LON-CAPA Help

LON-CAPA ensures every row in a spreadsheet is uniquely and persistently assigned a row number. Once a row number is used, it cannot be reused. The following sections describe the consequences of this and answer "why are the rows of the spreadsheet out of order?."

Assessment Spreadsheet

Every parameter associated with an assessment has a unique row in the assessment level spreadsheet. As new parameters are encountered they are assigned the next available row number. Adding a parameter to an assessment thus results in the new parameter appearing at the bottom of the spreadsheet. Since the default spreadsheet definition must cover all of the assessments in the course, there are likely to be a large number of parameters available.

Student Spreadsheet

The student level spreadsheet displays information about each assessment in the course. The row numbers are initially assigned based on the order in which assessments appear in the course. If a new assessment is added at a later time, it will be assigned the next higher row number. Regardless of the row number, the assessment will appear in the proper place in the course structure.

Course Spreadsheet

The rows of the course spreadsheet are assigned to students when they are encountered processing the class list. Each student is assigned a row number the first time they are present in the course. The rows are listed alphabetized by the students full name and the row numbers are assigned in this order. If a student is later added, they will appear in the proper place alphabetically in the spreadsheet but their row number will not be in sequence.