Collegiate Times Grades Database

Abstract

The Collegiate Times grades database project is the public dissemination of the Virginia Tech grades database amassed by the Collegiate Times, the student newspaper of Virginia Tech, on their new website. The Collegiate Times has collected Virginia Tech grades data over the past decade using Freedom of Information Act requests and then provided this data to users for free on their website. However, the Collegiate Times has recently changed websites and there is no longer a way for the public to see or manipulate this data. Working with Alex Koma, managing editor of the Collegiate Times, this project provides a simple and maintenance-free solution for the Collegiate Times to put this data back in the public sphere by creating a web page that facilitates public access to the data. The system is made up of a series of four dynamic dropdown menus that are filled using information from the database itself. The first dropdown menu is populated when the page loads and the remaining dropdowns populate once a selection is made, giving users some direction. Users search the database by specifying a subject and course number for a class at Virginia Tech. If they prefer a narrower set of results, they can also specify a year and semester for their chosen course. The program then provides the average grade point average and the percentage of students that received each letter grade for every year and semester section of the course requested. The data is both sortable and paginated. The project was programmed using HTML, PHP, SQL and Javascript. The project is available at http://database.collegemedia.com/databases/grades/grades.html. Students can use this project to look up the average grades in courses they are thinking about taking during course registration and add/drop. Other potential users could use the data to research grading trends by year or to investigate the grade distribution in Virginia Tech courses. There are numerous other uses for the data and providing this data in a public setting has increased the information and knowledge available on course grades at Virginia Tech.