Mac Grading app

The most commonly requested feature for Attendance that I haven't implemented is grading. There are a few ways you can do simple grade recording with Attendance:

1. copy the class and use statuses corresponding to grades
2. take attendance multiple times per day and use the second time for a grade
3. use the new daily note per student to record a grade

The reason I have not tried to add full grading capabilities to Attendance is with all the different capabilities people will want (total points or weighted averages of categories, drop lowest X grades for a category, etc.), I do not think I can design a good interface on the small iPhone/Touch screen.

I previously used some scripts written in Python to keep and calculate grades for my classes. In November I began developing a Mac app based on the ideas from these scripts and the capabilities I thought people would want. I've spent a number of long days and nights in December working on it and it's at the point where it's now usable by me. I'm going to get some feedback from a few friends and have a few colleagues beta test it with me this semester. Assuming all goes well, I'll try to finish it up over our mid-semester break at the beginning of March. It always seems to snow during our week off so it should be a good time to get version 1.0 ready to submit to the Mac app store.

The main items I need to finish our polishing the GUI a bit, design an icon, and create the help files. That's probably at least a full week's work. Here are the main features:

1. document-based app so you create one file per class
2. support for using total points or a weighted average of categories
3. option to drop lowest grades from each category (different number per category)
4. add/delete students, categories, assessments with full undo support
5. configurable letter grade scaling
6. import students from a CSV file
7. email grades for an assessment to students
8. email full grade report to students
9. export a CSV grade report with all grades

Once I do a little more GUI polishing, I'll post a few screenshots and/or videos of it.

I plan to price it in the $15 to $20 range in the Mac app store. At the moment there are no in-app purchases or upgrade pricing in the Mac app store so at least for now, it appears all updates will need to be free forever unless you create a new app that people need to buy. I don't want to ask people to pay for a new version so I'll probably price it at the high end of the range.

If sales are decent and I think I can design a reasonable iOS app based on it, I may try to do that in May-July 2011. My guess is that if I do, it will be an iPad only app to take advantage of the larger screen.

Comments

[Corrine]

Hi Dave,

I'm a design professor and have loved using your Attendance App. If you want any help with the GUI or design, let me know. I'd be happy to help!

[Dave Reed]

Thanks. A friend who is finishing his MFA is going to design an icon for the Mac grading app for a reasonable price. I've received some feedback from a few friends about the UI so I think I'm set but I'll let you know if I do need some help.

Thanks,
Dave

[Anonymous Coward Teacher]

Stumbled on this link. Looks cool. I hope you keep your gradebook app flexible. If you're not aware of it, look at Easy Grade Pro to see how many things should be done. It's not perfect, but it has a lot of flexibility that other grading programs lack. Good luck.

[dave256apps]

It's difficult to know what specifically what you mean by flexible. I've listed the nine main features above. And I've actually added a third grading option where you can use points to compute a grade for each category and then a weighted average of the categories. My initial thoughts are to not create something as complicated as the $50 to $80 existing grading apps out there. Rather, I want to focus on something that will be simpler for people to set up than a spreadsheet and have some options for reporting grades. The specific feature (what you may be calling flexibility) that would be difficult to do with a spreadsheet is to drop a specific number of lowest grades per category. The other flexibilities are the options to easily choose between three different grading options.

As a part-time solo developer, I probably can't compete with all the features that a company (with a team of developers working full-time) can put into an app. My goal is to write something that I will find useful and hopefully include the features that a number of other people will. My app should be simpler (and less work to produce) so it will sell for a lower cost. I'm still thinking in the $15 to $20 range depending on how many additional features I plan for free updates.

[Simon Larsen]

I wish Attendace could reveal the total attendance for individual students across all courses, not just course by course.
Our school has a total absence limit of 15%, but Attendance doesn't help us with this information.

[dave256apps]

Attendance's internal data sees each course as completely separate so it doesn't "know" that students are in multiple courses; however, it should be possible to use the Student ID field to combine data from multiple courses. I'll add this to my list of possible features for future versions. That list continues to grow faster than I can get features implemented so I don't want to promise it any time soon. There's already one update waiting for Apple's approval and another one that I'm testing right now and neither of those contain this feature. Also, while I try to regularly check the comments (and delete spam), if you want to be certain your message to me is seen, please email it to me. My email address is in the instructions tab of Attendance.

[Prem]

Firstly, thank you for the app. As a tutor, it really helps me with keeping track of the attendance of all my students. Plus the notes option also helps me keep track of when fees are paid and so on.

The only issue I have is not with its functionality. Rather its with the sterile manner of presentation. A small gripe, but still, one i hope you can improve :)

I believe there is an app called teacherpal. You could take a look there for what I mean, in terms of design.

[dave256apps]

I've always focused on functionality first and still have a long list of feature requests that are appropriate for the app. I've also received comments on both sides of this issue. Some people want it to look less plain while others say they're glad it doesn't look like some of the other apps. Most of the over 60 screens in the app are lists (what Apple calls UITableViews). Their appearance is the default appearance Apple provides. Yes, it's possible to change how they look, but that will slow down the performance of the app (which when showing the pictures is bordering on the edge of acceptable as it is). It's also possible to make it look worse/less readable. I have decades of programming experience, but I have no formal training in design. Combine all these issues and I'm going to continue focusing on functionality at least for now. It's only recently that the app as come close to making it worth all the time I've put into it, so I don't have the resources or time to hire and work with someone to improve its appearance. It's a niche app that is never going to sell a huge number of copies like games or more general productivity apps.