CSC/ECE 517 Spring 2024 - E2410. View for Results of Bidding

Introduction

The Expertiza project is a dynamic collaboration between students and faculty at NC State University, built on the Ruby on Rails platform. It serves as a hub for fostering cooperative learning and academic collaboration, offering a suite of tools for efficient course and assignment management.

Expertiza empowers instructors with comprehensive control over the learning process, providing insights into various academic facets such as user profiles, courses, assignments, questionnaires, and reviews. With its user-friendly interface and innovative features, Expertiza revolutionizes collaborative learning, facilitating seamless topic creation, group formation, and peer review. Join us in embracing the transformative potential of digital collaboration to redefine the educational experience.

Test Login Credentials

UserId: instructor6

Password: password

Problem Statement:

Current Problem

• Instructors using Expertiza lack comprehensive visibility into the bidding process, impeding their ability to discern the most sought-after topics by teams and the prioritization of choices, leading to inefficient allocation of projects.

Key Deficiencies

• The absence of essential details, such as which teams have bid on specific topics and the percentage of teams assigning their top-choice projects, results in instructors resorting to cumbersome workarounds, hindering effective management and allocation of projects.

Proposed Solution

• Enhancing Expertiza's interface with a dedicated view for instructors to access detailed statistics on topic bids, including priority rankings, team names, total bids, and the percentage of teams selecting each topic as their top choice. This solution aims to streamline workflow, empower instructors with valuable insights, and facilitate fair and efficient project allocation.

Previous Implementations

1. E2360 Github Repository
2. E2360 Pull Request
3. E2360 Wiki Page
4. Demo Video

1. E2245 Github Repository
2. E2245 Pull Request
3. E2245 Wiki Page
4. Demo Video

E2410 Current Implementation

1. E2410 Github Repository
2. E2410 Pull Request
3. Demo Video

Issues With Previous Implementation

1. Functions directly fetch and process bids in the controller, which could be better managed through model methods for improved organization.
2. The use of instance variables for bid counts is not scalable and can become problematic with changes in the bidding process.
3. The current approach of fetching topics and iterating for bids may result in inefficient N+1 queries.
4. There's a risk of repeating logic related to bidding across different parts of the application.
5. UI elements and logic are intertwined within the controller, which is not ideal for MVC patterns.
6. The views have repetitive non-zero checks for bid counts, which could be streamlined.
7. CSS styles are hard-coded in views, which should be abstracted to CSS files.
8. Missing error handling could cause unhandled exceptions for nonexistent bids or topics.
9. Tests might not cover all scenarios, such as incorrect bid priorities or unrepresented teams.
10. The UI lacks dynamic feedback mechanisms like AJAX updates for user interactions.

Proposed Solution

The design presented in this iteration of the project is very similar to the high-level design proposed last year in Fall 2023 Design. Since this pull request was not merged, we have included the proposed changes that are credible. Below is a comparable explanation of the previously offered remedy, as well as some new design decisions to improve upon the previous iteration of this issue.

We've significantly improved the bidding system in Expertiza by enhancing the visibility and handling of bids for topics. Key improvements include detailed bidding data presentation, with distinct columns for each bid priority and clear team bid information. This offers users, both instructors and students, a transparent view into the bidding outcomes. Additionally, our refined logic more accurately calculates teams' preferred choice percentages, aiding better decision-making in topic assignments. This has also been moved to a separate page, to improve user-experience.

Design

Sequence Diagram for Bidding Process

Current Flow

• Go to the assignments section, we have created a dummy a assignment, "Test OODD", click edit icon next to it.

• Now make sure the "has topics" checkbox is selected.

• Now go to Topics section and click "Show bids by priority" button.

• Here you will be able to view various stats of the bidding,like the topics with their IDs, their respective topic names, number of teams that have put that specific topic as their 1st 2nd and 3rd priority bid, along with the names of those teams, the total number of bids and finally the percentage of teams that put the specific topic as their first bid.

Flowchart for Bidding Process

Implementation Details

Files Modified During the implementation

• assignments_controller.rb
• lottery_controller.rb
• assignment.rb
• bid.rb
• team.rb
• assignment_helper.rb
• _topics.html.erb
• bidding_details.html.erb
• _bid_summary_partial.html.erb

New functions that are implemented

1. Display bidding summary based on priority details

Method for bidding analysis

File : app/controllers/lottery_controller.rb

Functionality:

• Added `calculate_bidding_summary_based_on_priority` method to `lottery_controller` for aggregating bid data per topic.
• Prepares data for displaying the bidding details for each topic within an assignment.
• It calculates the number of bids for each priority (1, 2, 3) per topic and also computes
• The overall percentages of teams that received their first, second, and third choice.
• This method is responsible for calculating the bidding table data for an assignment.
• Computes the count of assigned teams for each priority level (1, 2, 3) across all topics.
• It checks each team associated with a topic and determines if the team's bid matches

2. Background Color according to percentage

File : app/helpers/lottery_helper.rb

Functionality:

• Light red for low percentages
• Light orange for medium percentages
• Light green for high percentages
• No background if outside range

3. Button to show bids by priority

File : app/views/assignments/edit/_topics.html.erb

Functionality:

• ⁠Button to visit the seperate page to view the results of bidding

4. Bid Model

File : ./app/models/bid.rb

Functionality:

• The method for merging bid data from different users was refined with clearer comments.
• The method now organizes bidding information into a matrix structure, keyed by topic, simplifying the representation of bids for analysis.
• A new method was introduced to calculate the percentages of teams receiving their preferred choices, with logic to prevent division by zero.
• The data is then normalized to percentages, providing a concise and accurate calculation for bid analytics.

5. Team Model

File : ./app/models/team.rb

Functionality:

• Expanded the Team model with methods to fetch a team’s bid for a given topic.
• Added functionality to retrieve the assigned sign-up topic for a team.
• Refined the Team model's interface for interacting with associated bids and sign-up topics.

6. Assignment Helper

File : ./app/helpers/assignment_helper.rb

Functionality:

The ⁠ bid_intensity_class ⁠ method in the Assignment Helper serves the following functions:

• Determines the CSS class to be applied based on the total number of bids for a topic.
• If the total bids are between 0 and 5, it returns the class name 'bid-low-intensity'.
• For total bids between 6 and 10, it returns 'bid-medium-intensity'.
• If the number of bids exceeds 10, it yields 'bid-high-intensity'.
• This method assists in visually differentiating the intensity of bidding on topics through color-coding or other styling cues in the user interface.

7. Topics view

File : ./app/views/assignments/edit/_topics.html.erb

Functionality:

• ⁠Introduced conditional checks for displaying specific sections in the topics form based on the assignment's properties like whether it allows suggestions, is intelligent, has a staggered deadline, etc.
• ⁠Added a summary section to display aggregated bidding data if bidding is enabled.
• ⁠Created a dynamic table that lists out the topic names, the count of first, second, and third priority bids, total bids, and names of bidding teams.
• ⁠ ⁠Implemented a method to classify bid intensity into low, medium, and high based on the total number of bids.
• ⁠Added modals to provide detailed bidding information for each topic, which will be populated via an AJAX call to a specified endpoint with the topic ID.
• ⁠Set up a JavaScript function to handle click events on information buttons, triggering AJAX calls and displaying bid details in modals.

8. Bidding Details view

File : ./app/views/assignments/bidding_details.html.erb

Functionality:

• Displays the header "Bidding Details" along with the name of the current assignment.
• Iterates over each topic that has received bids.
• Retrieves and displays the name of each topic.
• Creates a table structure with headers "Team Name" and "Bid Priority".
• Loops through the bids associated with each topic.
• For each bid, it displays the name of the team that placed the bid.
• Also for each bid, it displays the priority level of the bid (e.g., 1st priority, 2nd priority).
• Structures the data in a tabular format for clear visualization of teams and their bidding priorities per topic.

9. Bid Summary view

File : ./app/views/assignments/_bid_summary_partial.html.erb

Functionality:

• ⁠The snippet is part of a view template that generates a summary of bidding data for assignment topics.
• ⁠It checks if there are any sign-up topics associated with the assignment.
• ⁠For each topic, it lists out the total number of bids, along with a breakdown of bids by priority level: first, second, and third.
• ⁠It also displays the names of teams that have placed bids on the topic.
• ⁠The percentage of teams that got their first choice is calculated and displayed, color-coded to indicate the outcome:
  • Red for 0%, indicating no team got their first choice.
  • Green for 100%, indicating all teams got their first choice.
  • Orange for any percentage in between.
• ⁠If no bids are present for a topic, it notes that.
• ⁠If there are no topics created for the assignment, it informs the user accordingly.

Accomplishment

This project has added a "Bid Summary", which allows the instructor to see all topics with their IDs, their respective topic names, number of teams that have put that specific topic as their 1st 2nd and 3rd priority bid, along with the names of those teams, the total number of bids and finally the percentage of teams that put the specific topic as their first bid. This information will allow us to see which topic is most trending, ie, what is the topic most students want to work on, and which topics are not doing so well. This enables the instructor to get this information without having to login to the student view and figure this out manually.

Test Plan

Manual Testing

Follow these instructions to manually test the below functionality:

• Navigate to the assignments page and click on the pencil icon next to the 'Test OODD' assignment.
• Confirm that the 'Has Topics' checkbox is selected on the general assignment settings page.
• Move to the 'Topics' tab and check the 'Enable bidding for topics' option.
• Add a new topic for students to bid on by clicking the 'New Topic' button and entering relevant details.
• Log in as a student and bid on the new topic, choosing the priority level for the bid.
• Return to the 'Topics' tab as an instructor to view the updated bidding table with bids and priorities listed.
• Confirm that the total number of bids and the number of #1, #2, and #3 bids are displayed correctly for each topic.
• Check the background color coding (green, yellow, red) in the bidding table that reflects the intensity of bids for visual verification.

RSpec Testing

The assignment_controller_spec.rb has existing automated rspec tests in place. Furthermore following tests were added to the code to ensure the functionality is working as expected and thereby increasing code coverage:-

-> assignment_controller_spec.rb

describe '#bidding_details' do
    it 'assigns necessary variables and renders bidding_details template' do
      allow(Assignment).to receive(:find).with('1').and_return(assignment)
      allow(assignment).to receive(:sign_up_topics).and_return([double('SignUpTopic', id: 1)])
      allow(Bid).to receive(:where).with(topic_id: 1).and_return([])
      allow(assignment).to receive(:calculate_percentage_of_teams_getting_choices).and_return({})
      allow(assignment).to receive(:teams_bidding_for_each_topic).and_return({})
      allow(assignment).to receive(:assigned_teams_for_topics).and_return({})
      
      get :bidding_details, params: { id: 1 }
      
      expect(assigns(:assignment)).to eq(assignment)
      expect(assigns(:bids_by_topic)).to eq({ 1 => [] })
      expect(response).to render_template('bidding_details')
    end
  end

  describe '#bidding_details_for_topic' do
    it 'assigns necessary variables and renders bidding_details_for_topic template' do
      topic = double('SignUpTopic', id: 1)
      bids = [double('Bid')]

      allow(SignUpTopic).to receive(:includes).with(:bids).and_return(SignUpTopic)
      allow(SignUpTopic).to receive(:find).with(1).and_return(topic)
      allow(topic).to receive(:bids).and_return(bids)

      get :bidding_details_for_topic, params: { topic_id: 1 }, format: :js
      
      expect(assigns(:topic)).to eq(topic)
      expect(assigns(:bids)).to eq(bids)
      expect(response).to render_template('bidding_details_for_topic')
    end
  end

Similarly, the file assignment_spec.rb have the automated rspec tests in them, Few more test case were added to verify the functionalities added.

-> assignment_spec.rb

describe '#calculate_percentage_of_teams_getting_choices' do
  it 'calculates the percentage of teams getting their choices' do
    # Mock necessary objects for the test
    assignment = build(:assignment)
    team1 = build(:team)
    team2 = build(:team)
    topic1 = build(:sign_up_topic, assignment_id: assignment.id)
    topic2 = build(:sign_up_topic, assignment_id: assignment.id)
    bid1 = build(:bid, team: team1, topic: topic1)
    bid2 = build(:bid, team: team1, topic: topic2)
    bid3 = build(:bid, team: team2, topic: topic2)
    allow(assignment).to receive(:sign_up_topics).and_return([topic1, topic2])
    allow(Team).to receive(:where).and_return([team1, team2])
    allow(team1).to receive(:bid_for_topic).with(topic1).and_return(bid1)
    allow(team1).to receive(:bid_for_topic).with(topic2).and_return(bid2)
    allow(team2).to receive(:bid_for_topic).with(topic2).and_return(bid3)

    # Perform the calculation
    percentages = assignment.calculate_percentage_of_teams_getting_choices

    # Perform your assertions here
    expect(percentages[1]).to eq(50.0)
    expect(percentages[2]).to eq(100.0)
  end
end

describe '#teams_bidding_for_each_topic' do
  it 'returns teams bidding for each topic' do
    # Mock necessary objects for the test
    assignment = build(:assignment)
    topic1 = build(:sign_up_topic, id: 1)
    topic2 = build(:sign_up_topic, id: 2)
    team1 = build(:team)
    team2 = build(:team)
    bid1 = build(:bid, team: team1, topic: topic1)
    bid2 = build(:bid, team: team1, topic: topic2)
    bid3 = build(:bid, team: team2, topic: topic2)
    allow(assignment).to receive_message_chain(:sign_up_topics, :includes).and_return([topic1, topic2])
    allow(topic1).to receive_message_chain(:bids, :map).and_return([['Team1', 1]])
    allow(topic2).to receive_message_chain(:bids, :map).and_return([['Team1', 1], ['Team2', 2]])

    # Call the method
    result = assignment.teams_bidding_for_each_topic

    # Perform assertions
    expect(result[1]).to eq([['Team1', 1]])
    expect(result[2]).to eq([['Team1', 1], ['Team2', 2]])
  end
end

describe '#bidding_info_by_topic' do
  it 'returns bidding information by topic' do
    # Mock necessary objects for the test
    assignment = build(:assignment)
    topic1 = build(:sign_up_topic, id: 1)
    topic2 = build(:sign_up_topic, id: 2)
    team1 = build(:team, name: 'Team1')
    team2 = build(:team, name: 'Team2')
    bid1 = build(:bid, team: team1, priority: 1)
    bid2 = build(:bid, team: team2, priority: 2)
    allow(assignment).to receive_message_chain(:sign_up_topics, :includes).and_return([topic1, topic2])
    allow(topic1).to receive_message_chain(:bids, :includes, :map).and_return([{ team_name: 'Team1', bid_priority: 1 }])
    allow(topic2).to receive_message_chain(:bids, :includes, :map).and_return([{ team_name: 'Team2', bid_priority: 2 }])

    # Call the method
    result = assignment.bidding_info_by_topic

    # Perform assertions
    expect(result[1]).to eq([{ team_name: 'Team1', bid_priority: 1 }])
    expect(result[2]).to eq([{ team_name: 'Team2', bid_priority: 2 }])
  end
end

describe '#assigned_teams_for_topics' do
  it 'returns assigned teams for each topic' do
    # Mock necessary objects for the test
    assignment = build(:assignment)
    topic1 = build(:sign_up_topic, id: 1)
    topic2 = build(:sign_up_topic, id: 2)
    team1 = build(:team, name: 'Team1')
    team2 = build(:team, name: 'Team2')
    allow(assignment).to receive_message_chain(:sign_up_topics, :includes).and_return([topic1, topic2])
    allow(topic1).to receive_message_chain(:assigned_teams, :map).and_return(['Team1'])
    allow(topic2).to receive_message_chain(:assigned_teams, :map).and_return(['Team2'])

    # Call the method
    result = assignment.assigned_teams_for_topics

    # Perform assertions
    expect(result[1]).to eq(['Team1'])
    expect(result[2]).to eq(['Team2'])
  end
end

Demo Video

You can watch this Demonstration Videofor a detailed demonstration of the project.

Team

Mentor:

• Anvitha Reddy Gutha (agutha@ncsu.edu)

Members:

• Shiva Vara Prasad Kandhagatla (skandha@ncsu.edu)
• Sai Santhosh Garlapati (sgarlap@ncsu.edu)
• Chinmay Walinjkar (cpwalinj@ncsu.edu)

References

• https://github.com/expertiza/expertiza
• http://expertiza.ncsu.edu/
• http://wiki.expertiza.ncsu.edu/index.php/Expertiza_documentation