Assignment ID (AID) Strings
for
FERPA and/or Anonymous Grading

Contents

I Introduction

This web page discusses two programs that allow you to assign a unique "Assignment ID" (AID) to each student in a class. Program alpaid creates 3 character alphanumeric AID strings, while program numaid creates 4 digit numerical AID strings (NAID strings). The main focus is on adding these AID strings to Canvas, or Blackboard, student records, but they can be added to any CSV file, or even to the start or end of the lines in a plain text file. Maximum class size is 232 for alpaid and 323 for numaid.

One motivation for these programs is the federal FERPA law. This law requires educational institutions to prevent disclosure of personally identifiable educational records. Even leaving homeworks with student names and grades on them in a publicly accessible place, like in a box outside your door, or forgetting the uncollected homeworks in your classroom, violates federal law. The solution discussed here is to ask students to put their private AID instead of their names on their homeworks. Then even if the assignments are found, the students with the grades are no longer personally identifiable and there is no violation of the law.

Another motivation is the grading itself. People often have biases even without realizing it. If you want to make sure you are really grading without bias, you can again have students put their AID, like a 4 digit one, instead of their names on their assignments. Assuming you do not remember masses of random four digit numbers, this will make grading anonymous. (Except for those who work real hard on being remembered. You may even want to periodically change the AID strings to combat this, if it is an issue for you.) Poorvu at Yale has a write up that I think is well balanced.

Alphanumeric AID strings are obviously more memorable, good for students actually remembering their AID, but probably less great for anonymous grading. Then again, AID strings might seem less like "I am just a number in this class" to students.

If you use Canvas LMS for grade entry, the alphanumeric AID strings suffer from the fact that stupid Canvas does not allow you to upload any nonnumeric strings from a CSV file. So, using alphanumeric AID strings, you may find that you want to do some manual typing-in of the alphanumeric strings when you are initially setting up the class. (This is not strictly needed, but certainly neater.) Do note that even using numeric AID numbers, you may want to copy the AID numbers manually into the Canvas "Notes" column for more streamlined grade entry later.

Based on available documentation, I think the Canvas LMS issues above are not a real issue for Blackboard LMS. But without having a working copy of Blackboard that I can experiment with, I cannot say for sure.

II Requirements for good (N)AID strings

You might think "What's the big deal? Just find a list of random numbers somewhere, or use a random number generator, and assign them to the students as Numerical Assignment ID (NAID) values. But there are some considerations;

• Obviously the numbers have to be unique. For, say, completely random chosen four digit NAID numbers (not starting with 0) and a class of 100 students, there is a 42% chance that two students end up with the same NAID. That would be 14% for three character, case-insensitive, alphanumeric AID strings starting with a letter. However, if either one happens, it will be readily recognized and fixed the first time the (N)AID values are sorted for grade entry. And for a class size of 30 students, the chance of duplicate NAID numbers is only 5%, or 1% for AID strings. Fortunately, both provided programs numaid and alpaid generate unique (N)AID strings, even while random, avoiding the problem completely.
• Obviously, you want AID values short enough that the students can remember them and enter them correctly. You do not want to deal with a continuous stream of assignments with misremembered and mistaken (N)AID values that you need to track down to the correct students. Especially when you give the credit repeatedly to the wrong student and much later you have to figure out what happened and how to fix it.
• If a student mistypes a single AID character or a single NAID digit, or the grader misreads one, you would not want the consequence from that single mistake to be that a wrong student gets the credit. Both AID strings and NAID numbers contain a check character that prevents this. Any single wrong character always produces an invalid (N)AID.
• It is not uncommon for a particular digit or character to be misunderstood, especially if handwritten. For example, a 4 may be read as a 9 or vice versa, a 1 or 2 as a 7, etcetera. If such a problematic character occurs twice, the check sum might not necessarily catch the error. So, to avoid such problems, NAID numbers which contain the same digit more than once are disabled, as are AID strings which contain the same character more than once.
  In addition, AID characters are subdivided into two sets, one set for the first and last character, and the other set for the middle character. The sets are chosen so that characters that are commonly confused are generally in different sets. The data on which characters are commonly confused was taken from the ISMP (Institute for Safe Medication Practices). Those doctor prescriptions contain some miserable handwriting, enough to kill people. AID strings also disallow the digits 0, 1, 2, 7, and 9 because of similarity with O, I/l, Z, Z/F/T, and 4/g/Q/q respectively. Digit 5, similar to S/Y, has been kept, as it is in a different set than S and Y.
• It is also not uncommon for characters to get transposed, like 87 instead of 78, in writing or especially typing by the student, or in reading by the grader. To avoid problems, AID strings where swapping characters produces a valid other AID are disabled. This and the previous item reduces the number of available AID strings from 256 (the check digit is computed, not arbitrary) to 232. Similarly NAID numbers in which swapping any two digits (including reversing three consecutive digits) produces a valid other NAID are disabled. This and the previous item reduces the number of available NAID numbers from 900 to about 300. (Maximum is 323, for identification digits 2, 4, 6, and 8.)
• What if the fingers of the student are shifted a unit with respect to the keyboard when typing in more than one of the digits of the NAID? Up to 3 consecutive digits can be shifted that way without creating a valid NAID; shifting all 4 by the same amount will produce a valid one.
• What if another class also uses AID or NAID strings, and a student uses the AID or NAID from that class in yours? Or, what if in the middle of the semester you need to create a new set of AID or NAID strings, and some students use the old one? To combat that, as noted in the introduction, the programs allow you to specify a "distinction digit" when creating the (N)AID strings. As long as the other class, or the new set of strings, uses a different distinction digit, its (N)AID strings are always going to be invalid in your current set. In addition the two programs allow you to specify a "Class ID" that is prefixed to the (N)AID, so that the (N)AID strings of different classes are also visibly distinct.
• What if more than one of the above mistakes occurs in a single AID or NAID? Or if a completely random AID or NAID is entered? One might reasonably argue that making two different errors in a three character or four digit string is essentially the same as writing a random string. And for a class size of 90 students, a completely random string of four digits not starting with 0 has only a 1 in 100 chance of being a valid NAID, and for a smaller class size correspondingly less. Similarly, for a class size of 90 students a completely random string of three case-insensitive alphanumeric characters starting with a letter has only a 1 in 400 chance of being a valid AID, and less for a smaller class size.
• How about Big Data cross-correlating different data on students, presumably both legally and not so legally obtained, to get detailed data on the students? If that sounds far-fetched, think of the amount of money an average student is expected to earn and manage in a lifetime. It just needs long-term vision. If, say, the last four digits of a student ID would be used as an AID, a single crack allowing the four digits to be identified with a specific student could open a wide range of information on that student. And in any case, anyone with access to the student ID data, which is a lot of people, could identify which grade corresponds to which student. However, the numaid and alpaid programs make the (N)AID strings untraceable; they seed the random number generator with precise time of the day and process ID of creation. That information cannot be reconstructed in any conceivable way unless you get hold of the actual log files of that particular (N)AID generation. Even if you did, that info would not help you in any other class or anywhere else.

III How to get and use the programs

III.a How to start

The following steps are always needed to use the programs:

1. Decide whether you prefer 3 character alphanumeric AID strings (program alpaid) or 4 digit NAID numbers (program numaid). See the first two sections for considerations.
2. If other classes that your students might be taking will also be using AID strings, respectively NAID numbers, select a "class distinction digit," like the last digit of your class number, or any other digit that you can reasonably assume is unique to your class. Or better, coordinate with the instructors of the other classes on different distinction numbers. Also, if in the middle of the semester you decide to create a new set of (N)AID strings from scratch, make sure to use a different distinction digit for this set. (Or see the relevant one of the final two sections on a better approach if you still have enough unused (N)AID strings left.)
3. On your work computer (you are not supposed to have student data on your personal computer), download the zip file for your operating system:
   • Microsoft Windows, or
   • Debian/Ubuntu AMD64, or
   • Debian/Ubuntu i386, or
   • the source code for compiling it yourself (needs a Fortran compiler like the free gfortran one).
   Unzip the file in a suitable location and rename the created folder "makeaid" into something along the lines of "CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER". (You may want to edit "email.txt" to set your university e-mail domain, but this is not really needed.)
   More details for MS Windows users: In Edge or Internet Explorer, click or right click the Microsoft Windows zip file above and select "Save" or "Save As", depending on where you want to save it. Save it. Then click the offered "Open Folder" button, if any. Otherwise browse down to the zip file using Windows Explorer/File manager.
   Now select the downloaded zip file. In Windows 10, this created an "Extract" button. Clicking this produced an "Extract All" button which will extract the folder. (You may want to get rid of the final \makeaid_MS in the offered folder name.) (In Windows XP I had to right-click the zip file to get an "Extract All..." option.) Rename the extracted folder along the lines CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER, by either right-clicking it or using the File menu. Then double-click it to see what is inside.
   If at all possible, stop MS Windows from stupidly hiding the final part of file names from you. To do so, in Windows 10 I had to click the "File" button, then "Change folder and search options", select the "View" tab, then deselect (i.e. blank) "Hide extensions for known file types". (In Windows XP, I had to get to the "View" tab from the "Tools" menu "Folder Options" item.) If you do it right, if you look inside the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, you should see a file listed as "email.txt". If it just says "email", extensions are still hidden.
   Windows 10 does not like programs that you get from the web and you need to do some unlocking. In particular, right-click the run_alpaid.bat file and select "Properties". Then in the "General" tab, select the "Unblock" item, so that Windows 10 stops refusing to run it. The same for file run_numaid.bat, then the same for files alpaid.exe and numaid.exe which are in the "bin" subfolder. This made the programs runable on my completely standard Windows 10 system. (None of this was needed on my Windows XP machine.) You might have a third party virus checker that throws up its own roadblocks; I cannot do anything about that, but there should be some way to tell it not to do so described in its docs.

The next steps depend on what exactly you want to add the (N)AID strings to. Read next whichever of the following subsections describes best what you want to do.

III.b How to add (N)AID strings to Canvas

After doing what is described in the "How to start" subsection, now do the following:

1. First get the CSV file to add the (N)AID strings to from Canvas: In Canvas, go into the class, then into "Grades". If the "Notes" column is not visible, make it so from the "View" drop-down box. Then from the "Actions" drop down box, select "Export" and save the generated file in your CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder as "???aid.csv", where "???" is "alp" for alphanumeric AID strings or "num" for numeric NAID strings. If you look at the file in File Manager/Windows Explorer, it should be in the same folder as file email.txt.
   Microsoft Windows users: If you managed to turn off hiding of extensions, the file should be listed as "???aid.csv". If you did not manage to turn it off, the file will almost certainly be listed as a bare "???aid". (In Windows 10, you can see the true name of a file by right-clicking the file, selecting "Properties", then the "Details" tab. You should see "???aid.csv" for the correct file. This does not work in Windows XP, but here there is a trick: in Properties, there should be an item: "Opens with:" and a corresponding "Change" button. If you press the button, Microsoft will actually tell you the true file name. After you know it, press the "Cancel" button, and again.)
   If the decimal mark in your country is comma instead of point (as is true in many countries in Africa, Continental Europe and South America): Your .csv file is quite likely not a CSV (comma separated values) file at all but really an SSV (semicolon separated values) one. If so, right-click ???aid.csv and rename it ???aid_ssv.csv (or save it with that name from the beginning). The _ssv part in the name notifies the programs that this is really an SSV file, not a CSV one. (If you are in doubt whether or not it is an SSV file, open ???aid.csv with Notepad in Windows or with gedit or nano in Linux and have a look whether commas or semicolons separate the fields in a row. Do not change the file in doing so. Alternatively, just try to process as is. If you try to process an SSV file as ???aid.csv, or an CSV file as ???aid_ssv.csv, the programs will fail, or at the very least mess up the columns, like put everything in a single column. If this happens, delete the ???aid.lcs file, rename the .csv file, and try again.)
2. Create a file "new_???aid....csv" that has the (N)AID strings added, as follows:
   • Microsoft Windows users: Double-click the run_alpaid.bat or run_numaid.bat file, for AID or NAID strings respectively.
   • Linux/Unix users: Try right-clicking the folder and selecting "Open terminal here". If that does not work, open a terminal some other way and cd to the folder. Then issue the command "bin/alpaid" or "bin/numaid" for AID or NAID strings respectively.
   Either way, you will be asked for your "class distinction digit", as described in "How to start". Enter 0 if you do not need one. Then you will be asked for an optional class ID, to be prepended to the (N)AID strings. For NAID numbers, the class distinction digit is a good choice. (Warning: do not try to append a decimal point behind the distinction digit. While the program allows it, and it looks better, the problem is that Canvas would round the NAID number behind the decimal point to two digits.) For AID strings, a lower case class ID like flm for Fluid Mechanics or m&m for Mechanics and Materials would be a good choice. If you do not want to prepend a class ID, just hit Enter.
3. The program should now create a new CSV file, "new_alpaid[_ssv].csv" or "new_numaid[_ssv].csv", that has a column "AIDsort" of AID "sort numbers", respectively a column "NAID" of NAID numbers added behind the "Notes" or "Section" column. The final (unchanged) columns have been deleted to speed up uploading the file to Canvas. You may want to look at file new_???aid[_ssv].csv with an editor or Excel or Open Office, but do not let those programs make changes to the file (do not save). Excel and Open Office will mess up long student ID numbers. While programs like Canvas and Blackboard expect that, why do it if there is no need? Only make changes with Excel or Open Office if there is a real need.
   You may also want to look at the created ???aid.log and ???aid.???.txt files that may be useful to you for various reasons.
   Linux/Unix Users: If you would rather have the various files in Microsoft format for some reason, run the command "bin/microsoft". (Requires tcsh installed.) If the computer you are using has a working Mail Transfer Agent, and you had the correct e-mail domain in file email.txt, you may also be able to e-mail the students their (N)AID using the command "bin/mailids 'MY_CLASS_NAME'" (without the double quotes). (This uses the data in file ???aid.nam.txt.)
4. If something goes wrong and you must run the program again: Rather than creating a new CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, you can more simply delete the files named ???aid.lcs and ???aid.cid. This will cause the programs to run again from scratch.
5. Upload the new_???aid[_ssv].csv file into Canvas. To do so, in Canvas, go back into the course and into "Grades". From the "Actions" drop down box, this time select "Import". Browse down to the newly created new_???aid.csv file, open it and upload it. You can curse when Canvas refuses to upload the "Notes" column, but that did not help me. For the AIDsort or NAID column prompt, from the drop down select "New Assignment" and enter 0 in the "Points Possible" box. Select "Save Changes". Canvas will now put in the new grades in its own slow way. You may need to leave and reenter "Grades" a few times before all the numbers are there. Canvas warns you not to do anything nontrivial before all numbers are there.
6. Click on AIDsort or NAID in the header of the added column, then select "Edit", then "Do not count toward final grade", and "Save". Or else you may see how buggy Canvas really is.
7. Note that you can sort by AIDsort or NAID number by clicking the dots in the AIDsort or NAID header cell and selecting "Sort by > Grade low to high". This simplifies grade entry by AID or NAID; you do not have to search through the entire list for each AID or NAID.
8. Required additional set up when using AID strings: The students must know how to find their actual AID string from their AIDsort number. In Canvas, exit "Grades" and enter "Announcements". Press the "+Announcement" button; enter a title like "Please find and use your AID string", and attach the file alpaid.srt.txt in the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder to the message. (If for some reason you prefer a web page version of alpaid.srt.txt, it is in alpaid.htm.) In the body of the message, tell the students to first find their AIDsort number in the grades area, then to find the AID corresponding to that sort number in the file attached to the announcement, and put that AID instead of their name on all their assignments and exams.
   (It is probably simpler for the students if you put file alpaid.srt.txt in the body of the message itself instead of just as an attachment. To do so, open alpaid.srt.txt in the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder with a text editor like Notepad in Windows, or gedit or nano in Linux, and copy all its contents, maybe using the Edit menu or Ctrl+a and Ctrl+c. Then in the Canvas announcement being created, first in the drop-down box that probably says "Paragraph", select "Preformatted" instead, to avoid the table being messed up. Then paste the copied text in the preformatted area using the browser's Edit menu or Ctrl+v.)
9. Recommended additional setup when using NAID numbers: I think it is neatest for grade entry purposes if in Canvas you copy the NAID numbers from the NAID column into the "Notes" column. The reason is that the Notes column, like the "Student" column, remains visible when your are scrolling sideways through a large number of assignment columns to the particular assignment column you are entering grades in.
   (Using the Notes column is not really needed, as you can grab the header cell of the NAID column with the mouse and drag it sideways to the grade column you are entering. But doing this for countless assignments in a semester might become much more annoying than just creating the Notes column once during class setup.)
   The quickest way to enter the NAID numbers in the Notes column is:
   • Make sure the Notes column is visible; use the View drop down box if it is not. Grap the top cell of the Notes column with the mouse and drag it to the left of the Student column. Put the NAID column at the other, right, side of the Student column, if it is not there yet. Using the menu inside the NAID column header cell, sort the NAID numbers from low to high.
   • Click in the Notes cell of the first student and type in the corresponding NAID number from the NAID column.
   • Trick: Use Ctrl+Enter to go most quickly to the next student. Using this trick, it took me 2.5 minutes to do 17 students.
   While unfortunately, Canvas does not allow you to upload the Notes column, if you re-Import new_numaid.csv, Canvas will show you where the Notes column is different from the one in new_numaid.csv. Use that to check for typos.
   Note that even with the NAID numbers in the Notes column, you cannot delete the NAID column. You need it during grade entry to sort the NAID numbers. Also, the students cannot see the Notes column.
10. Recommended additional setup when using AID strings: First follow the same additional setup as for NAID numbers above, except in the Notes column, type both the AID and the AID sort number, separated by a space, and the sort number padded with leading zeros to 3 digits. For the AID strings, you will want to have file alpaid.aid.txt from the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder open right next to your browser. Having the AID sort number in the Notes column is handy in case a student enters the AID sort number instead of the AID. Correct them; the sort number is not at all safe from typos and misreading.
    Also: To free the students from the need to look up their actual AID in the Notification described earlier, you can directly attach the AID as a comment in the AIDsort column. To do so, click in each student cell of the AIDsort column. Click the small arrow that appears, enter the AID in the "Leave a comment" box, and click "Submit". You will again want to have file alpaid.aid.txt from the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder open right next to your browser. This process is somewhat of a pain. It took me 2 minutes for 8 students. But even for a big class, it is much faster if you let your TA do it.
11. If more students add the course: You can repeat the process by downloading an updated ???aid....csv file from Canvas to the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, running the program again, etcetera. Alternatively, if it is just a few additional students, you can enter the (N)AID strings manually. The first few unused (N)AID strings can be found printed out near the end of file ???aid.log.
    Note: if you want to rerun the program after adding some (N)AID strings manually, you will first have to update the count of used (N)AID strings; this is the second number in file ???aid.lcs. (Extension lcs stands for Limit, Count in use, and Seed.)

III.c How to add (N)AID strings to Blackboard (UNVERIFIED)

Since my college is no longer using Blackboard, I cannot verify what is the best way to use the created N(AID) strings inside Blackboard. But at least NAID numbers should upload fine. See however the comments at the end of this section on potential issues for AID strings. Any further info from Blackboard users would be appreciated.

After doing what is described in the "How to start" subsection, now do the following:

1. First get the "XLS" file (really a tab-separated UTF-16LE text file with every field double-quoted rather than an XLS file) to add the (N)AID strings to from Blackboard (for more on these steps see the Blackboard Docs): In Blackboard, go into the class, then into "Grade Center" and select the "Full Grade Center". Click the "Work Offline" drop down button and select "Download". Then select "User Info Only", and a "Tab" delimiter. If "Hidden Info" appears (it should not), use the default. Then select (Save on) "My Computer" and click "Submit". Save the generated file in your CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder as "???aid.xls", where "???" is "alp" for alphanumeric AID strings or "num" for numeric NAID strings. If you look at the file in File Manager/Windows Explorer, it should be in the same folder as file email.txt.
   Microsoft Windows users: If you managed to turn off hiding of extensions, the file should be listed as "???aid.xls". If you did not manage to turn it off, the file will almost certainly be listed as a bare "???aid". (In Windows 10, you can see the true name of a file by right-clicking the file, selecting "Properties", then the "Details" tab. You should see "???aid.xls" for the correct file. This does not work in Windows XP, but here there is a trick: in Properties, there should be an item: "Opens with:" and a corresponding "Change" button. If you press the button, Microsoft will actually tell you the true file name. After you know it, press the "Cancel" button, and again.)
   
2. Create a file "new_???aid.xls" that has the (N)AID strings added, as follows:
   • Microsoft Windows users: Double-click the run_alpaid.bat or run_numaid.bat file, for AID or NAID strings respectively.
   • Linux/Unix users: Try right-clicking the folder and selecting "Open terminal here". If that does not work, open a terminal some other way and cd to the folder. Then issue the command "bin/alpaid" or "bin/numaid" for AID or NAID strings respectively.
   Either way, you will be asked for your "class distinction digit", as described in "How to start". Enter 0 if you do not need one. Then you will be asked for an optional class ID, to be prepended to the (N)AID strings. For NAID numbers, the class distinction digit is a good choice. For AID strings, a lower case class ID like flm for Fluid Mechanics or m&m for Mechanics and Materials would be a good choice. If you do not want to prepend a class ID, just hit Enter.
3. The program will now create a new XLS file, "new_alpaid.xls" or "new_numaid.csv", that has a column "AID" of AID strings, respectively a column "NAID" of NAID numbers added at the end (or behind the sixth column if you downloaded the full grade center instead of user info only). You may want to look at file new_???aid.xls with an UTF-16LE capable editor or Excel or Open Office, but do not let those programs make changes to the file (do not save). Excel and Open Office will mess up long student ID numbers. While programs like Canvas and Blackboard expect that, why do it if there is no need? Only make changes with Excel or Open Office if there is a real need.
   You may also want to look at the created ???aid.log and ???aid.???.txt files that may be useful to you for various reasons.
   Linux/Unix Users: If you would rather have the various files in Microsoft format for some reason, run the command "bin/microsoft". (Requires tcsh installed.) If the computer you are using has a working Mail Transfer Agent, and you had the correct e-mail domain in file email.txt, you can also e-mail the students their (N)AID using the command "bin/mailids 'MY_CLASS_NAME'" (without the double quotes).
4. If something goes wrong and you must run the program again: Rather than creating a new CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, you can more simply delete the files named ???aid.lcs and ???aid.cid. This will cause the programs to run again from scratch.
5. (UNVERIFIED) Upload the "new_???aid.xls" file into Blackboard. To do so, in Blackboard, go back into the course and into Grades. From the "Work Offline" drop down box, this time select "Upload". Browse down to the newly created new_???aid.csv file in CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER, open it and upload it. For "Delimiter" select "Tab". Click "Submit". Confirm the upload.
6. If more students add the course: You can repeat the process by downloading an updated ???aid.xls file from Blackboard to the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, this time with the (N)AID column, running the program again, etcetera. Alternatively, if it is just a few additional students, you can enter the (N)AID strings manually. The first few unused (N)AID strings can be found printed out near the end of file ???aid.log.
   Note: if you want to rerun the program after adding some (N)AID strings manually, you will first have to update the count of used (N)AID strings; this is the second number in file ???aid.lcs. (Extension lcs stands for Limit, Count in use, and Seed.)

Unfortunately, as noted, I do not have access to a working blackboard system as an instructor, so I cannot verify that the above works as it should. Some considerations:

• I would assume NAID numbers will be OK. A column of NAID numbers is not fundamentally different from a column of grades, so it should upload fine. And I assume you can drag the NAID column next to the column in which you are entering grades just like in Canvas. And the docs say that you can sort the rows by the NAID numbers just like in Canvas. (Of course you can always use a print out of file numaid.aid.txt to enter the grades. But then there is a concern that this print out may fall in the wrong hands.)
• AID strings is a different matter. The Blackboard docs say that a new column is uploaded as text, which suggests alphanumeric strings should be OK. And as far as I can tell, they should be. But maybe Blackboard will still want this text to look like decimal numbers. No way to tell without a working copy of Blackboard or the docs telling me. The same with the question whether you could sort these alphanumeric strings. (Of course you can always use a print out of file alpaid.aid.txt to enter the grades. But then there is a concern that this print out may fall in the wrong hands.)
  If, like Canvas, Blackboard too only accepts what looks like numbers in the upload, a similar scheme as for Canvas will be needed. In particular, AID sort numbers instead of AID strings will need to be uploaded.
  To upload AID sort numbers instead of AID strings, Microsoft Windows users would need to open file "run_alpaid.bat" with Notepad, locate the string of seven "-" parameters, and change the fourth of these into "1AIDsort*", saving, and then running the file (after deleting any left-over alpaid.lcs). Linux/Unix users would need to use the command

     bin/alpaid - - - "1AIDsort*"
  

  Either way, this will put the AID sort numbers in a column called AIDsort. Then upload the created file new_alpaid.xls to Blackboard as usual. But now download the user data plus the single column AIDsort along with its comments once again to the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder as alpaid.xls. See the Blackboard docs for more on how to download a selected column, AIDsort, with its comments. Run alpaid again; it should now put the AID strings in the "Feedback to User" column. This should make both AID sort number and AID string available to both students and graders. Hopefully, this will solve all problems.
  Note: if you find that using sort numbers is really needed, please e-mail me to that effect, and I will make sort numbers the default alpaid behavior for Blackboard. In that case I would also like to know whether there is a need to put anything in the "Feedback Format" column. I would assume no, based on this link.
• If there are double-quote characters in the data (fortunately, this seems to be unusual for these kinds of files), the question arises how Blackboard represents and wants these in the XLS file. In the docs, section "Batch file standards", Blackboard claims that for files with TXT or CSV filetypes, "These batch file standards are universal:", followed by the statement that double-quotes are escaped by backslash. However, CSV files produced by Microsoft Excel double double-quotes; they do not escape them with a backslash. How can you claim something is universal if Microsoft does not do so?? Note also that Blackboard does not quote a single reference to support their claim that backslash escape is universal. While the definition of CSV widely varies, the only solid version there is, RFC 1480 for MIME type text/csv, doubles double-quotes, rather than quote them with a backslash. The Library of Congess docs further note that backslash is used in "Some Unix-based applications". How the heck can "Some Unix-based applications" be called "universal"?? Because it starts with "uni"?
  Anyway, since the XLS file type is not included in the "Batch file standards" section, the alpaid and numaid programs currently assume that double-quotes in Blackboard XLS files are doubled as Excel does, rather than preceded by backslash. If that turns out to be false, a fix can be applied be terminating the QUOT parameter in a B as described in a later subsection. (But I guess Blackboard would have a lot of pissed Excel users if it was false.)
• At various places, for example in the section "Batch File Standards", Blackboard claims "Microsoft Excel versions 2003 and later automatically insert double quotes in every field if the worksheet is saved as a CSV file." They must live on a different planet than me. The Excel 2019 MSO version at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering does not. The post 2003 Excel version of my brother in the Netherlands does not. My own Windows 10 Excel does not. In fact, all the USA ones still do exactly the same as my Windows XP Excel 2000 version: If there is a comma, Newline, or double-quote in the field, the field is double-quoted, with internal double-quotes doubled (not preceded by backslash), otherwise the field is not quoted. (Weirdly enough, this scheme is followed even if the delimiter is Tab instead of comma, when there is no longer an actual need to quote fields with just commas in it.) The Dutch version is different only in that it uses semicolons instead of commas as delimiters, and no longer quotes fields with just commas in it.

III.d How to add (N)AID strings to a generic CSV file

After doing what is described in the "How to start" subsection, now do the following:

1. From your learning management software (LMS), get an appropriate csv file to add the (N)AID strings to. Save the generated file in your CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder as "???aid.csv", where "???" is "alp" for alphanumeric AID strings or "num" for numeric NAID strings. If you look at the file in File Manager/Windows Explorer, it should be in the same folder as file email.txt.
   Microsoft Windows users: If you managed to turn off hiding of extensions, the file should be listed as "???aid.csv". If you did not manage to turn it off, the file will almost certainly be listed as a bare "???aid". (In Windows 10, you can see the true name of a file by right-clicking the file, selecting "Properties", then the "Details" tab. You should see "???aid.csv" for the correct file. This does not work in Windows XP, but here there is a trick: in Properties, there should be an item: "Opens with:" and a corresponding "Change" button. If you press the button, Microsoft will actually tell you the true file name. After you know it, press the "Cancel" button, and again.)
   If the decimal mark in your country is comma instead of point (as is true in many countries in Africa, Continental Europe and South America): Your .csv file is quite likely not a CSV (comma separated values) file at all but really an SSV (semicolon separated values) one. If so, right-click ???aid.csv and rename it ???aid_ssv.csv (or save it with that name from the beginning). The _ssv part in the name notifies the programs that this is really an SSV file, not a CSV one. (If you are in doubt whether or not it is an SSV file, open ???aid.csv with Notepad in Windows or with gedit or nano in Linux and have a look whether commas or semicolons separate the fields in a row. Do not change the file in doing so. Alternatively, just try to process as is. If you try to process an SSV file as ???aid.csv, or an CSV file as ???aid_ssv.csv, the programs will fail, or at the very least mess up the columns, like put everything in a single column. If this happens, delete the ???aid.lcs file, rename the .csv file, and try again.)
   Blackboard users: When I tried to download a grades file from Blackboard, selecting a Tab delimiter/separator, I got a .xls file instead of a .csv file. However, looking inside it, it was not an XLS file at all! It was a UTF-16LE encoded TSV (Tab Separated Values) file, completely different! Just leave the incorrect .xls extension as is, do not change to _tsv.csv. The programs will assume based on the .xls extension that it is Tab-separated. (The programs are not capable of processing a true .xls file, so there is no conflict.)
2. Load the file in Excel or Open Office and have a good look at it (but do not modify it, do not Save it).
   • See how many "header lines" there are; lines that are not student records. Typically there is at least one header line with the names of the columns in it. But, for example, Canvas has a second line that is not a student record too. Blackboard has only one header line.
   • Decide what the column number of the new column of (N)AID strings should be. Column number 1 means that the new column will be the first column, column number 2 the second column, etcetera. Column number 0 will add the (N)AID column as the final column. For example, a file downloaded from Blackboard might have a single header line starting with the 6 columns "Last Name", "First Name" "Username", "Student ID", "Last Access", and "Availability", followed by grade columns. In that case making the (N)AID column column 7 would be appropriate.
3. Create a file new_???aid.... that has the (N)AID strings added:
   • Microsoft Windows users: Right-click file run_???aid and open it with NotePad. A bit down in the file you will see a line

        bin\???aid.exe "-" "-" "-" "-" "-" "-" "-"
     

     The quoted hyphens are the default parameters. You need to change the third one into the number of the aid column, and the fourth one into the number of header lines, followed by the name of the column. For example, to make the (N)AID column column 7, and there is 1 header line and the name of the (N)AID column should be (N)AID, change the line to

        bin\???aid.exe "-" "-" "7" "1(N)AID*" "-" "-" "-"
     

     (The star is to accommodate programs like Blackboard and Canvas that put numbers behind the column headers.) Save the file and exit Notepad, then double-click run_???aid.bat to run the program.
   • Linux/Unix users: Try right-clicking the folder and selecting "Open terminal here". If that does not work, open a terminal some other way and cd to the folder. Then, assuming you want to add a column of NAID numbers as column 7, and that there is 1 header line, and that you want to call the column NAID, issue the command

        bin\numaid.exe - - 7 "1NAID*"
     

     (The star is to accommodate programs like Blackboard and Canvas that put numbers behind the column headers.)
   Either way, you will be asked for your "class distinction digit", as described in "How to start". Enter 0 if you do not need one. Then you will be asked for an optional class ID, to be prepended to the (N)AID strings. For NAID numbers, the class distinction digit is a good choice. For AID strings, a lower case class ID like flm for Fluid Mechanics or m&m for Mechanics and Materials would be a good choice. If you do not want to prepend a class ID, just hit Enter.
4. The program should now create a new CSV/XLS file, "new_alpaid..." or "new_numaid...", that has the column of (N)AID strings added.
   You may also want to look at the created ???aid.log and ???aid.???.txt files that may be useful to you for various reasons.
   Linux/Unix Users: If you would rather have the various files in Microsoft format for some reason, run the command "bin/microsoft". (Requires tcsh installed.)
5. If something goes wrong and you must run the program again: Rather than creating a new CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, you can more simply delete the files named ???aid.lcs and ???aid.cid. This will cause the programs to run again from scratch.
6. If adding alphanumeric AID strings fails: A LMS system like Canvas does not allow you to upload non-numeric data, which includes alphanumeric AID strings. In that case, you can upload AID "sort numbers", used to sort AID strings numerically, by changing the name of the AID column from AID to AIDsort (case-sensitive). But now you must of course provide the students with a separate way to find their actual AID from their AID sort number. The CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder will have an aid.srt.txt text file that you can put in an announcement or e-mail, an alpaid.htm web page that you can post, or there may be an other way to do it. See the Canvas subsection for ideas.
7. If more students add the course: You can repeat the process by downloading an updated ???aid.csv file from your LMS to the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, running the program again, etcetera. Alternatively, if it is just a few additional students, you can enter the (N)AID strings manually. The first few unused (N)AID strings can be found printed out near the end of file ???aid.log.
   Note: if you want to rerun the program after adding some (N)AID strings manually, you will first have to update the count of used (N)AID strings; this is the second-last number in file ???aid.lcs. (Extension lcs stands for Limit (i.e. the number of available (N)AID strings), (already used) Count , and Seed.)

III.e How to add (N)AID strings to a generic text file

After doing what is described in the "How to start" subsection, now do the following:

1. Select whatever file you want to add (N)AID strings to. This should be a plain text file containing one line for each student. UTF-16 encoding or a UTF-8 BOM is OK. Copy the file into the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder as "???aid.txt", where "???" is "alp" for alphanumeric AID strings or "num" for numeric NAID strings. If you look at the file in File Manager/Windows Explorer, it should be in the same folder as file email.txt.
   Microsoft Windows users: If you managed to turn off hiding of extensions, the file should be listed as "???aid.txt". If you did not manage to turn it off, the file will be listed as a bare "???aid". (In Windows 10, you can see the true name of a file by right-clicking the file, selecting "Properties", then the "Details" tab. You should see "???aid.txt" for the correct file. This does not work in Windows XP, but here there is a trick: in Properties, there should be an item: "Opens with:" and a corresponding "Change" button. If you press the button, Microsoft will actually tell you the true file name. After you know it, press the "Cancel" button, and again.)
2. Create a file new_???aid.txt that has the (N)AID strings added:
   • Microsoft Windows users: Double-click the run_alpaid.bat or run_numaid.bat file, for AID or NAID strings respectively.
   • Linux/Unix users: Try right-clicking the folder and selecting "Open terminal here". If that does not work, open a terminal some other way and cd to the folder. Then issue the command "bin/alpaid" or "bin/numaid" for AID or NAID strings respectively.
   Either way, you will be asked for your "class distinction digit", as described in "How to start". Enter 0 if you do not need one. Then you will be asked for an optional class ID, to be prepended to the (N)AID strings. For NAID numbers, the class distinction digit, maybe followed by a decimal mark, is a good choice. For AID strings, a lower case class ID like flm for Fluid Mechanics or m&m for Mechanics and Materials would be a good choice. If you do not want to prepend a class ID, just hit Enter.
3. The program should now create a new text file, "new_alpaid.txt" or "new_numaid.txt", that has a (N)AID string followed by ": " added at the start of each line.
   You may also want to look at the created ???aid.log and ???aid.???.txt files that may be useful to you for various reasons.
   Linux/Unix Users: If you would rather have the various files in Microsoft format for some reason, run the command "bin/microsoft". (Requires tcsh installed.)
4. If something goes wrong and you must run the program again: Rather than creating a new CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, you can more simply delete the files named ???aid.lcs and ???aid.cid. This will cause the programs to run again from scratch.
5. If you would rather have the (N)AID strings at the end of the line and/or with a different separator: Microsoft Windows users would need to open file "run_alpaid.bat" with Notepad, locate the string of seven "-" parameters, and change the third of them into "E" if they want the AID put at the end of the lines, and/or change the fifth of them into "SEP" where SEP is the desired separator. Then run the run_???aid.bat file (after deleting any left-over alpaid.lcs). Linux/Unix users would need, for example, use the command

      bin/alpaid - - E - "..."
   

   to put AID strings at the end of the lines preceded by three dots.
6. If more students add the course: If you add additional lines without (N)AID strings to file ???aid....csv and run the program again, (N)AID strings will be added to the lines that do not yet have them. Alternatively, if it is just a few additional students, you can enter the (N)AID strings manually. The first few unused (N)AID strings can be found printed out near the end of file ???aid.log.
   Note: if you want to rerun the program after adding some (N)AID strings manually, you will first have to update the count of used (N)AID strings; this is the second number in file ???aid.lcs. (Extension lcs stands for Limit, Count in use, and Seed.)

III.f How to add AID strings to a file in a custom way (advanced)

For general usage of program alpaid, first read the subsection on how to add AID strings to a generic CSV file or how to add AID strings to a generic text file depending on what you want to do. Then choose from the below subtopics:

Subtopics
III.f.1 Change the way that alpaid operates using command parameters
III.f.2 Put the AID data in an existing column
III.f.3 Create a fresh set of AID strings for your class
III.f.4 Create subsets of AID strings
III.f.5 Add both AID strings and AID sort numbers to a file

III.f.1 Change the way that alpaid operates using command parameters

Unless you are using Canvas, or maybe Blackboard, you will normally need to give program alpaid some additional information so that it knows what you want to do. This information is given in the form of "command parameters".

To set command parameters, Microsoft users need to open file run_alpaid.bat in the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder using Notepad. In that file there is a line

   bin\alpaid.exe  "-"  "-"  "-"  "-"  "-"  "-"  "-"

For Linux/Unix users things are pretty much the same as for Microsoft users; for default parameters, in a terminal, they would type

   bin/alpaid  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'

Whether Microsoft of Linux, the names of the seven parameters are as shown in the below symbolic command:

   bin{\|/}alpaid[.exe] "INFILE" "OUTFILE" "POS" "HEADER" "SEP" "QUOT" "SEED"

To set the parameters you need, read their descriptions below:

1. INFILE:
   
   INFILE is the input file to which to add the AID data.
   
   The default for INFILE, used if it is specified as a hyphen or if no parameters are given, is to try to find a suitably-named file in the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder. In particular, alpaid looks for files named 'alpaid.csv', 'alpaid.xls', or 'alpaid.txt'. It also looks for files named 'alpaid_?sv.csv' or 'alpaid_?sv.xls' where ? is one of _, C, D, P, S, T, or V. (This character indicates the field separation character used in the file; see parameter SEP below.) If it finds such a file, alpaid takes it as the input file. If it does not find one, or more than one, it terminates execution with an error message and a description of the parameters.
   
   File format: Alpaid can handle plain text files. Alpaid can also handle "Spreadsheet" files, in which the data items (fields) are organized in a table of rows and columns, if they are in some version of ".csv" ("comma separated values") format. In particular, in each line (row) the fields of successive columns should be separated by an ASCII separator like comma, Tab, semicolon, etcetera. Fields that contain an internal separator character, internal quote character, or internal newline should be quoted with an ASCII quote character, which is usually the double-quote character (").
   
   Internationalization: UTF-8 encoding of the file is no problem for alpaid, with or without BOM. Nor are most single-byte encodings a problem. UTF-16 encoding (Microsoft "Unicode") is also supported. The encoding of the generated output file will be the same as that of the input file. Program alpaid always tries to maintain the format of the input file as much as possible.
   
   
2. OUTFILE:
   
   OUTFILE is the name of the file to create with the added AID data. OUTFILE may not be the same file as INFILE; alpaid will already be writing to OUTFILE while it is still reading INFILE. (Even if it did not, if something would go wrong half-way in creating OUTFILE, you would have lost INFILE without getting a correct OUTFILE in its place.)
   
   The default for OUTFILE, used if it is specified as a hyphen or if less than two parameters are given, is to prefix "new_" before INFILE. However, if INFILE contains a colon, slash, or backslash, which may be "path" characters, alpaid will terminate with an error message rather than prefix new_.
   
   
3. POS:
   
   Parameter POS is the position at which to put the column of AID data, or the position at which it can be found if already present.
   
   The possible values of POS depend on whether the input file is a CSV "Spreadsheet" file (including .csv files as produced by Canvas and Excel and ".xls" files as produced by Blackboard) or just a plain text file without tabular structure:
   • If the input file is a CSV file, POS can be the column number in which to put the AID data or else B or C. Column number 1 is the first column, 2 the second, etcetera. If you specify the column number as 0, alpaid assumes that you want it to be the last column. If you follow POS by a K, alpaid will kill all columns beyond the AID one (assuming POS is not 0 or 1). This is intended to speed up the process of uploading OUTFILE again to your LMS; your LMS does not have to worry what to do about those columns. If you specify POS as B, alpaid assumes that this is a Blackboard, tab-separated, .xls file and will figure out an appropriate position itself. If you specify POS as C, alpaid assumes that this is a Canvas .csv file and will figure out an appropriate position itself.
   • If the input file is just a plain text file, POS can be S or E (case insensitive). If POS is S, the AID data are put at the start of the lines; if POS is E, the data are put at the end of the lines.
   
   The default for POS, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than three parameters are given, depends on the file extension (last four characters) of INFILE. If the extension is .csv or .xls (case-insensitive), alpaid assumes the file is some form of CSV file; it then sets POS equal to B (Blackboard) for a .xls file and equal to CK (Canvas with kill) for a .csv file. If neither extension applies, alpaid assumes the input file is a plain text file and sets POS to S.
   
   (Conversely, if POS is explicitly specified, alpaid assumes that the file is a plain text file if POS is S or E, or some form of CSV file otherwise, regardless of file extension.)
   
   
4. HEADER:
   
   Parameter HEADER should start with a single digit giving the number of header lines. Header lines are lines at the start of the file that are not student records. For example, most CSV files start with a header line that lists the names of the columns. The single digit in HEADER should be followed by what to put in the AID column in the header lines. For example, the default header for Canvas mode is "2AIDsort*,0.00", which tells alpaid that there are two header lines in the input file, and that it should put AIDsort in the AID column in the first header line, and 0.00 in the second header line. Note the use of the comma to separate AIDsort and 0.00. The star is a special character that deals with the problem that Canvas (as well as Blackboard) will add an "identification number" behind the column name. Essentially, the star tells alpaid "just ignore whatever else Canvas may have put behind the name when you get the file back again". Note also that "2AIDsort*,0.00" must be quoted, because both the star and the comma are not alphanumeric and will in fact cause problems in both Microsoft and Linux/Unix if left unquoted.
   
   The default for HEADER, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than four parameters are given, is 0 (no header lines) in plain text mode. For a CSV file the default is "1AID*", meaning a single header line with the AID column called "AID", except that Canvas mode has default "2AIDsort*,0.00" as already mentioned.
   
   Note: If your LMS cannot directly handle the alphanumeric AID strings themselves, make the name of the AID column AIDsort (case sensitive). Then alpaid will put AID sort numbers, instead of the actual AID strings, in the column. Alpaid will create a web page, "alpaid.htm", as well as a plain text file, alpaid.srt.txt that the students can use to relate their sort number to their actual AID string.
   
   
5. SEP:
   
   For a plain text file (POS equal to S or E) SEP is just the characters to put in between each AID string and the rest of the line. If you do not want anything in between, specify SEP as N (for nil).
   
   For a CSV type file, SEP should be the ASCII character that is used in the input file INFILE to separate the different fields (columns) in a line. Since CSV means "comma separated values", you would assume this should always be comma. No such luck! There is no general standard of what CSV really is, and separator characters are all over the place: semicolon (continental Europe), Tab (Blackboard), etcetera.
   
   If you are not sure what separator your CSV input file INFILE uses, open file INFILE with a text editor and have a look. Microsoft users may want to use Notepad, and Linux/Unix users an editor like gedit. The Unix nano editor may also work, but not if the input file is encoded in UTF-16 (Microsoft "Unicode") like Blackboard XLS files.
   
   For plain text files the default for SEP, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than five parameters are given, is ": " (colon followed by a space). For CSV files the normal default is, you guessed it, comma. However if the input file name ends in .xls, case insensitive, that is changed to the ASCII Tab character. However, in either case, if the file name ends in '_?sv.EXT' where EXT is any three-byte file extension, SEP is taken based on the ASCII character ?. In particular, if ? is C, SEP is set to a comma, if ? is D (double point), SEP is set to a colon, if ? is P or V, SEP is set to a pipe or vertical bar (i.e. |), if ? is S, SEP is set to a semicolon, if ? is T, SEP is set to the ASCII Tab character, and if ? is _ (underscore), SEP is set to a space.
   
   Make sure to quote SEP. Or if you want, you can use the following aliases: C for comma, D (double point) for colon, P or V for vertical bar, S for semicolon, T for Tab, _ for Space, and a single H for a single hyphen. For plain text files you can also use a single N for nil.
   
   Note: if you get the separator character wrong for a CSV file, alpaid will almost surely either crash with an error message like that there is bad quoting (terminated too early) in INFILE, or a variable number of columns, or else put everything in a single column. But bad quoting and a variable number of columns may also be caused by a wrong QUOT character below. And a bug in Blackboard will actually produce a variable number of columns with the right SEP (Tab), but alpaid knows about that and will ignore it.
   
   
6. QUOT:
   
   QUOT is the ASCII character used to quote fields in the CSV input file. So if the input file is a plain text file, QUOT is undefined and should either be omitted along with the remaining argument or be specified as a hyphen.
   
   For CSV files, usually QUOT is the ASCII double-quote character (i.e. "). If in doubt, look at the CSV file with a text editor as described under SEP. At the time of writing, program alpaid does not support CSV files that sometimes use double-quotes and sometimes single quotes (if there actually are such files). Also, by default program alpaid assumes that if a field contains internal quote characters, then that field is quoted and the internal quotes are doubled. That is the way Excel does it, and a LMS would piss off a lot of users if it misread external files produced by Excel. By default, alpaid does not quote the fields it adds, as there is no need. However, if your LMS requires that every field is quoted, you can follow QUOT by an F to force quoting of the fields. If your LMS uses backslash to escape internal quotes, instead of doubles them, terminate the QUOT parameter with a B. (So, as far as I understand the Blackboard docs, if you download a CSV file instead of the recommended XLS to CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER, the complete QUOT parameter should be DFB, with D for double-quote, F for forcing quoting of every field, and B since internal quotes must be preceded by backslash.)
   
   The default for QUOT, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than six parameters are given, is of course none for plain text files. For CSV files the default is the ASCII double-quote character. However, in Blackboard mode an F is appended to the double-quote to force quoting. (While the Blackboard docs say you do not need to quote the fields in the .xls file, if you download the .xls file, every field is in fact quoted, and alpaid tries to be consistent with that.)
   
   Make sure to quote QUOT. Or much safer, you can use the following aliases: D for double-quote, S for single-quote, H for hyphen, and N for the ASCII NUL character. I cannot imagine that you would ever need the last two abbreviations, but better safe than sorry.
   
   Note: Like for SEP, the best way to get QUOT right is to look at the input file with a text editor.
   
   
7. SEED:
   
   SEED is the seed used to initialize the random number generator needed to sort the AID strings randomly. The special value 1 is replaced by an unpredictable SEED based on the system time and process ID; any other value for SEED than 1 is taken as is.
   
   Do note that if file alpaid.lcs exists, the last seed value in it (the final number in the file) takes priority over whatever is specified as the command parameter SEED.
   
   The default for SEED, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than seven parameters are given, is 1, for a generated unpredictable SEED. Normally the seed value from alpaid.lcs will not be 1.

III.f.2 Put the AID data in an existing column

Normally, the first time program alpaid runs, it will create the column it puts the AID data in. But suppose you want to have them put in an existing column for some unknown reason (like you need to give special properties to the column in your LMS when it is created). To tell alpaid that the column already exists, before running alpaid the first time, use a text editor like Notepad for Microsoft or nano or gedit for Linux/Unix. Create a file whose first and only line reads ": 0, 0, 1", without the quotes. Save the file in the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder as "alpaid.lcs". In doing that, Notepad users should make sure that "All Files", not "Text Files" is selected before pressing the Save button, or Notepad will save the file as "alpaid.lcs.txt". O, what a tangled web we weave when first we conspire to deceive our customers. Also, Microsoft users must make sure to save the file as ANSI (do not save as Unicode).

If program alpaid is now run, it will look for an existing column of the specified name (see parameter HEADER in the first subsubsection on how to specify it), rather than create a new column. The data fields in the column should be empty.

III.f.3 Create a fresh set of AID strings for your class

Suppose you want to create an entirely new set of AID strings for your class for some reason. The normal way would be to delete every single AID string from your class data, download the updated data to the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, and run alpaid again.

This will work as long as there are still enough AID strings available. If you go into file alpaid.lcs with a text editor like Notepad, nano, or gedit, of the three numbers at the end of the last line, the third-last number is how many total AID strings there are and the second-last how many of these have been used already. Do not forget to update this second-last number if you have been adding AID strings manually instead of rerunning program alpaid. The difference between the third-last and second-last numbers is how many AID strings are left. To assign completely new AID strings, this difference should be at least as big as the class size. (If not, you will need to start from scratch using a different class distinction number in a different CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder.)

But suppose you find it more convenient to delete the entire AID column, rather than all the separate entries in it. In that case, you will need to make a change in the last line of alpaid.lcs (in addition to any updating as above): delete all the junk in the last line in front of the final three numbers and replace it with "New: " (without the quotes). This will tell program alpaid that it needs to make a new column, rather than look for an existing one.

III.f.4 Create subsets of AID strings

If you are running low on "class distinction numbers", but your classes are not that big, you may want to share a set of AID strings with a single distinction number between two or more different classes.

There are 232 AID strings in a set, so assume that you want to make AID strings 1 to 100 available to class 1, 101 to 200 to class 2, and 201 to 232 to the small graduate class 3.

Run alpaid for class 1 normally. Go in the created file alpaid.lcs with a text editor like Notepad in MS Windows or nano or gedit in Linux/Unix, and change the first of the final three numbers (the Limit) from 232 to 100. This will forbid alpaid from creating more than 100 AID strings for class 1. The second number, the Count of AID strings already in use, should of course be less than 100 or the limit is exceeded already.

Next copy alpaid.lcs into the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder of class 2. Go into the copied file with the text editor, and change the first number, the limit, into 200, and change the second number, the used count, into 100. The latter will cause alpaid to start with AID string 101 in giving AID strings to class 2. Leave the final number, the Seed, as it is. This must be the same in all three classes. In addition, you need to replace all the junk in front of the three numbers by the string "New: ", without the double quotes and case-sensitive. Now run alpaid normally.

For class 3, do the same as for class 2, but make the limit 232 and the used count 200. The generic initial pattern of the three alpaid.lcs files is

   class 1 alpaid.lcs (after  running alpaid):     ...: LIMIT1, INUSE1, SEED
   class 2 alpaid.lcs (before running alpaid):     New: LIMIT2, LIMIT1, SEED
   class 3 alpaid.lcs (before running alpaid):     New: 232,    LIMIT2, SEED

III.f.5 Add both AID strings and AID sort numbers to a file

You might need to add both AID strings and AID sort numbers to your class data. In "Canvas mode", program alpaid does already do this by itself; in particular it will put the AID sort numbers in a column "AIDsort", and, if the input file has an existing Notes column, put both the AID string and the sort number in that Notes column. This subsubsection assumes that you are not using Canvas mode, but do want to add both AID strings and sort numbers to the input file.

To do so, you will need to run program alpaid twice. The first time, run it normally, and make sure that the name of the new column to add is AIDsort, case sensitive. This will create a new column of AID sort numbers. In the second run, change the command parameters appropriately, like the column number to put the AID strings in and the name of the column to put them in, using the procedure described in the first subsubsection. Then:

• If a column of that name already exists: Make sure the column is blank below the header. Go in the file alpaid.lcs created by the first run with a text editor like Notepad in MS Windows or nano or gedit in Linux/Unix, and change the second of the final three numbers (the Count in use) from whatever it is into 0. Do not change the last number, the seed. This will cause the same AID strings to be generated as in the first run. But now the AID strings will be put in instead of the sort numbers.
• If a column of that name must be created: do the same as above, but in addition change all the junk in front of the final three numbers into the string "New: ", without the double quotes and case-sensitive. This will tell program alpaid that despite the presence of file alpaid.lcs, the column must be created.

III.g How to add NAID numbers to a file in a custom way (advanced)

For general usage of program numaid, first read the subsection on how to add NAID numbers to a generic CSV file or how to add NAID numbers to a generic text file depending on what you want to do. Then choose from the below subtopics:

Subtopics
III.g.1 Change the way that numaid operates using command parameters
III.g.2 Put the NAID numbers in an existing column
III.g.3 Create a fresh set of NAID numbers for your class
III.g.4 Create subsets of NAID numbers

III.g.1 Change the way that numaid operates using command parameters

Unless you are using Canvas, or maybe Blackboard, you will normally need to give program numaid some additional information so that it knows what you want to do. This information is given in the form of "command parameters".

To set command parameters, Microsoft users need to open file run_numaid.bat in the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder using Notepad. In that file there is a line

   bin\numaid.exe  "-"  "-"  "-"  "-"  "-"  "-"  "-"

For Linux/Unix users things are pretty much the same as for Microsoft users; for default parameters, in a terminal, they would type

   bin/numaid  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'

Whether Microsoft of Linux, the names of the seven parameters are as shown in the below symbolic command:

   bin{\|/}numaid[.exe] "INFILE" "OUTFILE" "POS" "HEADER" "SEP" "QUOT" "SEED"

To set the parameters you need, read their descriptions below:

1. INFILE:
   
   INFILE is the input file to which to add the NAID numbers.
   
   The default for INFILE, used if it is specified as a hyphen or if no parameters are given, is to try to find a suitably-named file in the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder. In particular, numaid looks for files named 'numaid.csv', 'numaid.xls', or 'numaid.txt'. It also looks for files named 'numaid_?sv.csv' or 'numaid_?sv.xls' where ? is one of _, C, D, P, S, T, or V. (This character indicates the field separation character used in the file; see parameter SEP below.) If it finds such a file, numaid takes it as the input file. If it does not find one, or more than one, it terminates execution with an error message and a description of the parameters.
   
   File format: Numaid can handle plain text files. Numaid can also handle "Spreadsheet" files, in which the data items (fields) are organized in a table of rows and columns, if they are in some version of ".csv" ("comma separated values") format. In particular, in each line (row) the fields of successive columns should be separated by an ASCII separator like comma, Tab, semicolon, etcetera. Fields that contain an internal separator character, internal quote character, or internal newline should be quoted with an ASCII quote character, which is usually the double-quote character (").
   
   Internationalization: UTF-8 encoding of the file is no problem for numaid, with or without BOM. Nor are most single-byte encodings a problem. UTF-16 encoding (Microsoft "Unicode") is also supported. The encoding of the generated output file will be the same as that of the input file. Program numaid always tries to maintain the format of the input file as much as possible.
   
   
2. OUTFILE:
   
   OUTFILE is the name of the file to create with the added NAID numbers. OUTFILE may not be the same file as INFILE; numaid will already be writing to OUTFILE while it is still reading INFILE. (Even if it did not, if something would go wrong half-way in creating OUTFILE, you would have lost INFILE without getting a correct OUTFILE in its place.)
   
   The default for OUTFILE, used if it is specified as a hyphen or if less than two parameters are given, is to prefix "new_" before INFILE. However, if INFILE contains a colon, slash, or backslash, which may be "path" characters, numaid will terminate with an error message rather than prefix new_.
   
   
3. POS:
   
   Parameter POS is the position at which to put the column of NAID numbers, or the position at which it can be found if already present.
   
   The possible values of POS depend on whether the input file is a CSV "Spreadsheet" file (including .csv files as produced by Canvas and Excel and ".xls" files as produced by Blackboard) or just a plain text file without tabular structure:
   • If the input file is a CSV file, POS can be the column number in which to put the NAID numbers or else B or C. Column number 1 is the first column, 2 the second, etcetera. If you specify the column number as 0, numaid assumes that you want it to be the last column. If you follow POS by a K, numaid will kill all columns beyond the NAID one (assuming POS is not 0 or 1). This is intended to speed up the process of uploading OUTFILE again to your LMS; your LMS does not have to worry what to do about those columns. If you specify POS as B, numaid assumes that this is a Blackboard, tab-separated, .xls file and will figure out an appropriate position itself. If you specify POS as C, numaid assumes that this is a Canvas .csv file and will figure out an appropriate position itself.
   • If the input file is just a plain text file, POS can be S or E (case insensitive). If POS is S, the NAID numbers are put at the start of the lines; if POS is E, the numbers are put at the end of the lines.
   
   The default for POS, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than three parameters are given, depends on the file extension (last four characters) of INFILE. If the extension is .csv or .xls (case-insensitive), numaid assumes the file is some form of CSV file; it then sets POS equal to B (Blackboard) for a .xls file and equal to CK (Canvas with kill) for a .csv file. If neither extension applies, numaid assumes the input file is a plain text file and sets POS to S.
   
   (Conversely, if POS is explicitly specified, numaid assumes that the file is a plain text file if POS is S or E, or some form of CSV file otherwise, regardless of file extension.)
   
   
4. HEADER:
   
   Parameter HEADER should start with a single digit giving the number of header lines. Header lines are lines at the start of the file that are not student records. For example, most CSV files start with a header line that lists the names of the columns. The single digit in HEADER should be followed by what to put in the NAID column in the header lines. For example, the default header for Canvas mode is "2NAID*,0.00", which tells numaid that there are two header lines in the input file, and that it should put NAID in the NAID column in the first header line, and 0.00 in the second header line. Note the use of the comma to separate NAID and 0.00. The star is a special character that deals with the problem that Canvas (as well as Blackboard) will add an "identification number" behind the column name. Essentially, the star tells numaid "just ignore whatever else Canvas may have put behind the name when you get the file back again". Note also that "2NAID*,0.00" must be quoted, because both the star and the comma are not alphanumeric and will in fact cause problems in both Microsoft and Linux/Unix if left unquoted.
   
   The default for HEADER, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than four parameters are given, is 0 (no header lines) in plain text mode. For a CSV file the default is "1NAID*", meaning a single header line with the NAID column called "NAID", except that Canvas mode has default "2NAID*,0.00" as already mentioned.
   
   
5. SEP:
   
   For a plain text file (POS equal to S or E) SEP is just the characters to put in between each NAID number and the rest of the line. If you do not want anything in between, specify SEP as N (for nil).
   
   For a CSV type file, SEP should be the ASCII character that is used in the input file INFILE to separate the different fields (columns) in a line. Since CSV means "comma separated values", you would assume this should always be comma. No such luck! There is no general standard of what CSV really is, and separator characters are all over the place: semicolon (continental Europe), Tab (Blackboard), etcetera.
   
   If you are not sure what separator your CSV input file INFILE uses, open file INFILE with a text editor and have a look. Microsoft users may want to use Notepad, and Linux/Unix users an editor like gedit. The Unix nano editor may also work, but not if the input file is encoded in UTF-16 (Microsoft "Unicode") like Blackboard XLS files.
   
   For plain text files the default for SEP, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than five parameters are given, is ": " (colon followed by a space). For CSV files the normal default is, you guessed it, comma. However if the input file name ends in .xls, case insensitive, that is changed to the ASCII Tab character. However, in either case, if the file name ends in '_?sv.EXT' where EXT is any three-byte file extension, SEP is taken based on the ASCII character ?. In particular, if ? is C, SEP is set to a comma, if ? is D (double point), SEP is set to a colon, if ? is P or V, SEP is set to a pipe or vertical bar (i.e. |), if ? is S, SEP is set to a semicolon, if ? is T, SEP is set to the ASCII Tab character, and if ? is _ (underscore), SEP is set to a space.
   
   Make sure to quote SEP. Or if you want, you can use the following aliases: C for comma, D (double point) for colon, P or V for vertical bar, S for semicolon, T for Tab, _ for Space, and a single H for a single hyphen. For plain text files you can also use a single N for nil.
   
   Note: if you get the separator character wrong for a CSV file, numaid will almost surely either crash with an error message like that there is bad quoting (terminated too early) in INFILE, or a variable number of columns, or else put everything in a single column. But bad quoting and a variable number of columns may also be caused by a wrong QUOT character below. And a bug in Blackboard will actually produce a variable number of columns with the right SEP (Tab), but numaid knows about that and will ignore it.
   
   
6. QUOT:
   
   QUOT is the ASCII character used to quote fields in the CSV input file. So if the input file is a plain text file, QUOT is undefined and should either be omitted along with the remaining argument or be specified as a hyphen.
   
   For CSV files, usually QUOT is the ASCII double-quote character (i.e. "). If in doubt, look at the CSV file with a text editor as described under SEP. At the time of writing, program numaid does not support CSV files that sometimes use double-quotes and sometimes single quotes (if there actually are such files). Also, by default program numaid assumes that if a field contains internal quote characters, then that field is quoted and the internal quotes are doubled. That is the way Excel does it, and a LMS would piss off a lot of users if it misread external files produced by Excel. By default, numaid does not quote the fields it adds, as there is no need. However, if your LMS requires that every field is quoted, you can follow QUOT by an F to force quoting of the fields. If your LMS uses backslash to escape internal quotes, instead of doubles them, terminate the QUOT parameter with a B. (So, as far as I understand the Blackboard docs, if you download a CSV file instead of the recommended XLS to CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER, the complete QUOT parameter should be DFB, with D for double-quote, F for forcing quoting of every field, and B since internal quotes must be preceded by backslash.)
   
   The default for QUOT, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than six parameters are given, is of course none for plain text files. For CSV files the default is the ASCII double-quote character. However, in Blackboard mode an F is appended to the double-quote to force quoting. (While the Blackboard docs say you do not need to quote the fields in the .xls file, if you download the .xls file, every field is in fact quoted, and numaid tries to be consistent with that.)
   
   Make sure to quote QUOT. Or much safer, you can use the following aliases: D for double-quote, S for single-quote, H for hyphen, and N for the ASCII NUL character. I cannot imagine that you would ever need the last two abbreviations, but better safe than sorry.
   
   Note: Like for SEP, the best way to get QUOT right is to look at the input file with a text editor.
   
   
7. SEED:
   
   SEED is the seed used to initialize the random number generator needed to sort the NAID numbers randomly. The special value 1 is replaced by an unpredictable SEED based on the system time and process ID; any other value for SEED than 1 is taken as is.
   
   Do note that if file numaid.lcs exists, the last seed value in it (the final number in the file) takes priority over whatever is specified as the command parameter SEED.
   
   The default for SEED, used if it is specified as a hyphen or less than seven parameters are given, is 1, for a generated unpredictable SEED. Normally the seed value from numaid.lcs will not be 1.

III.g.2 Put the NAID data in an existing column

Normally, the first time program numaid runs, it will create the column it puts the NAID data in. But suppose you want to have them put in an existing column for some unknown reason (like you need to give special properties to the column in your LMS when it is created). To tell numaid that the column already exists, before running numaid the first time, use a text editor like Notepad for Microsoft or nano or gedit for Linux/Unix. Create a file whose first and only line reads ": 0, 0, 1", without the quotes. Save the file in the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder as "numaid.lcs". In doing that, Notepad users should make sure that "All Files", not "Text Files" is selected before pressing the Save button, or Notepad will save the file as "numaid.lcs.txt". O, what a tangled web we weave when first we conspire to deceive our customers. Also, Microsoft users must make sure to save the file as ANSI (do not save as Unicode).

If program numaid is now run, it will look for an existing column of the specified name (see parameter HEADER in the first subsubsection on how to specify it), rather than create a new column. The data fields in the column should be empty.

III.g.3 Create a fresh set of NAID numbers for your class

Suppose you want to create an entirely new set of NAID numbers for your class for some reason. The normal way would be to delete every single NAID number from your class data, download the updated data to the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder, and run numaid again.

This will work as long as there are still enough NAID numbers available. If you go into file numaid.lcs with a text editor like Notepad, nano, or gedit, of the three numbers at the end of the last line, the third-last number is how many total NAID numbers there are and the second-last how many of these have been used already. Do not forget to update this second-last number if you have been adding NAID numbers manually instead of rerunning program numaid. The difference between the third-last and second-last numbers is how many NAID numbers are left. To assign completely new NAID numbers, this difference should be at least as big as the class size. (If not, you will need to start from scratch using a different class distinction digit in a different CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder.)

But suppose you find it more convenient to delete the entire NAID column, rather than all the separate entries in it. In that case, you will need to make a change in the last line of numaid.lcs (in addition to any needed updating as above): delete all the junk in the last line in front of the final three numbers and replace it with "New: " (without the quotes). This will tell program numaid that it needs to make a new column, rather than look for an existing one.

III.g.4 Create subsets of NAID numbers

If you are running low on "class distinction numbers", but your classes are not that big, you may want to share a set of NAID numbers with a single distinction number between two or more different classes.

There are about 300 NAID numbers in a set. More precisely, there are 323 numbers for class distinction digit 2, 4, 6, and 8; 313 for distinction digit 1, 3, 7, and 9; 316 for distinction digit 0, and 296 for distinction digit 5. We will call this number of available NAID numbers LIMIT0. Assume that you want to make NAID numbers 1 to 100 available to class 1, 101 to 200 to class 2, and 201 to LIMIT0 to class 3.

Run numaid for class 1 normally. Go in the created file numaid.lcs with a text editor like Notepad in MS Windows or nano or gedit in Linux/Unix, and change the first of the final three numbers (which should be LIMIT0) from LIMIT0 to 100. This will forbid numaid from creating more than 100 NAID numbers for class 1. The second number, the Count of NAID numbers already in use, should of course be less than 100 or the limit is exceeded already.

Next copy numaid.lcs into the CLASSNUMBER_SEMESTER folder of class 2. Go into the copied file with the text editor, and change the first number, the limit, into 200, and change the second number, the used count, into 100. The latter will cause numaid to start with NAID number 101 in giving NAID numbers to class 2. Leave the final number, the Seed, as it is. This must be the same in all three classes. In addition, you need to replace all the junk in front of the three numbers by the string "New: ", without the double quotes and case-sensitive. Now run numaid normally.

For class 3, do the same as for class 2, but make the limit LIMIT0 and the used count 200. The generic initial pattern of the three numaid.lcs files is

   class 1 numaid.lcs (after  running numaid):     ...: LIMIT1, INUSE1, SEED
   class 2 numaid.lcs (before running numaid):     New: LIMIT2, LIMIT1, SEED
   class 3 numaid.lcs (before running numaid):     New: LIMIT0, LIMIT2, SEED