My Experience as a programmer with CCE: PARIKSHAPHAL



I am Implementing CCE: PARIKSHAPHAL, Report card software for CBSE Schools based on CCE guidelines of CBSE. In October 2009, our company SARMANG SOFTWARE implemented CCE: PARIKSHAPHAL, after the introduction of CBSE Grading CCE. Since then we have planted the software at various schools of Uttarkhand and around. I am sharing my personal experiences of implementation of the software.

Principals and teachers of CBSE schools were on the look-out of a software solution that would reduce the increased workload due to the new CCE pattern. The process included: conversion of marks to respective weightage to assessment exams (10 for each Formative Assessment, 20 for Summative Assessment 1 and 40 for Summative Assessment 2); conversion of each exams marks to respective GRADES; preparation of report card format, calculation of percentile ranks of students for each subject; calculation of GRADES for co-scholastic areas on the basis of number of indicators selected for each section; storage of all student related data like marks, student profile, student's health details, student attendance etc.

We developed the package for one of our existing clients. We were implementing report card software since last 4 years for this client. It took us nearly one month to design the software and execute the same.

COMMON FORMULA FOR GRADES:

First challenge we fought was creating a general formula for conversion of marks to grades on a given scale. This formula should fit for academic performance as well as co-scholastic areas, each section, having different grading scale. After a regress analysis we were successful in generating a common formula for conversion of marks to grade on any scale (10, 5 or 3).

PRINTING OF REPORT CARD:

The formidable task of printing all the indicators on the same page confronted us majorly. The print spanned 4 pages. The number of indicators for each section varied from 5-15., Finally we fixed the page numbers for each section and set each block size to maximum possible indicators. One drawback of this approach is increased number of pages for each student report card.

PRINTING CLASS REPORT CARD IN A SINGLE CLICK:

At a later stage, one of our client asked for printing of reports of a class in a single click. Earlier we were able to print individual report cards. This came as a challenge as bulk printing was a time consuming process. Successive printing had its own short comings as the pages were outbound the printing was not uniform. Using the right printing technique, and by setting page height for each page of the report card, the problem was solved.

OPTION FOR LATE ADMISSION AND ABSENT:

The option of late admission and absenteeism existed in the software, The system caused a fall in final grades. We were calculating the grades on the basis of total marks obtained out of maximum marks for all exams. Maximum marks also included the scores for exams for the period for which the student was either absent or had late admission. We were actually including the maximum marks for which student was not accessed, which I think was against the CCE concept. So, we changed our formula of total maximum marks, including only those maximum marks of examinations, for which the student had appeared.

CO-SCHOLASTIC AREA INDICATORS & GRADES FOR TERM I & TERM II :

We successfully sorted and worked on the presentation of Indicators for each section.

ADDITION OF GRADE POINTS & CGPA:

This was another big issue and it was easily included.

DIFFERENT EXAM WEIGHTAGE FOR JUNIOR & SENIOR CLASSES:

In June CBSE introduced different exam weightage for SA1 & SA2 for junior classes, which again demanded and update in the basic algorithm. Earlier we were having same exam weightage for all classes, but now we had to change this strategy to exam weightage on class basis.

INTRODUCTION OF UPGRADED GRADES:

Introduction of this section made us to change our design as the final grades of student had to be upgraded to accommodate one or two subjects having the least grade. The up-gradation was done on the basis of total marks obtained in extra-curricular activities i.e. co-scholastic areas & activities. The confusion of choosing the subject erupted due to same grades in each subject. This was resolved later by CBSE grade up-gradation policy.

I ENJOYED WORKING WITH CCE: PARIKSHAPHAL. THIS IS AN EVER GOING PROCESS. THE GOOD POINT IS THAT, THE APPLICATION IS GETTING MORE POWERFUL DAY BY DAY.

I will be back with the experiences with my clients.

Have a nice time


Anil Mohan
Project Manager , CCE Parikshaphal
Proprietor, Sarmang Software

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