Displaying information on the desktop

Hi all,

I have been approached by one of the ICT Teachers about putting specific information on a users desktop.

What he wants is the attainment grade for each indiviual pupil to show on the desktop when they log on. So for example if user 'abc' logs on, in the bottom corner it will say something like Name: ABC - ICT Attainment Grade - B.

The data will have to be pulled from an excel sheet which matches the username and then pulls the grade in for the pupil logging on.


I have used BGInfo before but i have not been asked to do anything like this before. Is it possible?? I would be greatful if someone could point me in the right direction.

Many thanks,

Rob

BGInfo can have a custom field set up that queries a VBScript for its value (see here for an example of this).

Then your challenge becomes extracting information from Excel using VBScript. This may help get you started, and I'm sure you can find many more examples online.

Thanks AngryTechnician for pointing me in the right direction. I'll be sure to report back...

Thanks again!! :D

I would sugest going for an Access DB rather than Excel and then create a nice front end for teachers to enter the data into (perhaps even browser based).

You could then also create a web page which serves the relavent marks based on username (using Integrated Authentication in IIS) and use that as the user's wallpaper.

If that request came down to our department, we would tell the teacher where to go!

It seems like a VERY long winded way of doing things when the teacher could just TELL the students their grades from time to time surely?

/mustn't forget I'm not Behind The Red Door :D

I wouldn't do it in case there may be privacy issues with students seeing other's grades.

Even if you did do it how would you go about having the grades only display when they are in that class and not others?

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Originally Posted by actech

Even if you did do it how would you go about having the grades only display when they are in that class and not others?

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You could also query a timetable database to find out which lesson they are in at the time.

Hi,

I have not had chance to look at this properly yet :(

However the privacy issue you raised actech makes for a good argument for me to get out of doing this (as it is wanted for tomorrow haha)

It does seem to be a long winded way of doing things but i like to look like i'm going to help before saying no lol

Thanks again for you help and suggestions :cool:

When I read this I immediately thought that there would be privacy issues.
Sounds like a bad idea to me.

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Originally Posted by googlemad

If that request came down to our department, we would tell the teacher where to go!

It seems like a VERY long winded way of doing things when the teacher could just TELL the students their grades from time to time surely?

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The privacy issues are important but I can think of other things that a teacher might want to communicate to students in their class - eg a reminder that course work is due in, perhaps info about the free space they have left in their home drive, print credit available and so on.

I'd take this as an opportunity to learn how to do something new and jump at it. I'd guess some people just aren't so keen to learn :-(

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Originally Posted by srochford

I'd take this as an opportunity to learn how to do something new and jump at it. I'd guess some people just aren't so keen to learn :-(

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Bit of a jump there, the issue wasn't about whether it was a good idea to work out how to accomplish it but whether display grades on a pupil's desktop is appropriate or not.

Can't see anyone saying learning new things is a bad idea.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by srochford

but I can think of other things that a teacher might want to communicate to students in their class - eg a reminder that course work is due in, perhaps info about the free space they have left in their home drive, print credit available and so on.

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Oh yes, and before you know it you then have all the teachers wanting to put their mis-information on.

This is not an appropriate use of ICT facilities and I would throw it right out the window if it came my way.

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Originally Posted by Oops_my_bad

Oh yes, and before you know it you then have all the teachers wanting to put their mis-information on.

This is not an appropriate use of ICT facilities and I would throw it right out the window if it came my way.

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Putting "mis-information" on the screen is obviously wrong; putting useful information on the screen seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do and I'm not quite sure why some people seem so hostile to the idea of providing a service to the school in which they work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by srochford

I'm not quite sure why some people seem so hostile to the idea of providing a service to the school in which they work.

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Ok I reread the thread and I still can't see where anybody is saying that they are hostile to providing a service to their school, just the grade idea that is being discussed. This is distracting from the actual thread topic.

Just to add to this thread regarding BGInfo.

We used to use BGInfo to display the machine name in the top right of the login screen back when our workstations where on XP.

This was really useful for quickly spotting a particular workstation without having to hit ALT-CTRL-DEL to check what the machine name is.