This is a frequently answered questions list for ECE Lab Report Submission via the Web.
Your lab may require submission of your lab report via the Web. First, prepare your lab report using Microsoft Word or some other text editing package. If you do not use Microsoft Word (.doc file), then you must be able to create an Adobe PDF output file or a Postscript output file from your text editor.
To SUBMIT your lab report, you must be connected to the Internet, and have your report file (.doc file, postscript or PDF) available on the PC that you are using (if you are not on your home machine, you can write your file to a floppy and use one of the ECE PCs).
To submit your lab, FOLLOW THIS LINK , and read the instructions posted there. You MUST know your ECE login name and password to access this page. Follow the instructions on this page to submit your lab report.
Every student registered for an ECE course gets an ECE mail address. FOLLOW THIS LINK (ECE Help Desk page) for information on how to determine what your ECE account name and password is (See the Link titled "ECE Student Accounts and Network Resources" ).
Ask your TA or course instructor.
Check the WWW Lab page for your course, it will tell you the format.
To make a copy of only the active window, press ALT+PRINT SCREEN. To copy the the entire screen, use PRINT SCREEN. The captured screens are placed on the clipboard, and you can paste the screenshot into Microsoft Word. The problem with this method is that the screenshot is saved as a bitmap image (.bmp) which is very large. This will cause your filesize to become large, perhaps multiple megabytes.
To reduce file size, copy the picture into an imaging program that allows you save the picture in either JPEG ('.jpg') or GIF ('.gif') format, then copy this picture into your Word document. You could also get a screen capture program that allows image conversion to a JPEG or GIF format after a screen has been captured. See the Downloads/Utilities section at www.zdnet.com for some shareware programs that do this. One good screen capture program is called HyperSnap available at http://www.hyperionics.com/index.html .
Typically, the TA will require you to hand in these sheets during the lab period when the report is due so that it can be verified via the TA signature that you did do the lab. The data will need to be entered into your report (typically, the .doc files for original lab assignment are available so you can cut/paste the tables from there into your report). There is no need to 'scan' the TA signature page (if one exists) and place this in your report.
First, this is NOT your lab section number. This is the lab report number (i.e, if this is the report for the first lab, then it would be '1'). The system automatically knows what lab section you are in, so you don't have to provide a lab section number.
Ask your TA what lab number they expect. Typically, it would be '4' since this would be the fourth lab that you have performed in the course.
The 'lab submission report' link from the submission page will tell you if your lab was successfully received or not. It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to ensure that your lab report was successfully transmitted to the sever. The server keeps a complete log of submitted labs with timestamps so the TA will know exactly when the lab was submitted. The submitted lab files are owned by the System Administrator, not by the TA, so it is not possible for a TA to accidently delete a submitted lab report. If you submitted your lab report to the server, we will have a record of it.
Sigh....Well, this is one way of shooting yourself in the foot that we can't prevent. You will need to contact your TA as soon as you suspect that something is wrong (i.e., receiving a '0' on Lab #N ). Starting in the Spring semester 2002, the submission system has been changed so that every file that is submitted has a timestamp appended to it to give the file a unique filename. The file name format is "userid-labnumber-year_month_day_hour-min_sec.extension" . An example name is 'lane-1-2001_01_09_14_24_25.doc' where the username is 'lane', lab number is '1', and the timestamp is (01/09/2001 at 14:25:45).
This means that you cannot overwrite a previously submitted file. HOWEVER, if you use the wrong lab number (i.e., '3' when it should have been '4'), then the file will probably not be seen by the TA when the TA is grading reports for that particular lab because the TA will looking for files with a particular lab number (i.e., the TA will be grading reports with that have a lab number of '4', and will not be looking at files with a lab number of '3' because those have already been graded).
You will probably not find out that you have submitted to the wrong lab number until you check your graded labs and find out that you are missing a graded report for lab #N (the TA will have probably have given you a grade of '0').
When you discover this situtation, go talk to the TA and explain. Your submitted lab file will still be out there (the TA cannot delete ANY submitted files), and the TA can check the timestamp to see that it was submitted on time. The TA should then grade the lab report and not take off any points if the report was submitted on time.
However, don't make a habit of this - it causes extra work for the TA and extra hassle for yourself. Be aware of the LAB NUMBER (not section number) when you submit a lab report.
Your graded lab report is directly available from the submission page . You use the same mechanism to check graded lab reports that you use for checking to see if a submitted lab report reached the server. Give the TA at least a week to post graded lab reports. After that, feel free to pester the TA about grading your lab report.
It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to check your graded lab reports and correct problems/misunderstandings with the TA and/or course instructor. It is NOT ACCEPTABLE to complain at the end of the semester about a graded lab report that has been returned for a month.
You need to check with your TA to see what the problem is. The TA has no way of knowing if you are accessing your graded labs or not.
Have no fear, we can discover the TRUTH! The TA cannot delete any submitted files, and every submitted file will have a timestamp. In addition to this, a seperate log file is kept that records file names and submission times. So, it is easy to compare the timestamp with the lab due date and discover who is at fault. Again, if you cannot find a resolution to your problem by talking to your TA, then the next step is to talk to the lab coordinator. You cannot use the excuse that your file did not reach the server because of a network problem because you can always check the submission page which shows a listing of all submitted files.
First, you do not have to create a PDF output file. Microsoft word format (.doc format) or postscript is acceptable.
One way is to purchase the full Adobe Acrobat package in order to be able create PDF output files (The student version price was recently reduced to approximately $40). If you use Linux, there is a postscript to PDF conversion utility that will work ok.
First, you do not have to create a Postscript output file. Microsoft word format (.doc format) or PDF is acceptable.
Under Windows NT/98/2000/Me etc., you can install a Printer driver that has postscript output capability (any Apple Laserwriter printer will do). Just add a new printer of this type, print your report to this printer, and choose the 'Print to File' option when printing your report.
We don't want to get into the game of accepting every possible document format that was ever invented. Both Postscript and PDF are standard document transfer formats that you need to become familiar with. The only reason that we accept Microsoft Word format is because it happens to currently be the most common non-standard document format used by students. We will not add other formats produced by word document tools like WordPerfect or Framemaker. If the future, we could stop accepting Microsoft word format (".doc") if PDF and/or PS file generation becomes easier.
Part of the reason of doing electronic lab submission is that we want to increase the general computer literacy of the ECE student population. Part of computer literacy is learning how to deal with standard document formats such as Postscript and PDF.
If the server consistently rejects your file and it is one of the acceptable formats, then we need to see it. Email it to your TA or to reese@ece.msstate.edu .
If it is a Microsoft Word file, try saving your file as one of the older formats such as Microsoft Word '97 file (Microsoft has a bad habit of changing formats between every release of Word).
The safest bet would be to use either Postscript or PDF. If you use Microsoft Word for some non-IBM compatible platform, try to save your document in an older Microsoft Word format, such as Microsoft Word '97.