Student Database and Assignment Management Systems

• give - assignment submission, autotesting and marking system

• sms - student database management system

give & sms Installation

give and sms are interconnected. Create give environment and sms database in the class account as follows:

1. ssh into the class account with X11 forwarding: ssh -Y

   sms is a tk app that requires X windows. An alternative to X windows is to run VNC on a CSE login server.

2. Run the installation script:

   % give-install -new

   % ~give/stable/bin/give-install -new

   • if ~give/stable/bin is not part of $PATH

   % ksh give-install -new

   • if your login shell is zsh

   % give-install -new YYsN

   • if the session is not the same as the system-wide session

3. The installation perform the following tasks:

   • Create $WORK ($HOME/YYsN.work e.g. ~/12s2.work)

   • Create give.spec (if doesn't exists) in

     • $HOME (does not override existing one)

     • $WORK (does not override existing one)

     (read about give.spec)

   • Create .giverc in $HOME (overrides existing one)

   • Create sms database under $WORK (can be postponed)

   • Download student enrolment data (read about importing nss data below)

   • Add $SMSDB (e.g. ~/YYsN.work/YYsNdb.sms) to $HOME/.giverc

4. The installation can be paused before sms database is created.
   • Create the database by running sms directly:

   • % sms ~/YYsN.work/YYsNdb.sms

     • or

   • % sms

     • (if $SMSDB is set to the current session)

   • Resume the installation with this command:

     % give-install -update

5. Download student enrollment data
   • Add course records
   • For combined courses, create the database in the primary class account, add a record for each course.
   • Add student records

   • Top menu bar: Student → Add Student Records → External Source

   • or second menu bar: Add from NSS

     From NSS or From NSS (without classes) The latter is used if swapping student to another class in sms.

6. If there are classes in NSS, an enum field (tut, lab or tut_lab) will automatically be created in sms after the above downloads. Enter this field when asked for a group field by the installation script. This field is used by give for assignment submissions.

   (Read about &subkey and &subgroup)

7. After installing give, update the environment to the new session:

   % . ~/.giverc

   and insert the line above to the class account's .profile.

8. Check that the give.spec file in $HOME contain the correct configuration for the current session.

   • Look out for &period set to a previous session.

9. Check the environment variables: $GIVEPERIOD, $WORK, $SMSDB

   % echo $GIVEPERIOD