1 ``pygrader`` is a directory-based grade database for grading course
2 assignments. Besides tracking grades locally, you can also use it to
3 automatically mail grades to students and professors associated with
4 the course. For secure communication, PGP_ can be used to sign and/or
5 encrypt any of these emails.
16 I've packaged ``pygrader`` for Gentoo_. You need layman_ and
17 my `wtk overlay`_. Install with::
19 # emerge -av app-portage/layman
21 # emerge -av dev-python/pygrader
26 If you're installing by hand or packaging pycomedi for another
27 distribution, you'll need the following dependencies:
29 ======== ===================== ================ =========================
30 Package Purpose Debian_ Gentoo_
31 ======== ===================== ================ =========================
32 pgp-mime_ secure email dev-python/pgp-mime [#pm]
33 nose_ testing (optional) python-nose dev-python/nose
34 NumPy_ statistics (optional) python-numpy dev-python/numpy
35 ========= ===================== ================ =========================
37 If NumPy is not installed, we'll fall back to internal implementations
38 of the various statistical calculations.
40 If you are developing ``pygrader``, you can use `update-copyright`_ to
41 keep the copyright blurbs up to date.
43 .. [#pm] In the `wtk overlay`_.
48 ``pygrader`` is available as a Git_ repository::
50 $ git clone git://tremily.us/pygrader.git
52 See the homepage_ for details. To install the checkout, run the
55 $ python setup.py install
60 Pygrader will help keep you organized in a course where the students
61 submit homework via email, or the homework submissions are otherwise
62 digital (i.e. scanned in after submission). You can also use it to
63 assign and `manage any type of grade via email`__. In the following
64 sections, I'll walk you through local administration for the ``test``
67 __ `Mailpipe details`_
69 All of the processing involves using the ``pg.py`` command. Run::
78 Pygrader receives submissions and assigns grades via email. In order
79 to send email, it needs to connect to an SMTP_ server. See the
80 pgp-mime documentation for details on configuring you SMTP connection.
81 You can test your SMTP configuration by sending yourself a test
84 $ pg.py -VVV smtp -a rincewind@uu.edu -t rincewind@uu.edu
89 Once you've got email submission working, you need to configure the
90 course you'll be grading. Each course lives in its own directory, and
91 the basic setup looks like the ``test`` example distributed with
92 pygrader. The file that you need to get started is the config file in
93 the course directory::
95 $ cat test/course.conf
98 assignments: Attendance 1, Attendance 2, Attendance 3, Attendance 4,
99 Attendance 5, Attendance 6, Attendance 7, Attendance 8, Attendance 9,
100 Assignment 1, Assignment 2, Exam 1, Exam 2
104 students: Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Aragorn
132 nickname: phys-101 robot
133 emails: phys101@tower.edu
142 emails: eye@tower.edu
146 emails: bb@shire.org, bb@greyhavens.net
150 The format is a bit wordy, but it is also explicit and easily
151 extensible. The time it takes to construct this configuration file
152 should be a small portion of the time you will spend grading
155 If a person has the ``pgp-key`` option set, that key will be used to
156 encrypt messages to that person and sign messages from that person
157 with PGP_. It will also be used to authenticate ownership of incoming
158 emails. You'll need to have GnuPG_ on your local host for this to
159 work, and the user running ``pygrader`` should have the associated
160 keys in their keychain.
162 The ``course.robot`` option defines a dummy person used to sign
163 automatically generated emails (e.g. responses to mailpipe-processed
166 The ``submittable`` option marks assignments that accept direct
167 submission from students (e.g. homeworks). You probably don't want to
168 set this option for attendance, since it would allow students to mark
169 themselves as having attended a class. ``submittable`` default to
172 Processing submissions
173 ----------------------
175 As the due date approaches, student submissions will start arriving in
176 your inbox. Use ``pg.py``'s ``mailpipe`` command to sort them into
177 directories (using the ``pygrader.handler.submission`` handler). This
178 will also extract any files that were attached to the emails and place
179 them in that person's assignment directory::
181 $ pg.py -d test mailpipe -m maildir -i ~/.maildir -o ./mail-old
183 Use ``pg.py``'s ``todo`` command to check for ungraded submissions::
185 $ pg.py -d test todo mail grade
187 Then create ``grade`` files using your favorite editor. The first
188 line of the grade file should be the student's grade for that
189 assigment, expressed in a syntax that Python's ``float()`` understands
190 (``1``, ``95``, ``2.5``, ``6.022e23``, etc.). If you wish, you may
191 add additional comment lines after the grade line, offering
192 suggestions for improvement, etc. This comment (if present) will be
193 mailed to the student along with the grade itself. There are a number
194 of example grade files in the ``test`` directory in ``pygrader``'s Git
197 To see how everyone's doing, you can print a table of grades with
198 ``pg.py``'s ``tabulate`` command::
200 $ pg.py -d test tabulate -s
202 When you want to notify students of their grades, you can send them
203 all out with ``pg.py``'s ``email`` command::
205 $ pg.py -d test email assignment 'Exam 1'
210 Besides accepting student submissions from incoming email,
211 ``mailpipe`` also accepts other types of requests, and can be
212 configured to respond automatically:
214 * Incoming student assignment submissions are archived (see the
216 * Students can check their grades without having to bother anyone (see
217 the ``get`` commands).
218 * Professors and teaching assistants can request student submissions
219 so that they can grade them (see the ``get`` commands).
220 * Professors and TAs can request the grades for the entire class (see
221 the ``get`` commands).
222 * Professors and TAs can assign grades (see the ``grade`` command).
224 To enable automatic responses, you'll need to add the ``-r`` or
225 ``--respond`` argument when you call ``pg.py``.
227 If you get tired of filtering your inbox by hand using ``pg.py
228 mailpipe``, you can (depending on how your mail delivery is setup) use
229 procmail_ to automatically run ``mailpipe`` automatically on incoming
230 email. There is an example ``.procmailrc`` in the
231 ``pygrader.mailpipe.mailpipe`` docstring that runs ``mailpipe``
232 whenever incoming emails have ``[phys160:submit]`` in their subject
235 The use of ``[TARGET]`` tags in the email subject allows users to
236 unambiguously specify the purpose of their email. Currently supported
237 targets include (see the ``handlers`` argument to
238 ``pygrader.mailpipe``):
241 student assignment submission. The remainder of the email subject
242 should include the case insensitive name of the assignment being
243 submitted (see ``pygrader.handler.submission._match_assignment``).
244 An example subject would be::
246 [submit] assignment 1
249 request information from the grade database. For students, the
250 remainder of the email subject is irrelevant. Grades and comments
251 for all graded assignments are returned in a single email. An
252 example subject would be::
256 Professors and TAs may request either a table of all grades for the
257 course (à la ``tabulate``), the full grades for a particular
258 student, or a particular student's submission for a particular
259 assignment. Example subjects are (respectively):
261 [get] don't match any student names
263 [get] Bilbo Baggins Assignment 1
266 professors and TAs can submit a grade for a particular student on a
267 particular assignment. The body of the (possibly signed or
268 encrypted) email should be identical to the grade file that the
269 sender wishes to create. An example subject would be::
271 [grade] Bilbo Baggins Assignment 1
273 To allow you to easily sort the email, you can also prefix the target
274 with additional information (see
275 ``pygrader.mailpipe._get_message_target``). For example, if you were
276 running several courses from the same email account, you'd want a way
277 for users to specify which course they were interacting with so you
278 could filter appropriately in your procmail rules. Everything in the
279 subject tag before an optional semicolon is ignored by ``mailpipe``,
280 so the following subjects will be handled identically::
282 [submit] assignment 1
283 [phys101:submit] assignment 1
284 [phys101:section2:submit] assignment 1
289 Run the internal unit tests using nose_::
291 $ nosetests --with-doctest --doctest-tests pygrader
293 If a Python-3-version of ``nosetests`` is not the default on your
294 system, you may need to try something like::
296 $ nosetests-3.2 --with-doctest --doctest-tests pygrader
301 This project is distributed under the `GNU General Public License
302 Version 3`_ or greater.
313 For a similar project, see `Alex Heitzmann's pygrade`_, which keeps
314 the grade history in a single log file and provides more support for
315 using graphical interfaces.
318 .. _PGP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy
319 .. _Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org/
320 .. _layman: http://layman.sourceforge.net/
321 .. _wtk overlay: http://blog.tremily.us/posts/Gentoo_overlay/
322 .. _Debian: http://www.debian.org/
323 .. _Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org/
324 .. _NumPy: http://numpy.scipy.org/
325 .. _pgp-mime: http://blog.tremily.us/posts/pgp-mime/
326 .. _update-copyright: http://blog.tremily.us/posts/update-copyright/
327 .. _Git: http://git-scm.com/
328 .. _homepage: http://blog.tremily.us/posts/pygrader/
329 .. _SMTP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol
330 .. _GnuPG: http://www.gnupg.org/
331 .. _procmail: http://www.procmail.org/
332 .. _nose: http://readthedocs.org/docs/nose/en/latest/
333 .. _GNU General Public License Version 3: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
334 .. _Alex Heitzmann's pygrade: http://code.google.com/p/pygrade/