For instructors: assignments and grading without a cloud

Instructor tools come with an Education licence that includes the instructor feature. They work on your computer only. Files travel by email, a shared folder or a memory stick.

Your instructor key

The first time you use the tools, your computer makes a key pair for you. The private part stays in your encrypted company file. It is what locks the answer key of each assignment, so students cannot read it.

• Instructor key shows the fingerprint of your public key.
• Back up key shows a recovery code. Keep it private and somewhere safe. Anyone with the code can read your answer keys. You need it to grade on another computer or after a reinstall.
• Restore key puts the code back on a new computer. If this computer already has a different key, you must say replace, and the answer keys of assignments made with the other key become unreadable here.

Make an assignment

1. Open Learn and choose Assignments.
2. Pick one of the ready lessons, or give your own scenario, tasks and answer key. Add a title, a due date and your name.
3. Choose Export assignment. You get a file that ends in .psbassign.

The file holds the starting company and the tasks. The answer key is sealed inside it, and only your key opens it. The file is signed, so a student cannot change the tasks.

Collect submissions

Students send files that end in .psbsubmission. Each one holds the student's trial balances, return lines, the number of history records and the last record's fingerprint. The student's computer signs it.

Grade

1. Choose Grade submissions, pick the assignment and add every submission file.
2. Each file is checked. A file that was edited after it was signed is refused and the reason is shown. A file made from a different assignment is refused.
3. Every good file is compared with your key. The result says which tasks match and, for the others, which account is off and by how much.
4. Choose Download gradebook for a CSV file. Names and notes that could run as a formula in a spreadsheet are made plain text.

If a student sends several submissions from the same computer, the latest one is graded.

What the checks can and cannot tell you

• An edited file cannot be signed again without the student's key. A student who rebuilds a file with a new key has not been hidden: the gradebook says the device key changed from the student's earlier submission. Ask the student about it.
• The history count and fingerprint show how much work was recorded. They do not prove that a student did the work alone. A class that needs more can ask for an in-person check.
• The check compares figures. It does not read the student's reasoning.

Practice marking in the classroom

Every company a student opens under the Education licence is a practice file. Their printed returns and reports say that they are not for filing.