The web site has changed and the package disappeared a while back
(over a year ago). I initially came across it and had every
extensive communication with the person in charge of it, though not
with the developer. I was surprised how much this person was willing
to write me (very long e-mails to answer my questions). She
explained that she had developed the idea and a programmer had
implemented it. She was obviously very proud of it and I was happy
to see it. The program was sold through New World Software out of
Houston (where I'm now, though I have not visited them). I let
several months go by, and about a year ago I decided to purchase it,
but at that point she would no longer respond to any e-mails. I was
able to register it through the web site thanks to automatic
registration; otherwise, I don't think I would have been able.
But here's my impression with Clarity after a year of using it in a
university setting: don't buy it. It was in need of major revisions
and bug fixes, which will never be done. The only good thing that
you can really use it for is for grading (grade weights are nicely
handled) and for attendance (if that is important to you). But
grading can easily be set up through a spreadsheet, without the risk
of losing the information in an unstable Clarity. (The bug that
bothers me the most is one that keeps it from installing when
rebooting.) Student lists and notes are handled awkwardly without
recourse to the Names application. For the $40 registration fee, you
don't get any significantly useful feature, and those that might be
truly useful need developer help, which is not coming.
But that's only my opinion.
Max
>I was looking for Clarity a while ago, and checked out this website - not the
>right one - the guy there emailed me back - and they have nothing to do with
>Clarity. Maybe the original authors have disappeared. Anyone else got a line
>on this package - I'm interested as well.
>
>Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 23:00:49 +0200
> From: Robert Benschop <robertbenschop@bigfoot.com>
> To: <newtontalk@planetnewton.com>
> Subject: Re: NTLK gradebook
> Message-ID: <B5A912A0.4C9E%robertbenschop@bigfoot.com>
>
> on 29-07-2000 6:57, jimthej at jimthej@pacbell.net wrote:
>
> > About the only thing out there is Clarity, and I'm not certain how well
>or
> > much it is being supported, or even where to find it
>
> Clarity can be found at http://www.NewWorldSoft.com/
> Just found it for customer that was looking for it quite a while ago,
> never used it myself (probably 'cause I'm not a teacher ;-) but seem to
> remember that it was still being supported, think this was about 3/4 of a
> year ago.
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