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 ``pygrader`` is a simple package. The only external dependency
27 outside the Python 3 standard library is my `pgp-mime`_ package.
29 If you are developing ``pygrader``, you can use `update-copyright`_ to
30 keep the copyright blurbs up to date.
35 ``pygrader`` is available as a Git_ repository::
37 $ git clone git://tremily.us/pygrader.git
39 See the homepage_ for details. To install the checkout, run the
42 $ python setup.py install
47 Pygrader will help keep you organized in a course where the students
48 submit homework via email, or the homework submissions are otherwise
49 digital (i.e. scanned in after submission). There is currently no
50 support for multiple graders, although I will likely add this in the
51 future. In the following sections, I'll walk you through
52 administering the homework for the ``test`` course.
54 All of the processing involves using the ``pg.py`` command. Run::
63 Pygrader receives submissions and assigns grades via email. In order
64 to send email, it needs to connect to an SMTP_ server. See the
65 pgp-mime documentation for details on configuring you SMTP connection.
66 You can test your SMTP configuration by sending yourself a test
69 $ pg.py -VVV smtp -a rincewind@uu.edu -t rincewind@uu.edu
74 Once you've got email submission working, you need to configure the
75 course you'll be grading. Each course lives in its own directory, and
76 the basic setup looks like the ``test`` example distributed with
77 pygrader. The file that you need to get started is the config file in
78 the course directory::
80 $ cat test/course.conf
83 assignments: Attendance 1, Attendance 2, Attendance 3, Attendance 4,
84 Attendance 5, Attendance 6, Attendance 7, Attendance 8, Attendance 9,
85 Assignment 1, Assignment 2, Exam 1, Exam 2
88 students: Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Aragorn
116 nickname: phys101 robot
117 emails: phys101@tower.edu
126 emails: eye@tower.edu
130 emails: bb@shire.org, bb@greyhavens.net
134 The format is a bit wordy, but it is also explicit and easily
135 extensible. The time it takes to construct this configuration file
136 should be a small portion of the time you will spend grading
139 If a person has the ``pgp-key`` option set, that key will be used to
140 encrypt messages to that person and sign messages from that person
141 with PGP_. It will also be used to authenticate ownership of incoming
142 emails. You'll need to have GnuPG_ on your local host for this to
143 work, and the user running pygrader should have the associated keys in
146 The ``course.robot`` option defines a dummy person used to sign
147 automatically generated emails (e.g. responses to mailpipe-processed
150 The ``submittable`` option marks assignments that accept direct
151 submission from students (e.g. homeworks). You probably don't want to
152 set this option for attendance, since it would allow students to mark
153 themselves as having attended a class. ``submittable`` default to
156 Processing submissions
157 ----------------------
159 As the due date approaches, student submissions will start arriving in
160 your inbox. Use ``pg.py``'s ``mailpipe`` command to sort them into
161 directories. This will also extract any files that were attached to
162 the emails and place them in that persons assignment directory::
164 $ pg.py -d test mailpipe -m maildir -i ~/.maildir -o ./mail-old
166 Use ``pg.py``'s ``todo`` command to check for ungraded submissions::
168 $ pg.py -d test todo mail grade
170 To see how everyone's doing, you can print a table of grades with
171 ``pg.py``'s ``tabulate`` command::
173 $ pg.py -d test tabulate -s
175 When you want to notify students of their grades, you can send them
176 all out with ``pg.py``'s ``email`` command::
178 $ pg.py -d test email assignment 'Exam 1'
183 Run the internal unit tests using nose_::
185 $ nosetests --with-doctest --doctest-tests pygrader
187 If a Python-3-version of ``nosetests`` is not the default on your
188 system, you may need to try something like::
190 $ nosetests-3.2 --with-doctest --doctest-tests pygrader
195 This project is distributed under the `GNU General Public License
196 Version 3`_ or greater.
207 For a similar project, see `Alex Heitzmann's pygrade`_, which keeps
208 the grade history in a single log file and provides more support for
209 using graphical interfaces.
212 .. _PGP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy
213 .. _Gentoo: http://www.gentoo.org/
214 .. _layman: http://layman.sourceforge.net/
215 .. _wtk overlay: http://blog.tremily.us/posts/Gentoo_overlay/
216 .. _pgp-mime: http://blog.tremily.us/posts/pgp-mime/
217 .. _update-copyright: http://blog.tremily.us/posts/update-copyright/
218 .. _Git: http://git-scm.com/
219 .. _homepage: http://blog.tremily.us/posts/pygrader/
220 .. _SMTP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol
221 .. _GnuPG: http://www.gnupg.org/
222 .. _nose: http://readthedocs.org/docs/nose/en/latest/
223 .. _GNU General Public License Version 3: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
224 .. _Alex Heitzmann's pygrade: http://code.google.com/p/pygrade/