Online Grades & Attendance

I know it’s been over a year since anything was posted I thought I would take a moment to update everyone. Although we haven’t had time lately to actively release a new version you will still find the latest bug fixes and some new features in the CVS version which can be found in the navigation to the left.

If you are in need of help or find a bug please let us know via SourceForge, you will also find those links in the left navigation menu.

Until Next Time,
The Online Grades Team

Merry Christmas! We are pleased to announce the release of Online Grades version 3.2.4. This release features "Grade Groups" capability, which allows for coaches or administrators to review the overall grades for a group of students. Thanks to "evilpluto" for doing much of the work to move this feature over from an old version of Basmati. For an overview of how Grade Groups works please see http://docs.onlinegrades.org/Faculty_Group_Grades.

If you are wondering where Online Grades 3.2.3 went, we decided to skip this version number due to the new Grade Groups functionality and other new features that have been added since 3.2.2. There were no database changes in this release, so upgrading is very straight forward. See http://docs.onlinegrades.org/Upgrading_from_Previous_Versions for details. If you upgraded from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2 the procedure is the same.

We are also pleased to announce support for a new grade book program, GradeL - http://gradel.sourceforge.net/ . GradeL is a free graphical grade book program that currently runs only on Linux.

Thanks for your continued support of the growing Online Grades community and we look forward to another year! Details of the new features and bugs fixed are below.

Beau and Sam

New Features:
1580566 Added Grade Groups
1194191 Allow admins to upload grades for other teachers
1599347 Support for per login help links
1421752 Modify update checker to reduce hits
(No number) Added a demonstration mode to help with the Online Grades Demo.
(No number) Added ability to sort tables on the fly using JavaScript (multiple locations)
(No number) Added ability to send mail to any user with an associated email address

The Online Grades team is pleased to announce the release of Online Grades 3.2.2. This release incorporates several bug fixes and adds a few new minor features. There are no database changes this release, so upgrading consists only of upgrading the files on your server to the new versions.

Bugs fixed:
1561868 All interface go offline when student area is set to be offline
1560184 Table Name not all caps in admin/course_list.php (no number) Admin Area export to CSV would not work if PHP magic quotes was turned on
(no number) Faculty could not change their password due to the system thinking the user name was being changed (when it was not). The code used here was rewritten, as well as the option added (see below) for disabling the ability of teachers to change their user names in the prefs.

New Features:
1432927 Allow students to change their password, but not their first and last name. -- If allowed in the admin configs, students could change their password, email address and first and last name. To reduce the risk of students changing their name to something nefarious, there is now a per-school option (admin --> edit school) that allows you to decide whether students should be able to change their names or not. This options defaults to NO.

(included in 1432927) Allow faculty members to change their preferences, but don't allow them to change their user names -- The Online Grades Admin config contains an option that determines whether faculty are able to change their preferences. One of the preferences that they could change was their login id, or user name. Since changing the user name is potentially confusing, there is now a per-school option (admin --> edit school) that determines whether teachers at that school are able to change their user name if they are allowed to change their preferences. The option defaults to no.

1559502 A warning is displayed in the admin interface if you are not running MySQL > 4.1

(no number) A change was made so that the link at the bottom of the student login screen is to the parent login screen, if the parent center is available (it can be turned on and off in the admin configuration section). This is a change because previously the link here was to the faculty login screen. The faculty login screen retains its link to the admin login as well as the student login. If you would like the Student login to still have a link to the faculty login look for the commented out code in the include/common_gui.php file. This change was suggested by one of the schools who uses Online Grades.

New Features Implemented:

1484220 Offer Drop-down for school list at login
- This new option can be selected via the Admin config interface.
1167376 Tools for deleting/viewing/editing data
- Multiple Admin Interface tools for viewing, deleting, editing, exporting class, student, teacher, parent data

General:

- Online Grades 3.2.1 requires MySQL version 4.1.x or later due to the use of subqueries.
- New Online Grades web site deployed since last release http://www.onlinegrades.org
- New documentation center online at http://docs.onlinegrades.org
- Beginnings of context based help added. We now have several "help" links that go to the improved online documentation.

Bugs fixed:

1522715 10+ Digits in SID don't work
1501388 Multiple Parent Center Prefs bugs
1501387 Allow student to change pref not saving
1468164 Can't add admins

Hello from Online Grades!

The 3.2.1 version is currently in development. In addition to several small bug fixes from 3.2.0 the major addition we are currently working is improved tools for deleting, editing, and managing student, teacher, and parent accounts. In addition these tools will help manage viewing a removing the course and grade data in Online Grades. You may find these tools useful late spring/early summer, which is when the new version should be available.

***One requirement for these new features to work will be to have MySQL version 4.1 or higher.*** To generate some of the new information we are using sql subqueries, which were introduced with in MySQL with version 4.1. Please check your server or hosting setup now so that you are prepared when new new features are available. If you need help feel free to post to the forums.

There has been some interest in a file upload/storage facility built into Online Grades. This would allow teachers to upload assignments for students to download if they have lost their copy of the assignment. If this is something your school is interested in please consider if you or someone on your staff could help with the planning (ideas, rough layouts), development (writing the php code), or testing. See Feature Request # 1179210 at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1179210&group_id=127473&atid=708662 for more information about the request and feel free to make comments there or in the forums.

Sourceforge.net had problems with their CVS (development file storage/revision control) for several weeks but these have now been resolved and so it is now again possible to download the current development version of Online Grades via CVS. See http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=127473 for more information and feel free to post to the forums or email if you need help.

--Sam