Grading and Student Evaluation: Evaluating Computerised

Grading System in Surabaya Report Card Online

Progress report has always been an important element of the academic episode for every
students. 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 succeeded by grade the student obtained in every level.

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 nine 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 that summarize students' accomplishments. Grades can be
assigned in letters (for example, A, B, C, D, E, or F), as a range (for example 4.01.0), as
descriptors (excellent, great, satisfactory, needs improvement), in percentages, or, as is common
in some post-secondary institutions in some countries, as a Grade Point Average (GPA).

Nowadays, the way many people interact with each other has changed because of
technology. First of all, absolute advantage is that technology makes the world move faster. To
support, speed of daily business interactions increasing all the time. There are many ways in
which how technology is changing educating from pre-school to College, the education trend has
now changed. Communications and delivery of the education has become so advanced. Right
from the primary school grades to the height of graduate school, technology can be used as a
powerful tool for education. Teachers, and students should take advantage of this through the
system of grading.

Some schools right now in Surabaya, especially those with huge numbers of students who
are using computerized based grading system has ease concerning the records of grades of the
students. The grades are the important record to keep even for the longest time for the referral
and credentials of the student to enter their next level of attaining their goals. It is the tract record
that recognizes of one student. The computerized grading system will help both the faculty staffs
and the students to have easy access on the records and past records, the easier way. The held
system will also decrease the staffs on consuming too much time (Anglin & Anglin, 2008)
recording and effort locating records of the students. It will also be connected to the schools
website (if there is), for the students, so they can check their grades online. The staff in charge
will do updating of grades. The essay aims to make a computer-based grading database which
can help aid the problem regarding in recording, and reporting student grades.

Last two years, Surabaya applied students report card online in any level of schools with
regard to Curriculum 2013 as an authentic assessment. The proposed system is computer-based.
It can encode records of the students for the first grading until third grading. And also can encode
the information of students. It can perform the computation for the grades to first grading until
third grading. It can auto organize the arrangement of the student by default in student numbers
but it can also arrange by alphabetical or grades. It can also print the record in the database. The
report card online has criteria or types explained the students achievements.
According to Brown (2004), grading has two types of calculating grades, those are
absolute system and relative system. Absolute system focuses on numerical and it can be stated
in grading scales. While, relative system focuses on percentile ranks and it refers to the teachers
own interpretation. Moreover, Elbow (1997) stated that the types of grading are Norm-
Referenced Systems and Criterion-Referenced Systems. In norm-referenced systems, students are
evaluated in relationship to one another (e.g., the top 10% of students receive an A, the next 30%
a B). This grading system rests on the assumption that the level of student performance will not
vary much from class to class. However, in criterion-referenced systems, students are evaluated
against an absolute scale, normally a set number of points or a percentage of the total (e.g., 95-
100 = A, 88-94 = B). Criterion-referenced tests measure how well individual students do relative
to pre-determined performance levels. Teachers use criterion-referenced tests when they want to
determine how well each student has learned specific knowledge or skills.

By looking at the types of grading, report card online apply possible modification to give
the explanation of achievements as clear as possible to the students themselves and the parents.
Grades in report card online apply in letter (A, B, C, and D), score (100-0), and description (for
detailed see Appendix 1 and Appendix 2). Report card online in Surabaya is very beneficial for
the school, the teachers, the students, and the parents.
 SMPN 42 Surabaya (the school which one of the writer worked): The system further
help to make their daily routine easier. School has the record both in online and printed. to help
the students if they face the unexpected occasion.

Teachers. The system will help the teachers more efficient. Also this grading system
make students data easily accessible in an accurate manner. Using the system, the teachers now
can focused more in teaching and can also focused in managing programs in the school.

Students. The system will help students to see their grades easily and to be benefited of
having safe and secured records in the long run the system. This system give the ease to the
students to access anytime and anywhere they want because the system let the students to login
by giving the username and password decided by the school.

Parents. The system also let the parents to see the students achievements by giving them
the username and password decided by the school. It makes the parents take a part to control the
students learning process.

With the existence of many advantages, it cannot be denied the weaknesses of human
system. This system faces weaknesses that has big influence specifically for the teachers. The
weaknesses include the needs of internet speed and the application that needs upgrading to
improve the system.

Conclusion

Various grading and reporting methods are used to: (1) communicate the achievement
status of students to their parents and other interested parties; (2) provide information to students
for self-evaluation; (3) select, identify, or group students for certain educational paths or
programs; (4) provide incentives for students to learn; and (5) document students' performance to
evaluate the effectiveness of instructional programs.
REFERENCES

Anglin L and Anglin K. (2008) Improving the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Grading Through
the Use of Computer-Assisted Grading Rubrics, Decision Sciences Journal of Innovation
Education, 6 (1) pp. 51-73.

Brown, H. D. (2004). Language assessment: Principles and classroom practices. White Plains,
NY: Pearson Education.

Elbow, P. (1997). Grading student writing: Making it simpler, fairer, clearer. New directions for
teaching and learning, 1997(69), 127-140.
Appendix 1: Letter and Score
Appendix 2: Description