CSC/ECE 517 Spring 2018- Project Juniper:Bookmark Enhancements

Introduction

Expertiza Background

Best stated in the project documentation, “The Expertiza project is software to create reusable learning objects through peer review. It also supports team projects, and the submission of almost any document type, including URLs and wiki pages.” The system makes it easy for instructors to post assignments and manage students. Students are able to work in teams, submit assignments, receive feedback on their work and review their teammates.

Description of Current Project

The project aims at enhancing the usability of the bookmarks feature for any topic. Basic functionality already exists to add bookmarks to topics. When a student logs in to his expertiza account,he/she can sign-up for a particular topic from the list of topics in an assignment. On the sign-up sheet, there is a column for Bookmarks.

Users can either view a Bookmark or add a new Bookmark for a particular topic. Users can submit links via add Bookmark to provide helpful sources for the author to complete their work. Users can also view Bookmarks already added for the particular topics. Authors can rank the usefulness of these bookmarks as 1-5 with a drop down menu next to the bookmark. Our project aims to implement this. Also, we want to provide a way for the users who have submitted useful bookmarks to be given credit for it. This can be based on the rating provided by the Author.

This project intends to build on the bookmark functionality by allowing instructors to access the bookmark ratings rubric, and designing a way to assess if these bookmarks are being utilized by the author.

Git Pull Request Link

E1806 OSS Project Juniper: Bookmark enhancements

Issues

Problem 1:

When an instructor is logged in, they can manage rubrics under the Manage > Questionnaires tab. However, bookmark ratings are not available to be selected.

Proposed Enhancements to the problem:

After going through the migrations we observed that there have been migrations to add the Questionnaire nodes to the Menu Bar. In these migrations we did not find any code which specifies that the "Bookmark Rating" Questionnaire Node has been added to the Menu Bar. We believe that a migration has to be added which will add the Bookmark Rating Node to the Menu Bar thereby enabling the user to see "Bookmark Rating" as a type of rubric when they go to Manage > Questionnaires.

The addition of migration did not solve the problem completely. When logged in as superadminstrator, we can access the menu editor. The menu editor shows the Bookmark Rating link (as shown below) which was added because of the new migration. Although this change is not visible in the actual Menu because the menu editor is not working properly. This problem was discussed with the instructors and they also confirmed the incorrect functionality of the menu editor. The Menu editor is expected to be replaced in the near future and this should solve the current problem.

Admin view shows Bookmark Rating in the menu editor but the change is not reflected in the actual Menu.

Problem 2:

When a user logs in as an instructor and selects Manage > Questionnaires, the links associated with the Bookmark Rating rubric are broken. When a user clicks on Bookmark Rating link, it should link to a page to create a new Bookmark rating Questionnaire. However, the link does not redirect to the required page, rather an error message is thrown.

Enhancements to the problem

Working Functionality Demo

Previously, the Folder node was named "Bookmarkrating" because of which, after clicking on "New Public Item" or "New Private Item" we get an Error message. New migrations have been written in which the node has been renamed to "Bookmark Rating" because this is how it has been defined in the Questionnaire Model. Now the links for "New Public Item" and "New Private Item" works properly resulting in the screens shown below.

Page that shows the links for "New Public Item" and "New Private Item"

Page that is redirected to after we click "New Public Item" or "New Private Item"

Problem 3:

The current functionality only allows for the author to review the bookmark, and the reviewer is not able to assess the usefulness of a bookmark.

Proposed design to address the problem:

The design below could be implemented to allow for input from reviewers on bookmarks. This would involve modification to the existing classes to add “karma points,” which are points a user acquires for submitting helpful bookmarks. Both the reviewer and the author can submit a 1-5 rating on a bookmark- the author does so based on how helpful they found the link, and the reviewer based on how impactful the bookmark appeared to be on the author’s work. These ratings translate directly into karma points, making a user who submits a bookmark eligible to earn up to 10 karma points for that bookmark. This would require a field for karma points in the user database, where points would be stored and accumulated. Only the instructor would be authorised to view a students karma points, and the instructor would be able to list, sort, and filter users by karma points. How the karma points are utilized is at the discretion of the instructor; two examples of usage could be for recognition of helpful students and awarding participation grades based on a baseline of karma points.

Files modified in current project

• db/migrate/20180326223032_update_bookmark_rating_tree_folder_rating.rb

• db/migrate/20121127013927_add_bookmarkrating_folder_nodes.rb

• db/migrate/20180403022842_add_bookmark_rating_to_menu.rb

• expertiza/app/models/tree_display_controller.rb

• expertiza/app/models/questionnaire.rb

• config/routes.rb

Test Plan

UI Testing

The specification for the project did not require us to write automated tests.We have however included tests for UI Testing.

• Creating a Bookmark Rating Questionnaire
  • Login to Expertiza as an instructor
  • Navigate to the Manage > Questionnaires menu and select ‘Bookmark Rating’
  • Choose either new public item or new private item
  • Enter a name, min score, max score, and choose whether the bookmark questionnaire is private from the drop down menu
  • Select "Create"
  • You will now see a page that will allow you to add questions to your questionnaire.
  • Click "Save" to save your questionnaire.

Conclusion

• Most of the functionality for the project was already in place. Our team was required to do the following task :
• Allow Instructor to add bookmark rating as a type of rubric from the questionnaire menu.
• Build on the current 0-5 rating system by adding criteria for a bookmark ratings. For example, rather than a simple ask for a 0-5 rating with no rubric, ask the user “How informative was the bookmark?” and “How much did the bookmark influence your submission?”
• Our team proposed the following extension to the project :
• In addition to building the feature designed above, karma points could be extended to other parts of Expertiza to reinforce positive user interactions.

References

• Expertiza YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdKXzox7hrWjfOMML6FzTWg/videos
• Expertiza Documentation: http://wiki.expertiza.ncsu.edu/index.php/Expertiza_documentation
• Expertiza on Github: https://github.com/expertiza/expertiza