🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 17 May 1993 10:57:11 EST <ACAD8050@RYEVM.RYERSON.CA> said:
>
>Dan, We have considerable experince with SAS in optically input forms. We
>mark thousands of examinations appraisals every year. Please put your query
>into a more specific form for a reply. Thanks, Bill
>
The IDQ system consists of a bank of questions from which each instructor
is allowed to select the questions to appear on a questionnaire.  Appropriate
numbers of questionnaires are printed on NCS forms which already contain
timing and skunk marks as well as bubbles.  An identification number is
also printed which is OMR compatible so that the questionnaire can be
tied back to the original requisition.  After the forms are scanned, the
data are read back into the IDQ data base so that reports can be printed
which contain the text of the questions along with identification of the
instructor and the course.  Information is also available concerning the
Department and Faculty to which the instructor belongs as well as the
level of the course and a coded value of the size of the class.  This allows
one to select relevant sub-groups for comparison when printing the report
which contains the text of the question, the frequency distribution of
responses, the class median and quartiles of medians from other classes.

This process can be called labor-intensive at several points:
  1. inputting the requisition information for each class, i.e.,
     instructor's name, course name, question bank numbers of questions
     selected
  2. packaging the printed questionnaires for distribution to each
     instructor
  3. printing the reports with the specific comparison groups requested
  4. distributing the printed reports.

We currently process questionnaires for about 4000 on-campus classes plus
a number for several other local colleges in the province.  There is
currently a proposal to make the students' ratings business universal for
the campus which will multiply the numbers significantly.  We need to
come up with an alternative to the IDQ system since we're losing the MTS
operating system.  I expect that we would like to retain the facility of
generating questionnaires by selecting questions from a question bank and
the business of including reference group data in the reports.

The U of A is bringing in Oracle to handle its Registrar, Comptroller, etc.
requirements.  I'm wondering about adopting Oracle for the students' ratings
business.  Included in my vision of a replacement system is the possibility
that individuals (instructors or maybe departmental clerical staff) could
input their own requisitions (locally) and, subsequent to scanning,
print out their own reports.  Since I'm steeped in 8 years of supporting
the IDQ system, I'm looking for examples of other approaches to this task
that will help broaden my perspective on how the application might be
configured.  (If there is 'public' access to the data base, we would need
to restrict access on a class by class basis--maintain the confidentiality
of the data.)
                    Dan Precht
                    University of Alberta
                    Edmonton, Alberta