Nota Bene Grader

First Time Setup:

Mandatory first time setup:

• Copy grade_cutoffs_template.txt to grade_cutoffs.txt

In grade_cutoffs.txt:

• Download class roster and update file path
• Set settings for Canvas
  • Get an authentication token from your Canvas profile
    • This only has to be done once. The token can be reused for different configuration files
    • Toward the bottom, under Approved Integrations, click New Access Token
    • Under Purpose, write a descriptive name that will remind you of what this app is (e.g., NB Grader)
    • From the new window that pops up, copy the text under Token and paste into grade_cutoffs.txt
  • Get the Canvas course id
    • This needs to be done for each course.
    • Go to the main page for the course (e.g., https://canvas.ucdavis.edu/courses/12345)
    • Copy the number at the end (in this example, it's 12345) and paste into grade_cutoffs.txt
  • Get a template Grades CSV file
    • Go to the Grades page for the course and export the grades into a csv file.
    • Rename the Grades file by removing the date part of the name (e.g. Jan_31_07_42_) so it's just Grades-[course name].csv
    • Put the Grades file in the same place as the configuration file
    • Update the name of the Grades file with the appropriate name in the configuration file
  • Set settings for SmartSite * Update the instructor
  • Enter your NB username and password in the appropriate locations
  • Update the grading settings/score cutoffs * Follow instructions in the file. You can have as many or as few scores as desired. * The highest score listed is taken to be the highest possible score for the assignment * Keep the indentations * Scores should indented be four spaces * Comment/Word cutoffs should be indented an additional four spaces beyond that.

Optional setup:

• Update the config_file_name variable to be the name of the configuration file you always use
• Set prompt_each_time to FALSE, so you don't have to press [enter] every time you run the script to accept the configuration filename as is.

Usage:

• In the Console box in RStudio, type source('/path/to/nbCutoff.txt'), replacing /path/to with the actual path to your nbCutoff.txt file
• Note: This version has not been tested with Rscript. Run the script using Rscript /path/to/nbCutoff.txt, replacing /path/to with the actual path to your nbCutoff.txt file (e.g., 'C:/Users/eric/Desktop/NBGrader/nbCutoff.txt' on Windows, '/Users/eric/Desktop/NBGrader/nbCutoff.txt' on Mac, or '/home/eric/NBGrader/nbCutoff.txt' on Linux) and follow prompts
• The script updates itself each time it's run, so don't change the script; changes will be overwritten (except where noted above in "Optional setup")
• Inspect the spot check output file for errors
  • Orig.Total.Words and Total.Word.Count is the total number of words in the original comment, before applying any workaround prevention measures.
  • Orig.Credited.Words and Credited.Word.Count is 0 if all the words in the comment are the same length and equal to Orig.Total.Words if they're not.
  • Orig.Comment.Credited.Words and Comment.Credit.Word.Count is 0 if there are insufficient numbers of words in the comment or equal to Orig.Credited.Words if not.
  • Orig.Char and Character.Count is the total number of characters in the comment
  • Partial.Cred.Frac is the total number of comments that were submitted on time, plus fractional credit given for comments that were submitted late. If GRADE_MODE is 0, this should always be the same as On.Time.Count.
  • Credited.Partial.Cred.Frac is the total number of comments in Partial.Cred.Frac that were sufficiently long
  • Credited.On.Time is the total number of sufficiently-long comments that were submitted on time, unless GRADE_MODE is not 0, in which case it's the total number of comments rounded from Credited.Partial.Cred.Frac
  • Total.On.Time is the total number of comments that were submitted on time, unless GRADE_MODE is not 0, in which case it's the total number of comments rounded from Partial.Cred.Frac
  • Total.Comments is the total number of comments that were submitted.
  • Score is the score the student received, based on Word.Count and On.Time
  • If partial credit is given for late comments, Partial.Cred.Frac is the total number of comments used for calculating the student's score. For example, if the student makes 4 comments, but the last comment is late by enough time that the partial credit function gives the student half credit, the student is considered to have made 3.5 comments and Partial.Cred.Frac would show 3.5 for said student.

Dependencies:

httr, xlsx, and yaml

To install xlsx, you will first need to install the latest version of Java, which can be found at http://www.java.com/en/download/ or http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jre8-downloads-2133155.html

Then, to install the xlsx package, open an R console and run install.packages('xlsx')

To install the httr package, open an R console and run install.packages('httr')

To install the yaml package, open an R console and run install.packages('yaml')

You can also try uncommenting the respective lines at the top of the script, but this procedure seems to be the most foolproof way of doing it.