CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2018/E1834 Improve email notifications

This page provides a description of the Expertiza based OSS project.

About Expertiza

Expertiza is an open source project developed using Ruby on Rails framework.Expertiza allows the instructor to create new assignments and customize new or existing assignments.The application allows students to submit and peer-review learning objects (articles, code, web sites, etc)[1].Expertiza supports submission across various document types, including the URLs and wiki pages.

Problem Statement

When students' accounts are created by importing a CSV file on the Users page, they receive e-mails with their user-ID and password. But if an account is created by adding them as participants to an assignment when they don't already have an account, e-mail is not sent. Students should receive e-mails upon account creation, regardless of how their account is created. So this involves adding a call to the e-mailer … or, perhaps, moving an email call from the Users controller to the point where an account is actually created.

Second, evidently if a submission is revised after review, the system e-mails the reviewer saying to revise the review. This is just fine ... except if the last round of review is in progress.The message telling reviewers to revise their reviews should not be sent after the last review deadline has passed. It would also be nice to fix the message so it tells which review (Review 1, Review 2, etc.) has been revised, and gives the reviewer a link directly to it.

Deadline reminders should include a link on where to go to perform the needed function.

Approach Taken To Implement Changes

NOTE: All the mails except the ones for the reviewer which are sent to mailinator are sent to expertiza.development@gmail.com ,as this is already set in the development environment.

1) Mail sent when participant added to assignment :

When students' accounts are created by importing a CSV file on the Users page,they receive e-mails but not when user was added as a participant to the assignment.We added a method in the assignment_participant.rb model to send mails when a participant is added to an assignment on the assignment page through a CSV file.This functionality is implemented with using the MailerHelper class.

  # provide import functionality for Assignment Participants
  # if user does not exist, it will be created and added to this assignment
 def self.import(row_hash, _row_header = nil, session, id)
   raise ArgumentError, "No user id has been specified." if row_hash.empty?
   user = User.find_by(name: row_hash[:name])
   if user.nil?
     raise ArgumentError, "The record containing #{row_hash[:name]} does not have enough items." if row_hash.length < 4
     attributes = ImportFileHelper.define_attributes(row_hash)
     user = ImportFileHelper.create_new_user(attributes, session)
   end
   raise ImportError, "The assignment with id \"#{id.to_s}\" was not found." if Assignment.find(id).nil?
   unless AssignmentParticipant.exists?(user_id: user.id, parent_id: id)
     new_part = AssignmentParticipant.create(user_id: user.id, parent_id: id)
     new_part.set_handle
   end
   prepared_mail = MailerHelper.send_mail_to_user(user, "Your Expertiza account and password have been created.", "user_welcome", "password")
   prepared_mail.deliver
 end

We have in a similar fashion added a method in the course_participant model.

 # provide import functionality for Course Participants
 # if user does not exist, it will be created and added to this assignment
 def self.import(row_hash, _row_header = nil, session, id)
   raise ArgumentError, "No user id has been specified." if row_hash.empty?
   user = User.find_by(name: row_hash[:name])
   if user.nil?
     raise ArgumentError, "The record containing #{row_hash[:name]} does not have enough items." if row_hash.length < 4
     attributes = ImportFileHelper.define_attributes(row_hash)
     user = ImportFileHelper.create_new_user(attributes, session)
   end
   course = Course.find_by(id)
   raise ImportError, "The course with the id \"" + id.to_s + "\" was not found." if course.nil?
   unless CourseParticipant.exists?(user_id: user.id, parent_id: id)
     CourseParticipant.create(user_id: user.id, parent_id: id)
   end
   password = "password"#user.password
   prepared_mail = MailerHelper.send_mail_to_user(user, "Your Expertiza account and password have been created.", "user_welcome", password)
   prepared_mail.deliver
 end