software > Opengrade

OpenGrade is software for teachers to keep track of grades. It runs on several operating systems.

Features:

• A variety of reports can be created.
• Grades can be uploaded to a web server, where students can have password-protected access to them.
• If you use a set grading scale, you can have the software use it to compute letter grades automatically.
• Grades can be based on total points, or on a weighted average of scores in various categories such as exams and quizzes.
• You can drop the lowest grade (or the N lowest grades) from a given category.
• Students can be dropped and later reinstated without losing all their grades.
• There is support for extra-credit categories, and for categories that don't count towards the student's grade.
• Gradebook files are password-protected with a digital watermark, so you can detect tampering.
• Gradebook files are in a plain-text format, which makes it easy to work with them using Unix utilities.

You might also want to check out Ggradebook and GNota, which are open-source programs along similar lines.

OpenGrade is designed to cooperate with my software Spotter. By using the two pieces of software together, you can post grade reports on the web, keep track of your students' e-mail addresses, and collect certain kinds of work from them online.

Download

OpenGrade requires Perl/Tk 804.x or later, so, for example, you're OK if you're running Ubuntu Edgy Eft, but if you have Breezy Badger, you need to upgrade your version of Perl/Tk.

You may also find it convenient to use a version of OpenGrade that has been packaged specifically for your operating system:

Packagers: please let me know if you make a package for your favorite distribution!

OpenGrade is listed on the Freshmeat open-source software site. If you go there, you can look at the history of releases, subscribe to e-mail announcements about new releases, and make public comments about the software.

Legal

OpenGrade is distributed under the GPL license. You can pop up the license in OpenGrade by choosing About from the File menu.

Operating Systems OpenGrade Runs On

Linux

I use OpenGrade on Ubuntu Linux on a day to day basis.

FreeBSD

Should work fine, except that I believe some sounds may not work because of problems with the external "sox" package.

Windows

I do not provide support for OpenGrade on Windows. Version 2.5.8 worked on Windows 2000. Please do not e-mail me about running the software on Windows. Some sounds may not work.

MacOS X

The terminal-based user interface works fine on MacOS X, and in fact that's the system I originally developed it on. The implementation of Perl/Tk on MacOS X has been gradually improving. I had a report from a user in 2004 saying that it sort of worked, but not quite correctly. In June 2005, I heard from another user, who said he had it running on MacOS X 10.4, but setting the preferences didn't work (which would be an issue with my code, not Perl/Tk).