• I teach classes with multiple assignments, teaching assistants, and score-keeping spreadsheets.
• Conventional use of spreadsheet programs like Excel can be risky when combining multiple spreadsheets together at the end of the term, since different TA's might have different styles of sorting their records, and students lists can fluctuate over time.
• I figure it is more reassuring to load scores into a database structure with the student ID (unique for each student) acting as a primary key.