krummstab 1.0

Efficiently give feedback on ADAM submissions at University of Basel

Krummstab Feedback Script

The purpose of this script is to automate some of the tedious steps involved in marking ADAM submissions.

The system is made up of three components: the central krummstab PyPI project, and two JSON configuration files, config-shared.json and config-individual.json.

The shared config file contains general settings that need to be adapted to the course that is being taught, but should remain static thereafter. Additionally, it lists all students and their team assignment. This part of the file is subject to change during the semester as students drop the course or teams are reassigned. It is important that all tutors have an identical copy of the shared config file, meaning that whenever a tutor makes changes to the file, she or he should share the new version with the others, for example via the Discord server or uploading it to ADAM. (Assistants can find tips for creating this file here.)

The individual config file contains personal settings that are only relevant to each tutor. These only need to be set once at the beginning of the course.

Depending on the general settings of the shared config file, different command line options may be mandatory. The help option provides information about the script, its subcommands (currently init, collect, combine, mark, send and summarize), and their parameters. Once you have completed the one-time setup below, you'll be able to access the help via:

krummstab -h
krummstab <subcommand> -h

In the following I will go over the recommended workflow using the settings of the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence lecture from the spring semester 2023 as an example.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+: Our pytest setup tests Python versions 3.10, 3.11, and 3.12 on an Ubuntu machine. Older Python versions will likely cause problems.
• Xournal++ (optional): The script includes some convenient functionality when using Xournal++ to write feedback, but you can also do so by any other means.

One-Time Setup

📝 We're assuming a Linux environment in the following. In case you are using macOS, we hope that the following instructions work without major differences. In case you are using Windows, we recommend using Krummstab on a native Python installation, but we don't provide instructions below. Installing inside a Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) allows you to follow the instructions directly, but sending emails through Krummstab will not work, so you need a native installation to use all features of Krummstab.

To get started, create an empty directory where you want to do your marking, in this example the directory will be called ki-fs23-marking:

mkdir ki-fs23-marking

Navigate to this directory, set up a virtual Python environment, and activate it:

cd ki-fs23-marking
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

Then you can install Krummstab in this environment:

pip install krummstab

To test the installation, you can print the help string:

krummstab -h

With the script installed, we continue with the config files. You should have gotten a config-shared.json file from the teaching assistant, copy this file into the directory you just created, in our example ki-fs23-marking. Similarly you can copy the config-individual.json file from the tests directory of this repository. Replace the example entries in the individual configurations with your own information; The parameters are explained here. Make sure that the string you enter in the field tutor_name in your individual config exactly matches the existing entry in the tutor_list field of the shared config.

In general, it is important that the all configurations, besides the individual ones you just adjusted, are exactly the same across all tutors, as otherwise submissions may be assigned to multiple or no tutors. If you think that something should be changed in the shared settings, please let the teaching assistant and the other tutors know, so that the configurations remain in sync. This may in particular be necessary if teams change throughout the semester.

In order to work with the script, you will have to call the krummstab command from a command line whose working directory is the one which contains the two config files. If you'd like to keep the config files somewhere else, you'll have to provide the paths to the files with the -s path/to/shared and -i path/to/individual flags whenever you call krummstab.

Marking a Sheet

While the steps above are only necessary for the initial setup, the following procedure applies to every exercise sheet. The first step is always to activate the virtual environment in which we have installed Krummstab. You do this by navigating to the marking directory and using the source command.

cd ki-fs23-marking
source .venv/bin/activate

If you forget this step you'll get an error saying that the krummstab command could not be found.

init

First, download the submissions from ADAM and save the ZIP file in the marking directory. (It's important that you only download the submissions after the ADAM deadline has passed, so that all tutors have the same, complete pool of submissions.) Our example directory ki-fs23-marking, with Sheet 1.zip being the file downloaded from ADAM, should look like this:

.
├── .venv
├── config-individual.json
├── config-shared.json
└── Sheet 1.zip

We can now finally make the script do something useful by running:

krummstab init -n 4 -t sheet01 "Sheet 1.zip"

This will unzip the submissions and prepare them for marking. The flag -n expects the number of exercises in the sheet, -t is optional and takes the name of the directory the submissions should be extracted to. By default it's the name of the ZIP file, but I'm choosing to rename it in order to get rid of the whitespace in the directory name. The directory should now look something like this:

.
├── .venv
├── config-individual.json
├── config-shared.json
├── sheet01
│   ├── 12345_Muster_Müller
│   │   ├── feedback
│   │   │   └── feedback_tutor-name.pdf
│   │   └── Sheet1_MaxMuster_MayaMueller.pdf
│   .
│   ├── DO_NOT_MARK_12346_Meier_Meyer
│   │   └── submission_exercise_sheet1.pdf
│   .
│   └── points_*.json
└── Sheet 1.zip

As you may have guessed, the submissions you need to mark are those without the DO_NOT_MARK_ prefix. Those directories contain the files submitted by the respective team, as well as a directory called feedback, which in turn contains copies of the submitted files.

The idea is that you can give feedback by adding your comments to these copies directly, and delete the ones you don't need to comment on. It is possible to add a --plain or -p flag to the init command that prevents non-PDF files from being copied into the feedback directories. When marking by exercise, this is useful for the tutors that do not have to mark the programming exercises.

For the PDF feedback you can use whichever tool you like. If this tool adds files to the feedback directory that you do not want to send to the students, you can add their endings to the config file under the ignore_feedback_suffix key. Marking with Xournal++ is supported by default: Simply set the value of the xopp key in the config file to true to automatically create the relevant .xopp files. If you like, you can use the mark command for easier feedback writing, which is explained next.

While writing the feedback, you can keep track of the points the teams get in the file points_*.json. In the case of plagiarism, write Plagiarism in the place for the points.

mark

This command allows you to mark all submissions at once with a specific program such as Xournal++. It opens all relevant PDF feedback files or .xopp files one after the other with the program that you can specify with the config parameter marking_command. This parameter is a list of strings, starting with the program command, with the following elements being arguments. One argument has to be either {xopp_file} or {pdf_file}, which will be automatically replaced with file paths later. The default Xournal++ command would for example look as follows in the config:

"marking_command": ["xournalpp", "{xopp_file}"],

To run mark you need to provide the path to the directory created by the init command which is sheet01 in our running example:

krummstab mark sheet01

collect

Once you have marked all the teams assigned to you and added their points to the points_*.json file, you can run the next command, where sheet01 is the path to the directory created by the init command:

krummstab collect sheet01

This will create a ZIP archive in every feedback directory containing the feedback for that team. A JSON file containing the individual points per student is also generated.

In case you need make changes to the markings and rerun the collection step, use the -r flag to overwrite existing feedback archives. When using Xournal++ (that is, when the xopp key is set to true), the .xopp files will be exported automatically before collecting the feedback.

combine

This command is only relevant for the exercise marking mode. TODO: Document this.

send

For the static marking mode, it is possible to directly send the feedback to the students via e-mail. For this to work you have to be in the university network, which likely means you'll have to connect to the university VPN. You may find the --dry-run option useful, instead of sending the e-mails directly, it only prints them so that you can double-check that everything looks as expected.

summarize

This command generates an Excel file that summarizes the students' marks. It needs a path to a directory containing the individual marks JSON files:

krummstab summarize path/to/a/directory/with/individual/marks/files

If you use LibreOffice, it is possible that the formulas are not calculated immediately. To calculate them, use the Recalculate Hard command in LibreOffice. To access this command

• From the menu bar: Data > Calculate > Recalculate Hard
• From the keyboard: Ctrl + Shift + F9

To avoid having to do so manually, you can configure LibreOffice to always recalculate upon opening a file. You can do so by setting the field "Excel 2007 and newer" under Tools > Options > LibreOffice Calc > Formula > Recalculation on File Load to "Always recalculate" (or "Prompt user").

Config File Details

Setting Up Shared Config File

• References for the structure of the file can be found in the tests directory.
• You should be able to get the list of students as an Excel file from ADAM: course page > tab 'Content' ('Inhalt') > exercise page > tab 'Submissions and Grades' ('Abgaben und Noten') > 'Grades View' ('Notenübersicht') > button 'Export (Excel)' at top of page. You can then run the shell script scripts/xlsx-to-config.sh with the downloaded file as input to get a student list in JSON format as a starting point for the shared config file.

Individual Settings

• tutor_name: ID of the tutor, this must match with either an element of tutor_list (for exercise) or a key in teams (for static)
• tutor_email: tutor's email address, feedback will be sent via this address
• feedback_email_cc: list of email addresses that will be CC'd with every feedback email, for example the addresses of all tutors
• smtp_url: the URL of the SMTP server, smtp.unibas.ch by default (you may use smtp-ext.unibas.ch if your email address is white-listed; this is usually not the case and you would likely know if it is)
• smtp_port: SMTP port to connect to, 25 by default (use 587 for an smtp-ext setup)
• smtp_user: SMTP user, empty by default (use your short unibas account name for an smtp-ext setup)
• xopp: if you use Xournal++ for marking, set the value to true; the relevant xopp files are then automatically created with the init subcommand and exported with the collect subcommand before the feedback is collected
• ignore_feedback_suffix: a list of extensions that should be ignored by the collect sub-command; this is useful if the tools you use for marking create files in the feedback folders that you don't want to send to the students
• marking_command: a list of strings that the mark subcommand should use, starting with program command, with the following elements being arguments; one argument has to be either {xopp_file} or {pdf_file}, which will be automatically replaced with file paths later; contains xournalpp with {xopp_file} by default

General Settings

• lecture_title: lecture name to be printed in feedback emails
• marking_mode
  • static: student teams are assigned to a tutor who will mark all their submissions
  • exercise: with every sheet, tutors distribute the exercises and only mark those, but for all submissions
• points_per
  • exercise: tutors keep track how many points teams got for every exercise
  • sheet: tutors only keep track of the total number of points per sheet
• min_point_unit: a float denoting the smallest allowed point fraction, for example 0.5, or 1
• tutor_list: list to identify tutors, for example a list of first names
• max_points_per_sheet: a dictionary with all exercise sheet names as keys and their maximum possible points as values
• max_team_size: integer denoting the maximum number of members a team may have

Teams

• teams: depending on the marking_mode teams are structured slightly differently
  • exercise: list of teams, each consisting of a list of students, where each student entry is a list of the form [ "first_name", "last_name", "[e-mail]" ]
  • static: similar to before, but teams are not just listed, but assigned to a tutor; this is done via a dictionary where some ID for the tutors (e.g. first names) are the keys, and the values are the list of teams assigned to each tutor

Handling Special Cases

There may be situations that require manual changes. This section provides instructions for handling these special cases.

It is important to note that the teams in the shared config file are only used for the init and summarize commands. After the init command, there is a file with the name submission.json in each team folder that contains information about the submission, including the team. The information in these files is used for the other commands.

Manually Adding Late Submissions

If you have already executed the init command and have already started to mark the sheet, but there is a late submission that needs to be added, the following steps are necessary:

1. Creating a new folder for the submission: In the directory generated by the init command, create a new directory for the submission. The folder name does not matter, let's say it's called late_submission.
2. Adding a submission.json file: Add a file with the name submission.json to late_submission. The internal structure of this file needs particular attributes:

   • team: list of students of the team, where each student entry is a list of the form [ "first_name", "last_name", "[e-mail]" ]

   • adam_id: a string of numbers usually generated by ADAM, you can choose this arbitrarily

   • relevant: set the value to true to specify that you will mark this submission

     The structure should look similar to the following:

     {
         "team": [
             [
                 "first_name1",
                 "last_name1",
                 "[e-mail]"
             ],
             [
                 "first_name2",
                 "last_name2",
                 "[e-mail]"
             ]
         ],
         "adam_id": "11910",
         "relevant": true
     }
     

3. Creating a feedback folder: Create a new subfolder in late_submission with the name feedback. When you have marked the team, you can add your feedback files here. You can add the original submitted files to late_submission, but this is not mandatory.
4. Modifying the points_*.json file: Add the team key with the points that the team gets to the points_*.json file. The team key consists of the ADAM ID you chose in step 1 and the alphabetically sorted last names of all team members in the following format: ID_Last-Name1_Last-Name2

After completing these steps, the new submission will be processed as usual by future calls to Krummstab, in particular by the collect and send commands.

Multiple Submissions from the Same Team

There can be multiple submissions for the same team in ADAM. This can happen in two ways, either

• team members submit separately without forming a team on ADAM, or
• two submissions with different file names are uploaded for the same ADAM team.

In the first case, Krummstab will create a separate submission directory for each team member. To resolve this, you can create a new submission directory according to the instructions here. In the second case you will have to figure out which submission to mark, but for Krummstab it only matters that the files you want to send as feedback are in the feedback folder of the team's submission directory. To avoid this situation, students should use the same file name when uploading an updated submission and of course refrain from uploading two separate submissions.

Only Sending Feedback to Some Teams

The send command only sends feedback to teams that are marked as being relevant in the their respective submission.json file. To avoid sending feedback to team Hans and Hanna Muster, manually edit the file 00000_Muster_Muster/submission.json and change "relevant": true to "relevant": false. The marks for the team you entered in the points file the will be sent to the assistant anyway, so you may want to remove the corresponding entry in points_*.json or give 0 marks explicitly. You can still later send the feedback through Krummstab by reverting the changes above and marking the teams you already sent feedback to earlier as "not relevant".

Development

There are some tests written in the pytest framework. This requires pytest, which can be installed via pip3 install pytest for example, and Xournal++, which can be installed via sudo apt install xournalpp on Ubuntu. Tests can then be executed by running pytest in the root directory of the project.