Overview

This is a small R program that makes grading CourseKata textbook homework easy. Suppose you want to grade pages 1.0 to 1.6 for your Monday Wednesday class, which is due February 20. Here's an overview of what you do:

1. Soon after it's due, go to the "My Progress + Jupyter" page. Click "Refresh Data," and then "Download Student Progress." Name the file MW_1.0to1.6_2-20.csv, and put it in the same folder as the other csv files you download (See INPUT_DIRECTORY below in the Installation section). The name of this assignment file tells the program which of your classes the assignment is for (MW), the pages to be graded (1.0to1.6), and the date it was downloaded (2-20).

2. (Optional but recommended) Go to "Modules", and within some or all of the pages 1.0 to 1.6, and click "Download data." Put the files in the same folder as step 1, and call them MW_1.0_2-20.csv, MW_1.1_2-20.csv, ..., MW_1.6_2-20.csv. These page detail files have much more detailed grades than the corresponding column in the assignment file from step 1.

3. Double click the file do_ck_grades_win.bat in MS Windows or do_ck_grades_mac.command in Macintosh. It will print out some information and maybe warnings, and voilà! There is a now a file called ck_grades_MW.csv which contains a column with the assignment's grades, labelled 1.0to1.6_2-20.

4. Repeat the process for every assignment on every due date, keeping everything in the same folders. It will have a ton of csv files, but they don't take up much storage space. To grade late HW, just repeat the process but with a different date label. Every page range/date assignment file will have its own column in the MW_ck_grades.csv file.

Motivation

It is valuable to have HW scores that accurately reflect students' efforts. This is especially true while teaching remotely, as most teachers are making exams count for less and HW count for more of the course grade.

The overview csv files from "My Progress -> Download Student Progress" do not include enough information, in my opinion:

• They only count problems that were completed, with no weight given to correctness. Some students don't read anything, and spend thirty seconds clicking "submit" on all the problems, and it shows up as full credit here.
• Groups of problems that appear in one blue box in the page, with one "Submit" button, only count as one point here. This includes the entirety of each of the two review pages at the end of each chapter. If there are twenty questions in one of these pages, you only see 1 or 0 here.

So, you can go to Module pages to download the individual page detail csv files, and copy the columns labelled "completed" and "correct," insert them into the overview file, and write an excel formula to calculate the grades for the assignment. This has some downsides:

• It is extremely tedious. Let's say you have two classes, and in a certain week you have two assignments due, each including four pages. That's sixteen page detail csv's from which you have to copy columns. Then you'll have to write a formula in each of the four assignment csv's. Then later, if you want to give anyone late credit, you have to do it all again. Using ck_grader, you only have to download the files, but there's no need to open any of them yourself.
• Written answers are not counted as "correct" in the page detail view. If you don't scroll way to the right to see their answers, you will unwittingly be marking them all incorrect.

Installation (MS Windows)

1. Install R on your computer. Go to https://cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html, choose a nearby mirror, choose base, and follow the instructions.

2. Download the following list of files, either using github (tricky), or from my dropbox. If you get them from my dropbox, make sure to make your own copy on your own computer somewhere, and don't edit the one in my dropbox:

   • do_ck_grades_win.bat -- This is a tiny executable script that you double-click on, and it runs R with the code in ck_grader.r. You can put it anywhere handy, like on your desktop, home directory, or wherever you keep your Statistics materials.
   • ck_grader.r -- This is the main file. Put it in the same folder as do_ck_grades_win.bat.
   • README.md -- The instructions you're reading right now.

3. There are two options you must customize. Open do_ck_grades_win.bat in any text editor, such as MS Notepad, and change the following:

   • INPUT_DIRECTORY -- This is the path to where you put all csv's you download from CourseKata. It can be your Downloads folder for convenience, if you don't mind it filling up with lots of csv's.
   • OUTPUT_DIRECTORY -- This is where ck_grader will put the result files, eg ck_grades_MW.csv. It can be the same as INPUT_DIRECTORY, or the place you keep your class grades, or whatever.
   • These other three options start with working defaults, but you should review them and change them to your liking: MAX_POINTS, INCORRECT_CREDIT, and GRACE. If you want, you can also dive in to ck_grader.r and change the code itself. I recommend keeping your changes to the function grade_pd and the final for loop unless you know what you're doing.

4. After you have some assignment and page detail files downloaded in INPUT_DIRECTORY, go ahead and double-click do_ck_grades_win.bat to run the program. It should open a command prompt with some information and warning/error messages. The first time you run it, it will take a few minutes to install some R packages, but after they're installed it should only take a few seconds. However, you may get an error installing the packages, saying you don't have permission to write to C:\Program Files\R-4.0.3\.... If this happens to you, here are two ways to get around it:

   • Option A: Hold down Ctrl while right-clicking do_ck_grades_win.bat. One of the options should be "Run as administrator." Click it, enter your password, and R will install the packages in the C:\Program Files\R-4.0.3\... folder. After doing this once, you'll be able to double click do_ck_grades_win.bat in the future.
   • Option B: Follow these steps to create a personal library in your C:\User\... folder and install packages there:
     1. Open a command prompt, by pressing the start button and typing cmd [Enter].
     2. Type R [Enter] to start a session where you can type R commands interactively.
     3. In the R session, type install.packages("stringi") [Enter]. You will get the same error message as before, but this time, it will ask if you would like to use a personal library instead? Type yes to the rest of the questions. This will download and install some R packages. After doing this once, you'll be able to double click do_ck_grades_win.bat in the future.

Installation (Apple Macintosh)

1. Install R on your computer. Go to https://cran.r-project.org/mirrors.html, choose a nearby mirror, choose base, and follow the instructions.

2. Download the following list of files, either using github (tricky), or from my dropbox. If you get them from my dropbox, make sure to make your own copy on your own computer somewhere, and don't edit the one in my dropbox:

   • do_ck_grades_mac.command -- This is a tiny executable script that you double-click on, and it runs R with the code in ck_grader.r. You can put it anywhere handy, like on your desktop, home directory, or wherever you keep your Statistics materials.
   • ck_grader.r -- This is the main file. Put it in the same folder as do_ck_grades_mac.command.
   • README.md -- The instructions you're reading right now.

3. There are two options you must customize. Open do_ck_grades_mac.command in any text editor, such as TextEdit, and change the following:

   • INPUT_DIRECTORY -- This is the path to where you put all csv's you download from CourseKata. It can be your Downloads folder for convenience, if you don't mind it filling up with lots of csv's.
   • OUTPUT_DIRECTORY -- This is where ck_grader will put the result files, eg ck_grades_MW.csv. It can be the same as INPUT_DIRECTORY, or the place you keep your class grades, or whatever.
   • These other three options start with working defaults, but you should review them and change them to your liking: MAX_POINTS, INCORRECT_CREDIT, and GRACE. If you want, you can also dive in and change the code itself. I recommend keeping your changes to the function grade_pd and the final for loop unless you know what you're doing.

4. Open a terminal window (under Applications -> Utilities). In the terminal, type the command: chmod +x /Users/your-name/folder/where/you/put/do_ck_grades_mac.command [Enter].

Now, after you have downloaded some assignment and page detail files in INPUT_DIRECTORY, you should be able to double-click do_ck_grades_mac.command to run the program. It should open a command prompt with some information and warning/error messages. The first time you run it, it will take a few minutes to install some R packages, but after they're installed it should only take a few seconds.

File name rules

Decide on the <course_id> you want to use for each class. This should consist of letters and/or numbers. It can be the days of the week, section numbers, or start times. Some fine examples are: MW, MTWTh, 800, 65432, or Spam123. Whatever it is, every csv you download for this class should start with your <course_id>.

All assignment files you download should fit one of these formats exactly:

• <course_id>_2.1to2.5_9-16.csv-- Using "to" indicates a range, 2.1 through 2.5.
• <course_id>_5.10and6.9and7.11_9-16.csv-- Use "and" for a list of any number of named pages.

Some example assignment file names that are OK:

• 227_2.1to2.5_13-456.csv -- It doesn't actually matter if the date is real or not, as long as it has one or more digits, a dash, and some more digits, and you use the same date with page detail files.
• MTWTh_2.1and2.2and2.3and2.4and2.5and2.6and2.7and2.8and2.9and2.10and2.11and3.1and3.2and3.3_9-16.csv -- really, any number is OK.
• 935_2.10to2.10_9-16.csv -- Do this if you only want to include one section in the assignment.

Some example assignment file names that are NOT OK:

• 227 2.1to2.5 9-16.csv -- Use _, not spaces.
• 227_2.1-2.5_9-16.csv -- Use to, not - for page ranges.
• 227_2.8to3.2_9-16.csv -- Page ranges with to must be contained in one chapter.
• 227_2.1to2.5and2.10_9-16.csv -- Don't combine and with to.
• 227_2.10_9-16.csv -- This will be interpreted as a page detail file. If you only want one section in your assignment, write 2.10to2.10.
• 227_2.1to2.5_9/16.csv -- Use - for dates, not /.
• 227_02.1to02.5_13-456.csv -- Don't prepend pages with leading zeros.

The above rules also apply to page detail files, except they should just have one page, with no to or and, eg 227_2.1_9-16.csv. If you want a page detail file to count as part of an assignment, make sure it has the exact same <course_id>, and date, and the page is in the range of pages in the assignment file name. Note that 02-14 and 2-14 are interpreted as different dates.

Notes

• Output files (eg MW_ck_grades.csv) and input csv files should not be edited. Specifically, edited column names in output will cause problems. Students must be in the same row in every input and output file, so don't mess with rows. If you want to mess with stuff, copy a backup file to a different directory, and mess with that. However...

• Note that output file columns are in the order they were graded, and this may not be what you want. It is OK to move around entire columns by cutting and pasting.

• You don't have to download every page detail csv, but it's a good idea. Often, multiple questions in a page are grouped into one blue box with one submit button. These count as multiple points in the page detail csv, but only one point in the course-wide csv. If you don't include a page detail csv, these questions will be under-represented in scores.

• It is a good idea to keep all of your downloaded csv input files in INPUT_DIRECTORY for the whole semester, as well as occasionally back up your output files (eg, ck_grades_MW.csv) to another directory. If something goes wrong, your output file may be erased.

When things go wrong

If you get an error, or some unexptected results, first double-check that your files are named correctly (File Name Rules, above). Also make sure you correctly set INPUT_DIRECTORY and OUTPUT_DIRECTORY in ck_grader.r.

If file names weren't the problem, don't hesitate to reach out to me. It may be a bug in the program, or that your csv files are formatted in an unexpected way, and either way, I want to fix it ASAP.