Development in 2006 for next version of the Gradebook is focused on adding four major areas of functionality: 1) upload and import of data; 2) selective control over the release of posted scores and grades by date, by time, by individual assignment, etc.; 3) organization of gradebook items into categories, while allowing for the assignment of different weights to those categories when calculating course grades; and 4) configurable control over the data that gets exported from the Gradebook. Preparing the groundwork for this phase of development and for functionality we hope to add afterwards has also meant looking for comprehensive solutions to shortcomings in the services that Gradebook uses. We are addressing rudimentary course management issues such as knowing a student's grade option (P/NP vs. letter grade) in a course; we are also addressing the need for insitutionally configurable student IDs before going any further.
Drawing on input from users (e.g., local and community contributed use cases, requirements, and models), the implementation of these features in Gradebook 3.0 is being guided by analysis from our user-centered design process, the affordances promoted by the Sakai style guidelines, and the constraints presented by the existing Sakai tool technology.
Note: Given the fast-approaching freeze date of 5-1-06, it is likely that the Gradebook upgrades that will be included in the Sakai 2.2 release will mostly address the course management and display id issues, select feature requests, and some on-going bug fixes. A development timeline will be posted here soon for the major work mentioned above.