Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Progress report has always been an important element of the

academic episode for every student. It plays an essential role by advising

the parents of the students concerning their progress in school.

Subjectively, it presents as the comprehensive measure of a students’

success in the realm of academe. A report card generally encompasses a

program of courses, school manners and other stance areas superseded

by grade the student obtained in every extent.

Webster dictionary defines grading in education as the process of

applying standardized measurements of varying levels achievement in a

specific course. A grade has always been the mirror of the performance of

student for every course accomplishment within a given term. It

represents the result of performance evaluation of a student that

depends on the criteria requirement set by a certain institution such as

class participation, quizzes, and examinations. Grades are directly

derived from scores a student earned which is normally presented in

percentage, these scores are then transmuted either into letters or

numbers using different cut off percentages that vary from institution to

institution.
 In essence, grading is an exercise in professional judgment on the

part of teachers. It involves the collection and evaluation of evidence on

students' achievement or performance over a specified period of time,

such as twelve weeks, an academic semester, or entire school year.

Through this process, various types of descriptive information and

measures of students' performance are converted into grades or marks

that summarize students' accomplishments.

Although some educators distinguish between grades and marks,

most consider these terms synonymous. Both imply a set of symbols,

words, or numbers that are used to designate different levels of

achievement or performance. They might be letter grades such as A, B,

C, D, and F; symbols such as NA+, NA, and NA-, descriptive words such

as Exemplary, Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement; or numerals such

as 4, 3, 2, and 1. Reporting is the process by which these judgments are

communicated to parents, students, or guardians. Commented [DAR1]: http://education.stateuniversity.com/pa

ges/2017/Grading-Systems.html

The growing enrollment in education has increased student-to-

teacher ratios and, therefore, increased the workload of the teacher. This

growing enrollment has resulted in mounting efforts to develop automatic

grading system in an effort to reduce this workload. Computer education

research has focused on automatic grading system for almost 50 years

(Whitelock & Brasher, 2007). There have been a few attempts to develop

automated grading systems for assessing skills. Waldman and Ulema

(2008) briefly described three different methods for implementing a

custom grading program. The first option requires writing a grading

program in Excel using Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications. The

second option requires writing a program that interfaces with a running

copy of excel. The third method requires writing a program that simply

utilizes the excel data of the students as a database. Commented [DAR2]: See Reference 01, please revise

In the global arena of education, one of the most frequently cited

grading system was developed by Hill (2003-2004), developed two

automatic grading systems using Microsoft Office Applications, the first

one is MEAGER (Microsoft Excel Automated Grader) which is built using

Excel, the second one is the MADBAGS (Microsoft Access Database

Automated Grading System. Both of these system functions on specific

formula to be used, the feature is considered to be too restrictive, one

single mistake within the formula could ruin the entire system. Commented [DAR3]: See Reference 01, please see revise

As a backgrounder, the municipality of Sta. Barbara in providing

an affordable and accessible tertiary education to the youth residents of

the municipality have submitted and signed an Ordinance No. XXX

which established the Mababang Paaralan ng mga Ulikba. It is

through the effort of Mr. Piolo Pascual who have founded the school. The

school is located at a 10 hectares lot at Barangay Tinago, Di Mahanap

Street. The school formally opened its doors in 1969 to the first 69

students with 88 numbers of teachers, There on the number of student

and teachers continued to grow at an unforeseen rate. The Mababang

Paaralan ng mga Ulikba si aimed at providing quality tertiary

education to those who are under privilege. To date the school has an

overwhelming population of 10,000.

The school employs a few numbers of staff and teachers in

comparison with its growing population. Most teachers handle four to

five subjects at three different grade levels and sections. Having these

instance, school preparation has become increasingly stressful. This

stress is augmented further by a perplexing task of grade computation

which is required to be accomplished at every school term. Grading is a

very crucial part of school’s operations and goals. The current system

employed by the school is the traditional method of recording,

calculating, in maintaining student grades and records. As such, a

teacher allocates most of their time to carefully compute the grades of

the student using their calculators, and to some teachers, manually

solve the grades using paper and pen. To a greater extent, some teachers

have to bring their work home and spend sleepless nights in order to

meet the deadlines and provide an immediate report which will

communicate to the students’ parents and guardians as well the student

performance and progress.

The existing system is very laborious and time consuming to

accomplish. The teacher initially list down the names of the student per
class in a class record for every subject and section and records the

students’ rating for every grade component. The teacher then manually

calculates students’ grades which is very strenuous task and at times

prone to human errors. The manually computed grades are then

submitted to the head teacher for verification and validation prior to

submission to the school registrar.

In this type of system, much of the schools resources have to be

allocated for the purchase of papers, coupons, pens, envelopes, folders

including calculators, cabinets for safe storage instead of purchase for

other useful resources such as library holdings. Safe keeping of these

records does not guarantee that this pertinent student documents would

last, the document are likely to age and degrade over time. Additional

security and safety of the documents administered by the learning

institution is by reproduction of the original copy by means of photo

reproduction. The system outweighs the benefit since it will require

additional purchase of cabinets and would require bigger place for

storage consuming more resources.

The contingency plan employed by the institution in keeping the

student grades and records is not as effective as well. Over the years this

kind of system exhausts the institutions resources and deprives the

productivity of the teachers thereby lessening their affectivity.

 Considering the setbacks of the manual system and as a result of

the observation, the developer was highly motivated for the creation of a

new system for grading system.

Statement of the Problem

1. Does the academic institution currently employ standardized

grading system?

2. What are the components of the grading system?

3. Does the academic institution have allocated budget to implement

and sustain the implementation of an online grading system?

Objective of the Study

The main objective of the study is to design and develop an

effective and reliable Online Grading System for PervheeIzel School that

will assist the administration in generating the grades of the students.

Specifically the study sought to:

1. Identify the functional and non functional requirements

2. Identify the features of the system

3. Test the usability of the system

Significance of the Study

 The proposed system for <school> will be efficient in terms of time

consuming, physical resources, and cost.

Faculty Teachers. The system will allow the teachers to calculate

grades of their students faster thereby lessening their workload and

providing them with added time to attend to other functions. This in turn

would improve the efficiency of teachers.

School Administrator. School administrators no longer have

supervised carefully the computation of grades of each student to check

on the accuracy. Submission of reports such as grading sheets and class

record can be submitted ahead of time.

Students. Students can now look forward to a better lesson since

the teachers will have more time to prepare the class for a better

discussion.

Scope and Limitation

The system will allow to keep the students grades to be computed

based on the criteria set by learning institution and provide a generated

on time report. It also allows the user to access and manage the

students’ record at any of the convenient place and time suitable to the

users. The system has a security feature of which the admin and

teachers are required to log-in before getting into the system by typing

the username and password.

 The system will hold four users, the administrator, the director,

the teachers, and the students. The administrator will hold the capability

to provide respective user access rights. The administrator also holds the

capability to manage the entire system by uploading courses offered,

students records and the assigning of teachers to the respective courses

being handled. The director possesses the capability to view the students’

records and grades including teachers who are assigned for a particular

course. The director will also have the privileged right to set deadlines of

uploading students grades as well as locking and unlocking the system.

The teachers on the other hand hold the capability to manage

students’ grades by uploading and editing the scores. Further, teachers

will also possess the capability to sort students’ grades in a ascending

and descending manner. The student will only have the means to view

and generate printed copies of the grades.

Despite its capabilities the system does not have the capability to

provide password recovery.

Conceptual Framework

In an approach to managing the development of the system, the

developers will utilize the IPO model in formulate

Definition of Terms
 Class Participation. Students ability to join class discussion

either by raising questions or sharing of concepts in view of the topics

being discussed.

Class Record

Examinations. Long test given at the end of every quarter covering

topics discussed within a quarter.

Grade Components. Activities undergone by a student in which

he is rated by the teacher.

Grade Component Rating. The mark or rating given bu the

teacher to the subject grade component based on the performance of the

student

Quizzes. Short test on topics which is previously discussed or

given as assignments.

Subject Average Grade. The grade of the student for the subject

as computed by the teacher and that appears on the student report card.

It is determined by the sum of all ratings for the different grade

components divided by the total number of grades components.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study

Progress report has always been an important element of the

academic episode for every student. It plays an essential role by advising

the parents of the students concerning their progress in school.

Subjectively, it presents as the comprehensive measure of a students’

success in the realm of academe. A report card generally encompasses a

program of courses, school manners and other stance areas superseded

by grade the student obtained in every extent.

Webster dictionary defines grading in education as the process of

applying standardized measurements of varying levels achievement in a

specific course. A grade has always been the mirror of the performance of

student for every course accomplishment within a given term. It

represents the result of performance evaluation of a student that

depends on the criteria requirement set by a certain institution such as

class participation, quizzes, and examinations. Grades are directly

derived from scores a student earned which is normally presented in

percentage, these scores are then transmuted either into letters or

numbers using different cut off percentages that vary from institution to

institution.

In essence, grading is an exercise in professional judgment on the

part of teachers. It involves the collection and evaluation of evidence on

students' achievement or performance over a specified period of time,

such as twelve weeks, an academic semester, or entire school year.

Through this process, various types of descriptive information and

measures of students' performance are converted into grades or marks

that summarize students' accomplishments.

Although some educators distinguish between grades and marks,

most consider these terms synonymous. Both imply a set of symbols,

words, or numbers that are used to designate different levels of

achievement or performance. They might be letter grades such as A, B,

C, D, and F; symbols such as NA+, NA, and NA-, descriptive words such

as Exemplary, Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement; or numerals such

as 4, 3, 2, and 1. Reporting is the process by which these judgments are

communicated to parents, students, or guardians. Commented [DAR4]: http://education.stateuniversity.com/pa

ges/2017/Grading-Systems.html

The growing enrollment in education has increased student-to-

teacher ratios and, therefore, increased the workload of the teacher. This

growing enrollment has resulted in mounting efforts to develop automatic

grading system in an effort to reduce this workload. Computer education

research has focused on automatic grading system for almost 50 years

(Whitelock & Brasher, 2007). There have been a few attempts to develop

automated grading systems for assessing skills. Waldman and Ulema

(2008) briefly described three different methods for implementing a

custom grading program. The first option requires writing a grading

program in Excel using Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications. The

second option requires writing a program that interfaces with a running

copy of excel. The third method requires writing a program that simply

utilizes the excel data of the students as a database. Commented [DAR5]: See Reference 01, please revise

In the global arena of education, one of the most frequently cited

grading system was developed by Hill (2003-2004), developed two

automatic grading systems using Microsoft Office Applications, the first

one is MEAGER (Microsoft Excel Automated Grader) which is built using

Excel, the second one is the MADBAGS (Microsoft Access Database

Automated Grading System. Both of these system functions on specific

formula to be used, the feature is considered to be too restrictive, one

single mistake within the formula could ruin the entire system. Commented [DAR6]: See Reference 01, please see revise

As a backgrounder, the municipality of Sta. Barbara in providing

an affordable and accessible tertiary education to the youth residents of

the municipality have submitted and signed an Ordinance No. XXX

which established the Mababang Paaralan ng mga Ulikba. It is

through the effort of Mr. Piolo Pascual who have founded the school. The

school is located at a 10 hectares lot at Barangay Tinago, Di Mahanap

Street. The school formally opened its doors in 1969 to the first 69

students with 88 numbers of teachers, There on the number of student

and teachers continued to grow at an unforeseen rate. The Mababang

Paaralan ng mga Ulikba si aimed at providing quality tertiary

education to those who are under privilege. To date the school has an

overwhelming population of 10,000.

The school employs a few numbers of staff and teachers in

comparison with its growing population. Most teachers handle four to

five subjects at three different grade levels and sections. Having these

instance, school preparation has become increasingly stressful. This

stress is augmented further by a perplexing task of grade computation

which is required to be accomplished at every school term. Grading is a

very crucial part of school’s operations and goals. The current system

employed by the school is the traditional method of recording,

calculating, in maintaining student grades and records. As such, a

teacher allocates most of their time to carefully compute the grades of

the student using their calculators, and to some teachers, manually

solve the grades using paper and pen. To a greater extent, some teachers

have to bring their work home and spend sleepless nights in order to

meet the deadlines and provide an immediate report which will

communicate to the students’ parents and guardians as well the student

performance and progress.

The existing system is very laborious and time consuming to

accomplish. The teacher initially list down the names of the student per

class in a class record for every subject and section and records the

students’ rating for every grade component. The teacher then manually
calculates students’ grades which is very strenuous task and at times

prone to human errors. The manually computed grades are then

submitted to the head teacher for verification and validation prior to

submission to the school registrar.

In this type of system, much of the schools resources have to be

allocated for the purchase of papers, coupons, pens, envelopes, folders

including calculators, cabinets for safe storage instead of purchase for

other useful resources such as library holdings. Safe keeping of these

records does not guarantee that this pertinent student documents would

last, the document are likely to age and degrade over time. Additional

security and safety of the documents administered by the learning

institution is by reproduction of the original copy by means of photo

reproduction. The system outweighs the benefit since it will require

additional purchase of cabinets and would require bigger place for

storage consuming more resources.

The contingency plan employed by the institution in keeping the

student grades and records is not as effective as well. Over the years this

kind of system exhausts the institutions resources and deprives the

productivity of the teachers thereby lessening their affectivity.

Considering the setbacks of the manual system and as a result of

the observation, the developer was highly motivated for the creation of a

new system for grading system.

Statement of the Problem

4. Does the academic institution currently employ standardized

grading system?

5. What are the components of the grading system?

6. Does the academic institution have allocated budget to implement

and sustain the implementation of an online grading system?

Objective of the Study

The main objective of the study is to design and develop an

effective and reliable Online Grading System for PervheeIzel School that

will assist the administration in generating the grades of the students.

Specifically the study sought to:

4. Identify the functional and non functional requirements

5. Identify the features of the system

6. Test the usability of the system

Significance of the Study

The proposed system for <school> will be efficient in terms of time

consuming, physical resources, and cost.

Faculty Teachers. The system will allow the teachers to calculate

grades of their students faster thereby lessening their workload and

providing them with added time to attend to other functions. This in turn

would improve the efficiency of teachers.

School Administrator. School administrators no longer have

supervised carefully the computation of grades of each student to check

on the accuracy. Submission of reports such as grading sheets and class

record can be submitted ahead of time.

Students. Students can now look forward to a better lesson since

the teachers will have more time to prepare the class for a better

discussion.

Scope and Limitation

The system will allow to keep the students grades to be computed

based on the criteria set by learning institution and provide a generated

on time report. It also allows the user to access and manage the

students’ record at any of the convenient place and time suitable to the

users. The system has a security feature of which the admin and

teachers are required to log-in before getting into the system by typing

the username and password.

The system will hold four users, the administrator, the director,

the teachers, and the students. The administrator will hold the capability

to provide respective user access rights. The administrator also holds the

capability to manage the entire system by uploading courses offered,

students records and the assigning of teachers to the respective courses

being handled. The director possesses the capability to view the students’

records and grades including teachers who are assigned for a particular

course. The director will also have the privileged right to set deadlines of

uploading students grades as well as locking and unlocking the system.

The teachers on the other hand hold the capability to manage

students’ grades by uploading and editing the scores. Further, teachers

will also possess the capability to sort students’ grades in a ascending

and descending manner. The student will only have the means to view

and generate printed copies of the grades.

Despite its capabilities the system does not have the capability to

provide password recovery.

Conceptual Framework

In an approach to managing the development of the system, the

developers will utilize the IPO model in formulate

Definition of Terms

Class Participation. Students ability to join class discussion

either by raising questions or sharing of concepts in view of the topics

being discussed.

Class Record
 Examinations. Long test given at the end of every quarter covering

topics discussed within a quarter.

Grade Components. Activities undergone by a student in which

he is rated by the teacher.

Grade Component Rating. The mark or rating given bu the

teacher to the subject grade component based on the performance of the

student

Quizzes. Short test on topics which is previously discussed or

given as assignments.

Subject Average Grade. The grade of the student for the subject

as computed by the teacher and that appears on the student report card.

It is determined by the sum of all ratings for the different grade

components divided by the total number of grades components.