrangement by Grade Point Average (GPA) in descending order. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-8. Tutorial: Select course TUT-101. From the "Gradebook" menu, select "Change Student Order" and press [Enter]. Select "Grade point order" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will inform you the index is set to G.P.A., and to press [Enter]. Press [Enter]. You will return to the "Gradebook" menu. Display your gradebook to verify the new student ordering. - Page 59 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- This index will remain in effect until you change it back to alphabetical, or you restart the gradebook. To switch the index back to alphabetical, select "Change Student Order" and Press [Enter]. Select "Alphabetical order" and press [Enter]. Press [Enter] to acknowledge the new index. That's all there is to it. What You Have Learned: You learned how to change the student ordering from the default of alphabetical to arrangement by Grade Point Average (GPA) in descending order. Tutorial 5-10 - Print Gradebook Learning Objectives: You will learn how to print your gradebook. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-9. Tutorial: Select course TUT-101. From the "Gradebook" menu, select "Print Gradebook" and press [Enter]. Select "Print Entire Gradebook" and press [Enter]. Select "Print by student's name" and press [Enter]. You will see the student's names displayed on the screen as the gradebook is being printed on the printer. Remember, the Teacher's Assistant has a print queue, where everything that is to be printed is stored until the printer is ready for it. This allows you to continue working while printing instead of waiting for the printer to finish. You could have printed by student number, which is advised if the students will see your gradebook. If there is any chance a student's privacy may be violated, use the student number option. - Page 60 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- What You Have Learned: You learned how to print your gradebook. Tutorial 5-11 - Print Final Grades Using Student ID's Learning Objectives: You will learn how to print the final grades for a course. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-10. Tutorial: Select course TUT-101. From the "Gradebook" menu, select "Print Gradebook" and press [Enter]. Select "Print Final Grades" and press [Enter]. Select "Print by student ID" and press [Enter]. You will see the student's ID's displayed on the screen as the final grades are being printed. Remember student's privacy! If you are going to post this list for the students to see, use their ID numbers instead of their names. What You Have Learned: You learned how to print the final grades for a course. Tutorial 5-12 - Reviewing Student Information Learning Objectives: You will learn how to scan your database and review information from selected students. What You Will Need: - Page 61 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-9. Tutorial: Select course TUT-101. From the "Gradebook" menu, select "Display Gradebook" and press [Enter]. Using your either your mouse or your arrow keys, move down your list of students until you see a student whose record you want to view. Press either [?] or [/]. That student's record will appear on screen. Press [Enter] to return to the "Display Gradebook" menu. Continue scanning until you are finished. Press [Esc] when you are done. What You Have Learned: You learned how to print the final grades for a course. - Page 62 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Exam Bank Management In the Teacher's Assistant, the exam banks can be stored on a separate disk drive than the TEA files. This provides greater security for the exam banks should they contain sensitive or classified information. The exam bank drive is usually a floppy drive, so the disks can be locked up in a secure container. The remainder of this chapter is based with this assumption in mind. To fully understand how the exam bank manager works, you must understand how the exam bank is set-up on disk. The best analogy for explaining how the exam bank works is by thinking of a 3x5 index card box filled with index cards. Each card has a question (and an answer) written on it. It also has a unique number on it, and they are in numerical order. You have the option of inserting tabbed dividers in the card deck to establish categories in the exam bank. Each category is a sub-topic of the exam bank's main topic. You can define how many categories your exam bank will have, and how many questions will go into each category. As mentioned above, when you create your exam bank, each card has a unique, sequential number. To allow for future expansion, you can include several blank cards in each category. Since you can't add questions to a category, this method allows you to expand your exam bank as your needs change. Since the cards are sequentially numbered, and you can't renumber the questions, you can only add new cards to the end of the exam bank. This is why the "Add question/answer" function only adds questions to the end of the exam bank. If you want to add questions to a category, you must use a blank card, and put your new question on it, or take out a card and replace it with your new card (edit a question and answer). You also have the ability to name the exam bank and each of the categories, and use these names in the test generation process. Now you have an idea of how the exam bank is set-up. You can create it, edit its questions (and answers), add questions (and answers), and delete questions (and answers). You can also select another exam bank to work with. No special steps are required to create an exam bank disk. Any blank, formatted floppy diskette will do. You must format the diskette (see your DOS manual) prior to running TEA no formatting provisions are included. The exam bank manager performs these functions: - Create new exam banks from scratch; - Page 63 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- - Edit the content of either questions or answers; - Add questions and answers to an exam bank; - Delete questions and answers from an exam bank; and - Select another exam bank. Since removing an exam bank is a security related process, you must perform it under "Program Security" using the "Wipe Exam Banks" function. See chapter 10 for details. The remainder of this discussion will cover the above five functions in detail. Select another exam bank You will use this command either to select an exam bank to work on, or to select another exam bank. After you select this option, Teacher's Assistant will present a screen containing all of your exam banks arranged in a five by sixteen matrix. This is why TEA is limited to 80 exam banks. To select an exam bank to use, use the arrow keys or mouse to move the widebar cursor to the exam bank you want to use, and either press the [Enter] key or left mouse button. If you don't want to select any exam banks, press either the [Esc] key or the right mouse button. TEA will tell you if there are no exam banks to select. After you acknowledge this condition, you may exchange exam bank diskettes and try again. Create new exam bank This allows you to create new exam banks from scratch. You must specify the maximum question length, whether or not the answer key will be available, the maximum number of questions allowed in the exam bank, the name of the exam bank, and the number of categories. For each category, you will tell the Teacher's Assistant: the category name, the category's starting question number, and the category's ending question number. TEA will offer some advice during this process (such as how many questions you can have based on disk space, and category start and stop numbers). You may accept this advice by pressing [Enter], or you may enter your own values. When this is complete, you will have the opportunity to enter your questions and answers. Note: To remove an exam bank, go to Program Security and use the "Wipe Exam Banks" function. See chapter 10 for details. - Page 64 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- When you create your exam banks, you will specify the maximum size of a question and answer. You might think you want the largest size possible, to allow for future expansion, but this is not the case. You really want to make your questions as small as possible to store more questions on a disk. Research has shown that most questions will seldom exceed 400 characters. Occasionally, a question may need more space, and very rarely will a question exceed 600 characters. A good value to use for each question is 500 characters. Edit questions and/or answers This section allows you to edit the questions and answers in your currently selected exam bank. The format of the questions is very specific: Line 1 has the exam bank name with the point value in parenthesis on the right side of the screen; line 2 must be blank; line 3 begins with a set of brackets enclosing the question number. The remainder of the lines make up the body of the question. See figure 6-1. Exam Bank Name (2 pts) [10] This is an example question. Figure 6-1 This format was chosen primarily for readability. The question number must be included for easy identification of the question. The point value is placed in parenthesis to the right of the exam bank name. No particular place is required, it only needs to be surrounded by parenthesis and to the right of the exam bank name. The format for the answer is also specific: Line 1 has the exam bank name and the word "ANSWER"; line 2 must also be blank; and line 3 begins with a set of brackets enclosing the answer number with the remainder of the lines making up the body of the answer. See figure 6-2. The basis for the answer format is the same as for the question format. - Page 65 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Exam Bank Name ANSWER [10] This is the answer to the example question. Figure 6-2 Add questions and answers Sometime in the future, you may have to add more questions to your exam bank. This feature allows you to add question and answers onto the end of an exam bank. The Teacher's Assistant will inform you if there is no room at the end of the exam bank for the question, and the exam bank will remain unaltered. Appendix A has an exam bank planning worksheet to aid you in planning your exam bank before you create it. If you create an exam bank whose categories are too small, you may find yourself cramped, and unable to do everything you may have wanted. It doesn't hurt to make your categories larger than necessary. Remember, Prior Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Delete questions and answers Occasionally, you may want to delete a question. You may do so in two different ways. Depending on your situation, you may want to retain the text of the question, but remove it from service, that is, keep it from being selected. Or you may not care about keeping the text, you just want to delete the question. The first way to delete a question is to keep it from being selected. This is done by changing its point value to zero. The test generation section of the Teacher's Assistant will not choose a zero point question, so you can retain the text, but prevent the question from ever being chosen. The other way to delete a question is to select this function and confirm your desire to delete the question. The question (and - Page 66 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- answer) text will be completely removed. Tutorials Tutorial 6-1 - Select exam bank with no exam banks available Learning Objectives: 1. To see what The Teacher's Assistant tells you when you try to select an exam bank when there are none on your diskette. 2. Learn how to escape from any situation. What You Will Need: You will need a blank, formatted floppy diskette. Label this diskette "TEA Exam Bank Disk." This will be your exam bank diskette for the rest of these tutorials. Tutorial: Start up TEA as described in chapter 2. Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Manage the Exam Banks on Disk" from the main menu. Select "Select another exam" from this menu. You will receive a message stating: "There are no selections to be made. Ensure you have inserted the correct disk." Press the [Esc] key. You will return to the exam bank management menu. Using this key is how to escape from any undesired situation. What You Have Learned: You have learned what kind of error message TEA will give you if you insert a non-exam bank diskette and try to get an exam bank. You have learned how to escape from any menu, or undesired condition within the Teacher's Assistant. Tutorial 6-2 - Create an exam bank with no answers - Page 67 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Learning Objectives: Learn how to create a simple exam bank without an answer key. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank diskette from tutorial 6-1. Tutorial: Make a copy of Appendix A (Exam Bank Planning Worksheet). Make several copies of this page for future use. Follow the instructions. In this case, we will assume you already have all of your questions. For question number two, enter 250. The answer to question number three is "NO." The answer to number four is "10." Enter "Tutorial 6-2" for question five. Number 6 is "1." Number seven should look like table 6-1. Category number Category name Number Start End 1 Learning 10 1 10 Table 6-1 Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Manage the Exam Banks on Disk" from the main menu. Select "Create New Exam Banks" by moving the widebar cursor down one selection and pressing the [Enter] key. If you are using a mouse, move the widebar cursor and press the left - Page 68 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- button. You will be presented with a short note telling you about the exam bank creation process. Once you continue past this point, you will not be able to escape until you are done creating your exam bank. Press [Enter] to begin creating your first exam bank. Enter your desired question length. TEA will propose a length of 250 characters. Press [Enter] to accept this length. No answer key will be used for in this tutorial, so change the default "Y" to create an answer key to "N" for no answer key. To make the change, clear the current answer by pressing the [Home] key, then enter an "N" and press [Enter]. Your exam bank will have ten questions. Enter 10 and press [Enter]. Name your exam bank "Tutorial 6-2" and press [Enter]. Create one category by entering 1 and pressing [Enter]. Name this category "Learning" and press [Enter]. This category will consist of all of the questions in the exam bank, therefore the first question will be number one, and the last question will be number ten. Accept the default starting question by pressing [Enter]. Accept the default ending question by pressing [Enter]. TEA will propose a filename to store your exam bank under, "TUTO6-2" in this example. Accept it by pressing [Enter]. TEA will ask you if you want to enter your questions now, and offer a "Y" answer. Change this to an "N" and press [Enter]. Since you are not entering questions now, TEA will put the text "Sample Question" in all of the questions. Later, when you enter the questions immediately, you will not see this text in the questions. It is added as a reminder to you to edit the question before you use it. Select "Select another exam bank" to see your exam bank on the screen. Press [Esc]. What You Have Learned: - Page 69 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You have learned how to create a simple exam bank. This is the fundamental building block for creating all exam banks. This exam bank has only one category. Later, in tutorial 6- 4, you will create an exam bank with several categories. Tutorial 6-3 - Edit a Question Learning Objectives: You will learn how to edit questions using the TEA editor. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank diskette from tutorial 6-2. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Exam Bank Management" from the main menu. Select "Select another exam bank" and press [Enter]. Select the file "TUTOR6-2" and press [Enter]. Select "Edit Question (and Answer)" and press [Enter]. TEA will now ask you what question you want to edit. Enter the number 1 and press [Enter]. Question 1 will be displayed on the screen. On the bottom line (line 25) of the screen is the status line. Notice the "*DELETED*" flag. This flag will pop-up whenever you are editing a question and it has a zero point value. You are going to change the point value to 5 points. Press [CTRL]+[PgUp]. This moves the cursor to the upper right of the question. Move your cursor over to the zero preceding "pts" and press the [Ins] key. Note the "INSERT" flag turns to "ovrwrt" on the status line. Press the number 5 and notice the "*DELETED*" flag disappears. Move your cursor to the beginning of the word "Sample" next to the 1 in brackets. Delete the words "Sample Question" by pressing [CTRL]+[T] three times. This is the command to delete one word. If the cursor is on a space, [CTRL]+[T] will delete the space - Page 70 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- between the words. If the cursor is anywhere on the word, the cursor is positioned at the beginning of the word, and the entire word is deleted. Return the insert/overwrite mode to insert by pressing [Ins]. When using the editor, it is best to have the insert mode on as you will virtually eliminate the chance of overwriting text you want to keep. Type the following text for your question: "This is my first edited question." Complete editing the question by pressing [F10]. This tells TEA you are done and you want to save your work. If you want to discard your edit, you should press [F9], and confirm your desire to throw away your changes. TEA will ask you if you want to edit the next question. Accept the default answer of "Y" by pressing [Enter]. Edit questions two through ten in the same manner as above, except change the word "first" with the respective number of the question. For example, question number two would read "This is my 2nd edited question." Be sure you edit the point values. Five points is a good value for these questions. After you edit question ten, TEA will ask you if you want to edit the next question. Change the "Y" to an "N" and press [Enter]. Editing the question beyond the last one in your exam bank is the same as adding a question to the end of the exam bank. What You Have Learned: You have learned how to perform simple editing on your questions, and you have learned the meaning of some of the status line items. You have also learned an alternative method for adding questions onto the end of your exam banks. Tutorial 6-4 - Add questions Learning Objectives: You will learn how to add questions to the end of an exam bank. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank diskette from tutorial 6-3. - Page 71 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Exam Bank Management" from the main menu. Select "Add Questions/Answers to Exam Bank" using the widebar cursor and press [Enter]. Select your TUTOR6-2 exam bank and press [Enter]. You will be presented with a blank question number 11. Using your mouse or arrow keys, move the cursor up to the point value and change it to 5. Next, position your cursor next to the question number in brackets by pressing [CTRL]+[PgDn], [Left Arrow], and [SPACE]. Enter the following text for your question: "This is my first added question." When you are done, press [F10]. What You Have Learned: You have learned the normal way to add a question onto the end of an exam bank. Tutorial 6-5 - Create an exam bank with an answer key Learning Objectives: Learn how to create a more complex exam bank with an answer key. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank diskette from tutorial 6-4. Tutorial: Make a copy of Appendix A (Exam Bank Planning Worksheet). Follow the instructions. In this case, we will assume you already have all of your questions. - Page 72 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- For question number two, enter 250. The answer to question number three is "YES." The answer to number four is "10." Enter "Tutorial 6-5" for question five. Question six is "3." Question seven should look like table 6-2. Category Number Category name Number Start End 1 Learning 4 1 4 2 Learning More 3 5 7 3 Last Category 3 8 10 Table 6-2 Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Exam Bank Management" from the main menu. Select "Create New Exam Banks" by moving the widebar cursor down one selection and pressing the [Enter] key. TEA will present you with a short note telling you about the exam bank creation process. Once you continue past this point, you will not be able to escape until you are finished creating your exam bank. Press [Enter] to begin creating your first exam bank. Enter your desired question length. TEA will propose a length of 250 characters. Press [Enter] to accept this length. You will be using an answer key in this tutorial, so accept the default "Y" by pressing [Enter]. Your exam bank will have ten questions. Enter 10 and press [Enter]. Name your exam bank "Tutorial 6-5" and press [Enter]. Create three categories by entering 3 and pressing [Enter]. - Page 73 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Notice the statement at the bottom of the box. It says this is category 1. Name the first category "Learning" and press [Enter]. This category will consist of four questions, the first question will be number one, and the last question will be number four. Accept the default starting question by pressing [Enter]. Change the default ending question to 4 and press [Enter]. Look at the statement at the bottom of the box. It says this is category 2. Name the second category "Learning_More" and press [Enter]. Notice the underscore character between the words "Learning" and "More." The Teacher's Assistant test generator cannot accept a space between words (the space is used to delimit words), but you can use the underscore character, which looks like a space. This category will consist of three questions, the first question will be number five, and the last question will be number seven. Accept the default starting question by pressing [Enter]. Change the default ending question to 7 and press [Enter]. Notice the statement at the bottom of the box. It says this is category 3. Name this category "Last_Category" and press [Enter]. This category will consist of three questions, the first question will be number eight, and the last question will be number ten. Accept the default starting question by pressing [Enter]. Accept the default ending question and press [Enter]. TEA will propose a filename to store your exam bank under, "TUTO6" in this example. Change this name to "TUTOR6-5" by pressing the [Backspace] key twice, entering "R6-5" and pressing [Enter]. TEA will ask you if you want to enter your questions now, and offer a "Y" answer. Press [Enter]. For the next ten questions and answers, change the point values to 4, make the questions read "This is question XX." where XX represents the question number. Make the answers read "This is answer XX." where XX represents the answer number. When you finish editing each answer by pressing [F10], TEA will ask you if you want to enter another question/answer, accept the default "Y" by pressing [Enter]. After the tenth answer, change the "y" to "n" and press [Enter]. - Page 74 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Select "Select another exam bank" to see your exam bank on the screen. Press [Esc]. What You Have Learned: You have learned how to create a multi-category exam bank with an answer key. You have learned how to set-up the categories during exam bank creation. Tutorial 6-6 - Add questions and answers Learning Objectives: You will learn how to add questions and answers onto the end of an exam bank. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 6-5. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Exam Bank Management" from the main menu. Select "Add Questions/Answers to Exam Bank" using the widebar cursor and press [Enter]. Select your TUTOR6-5 exam bank and press [Enter]. You will be presented with a blank question number 11. Using your mouse or arrow keys, move the cursor up to the point value and change it to 5. Next, position your cursor next to the question number in brackets by pressing [CTRL]+[PgDn], [Left Arrow], and [SPACE]. Enter the following text for your question: "This is my first added question." When you are done, press [F10]. Answer number 11 will appear on the screen, with the cursor already in position. Enter this text for your answer: "This is my first added answer." When you are done, press [F10]. - Page 75 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- TEA will ask you if you want to add another question/answer. If you accept the default "Y" response, this question and answer adding sequence will repeat. Change the "Y" to a "N" and press [Enter]. What You Have Learned: You have learned how to add a question and an answer onto the end of an exam bank. Tutorial 6-7 - Delete a question Learning Objectives: You will learn the two ways to delete a question. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 6-6. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Exam Bank Management" from the main menu. Select exam bank TUTOR6-5. In the first part of this tutorial, you will delete a question by zeroing its point value. In the second part, you will select the delete question function. In the third and final part, you will attempt to delete the first question using the delete question function. PART 1. Select "Edit Question (and Answer)." Edit question 1. Move your cursor to the point value. Zero it by changing the 5 to 0. Press [F10]. The answer will be displayed. Press [F10]. - Page 76 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Answer "N" to editing the next question. PART 2. Select "Delete Question (and Answer)." You will delete question number two, so enter 2 and press [Enter]. TEA will present you with the first few lines of the question and ask you if you really want to delete this question. Change the default "N" to a "Y" and press [Enter]. The question and answer will be deleted, TEA will announce this fact, then return to the Exam Bank Manipulation menu. Look at the deleted question by editing question 2. The question is totally blank. Press [F10]. The blank answer is displayed. Press [F10]. Answer "N" to editing the next question. PART 3. Select "Delete Question (and Answer)." You will delete question number one, so enter 1 and press [Enter]. TEA will inform you this question has already been deleted. Even though the text is still intact, TEA considers it to be deleted. What You Have Learned: You learned the two ways to delete questions and answers within the Teacher's Assistant. The first method is to zero the point value for the question. The other is to delete the question. You learned TEA will treat a zero point question exactly as if it did not exist, which allows you to keep the text intact, but remove it from service. You learned what deleted questions and answers look like. You also learned TEA tells you when a question has already been deleted. - Page 77 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Test Script Management After you have created your exam banks, you will need a way to generate tests from the exam banks. The tests are controlled through the use of test scripts using a test script language. The test script language is English-based, and easy to understand. The Teacher's Assistant can help you develop your first test scripts, which will be syntactically perfect. Like any other management tool, you can create, modify, and delete test scripts. These concepts are discussed in the following text. Creating new test scripts This allows you to create new test scripts. Test scripts may be created either by editing the test script directly, or by having the computer assist you. If you choose to edit the test script directly, you must be familiar with the test script language (see Appendix B). If you have never created a test script, or are still new at it, please allow the Teacher's Assistant to help you -- the syntax will be perfect which will prevent confusion and aggravation later. TEA will verify the syntax of the script for you after you have edited it, however, it will not check the semantics of the script -- this is done during test generation. The script language is simple, so if what you say is reasonable, you shouldn't have any problems. Creating a test script from scratch is best done by allowing TEA to help. After you select "Create New Test Script" from the "Manage Test Script" option in the main menu, TEA will ask you to enter the filename for your test script. Then you will chooses to use the computer or the editor. If you are new at creating test scripts, choose the computer. When you choose to let TEA help you, TEA will present you with a screen showing the major script commands on the left, and a window entitled "Test script file" on the right (see figure 5-1). Use your cursor keys (or mouse) to select the major commands on the left. As you complete each command, it is displayed for you on the right, in the order it was created. TEA will suggest the order you should place your commands. If you follow this order, you should have no problems. - Page 78 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Create New Test Scripts SELECT EXAM Test script file SELECT CATEGORY QUESTION MODE IS GET GET QUESTION END Select your major command using your mouse or keyboard. Figure 7-1 Most of your test scripts will follow this sequence: Select desired exam bank; Select desired category; Define question selection mode; Get questions from the category; End. If you have more than one category, lines two, three and four above will repeat for each of the categories. Selecting the desired exam bank should be the first statement in your test script. TEA must know which exam bank you are going to be using. The only statement that may precede "SELECT EXAM" is the question selection mode command, however, this is ill advised. TEA will continue to use this exam bank until you tell it otherwise. The syntax for this command is: SELECT EXAM - Page 79 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- where is the DOS filename for the exam bank you want to use. You can, if you want, use this command to select another exam bank to select more questions. This would be useful when combining subjects for use in a comprehensive test. Selecting the desired category should immediately follow selecting the exam bank. TEA must know which category to use so it can draw questions from the proper area in your exam bank. Even if you have only one category, you must tell TEA to use it. If you have several categories, TEA will ask you which one you want to use. TEA will continue to use this category until you tell it otherwise. The syntax for this command is: SELECT CATEGORY where is the name of the category you want questions selected from. Defining which mode of question selection should follow category selection. Your choices for question mode are either random question selection or sequential question selection. TEA will continue to use this question mode until you tell it otherwise. The random question mode forces TEA to randomly choose questions from the specified exam banks and category. The sequential mode will force TEA to draw questions in sequential order starting from where the last set of sequential questions were drawn. For example, if the last time you used TEA you drew 10 sequential questions, and the last question was number 14, the next time you draw questions sequentially, TEA would start with question 15. If TEA gets to the end of a category before all of the questions are drawn, it will wrap around to the beginning of that category, and continue drawing questions. The syntax for this command is either: QUESTION MODE IS RANDOM or QUESTION MODE IS SEQUENTIAL Once you have established which exam bank, category, and question selection mode you wish to use, you can draw questions from the specified exam bank and category. When you tell TEA how many questions to get, it will try to retrieve questions until it either draws the quantity you specify, or until there are no more questions that can be drawn. The syntax for this command is: GET QUESTIONS where is the number of questions you want TEA to draw from - Page 80 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- the selected category. You may want to have the same question (or series of questions) to be on each test you make from your exam bank. You can force TEA to do this by telling it to select a question by referring to its number. TEA will choose that question, regardless of the selected category or question mode. The syntax for this command is: GET QUESTION [THRU ] where is the number of the question you want to include in your test; and THRU is an optional part to indicate you want to pick a series of questions up to . Note that during test generation, if you use this command for a question that does not exist, or has zero points, TEA will suspend test generation to inform you of the problem with that question. When you are done drawing questions, you must tell TEA to end the test generation process. This is done with the "end" command. This ends all test generation and returns you to the TEA test generation menu. The syntax of this command is: END As you can see, all of the TEA script commands are easy to understand. Appendix B contains the test script language reference guide, and is there to help refresh your memory on the script language. Editing old test scripts At some point, you will probably want to change the way a particular test is created. Instead of creating a new test script, you can edit the old one using this function. You must be familiar with both the test script language and the Teachers' Assistant editor. After you select this option, TEA will present a list of test scripts to edit. When you have chosen your script, you will edit it using the TEA editor, then return to the Manage Test Scripts menu. As a convenience to you, TEA will check the syntax of the script you have edited. This helps ensure you have a good script. If there is a problem, the offending line will be boxed, and you will be forced to correct the problem. To show you that TEA has checked the syntax of your script, each line is converted to lowercase as it is processed. This will also help you locate the offending line as it is the last line in lowercase (assuming you created your script in uppercase). TEA will not check the semantics of the script as this is done during - Page 81 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- test generation. The script language is simple, so if what you say is reasonable, you shouldn't have any problems. Delete old test script In any data management system, you must have a way to remove old information. The Teacher's Assistant affords you the ability to delete old test scripts that you no longer use. TEA will present a list of test scripts for you to choose from. After you have made your choice, you will have to verify your intent to delete the script, it will be deleted, then you will be returned to the "Manage Test Scripts" menu. If you accidentally delete a test script, TEA cannot bring it back for you. However, since TEA uses the DOS delete function to remove a test script, you may be able to recover it with a simple file undeletion tool, such as Norton's Quick Unerase, provided you remove the exam bank disk immediately and perform no other operations on it. Tutorials Tutorial 7-1 - Create test script Learning Objectives: You will learn how to create a test script using the computer to assist you. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 6-7. Tutorial: Start up the Teacher's Assistant as described in chapter 2. Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Manage Test Scripts" from the "Main Menu" using your mouse or arrow keys and press the left button or press the [Enter] key. Select "Create New Test Script" and press [Enter]. TEA will ask you for the DOS name of your test script. Type - Page 82 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Tutor7" and press [Enter]. Next, TEA will ask you if you want to use the computer or the editor. Select the default answer of "Computer" by pressing the [Enter] key. This next screen is where you will select all of your script commands from. As you form complete commands from the left side of the screen, they will be displayed on the right side, in the window titled "Test script file." The double-bordered box indicates the command you are about to select. To change it, use either your arrow keys or your mouse. To select a command, press [Enter] or the left mouse button. Select the exam bank to create your test from. Accept the default command of "Select exam" by pressing [Enter]. TEA will present you with a list of exam banks. Select Tutor6-2 and press [Enter]. "SELECT EXAM TUTOR6-2" appears in the test script file window. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Since there is only one category ("Learning"), TEA knows you will have to choose it, and makes the selection for you. (Tutorial 7-2 uses a multi-category exam bank, so you will see how to choose a category from a list.) "SELECT CATEGORY Learning" appears in the test script file window. The "question mode is" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. TEA will present two boxes, "Random" (which is highlighted) and "Sequential." Accept the default of random question selection by pressing [Enter]. "QUESTION MODE IS RANDOM" appears in the test script file window. The "get " box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. TEA will ask you how many questions you want to choose from the Learning category of the Tutor6-2 exam bank. Type "6" and press [Enter]. "GET 6 QUESTIONS" appears in the test script file window. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Since TEA doesn't know when you want to stop, it will continue this cycle (select category, question mode is, get number, select category, . . .) until you tell it to stop by selecting "End." Since we are done with this test script, move the double-bordered box down to "end" and press [Enter]. The script will be saved on your exams disk, and you will be at the "Manage Test Scripts" menu. What You Have Learned: - Page 83 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You learned how to create a simple test script using the Teacher's Assistant. You have seen TEA guide you through the test script creation process, and how easy it is to deviate from it. Tutorial 7-2 - Create test script Learning Objectives: You will learn how to create a test script for a multi-category exam bank. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 7-1. Tutorial: Select "Manage Test Scripts" using your mouse or arrow keys and press the left button or press the [Enter] key. Select "Create New Test Script" and press [Enter]. TEA will ask you for the DOS name of your test script. Type "Tutor7-2" and press [Enter]. Next, TEA will ask you if you want to use the computer or the editor. Select the default answer of "Computer" by pressing the [Enter] key. This next screen is where you will select all of your script commands from. As you form complete commands from the left side of the screen, they will be displayed on the right side, in the window titled "Test script file." The double-bordered box indicates the command you are about to select. To change it, use your arrow keys, or your mouse. To select a command, press [Enter] or the left mouse button. Select the exam bank to create your test from. Accept the default command of "Select exam" by pressing [Enter]. TEA will present you with a list of exam banks. Select Tutor6-5 and press [Enter]. "SELECT EXAM TUTOR6-5" appears in the test script file window. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Since there are three - Page 84 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- categories ("Learning," "Learning_More," and "Last_Category"), you will be given the opportunity to choose which one you want. Select "Learning" and press [Enter]. "SELECT CATEGORY Learning" appears in the test script file window. The "question mode is" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. TEA will present two boxes, "Random" (which is highlighted) and "Sequential." Accept the default of random question selection by pressing [Enter]. "QUESTION MODE IS RANDOM" appears in the test script file window. The "get " box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. TEA will ask you how many questions you want to choose from the Learning category of the Tutor5 exam bank. Type "2" and press [Enter]. "GET 2 QUESTIONS" appears in the test script file window. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Select "Learning_More" and press [Enter]. "SELECT CATEGORY Learning_More" appears in the test script file window. The "question mode is" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Accept the default of random question selection by pressing [Enter]. "QUESTION MODE IS RANDOM" appears in the test script file window. The "get " box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. TEA will ask you how many questions you want to choose from the Learning_More category of the Tutor6-5 exam bank. Type "2" and press [Enter]. "GET 2 QUESTIONS" appears in the test script file window. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Select "Last_Category" and press [Enter]. "SELECT CATEGORY Last_Category" appears in the test script file window. The "question mode is" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Accept the default of random question selection by pressing [Enter]. "QUESTION MODE IS RANDOM" appears in the test script file window. The "get " box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. TEA will ask you how many questions you want to choose from the Last_Category category of the Tutor6-5 exam bank. Type "2" and press [Enter]. "GET 2 QUESTIONS" appears in the test script file window. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Move the double- bordered box down to "end" and press [Enter]. The script will be - Page 85 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- saved on your exams disk, and you will be at the "Manage Test Scripts" menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to create a more complicated test script using the Teacher's Assistant. You have seen that TEA will still guide you through the test script creation process, even with multi- category exam banks. Tutorial 7-3 - Create complex test script Learning Objectives: You will learn how to create a complex test script which will draw questions from two different exam banks. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 7-2. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Manage Test Scripts" using your mouse or arrow keys and press the left button or press the [Enter] key. Select "Create New Test Script" and press [Enter]. TEA will ask you for the DOS name of your test script. Type "Tutor7-3" and press [Enter]. Next, TEA will ask you if you want to use the computer or the editor. Select the default answer of "Computer" by pressing the [Enter] key. Select the exam bank to create your test from. Accept the default command of "Select exam" by pressing [Enter]. TEA will present you with a list of exam banks. Select Tutor2 and press [Enter]. "SELECT EXAM TUTOR6-2" appears in the test script file window. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Since there is only one category ("Learning"), TEA knows you will have to choose it, and - Page 86 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- makes the selection for you. "SELECT CATEGORY Learning" appears in the test script file window. The "question mode is" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Accept the default of random question selection by pressing [Enter]. "QUESTION MODE IS RANDOM" appears in the test script file window. The "get " box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. TEA will ask you how many questions you want to choose from the Learning category of the Tutor6-2 exam bank. Type "5" and press [Enter]. "GET 5 QUESTIONS" appears in the test script file window. Select the next exam bank to create your test from. Move the highlight box up to the "Select exam" command then press [Enter]. TEA will present you with a list of exam banks. Select Tutor5 and press [Enter]. "SELECT EXAM TUTOR5" appears in the test script file window. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Select "Learning" and press [Enter]. "SELECT CATEGORY Learning" appears in the test script file window. The "question mode is" box will be highlighted. Since you don't need to keep selecting the question selection mode (once set it stays set until you change it). Move the highlight box down to "Get " by pressing the down arrow once. The "get " box will be highlighted. Press [Enter]. TEA will ask you how many questions you want to choose from the Learning category of the Tutor6-5 exam bank. Press the [Home] key, type "2" and press [Enter]. "GET 2 QUESTIONS" appears in the test script file window. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Accept this recommendation by pressing [Enter]. Select "Last_Category" and press [Enter]. "SELECT CATEGORY Last_Category" appears in the test script file window. The "question mode is" box will be highlighted. Again, bypass this recommendation and move the highlight box down to the "Get " option. The "get " box will be highlighted. Press [Enter]. TEA will ask you how many questions you want to choose from the Last_Category category of the Tutor5 exam bank. Ensure "2" is in the data entry box and press [Enter]. "GET 2 QUESTIONS" appears in the test script file window. - Page 87 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Your test script file should by identical to table 7-1. The "select category" box will be highlighted. Move the highlight box down to "end" and press [Enter]. The script will be saved on your exams disk, and you will be at the "Manage Test Scripts" menu. SELECT EXAM TUTOR6-2 SELECT CATEGORY Learning QUESTION MODE IS RANDOM GET 5 QUESTIONS SELECT EXAM TUTOR6-5 SELECT CATEGORY Learning_More GET 2 QUESTIONS SELECT CATEGORY Last_Category GET 2 QUESTIONS Table 7-1 What You Have Learned: You learned how to make TEA draw questions from two different exam banks. You also learned that you don't have to use questions from every category, although you will usually use each one. Tutorial 7-4 - Edit a test script Learning Objectives: You will learn how to edit a test script. To illustrate this, you will create a test script, then edit it. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 7-3. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: - Page 88 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Create a test script. Name it TUTOR7-4. Use exam bank TUTOR6-5. Select category "Learning_More." Choose random test generation. Get 3 questions. End the test script. Select "Edit Old Test Script" and press [Enter]. Select "TUTOR7-4" and press [Enter]. TEA will present the file you just created. Notice the entire text is in uppercase. Move your cursor to the word "random" in line three. While holding the [Ctrl] key, press the [T] key ([Ctrl]+[T] = delete word). "Random" disappears. Type the word "SEQUENTIAL" using all capital letters. Line three now says "QUESTION MODE IS SEQUENTIAL" in uppercase. You are done editing this script. Press [F10] to save your changes and exit. What You Have Learned: You learned how to edit a test script. You also learned how to change the question selection mode. Tutorial 7-5 - Edit a test script with an error Learning Objectives: You will learn how to correct a syntax error in a test script. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 7-4. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Create a test script. Name it TUTOR7-5. Use exam bank TUTOR6-2. Select category "Learning" (remember TEA will select the category for you). Choose random test generation. Get 5 questions. End the test script. Select "Edit Old Test Script" and press [Enter]. Select "TUTOR7-5" and press [Enter]. - Page 89 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- TEA will present the file you just created. Notice the entire text is in uppercase. Move your cursor to the word "random" in line three. Press [Ctrl]+[T]. "Random" disappears. You are done editing this script. The error lies in the question mode selection statement (no mode is selected). Press [F10] to save your changes and exit. When you press [F10], TEA performs a syntax check on your script. In this case, we neglected to complete the "question mode is" statement, and TEA told us there was a syntax error in line 3. Press [Enter] to edit the script. Notice the cursor is on line three, and the entire script up to line three is in lowercase. Remember that TEA converts each line to lowercase just before it checks its syntax? This also points to the line with the error. If you have trouble remembering the syntax for each script command, refer to Appendix B, which lists and explains each command. Correct this error by press [End], and typing "RANDOM" at the end of the line. Press [F10] to save your script. What You Have Learned: You learned how the Teacher's Assistant responds to an error in a test script, and you learned how to locate and correct an error. Tutorial 7-6 - Delete a test script Learning Objectives: You will learn how to delete a test script. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 7-5. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Delete Old Test Script" and press [Enter]. Select file "TUTOR7-5" and press [Enter]. - Page 90 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- TEA will show you the first few lines of the test script and ask you if you really want to delete it. Change the default answer of "N" to "Y" and press [Enter]. TEA will delete your test script. What You Have Learned: You learned how to delete a test script. - Page 91 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Test Generation This module is the heart of the test generation system. You can select which test script to use, then create a test from the exam bank(s) specified in that test script. All this is accomplished just by pressing a few keys. Select Test Script This allows you to select which test script you will use when generating a test. It uses the standard TEA file selection menu, where you select your file using either the arrow keys or mouse, and press [Enter] to confirm. Use this option whenever you want to generate a new test. Keep in mind, once you choose a test script, TEA will use that script to create a test until you leave the "Create Tests" menu. Generate Test This generates a test based on the test script you've chosen (see "Select Test Script" above). If you haven't chosen one yet, TEA will give you that opportunity. The resulting test is stored on disk as the "working test." After it is generated, you may print the test and answer key. Working tests are kept only until the next test is created, or until you quit the Teacher's Assistant, therefore, you must print each test after it is generated. Test and Answer Key Printing A test generation system is useless unless you can print the tests for your students, and print the answer keys for yourself. This takes the "working" test and prints it. You must generate a test before you can print it. Then you may select whether you want to print the test, the answer key, or both. If you print the test and the answer key, each test question will be printed, followed by the answer. If you don't have an answer key for your exam bank, "*** Answer key not available ***" will be printed. - Page 92 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tutorials Tutorial 8-1 - Generate and Print a Test Learning Objectives: You will learn how to generate and print a test. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 7-6. Tutorial: Start up TEA as described in chapter 2. Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Create Tests From Script File" from the main menu and press [Enter]. Select "Select Test Script" and press [Enter]. Select "TUTOR7-1" and press [Enter]. Select "Generate Test" and press [Enter]. The test will be created while you watch it. In the upper right corner you will see the commands from the script file you created, below that you will see the text of the question being drawn, and on the left side of the screen, TEA will be organizing the test questions in alphanumeric order. When TEA is done, you will have six questions randomly drawn from the bank of ten. Acknowledge the completion of the test by pressing [Enter]. Select "Print Test and/or Answer Key" and press [Enter]. TEA will ask you if you want to print the test, the answer key, or both. You will be offered the choice of pressing the [T] key to print just the test, the [A] key to print just the answer key, or the [B] key to print both the test and the answer keys. Press the [T] key to print just the test. The test will be sent to the print queue, and TEA will return to the "Create Test" menu. - Page 93 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- What You Have Learned: You learned how generate a test, print it, and print the answer key (if available). You have also seen the print queue in action. Tutorial 8-2 - Observe RANDOM Question Mode Operation Learning Objectives: You will see how the random question selection mode varies the questions drawn from an exam bank. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 8-1. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Select "Create Tests From Script File" from the main menu and press [Enter]. Select "Select Test Script" and press [Enter]. Select "TUTOR7-1" and press [Enter]. Select "Generate Test" and press [Enter]. Observe the questions that were selected. Select "Generate Test" and press [Enter]. Observe the questions that were selected. Select "Generate Test" and press [Enter]. Observe the questions that were selected. What You Have Learned: You have seen how the random question mode randomly chooses the questions it uses to create a test. - Page 94 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tutorial 8-3 - Observe SEQUENTIAL Question Mode Operation Learning Objectives: You will see how the sequential question selection mode varies the questions drawn from an exam bank. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 8-2. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Create a test script "TUTOR7-3" (see tutorial 7-2 for details on test script creation). Select exam bank "Tutor6-2." Select category "Learning." Select "SEQUENTIAL" question mode. Get 6 questions. End the test script. Select "Create Tests From Script File" from the main menu and press [Enter]. Select "Select Test Script" and press [Enter]. Select "TUTOR7-3" and press [Enter]. Select "Generate Test" and press [Enter]. Observe the six questions that were selected were numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Select "Generate Test" and press [Enter]. Observe the questions that were selected were numbered 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, and 10. While the test was being generated, the questions were selected starting from number 7, going up to 10, then 1 and 2 were added. This also shows the Test Questions window sorts the exam according to exam bank name and question number. Select "Generate Test" and press [Enter]. Observe the questions that were selected were numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. What You Have Learned: You have seen the sequential question selection mode picks up where it left off the last time a test was created, and it wraps around at the top of the current category. - Page 95 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tutorial 8-4 - Delete a question by zeroing its points Learning Objectives: You will learn that editing a question and zeroing its point value will work as well as deleting the question. This will be proven by editing a question that will be selected, then generating a test to prove that it won't be selected. What You Will Need: You will need your exam bank disk from tutorial 8-3. Tutorial: Insert your exam bank diskette in drive A: Edit question number 1 (see tutorial 6-3 for details on editing a question). Change its point value to zero, and save your change. Go back to the "Create Test" menu. Select test script "TUTOR7-3." Generate the test. Observe question number one is not in the test. The question are chosen in this order: 9, 10, 2, 3, 4, 5. Print out the test if you want. Question number one was skipped, proving a zero point question is just as good as being deleted. What You Have Learned: You learned how zeroing a question's point value will prevent it from being selected during test generation. - Page 96 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Program Security This allows you to change each of the passwords for the main areas and also allows you to wipe exam banks from the disk. The passwords are for added security, and may be blank if you do not desire to password protect areas of TEA. Wiping the exam bank allows you to remove all traces of the exam bank. The data is overwritten four times with a pattern of ones and zeros, once with the format character, then verified to make sure all data has been erased. This precaution is for any Government organizations who may be using the Teacher's Assistant. Note: This procedure is final -- all data in that exam bank will be removed (irretrievably). Change System Passwords This allows you to change all of the passwords in a given area. They are initially set to all blanks, which keeps them from being used. If you should want to implement any one password, you may do so by changing that one password. When you change a password, you will be presented with your old password, and asked to enter your new password. Your password may be up to 30 characters long and must be the normal keyboard characters only (no extended or control characters). Passwords are case sensitive ("Password" is different from "PASSWORD"). To remove password protection from any given area, merely change its password to null by pressing the [Home] key which will clear the new password box, and pressing [Enter]. The following chart describes each password's name and what it protects: Password Name Description TEA Program entry Selecting this option allows you to change the password which governs program access. It controls entry into the TEA program from initial start-up. Implementation of this password is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you allow students access to your computer. Exam Bank Management Selecting this option allows you to change the password which controls access to the exam bank management section of TEA. Implementation of this password is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you allow students access to your computer. Test Script Management Selecting this option allows you to change the password which controls access to the test script management section of TEA. - Page 97 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Implementation of this password is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you allow students access to your computer. Manage List of Students Selecting this option allows you to change the password which controls access to the student list management section of TEA. Implementation of this password is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you allow students access to your computer. Create Tests Selecting this option allows you to change the password which controls access to the test generation section of TEA. Implementation of this password is RECOMMENDED if you allow students access to your computer. Gradebook Selecting this option allows you to change the password which controls access to the gradebook section of TEA. Implementation of this password is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you allow students access to your computer. Security Selecting this option allows you to change the password which controls access to the security section of TEA. Implementation of this password is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you allow students access to your computer. Passwording is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for this section if you have passwords implemented in any other section of TEA as they are readily accessible from security and can be changed without your consent. Misc Admin Actions (Miscellaneous Administrative Actions) Selecting this option allows you to change the password which controls access to the miscellaneous administrative section of TEA. Implementation of this password is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you allow students access to your computer. Wipe Exam Bank This section allows you to permanently remove an exam bank from the data disk. Due to the dangerous nature of this function, you will have to verify your intention before TEA will wipe the exam bank. If an exam bank is selected for wiping, it is overwritten with a - Page 98 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- pattern of one's and zero's four times and then verified unreadable. Finally, the portion of the disk where the exam bank resided is re- formatted and the disk space is returned to the operating system. There is no known method available to recover the exam bank once wiped. Not even Paul Mace nor Peter Norton could bring it back and they're good at what they do! Tutorials Tutorial 9-1 - Adding Password Protection Learning Objectives: You will learn how to add, or change a password for a given module. What You Will Need: You will not need any additional materials. Tutorial: Start up the Teachers's Assistant as described in chapter 2. Select "Program Security" and press [Enter]. Select "Change System Passwords" and press [Enter]. Select "Password for `Security'" and press [Enter]. TEA will show you the old password, and ask you for the new password. Type "Security" and press [Enter]. TEA will return you to the "Change System Passwords" menu with "Password for `Security'" highlighted. Press [Enter] to verify the password has been changed. Press [Enter] again to retain this password. To save the passwords to disk, press [Esc] which exits the password changing routine and saves them to your TEA disk. If you are using a floppy drive based system, TEA will prompt you to insert each of the TEA disks into your disk drive, whereby TEA will save the passwords to each of your floppy disks. What You Have Learned: You learned how to add, or change a password for a given module. - Page 99 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tutorial 9-2 - Removing Password Protection Learning Objectives: You will learn how to remove any password in the TEA system. What You Will Need: You will need your TEA disks from tutorial 9-1 (if they were used). Tutorial: From the main menu, select "Program Security" and press [Enter]. Select "Change System Passwords" and press [Enter]. Select "Password for `Security'" and press [Enter]. TEA will show you the old password "Security" and ask you for the new password. Press the [Home] key and press [Enter]. TEA will return you to the "Change System Passwords" menu with "Password for `Security'" highlighted. Press [Enter] to verify the password has been changed. Press [Enter] again to retain this password. To save the passwords to disk, press [Esc]. If you are using a floppy drive based system, TEA will prompt you to insert each of the TEA disks into your disk drive, just like tutorial 9-1. In fact, all you are doing is erasing the password you want to remove, which removes it from use. What You Have Learned: You learned how to remove any password in the TEA system. Tutorial 9-3 - Wiping an Exam Bank Learning Objectives: You will learn how to wipe the contents of an exam bank. What You Will Need: - Page 100 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You will need your Exams disk from tutorial 8-4. Tutorial: From the main menu, select "Program Security" and press [Enter]. Insert your Exam bank disk in drive A:. Select "Wipe Exam Bank" and press [Enter]. Select the exam bank you want to wipe. In this case, select "Tutor2" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will ask you if you really want to wipe this exam bank. Press [Y]. The TEA program security Manager menu will appear with a window that asks you to wait while wiping. The window also tells you how far in each pass TEA has wiped the exam bank. Do not be alarmed if the percentage exceeds 100% -- TEA has cleared out a little extra disk space. After the exam bank has been wiped, the window will disappear, and TEA will be ready for your commands. What You Have Learned: You learned how to wipe the contents of an exam bank. - Page 101 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Miscellaneous Administrative Actions Discussion This contains the miscellaneous administrative commands for the system. You may view the statistical exam bank usage profile, reset exam bank usage counter, control the print queue by cancelling all printing, suspending printing, or resuming printing after it has been suspended, create student and course disks, and reconfigure your disk drives. Exam Bank Usage Profile This allows you to view which questions are being selected by the computer, and it shows you the distribution frequency on a bar graph. You may wish to periodically view the exam bank usage to see if there are any questions that are not being selected in the test generation process. If there are any low spots in the graph, you may investigate the cause and correct it. This chart utilizes the computer's graphics ability (Hercules monochrome or CGA/EGA/VGA) for its presentation. As in the gradebook, the Teacher's Assistant knows which graphics board you have installed, and it will scale the graph accordingly. You will have the opportunity to select a new exam bank prior to its usage being graphed. A point to remember: the exam bank you choose to graph will remain as your current exam bank. Reset Exam Bank Usage Counter This resets, or zeros, the question counter. After a period of time, the details of your graphs may be indiscernible, due to the heavy use of some questions. This allows you to put the bar graph back into perspective after extensive use of the exam bank, or after you have corrected a problem in the test generation. Periodic use of this function is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. A good frequency would be after every 100 tests made from an exam bank. Print Queue Control The print queue is where all printing is directed from within the Teacher's Assistant. Whenever you print a test, or a grade report, it first goes to the print queue, then to the printer. The Teacher's Assistant is a multitasking program. This means there are at least two tasks (or programs) running at the same time. The - Page 102 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- program you see and control is in the foreground. The print queue runs in the background and allows you to continue processing while TEA prints. The alternative is to make you wait while until you printer is done with all of the printing. This feature is completely controlled by TEA and is independent of your printer, or any memory- resident print spoolers you may have set up. If your printer has a large (over 200 bytes) internal print buffer, TEA will operate smoother, however, even small printer buffers can be accommodated. Each of the print queue functions are described in detail below. Cancel Printing This cancels all printing, and clears the print queue. All printing that has not yet printed is lost. Obviously, you will have to verify your intent to use this function before the Teacher's Assistant will allow you to clear the print queue. Suspend Printing This suspends printing operations until you instruct the Teacher's Assistant to resume printing. Should a printer error occur, the print queue will automatically suspend operations, and pop up a window to inform you of this error. Resume Printing This allows you to resume printing operations after they have been suspended. Printing may be suspended by either a printer error or through your intervention. This function cannot resume printing after you cancel it it only works if you suspend printing, or if printing is suspended due to a printer error. Create "Courses & Student" Disk Before you can save your course information, you must prepare your student disk to receive the course information. This function allows you to prepare a formatted floppy (or hard) disk for use as a courses and student disk. Reconfigure Disk Drives This allows you to change the data path for your student database, gradebook and exam banks, and you can change the location of the Teacher's Assistant system files. - Page 103 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You will be presented with the data path, and the TEA path, with an explanation of what they do. You may change either or both paths. The data path will become effective immediately, but the TEA path will go into effect the next time TEA is started up. The data path tells TEA where to find your data, such as your gradebook. The TEA path tells TEA where to find its own files, such as the configuration file. Tutorials Tutorial 10-1 - Exam Bank Usage Profile Learning Objectives: You will learn how to generate the exam usage profile graph. What You Will Need: You will need your Exams disk from tutorial 8-4. Tutorial: From the main menu, select "Miscellaneous Administrative Actions" and press [Enter]. Insert your Exam bank disk in drive A:. Select "Exam Bank Usage Profile" and press [Enter]. Select exam bank "TUTOR6-5" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will scan your exam bank to determine how many times each question has been used, the graph of Frequency versus question number will be displayed on the screen in the high resolution graphics mode. The values are plotted with a small "x" with a line going down to the X-axis. The graph is automatically scaled to the amount of information to be presented. The graph may have some zero points on the graph - these are questions that are not being selected, or haven't been selected yet. If these unselected questions are supposed to be selected, you will have to troubleshoot your test script to see why it is not being used. If is normal for those questions which have no point value to not be selected. Press [Enter] or the left mouse button to return to the Miscellaneous Administrative Actions menu. - Page 104 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- What You Have Learned: You learned how to generate the exam usage profile graph. You have also learned what a zero point on the graph means. Tutorial 10-2 - Reset Exam Bank Usage Counter Learning Objectives: You will learn how to reset the exam bank usage counter. What You Will Need: You will need your Exams disk from tutorial 9-1. Tutorial: From the main menu, select "Miscellaneous Administrative Actions" and press [Enter]. Insert your Exam bank disk in drive A:. Select "Reset Exam Bank Usage Counter" and press [Enter]. Select exam bank "TUTOR5-6" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will scan your exam bank resetting the counter that tracks the question's usage. When TEA has finished resetting the counter, you will be informed, and returned to the Miscellaneous Administrative Actions menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to reset the exam bank usage counter. Tutorial 10-3 - Suspend Printing Learning Objectives: You will learn how to suspend printing from the print queue. What You Will Need: You will not need any additional materials. - Page 105 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tutorial: From the main menu, select "Miscellaneous Administrative Actions" and press [Enter]. Select "Print Queue Control" and press [Enter]. Select "Suspend Printing" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will inform you that printing has been suspended, and to press [Enter]. Press [Enter]. You will return to the "Print Queue Control" menu. Select "Suspend Printing" and press [Enter]. TEA will inform you that printing has already been suspended, and to press [Enter]. Press [Enter]. You will be returned to the "Print Queue Control" menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to suspend printing from the print queue. You also learned what happens if you try to suspend printing when it has already been suspended. Tutorial 10-4 - Resume Printing Learning Objectives: You will learn how to resume printing from the print queue once it has been suspended. What You Will Need: You will not need any additional materials. Tutorial: If you have not performed tutorial 10-3, do so now. Select "Resume Printing" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will inform you that printing has been resumed and to press [Enter]. Press [Enter]. You will return to - Page 106 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- the "Print Queue Control" menu. Select "Resume Printing" and press [Enter]. TEA will inform you that printing has already been resumed, and to press [Enter]. Press [Enter]. You will be returned to the "Print Queue Control" menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to resume printing from the print queue once it has been suspended. You also learned what happens if you try to resume printing when it has already been resumed. Tutorial 10-5 - Cancel Printing Learning Objectives: You will learn how to cancel all printing from the print queue. What You Will Need: You will not need any additional materials. Tutorial: From the main menu, select "Miscellaneous Administrative Actions" and press [Enter]. Select "Print Queue Control" and press [Enter]. Select "Cancel Printing" and press [Enter]. The Teacher's Assistant will warn you that you are about to dump all of the data to be printed. You must press [Enter] to dump the data, or press [Esc] to return to the Print Queue Control menu. What You Have Learned: You learned how to cancel all printing from the print queue. - Page 107 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Quitting TEA Discussion Quitting the Teacher's Assistant may not be as easy as it seems. Normally, when you tell TEA to quit, it will ask you if you're sure. However, there are two cases when TEA will not let you quit: when data is being printed, and if printing has been suspended. If data is being printed, you will either have to wait until the printing is done, or you will have to cancel it. If printing has been suspended, you will have to resume printing and wait for it to finish, or cancel printing, then resume printing. Either way, you will have to exert positive action to force TEA to lose your printed data before it gets to the printer. Earlier, the manual stated the "working test" was stored on disk until you quit the Teacher's Assistant. This is not really accurate. What is stored is a table of question numbers that point to the questions in your exam bank. This technique save space on the TEA disk and adds security by not having to worry about contaminating your hard drive (or another floppy disk) with classified or sensitive information. Tutorials Tutorial 11-1 - Quit With Printing Suspended Learning Objectives: You will learn how to quit using the Teacher's Assistant the printer still printing. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-11. Tutorial: Insert your Courses and Students disk in drive A:. Follow tutorial 5-10 and print out your gradebook. This is to put data into the print queue. As soon as you have control of the keyboard, press [Esc] until you get to the main menu. Press [Esc] one more time to exit the Teacher's Assistant. - Page 108 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- TEA will inform you that there is data still in the print queue, and to press [SPACE] to acknowledge. Press the space bar. Wait until your gradebook has finished printing, then press [Esc] and quit TEA normally. What You Have Learned: You learned how to quit using the Teacher's Assistant with the printer still printing. Tutorial 11-2 - Quit With Data in Print Queue Learning Objectives: You will learn how to quit using the Teacher's Assistant with data in the print queue. What You Will Need: You will need your Courses and Students disk from tutorial 5-11. Tutorial: Insert your Courses and Students disk in drive A:. Follow tutorial 10-3 to suspend printing. Follow tutorial 5-10 and print out your gradebook. This is to put data into the print queue. As soon as you have control of the keyboard, press [Esc] until you get to the main menu. Press [Esc] one more time to exit the Teacher's Assistant. TEA will inform you that printing has been suspended, and to press [SPACE] to acknowledge. Press the space bar. From the main menu, select "Miscellaneous Admin Actions" and press [Enter]. Follow tutorial 10-5 to cancel printing. Return to the main menu, press [Esc] and quit TEA normally. - Page 109 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- What You Have Learned: You learned how to quit using the Teacher's Assistant with data in the print queue. - Page 110 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 12. Comprehensive Tutorial This chapter ties all of the information from chapters four through thirteen together in one giant tutorial. Do not attempt this tutorial until you have mastered each of the preceding tutorials. This tutorial is not as in-depth as the previous tutorials. Instead, it will tell you what to do, and cross-reference the tutorial which contains the step-by-step instructions for that step. The cross- reference information in contained in brackets after the step name. If you have mastered the previous tutorials, but need a little help, use the index to look up the name of the tutorial under the "Tutorials" entry, then review that tutorial. This tutorial is a simulation of an entire semester, and it may take you a few hours to complete. You will find most of this time is consumed in data entry. You can make the most of this time by entering actual questions you would use in your class. in other words, go ahead and create the actual exam banks during this tutorial - you will save yourself a lot of time. Tutorials Prepare a Courses and Students disk [Tutorial 4-1] Your first step after installing the Teacher's Assistant is to create a Courses and Students disk to store your class roster. Do so following tutorial 4-1. Create a Course [Tutorial 4-2] Create your course using tutorial 4-2. Add Students to the Course [Tutorial 4-3] Take your student list and enter your student's data into your student database. Print Each Student's Record [Tutorial 4-8] Print all of your students' data and place it in a safe place. Remember to follow the guidelines set forth in the Privacy Act of 1974. Define Weights of Each Grade [Tutorial 5-1] - Page 111 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- You should know how many assignments you're going to give your students. Enter the weighting of the assignments in the gradebook. Enter Homework Grades [Tutorial 5-2] By now, you've assigned some homework, have collected and graded it, and are ready to enter those grades into your gradebook. Enter your homework grades into your gradebook following tutorial 5-2. You will find entering grades will be easier if the papers are in alphabetical order. Create an Exam Bank (First Quiz) [Tutorial 6-5] Now you are going to give your students a ten question quiz. First you must create the questions for the quiz. Following tutorial 6-5, create a one category exam bank. Enter 25 questions suitable for a quiz. Having 25 questions will enable you to use this exam bank next semester/year without using the exact same ten questions. It also lets you use them for test questions, if you want. Create the First Quiz Test Script [Tutorial 7-1] Now you're going to tell the Teacher's Assistant how to create the quiz. Following tutorial 8-1, create a test script that will draw ten questions randomly from the exam bank. Your test script should be similar to figure 12-1. SELECT EXAM QUIZ1 SELECT CATEGORY ONE QUESTION MODE IS RANDOM GET 10 QUESTIONS END Figure 12-1 Generate the First Quiz (Five Different Quizzes) [Tutorial 8-1] Now you are going to generate five different quizzes. This will ensure each student has a different quiz than his/her neighbor, which will eliminate cheating. This will be done with very little extra effort on your part. - Page 112 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Enter Quiz Grades [Tutorial 5-2] Now that you've totally surprised your students with you computerized test generation system, you must get back to the drudgery of entering grades. Enter the grades from the quiz into your gradebook. Enter More Homework Grades [Tutorial 5-2] Hand out more homework, grade it, and enter those grades into your gradebook. Create a Mid-Term Exam Bank [Tutorial 6-5] Gather together your mid-term examination questions and answers. Create your mid-term exam bank. Use as many categories as you had separate subjects. Follow tutorial 6-5 while creating it. Create the Mid-Term Test Script [Tutorial 7-1] Create your mid-term test script by referring to tutorial 7-1. Be sure to use questions from each category. Generate the Mid-Term [Tutorial 8-1] Generate one mid-term exam. You may want to print as many copies as you have students to give the appearance of individual exams. Photocopying, however, is much quicker. Enter Mid-Term Grades [Tutorial 5-2] Enter the grades from the mid-term into your gradebook. Lookup a Poorly Performing Student's Record [Tutorial 5-9 & Tutorial 5-12] Now its time to look for the students whose performance is less than expected. Following tutorial 5-9, change the student order to GPA. Then, referring to tutorial 5-12, scan the gradebook for those students whose GPA is low. When you find one, press the [?] to review that student's record for mitigating circumstances to consider during your counseling session with the student. - Page 113 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Enter More Homework Grades [Tutorial 5-2] Hand out more homework, grade it, and enter those grades into your gradebook. Create an Exam Bank (Second Quiz) [Tutorial 6-5] Now you are going to give your students another ten question quiz. Again, you must create the questions for the quiz. Following tutorial 6-5, create a one category exam bank. Enter 25 questions suitable for a quiz. Create the Second Quiz Test Script [Tutorial 7-1] You're going to tell the Teacher's Assistant how to create the second quiz. Following tutorial 7-1, create a test script that will draw ten questions randomly from the exam bank. Your test script should be similar to figure 12-1. Generate the Second Quiz (Two Different Quizzes) [Tutorial 8-1] Now you are going to generate just two different quizzes. This still will be done with very little extra effort on your part. Enter Quiz Grades [Tutorial 5-2] Now that you've totally surprised your students with you computerized test generation system, you must get back to the drudgery of entering grades. Enter the grades from the quiz into your gradebook. Lookup a Poorly Performing Student's Record [Tutorial 5-9 & Tutorial 5-12] Again, its time to look for the students whose performance is less than expected. Following tutorial 5-9, change the student order to GPA. Then, referring to tutorial 5-12, scan the gradebook for those students whose GPA is low. When you find one, press the [?] to review that student's record for mitigating circumstances to consider during your counseling session with the student. Enter More Homework Grades [Tutorial 5-2] - Page 114 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hand out more homework, grade it, and enter those grades into your gradebook. Create a Final Exam Bank [Tutorial 6-5] Now you are going to give your students the final exam. You must create the questions for the exam. Following tutorial 5, create as many categories as you had separate subjects. Create the Final Exam Test Script [Tutorial 7-1] Create your mid-term test script by referring to tutorial 7-1. Be sure to use questions from each category. Generate the Final Exam [Tutorial 8-1] Generate one final exam. You may want to print as many copies as you have students to give the appearance of individual exams. Remember: photocopying is much quicker. Enter Final Exam Grades [Tutorial 5-2] Enter the grades from the final into your gradebook. Print Final Comprehensive Grades by ID [Tutorial 5-11] Your grades are due to the school. Here's where you'll shine - your grades are already computed, and ready for transcription onto your school's form. Following tutorial 5-11, print out your final scores. Print Entire Gradebook [Tutorial 5-10] To preserve your gradebook for the future (in case of grade challenges and/or reviews), follow tutorial 5-10 and print out your gradebook. Remember the implications of the Privacy act of 1974 and take appropriate measures to safeguard the information in your gradebook. - Page 115 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix A Exam Bank Planning Worksheet This form is provided to help you plan your exam bank's size and partitions, if any. Instructions: Answer the following questions in the spaces provided. Then use these answers for the questions posed by the computer while creating an exam bank. NOTE: If you are unsure of your answer, it is better to err on the high side, and give yourself extra room than to enter a low answer and cramp your exam bank. 1. Gather, or write down, all of your exam questions before proceeding to step 2. 2. Find your largest question. This is the one with the most letters. Include all spaces in the left margin. Add 10% to your count. Enter your result here. _________ 3. Do you want to use an answer key (yes or no) ? ________ 4. How many questions do you have for your exam bank? ___________ 5. What is the name of this exam bank? _________________________ 6. Are they divided into logical sections, or categories? Enter the number of categories you have (at least one): ________ - Page 116 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- 7. For each category, enter a simple name describing the category (i.e. Theory, Applications, Pulsars, etc). How many questions do you have for each category? Next to each name, in the "Number" column, enter the number of questions in that category plus the larger of ten percent or ten questions (i.e. if you have 20 questions, enter 30; if you have 200 questions, enter 220). Add this number to the number in the "Start" column, subtract one (1) and write your answer in the "End" column. Add one to the number in the "End" column and write this result in the "Start" column on the next line. Repeat this procedure for each category. Category number Category name Number Start End 1 ________________________ ______ __1___ _____ 2 ________________________ ______ ______ _____ 3 ________________________ ______ ______ _____ 4 ________________________ ______ ______ _____ 5 ________________________ ______ ______ _____ 6 ________________________ ______ ______ _____ As a double-check, the last number in the "End" column should be the same as your total number of questions. If it is not, check your work. If you have more than six categories, use additional sheets as necessary. - Page 117 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix B Test Generation Script Language To create tests, TEA uses an English-based script language. The seven statements that can be used are described below with their syntax and purposes. SELECT EXAM Purpose: Selects the exam bank to be used. must be a valid DOS filename for your exam bank, and it must exist on the current data drive at the time the command is used. This statement should be the first one in the script control file. SELECT CATEGORY Purpose: Changes the current category in the current exam bank to the name specified. The test generator looks up the category number from the name and uses this category for all subsequently retrieved questions. SELECT CATEGORY Purpose: Changes the current category in the current exam bank to the number specified. The test generator uses this category for all subsequently retrieved questions. QUESTION MODE IS RANDOM Purpose: Changes the default question selection mode to random and forces all subsequent questions to be retrieved randomly. This statement affects only the operation of the "GET QUESTIONS" statement. QUESTION MODE IS SEQUENTIAL Purpose: Changes the default question selection mode to sequential and forces all subsequent questions to be retrieved sequentially from the last question that was retrieved sequentially in that category. See chapter seven for more information. This statement affects only the operation of the "GET QUESTIONS" statement. GET QUESTIONS Purpose: Selects the specified number of questions from the current - Page 118 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- category in the current exam bank, using the currently selected question selection mode. If the specified number of questions are not available in the category, test generation will be halted. GET QUESTION Purpose: Selects the specified question from the current exam bank. If the specified question number is not available, test generation will be halted. REM or ' Purpose: Permits comments to be inserted into the test script. The comment follows the "REM" or the "'" for the remainder of the line. Blank lines may be inserted for readability. Both comments and blank lines are ignored by the test generator. END Purpose: Ends test generation. This statement is required. Failure to use this statement will result in a warning during test generation. - Page 119 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix C Answers to Commonly Asked Questions Question: Why do I get a message in the upper left corner of my screen that tells me there was a problem writing to my floppy disk? Answer: SmartDrive is loaded, and write caching your floppy. When TEA goes to write to your floppy, DOS (via SmartDrive) reports the write is successful, then SmartDrive tries to write its cache and cannot since the floppy disk was write protected. To fix this problem, ensure the disk is not write protected. - Page 120 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix D TEA Technical Specifications The Teacher's Assistant requires the following computer hardware and software to run: Hardware: Computer: IBM PC/XT/AT/PS2 and 100% compatibles Memory required: 256K free memory Video system: Hercules monochrome or CGA/EGA/VGA Hard disk required? No, but highly recommended. Software: Operating system: PC-DOS or MS-DOS 2.1 or above TEA is described by, and limited to, the following: Maximum number of categories allowed in each exam bank: 50 Maximum number of students allowed in the gradebook & database: 75 Maximum number of questions allowed in a single test: 200 Maximum number of grades allowed in the gradebook: 50 Maximum number of courses allowed in the gradebook: 80 These specifications are subject to change at any time without notice. - Page 121 - The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix E Product Support and Forms The Teacher's Assistant is the result of several thousand man-hours' work and research spanning a five year period. With this investment in time and effort, we want to provide the most in product support we possibly can for those who support us. To achieve this goal, once you register your copy of TEA, we will answer your questions either by telephone, or by mail for a period of one year. If you discover an error in TEA's logic or coding, and report it to us, we will fix it for you and send you the correction free of charge. As a registered user, you will be notified of any product updates, and be eligible for discounted program upgrades. You will have the option of having your version of TEA customized to fit your particular situation. This means you can request a higher number of students, more questions in your tests, more categories in your exam bank, or more grades in your gradebook. Remember, when you request more of one item, you may get less of another. If the combination you request won't work, we will call you. Keep in mind, we provide these services only to those who register their copies of TEA. Registration is the only means we have of proving you paid your licensing fee and are truly entitled to receive these benefits. - Page 122 - TEA Evaluation Form 1993 Instructions: Please answer the following questions. Send the completed form to: GBT Publishing TEA Product Support 92-902 Welo Street, #94 Makakilo, Hawaii 96707 1. In general, how useful do you think the Teacher's Assistant program is? _____________________________________________________ 2. How well do you think the Teacher's Assistant program implements the functions in the program? _______________________ 3. What function do you like the most within TEA? _________________________________________________________________ Least? _________________________________________________________ 4. What features would you like to see added to TEA? _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ 5. What features do you not use? _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ 6. Do you like the colors used in TEA (not applicable for monochrome monitors)? If not, what would you like to see changed? _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ 7. Did you experience any problems installing or using TEA? _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ 8. Please rate the following on a scale of 0 to 10: a. Program's ease of use. _______ b. Logical arrangement of menu functions. _______ c. Logical arrangement of screen information. _______ d. Clarity of on-line help. _______ e. Manual organization and manual arrangement. _______ f. Manual clarity and usefulness. _______ g. Quantity of examples. _______ h. Quality of examples. _______ i. Usefulness of tutorials. _______ Please explain your rating for each item graded less than a seven (7). 9. Do you think this program is worth $20.00? _________. If not, please explain why not? How much do you think the licensing fee should be and why? $___________. _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ 10. Comments? Use additional sheets if necessary. _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Thank you for your time and your inputs. TEA Customization Request Form 1993 Instructions: Answer the following questions by placing a check mark in the appropriate space. Then fill out your name and the new values you want for your customized version of the Teacher's Assistant. I am using the evaluation version of TEA. I am remitting the licensing fee of $20.00. I have the commercial version of TEA. This is my first customization request, which is free of charge. I have the commercial version of TEA. This is another customization request, and I am enclosing the $20.00 customization fee. Payment by: ( ) Check ( ) Money Order ( ) PO # ______________ (Please enclose P.O.) Name : ________________________________________________________ Company: ________________________________________________________ Address: ________________________________________________________ : ________________________________________________________ City : ____________________________ State: _____ Zip: _______ Day Phone: (_______)_______________ Eve: (______)________________ TEA Registration number: ________________________________________ Amount of RAM in your computer: _________________________________ Default Custom Item to change value value Maximum number of categories allowed in each exam bank: 50 ________ Maximum number of students allowed in the gradebook & database: 75 ________ Maximum number of questions allowed in a single test: 200 ________ Maximum number of grades allowed in the gradebook: 50 ________ TEA License Transfer Form 1993 Instructions: There is no charge to transfer the license from one licensee to another. You (the new licensee) may, however, elect to purchase one year of product support for $20.00. You will be entitled to the same benefits of the first-time licensee as described elsewhere in this manual. Payment by: ( )Check ( )Money Order ( )PO # _____________________ (Please enclose P.O.) Name : _______________________________________________________ Company: _______________________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________________ : _______________________________________________________ City : ___________________________ State: _____ Zip: _______ Day Phone: (_______)_______________ Eve: (______)_______________ TEA Registration number: _______________________________________ TEA Order Form 1993 Please send: ____ TEA Evaluation Diskettes ............ @ $ 10.00 ea $ ______ (includes program and manual on diskette, evaluation license only) ____ TEA Commercial Program Diskettes ....@ $ 39.95 ea $ ______ (includes licensing, program and printed manual) ____ TEA Shareware Registration ..........@ $ 20.00 ea $ ______ (includes licensing, and latest program version) Subtotal $ ______ (See discount schedule. Less Discount ($ ______) Enter discount rate here _______%) (Hawaii customers please add sales tax or $ ______ provide Sales Tax Exemption Certificate) (Please include $3.00 for each item Shipping $ ______ ordered for shipping and handling) (Add $6.00 for C.O.D. orders) C.O.D. $ ______ Total $ ______ Payment by: ( )Check ( )Money Order ( )COD ( )PO # _____________________ (Please enclose P.O.) Name : _______________________________________________________ Company: _______________________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________________ : _______________________________________________________ City : ___________________________ State: _____ Zip: _______ Day Phone: (_______)_______________ Eve: (______)_______________ Opening Screen Text: None[ ] Other (indicate below): ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Index .TEA 13 ' (REM) 119 Answer key 116 Appendix A 116 B 118 C 120 D 121 E 122 Basic Operations 22 Benefits of registration 5 Categories 116 Category 117, 118 Commonly Asked Questions Answers to 120 Comprehensive tutorial 12, 111 Course and Students Disk 36 Create tests 118 Creating an exam bank 116 Creating new test scripts 25, 78 Cursor 20 Customize 122 Customizing TEA 15 Data entry window 20 Default value 20 Deleting old test scripts 26 Discount Schedule 7 Discussion 102, 108 Duplication 7 Editing old test scripts 26 Editor 20 END 119 Escape 20, 67 Exam Bank Management 24, 63 Exam Bank Planning Worksheet 116 Extended Product Support 12 F1 key 20 Form Customization Request Form 125 Evaluation Form 123 License Transfer Form 126 Order Form 127 Forms 122 GET QUESTIONS 118 GET QUESTION 119 GO 18 Gradebook 29, 47 Hardware 121 Hard disk 121 Memory 121 Video system 121 Help screen 20 The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Home key 20 Installation 18 Introduction 14 Keyboard 20 Largest question 116 License 3 Licensing 122 Licensing agreement 7 Major Functions 22 Maximum courses 121 grades 121 number of categories 121 questions 121 students 121 Miscellaneous Administrative Actions 34, 102 Mouse 20 Mouse button left 20 right 20 On-Line Help 20 Ordering Information 5 foreign orders 5 Overview of TEA 22 Partitions 116 Philosophy 14 Preface 11 Privacy Act of 1974 36 Product Support 11 Product Support and Forms 122 Program Overlays 13 Program Security 33, 97 Purchases Corporate 7 Government Entities 7 Quantity 7 QUESTION MODE 118 Quit 20 Quitting TEA 35, 108 Registration number 11 REM 119 Script Language 118 SELECT CATEGORY 118 SELECT EXAM 118 Software 121 Operating system 121 Student Management 27, 36 Table of Contents 9 TEA Technical Specifications 121 Technical support 7 Test and Answer Key Printing 27, 92 Test Generation 26, 92 Test Script Management 25, 78 Tutorial 12 The Teacher's Assistant User's Manual ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tutorials 38, 51, 67, 82, 93, 99, 104, 108, 111 A Note Regarding 17 Comprehensive Tutorial 111 [Esc] 67