cs2500-scripts

A package for scripting various tasks related to managing students, grading, and the handin server.

Install instructions

To use this.

$ git clone github://github.com/bluephoenix47/cs2500-scripts
$ cd cs2500-scripts
do stuff

Usage

This package provides numerous interfaces to the handin server, assuming a particular setup. Many things are customizable in config.rktd

###Managing/batch updating student accounts

cs2500-scripts/students.rkt provides an interface to the handin users (which I think of as students). This can be useful for automatically managing student accounts.

This interface assuming each user in the handin server has certain fields in a particular order.

For instance, validate.rkt uses this to ensure students who create accounts are actually in the roster by automatically removing accounts not in roster.rktd or whitelist.rktd, and alerting students who create their account incorrectly.

Another example, update-students.rkt, uses this interface to update each students assigned grader.

###Automating due dates for problem sets

cs2500-scripts/problem-set.rkt provides an interface to updating the active and inactive directories of the handin server.

For instance, refresh.rkt demonstrates the problem set interface by updating the active and inactive directories of the handin server. Note that it will replace the active and inactive lists. Cron can be used to run scripts like refresh.rkt automatically. An example crontab file exists in this package.

In practice, I assign due dates by creating a separate script for each assignment, and entering each script with its due date in a crontab.

###Automatically sending assignments to graders

cs2500-scripts/grading.rkt provides a bunch of loosely related functions for dealing with grades and grading. To send assignments to graders, use send-assignments-to-graders.

For instance, refresh.rkt uses send-assignments-to-graders to send all submitted assignments to the students' assigned graders, after making the assignment inactive.

###Automatically posting grades

cs2500-scripts/grading.rkt provides a bunch of loosely related functions for dealing with grades and grading.

For instance, update-grades.rkt is a convenient script for command line use that will automatically unpack graded submissions from graders, and post grades for exams and quizzes. I

The script update-grades.rkt assumes exam and quizzes are submitted as a file named grades.rkt, an s-expr of lists of student user ids, as symbols, and scores, as exact numbers. This file should be a readable. For instance:

  ((student1 1/1)
   (student2 0/1))

Note the lack of quote, half points, and the seemingly redundant use of a rational to represent 0 and 1.

For regular assignments using Eli's annotation language, I assume graders return zip files that can simply be unpacked to the handin server. That is, I assumes you can post assignment grades via unzip graded-dir/hw1/grader/hw1.zip -d handin-server/hw/hw1. The script update.sh can be run via cron, and demonstrates how to automagically update grades of all kinds every so often.

Eli's scripts

###Managing grades

Eli's crazy grading scripts are included in this package under eli-scripts. They do all kinds of neat things, like automatically compute scores and create grade files based on an annotation language, manage a gradebook, create per student summaries, and stuff. Copy the contents to a convenient place, like ~/bin, go through the README, and don't ask questions. I've stripped all but the most vital (IMHO) parts of Eli's script, so ignore anything the README references that doesn't exist.

Essentially, grades.rkt needs to be copied to the handin server and modified with assignment data such as names (as used in the handin server), max points, and weight. Then, compute-grades needs to be updated to point to the handin server.

Then, simply run computer-grades. It will search the handin server for grade files, update a grade book, and compute student summaries and place them in the handin server directory.

Dealing with honors

We now have an honors section that runs along side the regular section. Dealing with both is troublesome since many students drop from honors to regular halfway through, and thus we have to deal with a mix of honors and regular assignments on a single server for the same student.

I've extended Eli's scripts a little. There are a few configuration variables specifically for honors. They are filled in with last fall's values as an example.

• honors-labs, which should be set to a list of strings such as '("lab7") which indicates which labs all the honors students attend. To use this feature, the scripts assume each student has a lab field in the handin server. The script update-students.rkt can be modified to update the lab field of each student in the handin server.

• regular-homeworks, which contains assignments (quizzes and exams included) to be graded only for non-honors students. Anything in this list is ignored for the honors students, i.e., treated as optional. It will show up in the handin server for them as not turned in, but won't be computed in their final grade.

• honors-homeworks which contains assignments to be graded only for honors students. Anything in this list is ignored for the non-honors students, i.e., treated as optional. It will show up in the handin server for them as not turned in, but won't be computed in their final grade.

###WXME to text The handin server accepts files in WXME format. This is not fun to use. It can be configured to automagically textify things, but sometimes you need to do that manually. wxme-to-text can help.