Ed Smiley - 13-Oct-2005 14:39 Since Tests and Quizzes creates "Assessments" and communicates with Gradebook, that would be a more sensible word. If "the two tools[, Gradebook and Assignemnt Tool] ever communicate with each other" it would make sense to consider assessments, quizzes and tests to be forms of "assessment"--gradable things, in other words. In the QTI world, assessments are used for tests and quizzes. I don't like "item" because in the pre-2.0 world it meant "question"(post 2.0 it is called"assessmentItem").

Joseph Delaney - 13-Oct-2005 16:38 Just to be clear, I'm talking about the use of "assignment" in the user interface, not the code. In the user interface, there is context that helps define the meaning of a term if the term is generic, in the same way that a pronoun is defined by its antecedent. So if you add an "item" while on the quiz page, it's a quiz item (aka question), but if you add an item in the gradebook, it's a gradebook item. The term is loose enough to linguistically *require* the context for definition. The problem with "assignment" is that it is too specific; there is no expectation that the meaning will shift depending on the context. "Assessment" is better, but it is still somewhat specific (are students really "assessed" on their attendance, or do they simply meet a minimum requirement?). I think another reason I tend to favor "item" is that in actual use, gradebooks don't just contain grades. Given the flexibility, an instructor will use the gradebook as a place for recording other forms of information about the students. WebCT has this flexibility, and the gradebook is often used to record course section, student groups, seating charts, "response system" clicker IDs, etc, and these are sometimes used in the "selective release" function of WebCT but never as grades. The same is true of paper rosters or Excel spreadsheets. Sakai can't be used that flexibly (yet) but people will want that and eventually ask for it. "Entry" is another possible choice, more specific than "item" but in a way that is appropriate for a gradebook or student record.

Oliver Heyer - 17-Oct-2005 16:38 This issue duplicates SAK-1681. See further discussion there. Briefly, "item" by itself is probably too generic. One major future requirement on the gradebook is the ability to group, weight etc by category. At first glance, entry seems better, but I wonder if that suggests "enter score." Among the generic possibilities, column seems best to me so far. The problem of how to handle extra student metadata without making a mess of the UI is an interesting one. Between categories, non-enterprise student metadata and what we now call assignments, how many ways will there be to add columns? in which views are they represented? do all have to be combined into a single view? Ben Brophy, the gradebook designer, has suggested that recording attendance may be better treated as a separate tool that communicates with the GB. We need the new requirements process in place ASAP!

Ben Brophy - 18-Oct-2005 15:01 This is always a tricky area, especially when you consider that tools go by different names at different schools. At MIT we plan to use the Gradebook and call it that, but we have no plans to use the Assignment tool, favoring our own Homework tool in it's place. Also, we allow instructors to relabel their tools. So in some cases a class may call it's Homework/Assignment tool "Problem Sets" and it's Gradebook tool "Feedback." This doesn't effect the precise area of the UI mentioned in this suggestion, but keep in mind the flexibility of labels. Now on to the "assignment" label... In designing the UI for the gradebook we conducted series of usability test using a prototype (though not in the context of the assignments tool). We gave them the UI and the syllabus of a pretend class and asked them to talk us through how they would set it up, using the prototype. We tried both 'assessment' and 'item' in the UI and found that they lead to confusion. When using Item and to a lesser extent Assessment people weren't sure if that link would do what they needed. When we switched to Assignment, that problem dropped away. I'm not saying that means we've found the solution and shouldn't change. But I do propose that the change be made on the basis of further usability testing. We'll be doing a round of testing this Fall on the live gradebook tool. We'll share the results and the protocol, and would love to see results from other schools.

John Leasia - 30-Aug-2007 05:37 Closing, see the duplicate SAK-1681