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Occasionally there is a need for multiple markers to concurrently mark a module or assignment (e.g. the tutorial module). This note covers the scenario where several markers have used the same marking scheme for different students and there is a need to collect all the marks into one spreadsheet containing all the students. Currently the MFA does not yet have code to recombine the results of several .mfax files. Combining the individual marker spreadsheet generated by MFA into one module set of results is not difficult, but there are a couple of important considerations to make it work properly. I have put detailed instructions below; it is not actually complicated but I have tried to include all the details.

Create mark scheme files for each marker

Creating the list of students for each marker can be achieved by editing the Astra list or student list spreadsheet and importing into several copies of the marking scheme (copy the .mfax file containing the marking scheme). It is probably reasonable that each marker can send the feedback for the students, or the module coordinator does this having collected the .mfax files.

Combining MFA Spreadsheets

Select one of the workbooks as the 'master', into which all the other results -'secondary' workbooks will be inserted.
  • Open the 'master' workbook in Excel.
  • Open the workbook results to insert - this will be called the 'secondary' in the following description.
  • On the results sheet of the 'secondary' workbook select all of the student rows required (select complete rows by clicking on the row numbers on the extreme left, hold the shift key to select the whole set) copy those rows(ctrl/cmd-c).
  • Select the last row in the 'master' workbook results sheet (any row except the first will do. Don't worry about the order of the students. Do not try and add them after the last student on the master; they must be inserted within the group).
  • From the Excel menu bar use insert->copied cells (do NOT do paste or ctrl/cmd-v else you will overwrite the selected student, and the labeled regions will not be expanded -see below).
  • You may given one or more messages (up to 9) about 'names already being used on the sheet' ALWAYS ANSWER YES to this. Sadly there doesnt seem to be a 'yes to all option' available.
  • Do exactly the same for the 'Picking sheet', 'Marks sheet', 'Summary sheet' and (optionally feedback sheet), transferring the student rows from the 'secondary' into the master sheet. At this point the Master Summary sheet should contain valid marks for all students.
  • Sort any/all the sheets by name or marks etc. as required. The order does not have to be the same on different sheets and long as all students exist on each sheet.

You can repeat the above proceedure for each additional marker, to create a 'master' workbook with all the results. It is important that there must not be multiple rows with the same students ID on any sheet. The results are calculated from the 'picking' sheet as they propagate through the sheets. Everything is referenced by student ID so the order of the rows on each sheet is irrelevant. If 'n/a' appears in the final result it is likely that the student ID is missing on the picking, results or summary sheet. The mark allocation for each grade will be taken from the master workbook so markers must not change the mark allocation for any specific grade. If markers have added grades, this will result in n/a since the lookup will fail. It is probably worth having someone check the final summary sheet against the individual sheets to make sure there have been no insertion errors.

Technical details (for anyone interested)

On each sheet other than the picking sheet, it is only the student id that is required in the first column, you could just copy any row to fill in the remainder of the cells. Or conversely you could make a suitable number of copies of any row on the 'marks', 'summary', 'results' sheets) and paste in the student ID column for the required students and the correct results will appear.

If there are lots of n/a's in place of the marks the probably reason is that the named regions have not been expanded (that is why it is necessary to insert the new students between the existing ones. If you go to the box that prvides the index of the currently selected cell on the tool bar (extreme left above the column A label) and click on the slector arrows you will find names like '__results'; selecting these will highlight a region - if that region does not contain all of the students the vlookups will not work properly on other sheets, since those students outside the labeled region will be excluded. It is possibly to agjust the region in excell, but not by dragging it, you must go to the insert->name->define menu to adjuct the labeled region.