The Statistics Manager

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The Statistics Manager is still experimental and may not produce perfectly reliable stats in all cases. However, even in its present state, useful information can be garnered if the end-user is careful.

To open the Stats Manager, click the Statistics button on T.A. Toolbar, like so:

This will open the Stats Manager as shown below:

To get set up to keep statistics on your grading sessions, start by filling in the Sessions list.

The Sessions list is where you can add and remove the names of different grading sessions. For example, in a typical first-semester composition course, you might have grading sessions for your exemplification/illustration essay assignment, your compare/contrast essay assignment, and so on.

The Students section is self-explanatory. Just add the names of your students using the Add button. A sample is shown below:

Click OK.

Next, ensure that Statistics are going to be kept by opening the buttons in the Special section and clicking the Options button, like so:

This opens up the Options form, where you should click the Statistics checkbox:

Now, whenever you are ready to start grading and wish to keep track of your statistics, start by opening the Special panel of buttons, and click the Sessions/Students button, like so:

This open up the Sessions/Students manager:

Use the drop-down menus to tell T.A. Toolbar how to store your statistics while grading the next essay: (Note: if you do not do this, then stats will be kept in an "anonymous" session.)

Now, after grading Theodore's Compare/Contrast essay, you'll find the following stats in the Stats Manager:

Return to the Sessions/Students Manager before grading each subsequent essay, and use the drop-down menu to select the next student. When the grading session is entirely over, you may return to the Stats Manager where you will see something like this:

As you can see above, the Stats Manager is reporting on all grading sessions and all students. However, using the radio button in the upper-right area of the form, you can see stats in a number of different combinations. Please note that when using Selected Sessions and/or Selected Students, simply control-click multiple sessions or students to have more than one element contributing the generated statistics.The matrix below attempts to show some of the variety of statistical information that can be gathered.

	All Students	Selected Students	Current Students	Anonymous Students
All Sessions	Tells you how all of your students have done on all assignments.	Tells you how Theodore (or some other student) did on all essays.)
Selected Sessions		Tells you how Theodore (or some other student) did on a particular essay.)
Current Sessions		Tells you how Theodore (or some other student) did on the essay currently being graded.)
Anonymous Sessions		Tells you how Theodore (or some other student) did on an undefined essay.)

Once you have selected the desired radio buttons, you can then graph your statistics in Microsoft Excel by clicking the Graph button. Similarly, you can send the stats to a Word document and print it by clicking the Print button.