Products.ECAutoAssessmentBox 1.1dev

Overview
========

ECAutoAssessmentBox is a Plone product derived from ECAssignmentBox
and provides special support for automatic evaluation of student
submissions, e.g., programming assignments.

Basically ECAutoAssessmentBox works like ECAssignmentBox. Automatic
assessment of programs is handled by ECSpooler (available separately)
which manages a submission queue and several backends. When a student
submits a program, it is routed to the backend specified by the
teacher for this assignment. The results of the tests performed by
the backend are immediately returned and displayed.


Download
========

`plone.org products page`_

.. _plone.org products page: http://plone.org/products/ecautoassessmentbox/


Prerequisites
=============

#. To use ECAutoAssessmentBox you need a current Plone installation,
specifically Plone 3. Check `plone.org`_ for Plone's
prerequisites.

#. The `ECAssignmentBox`_ product.

.. _plone.org :http://plone.org/products/plone
.. _ECAssignmentBox: http://plone.org/products/ecassignmentbox/


Installation
============

See the `Installing an Add-on Product`_ tutorial for more detailed
product installation instructions.

.. _Installing an Add-on Product: http://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/third-party-products/installing


Installing with buildout
------------------------

If you are using `buildout`_ to manage your instance installing
ECAutoAssessmentBox is very simple. You can install it by adding it
to the eggs line for your instance::

[instance]
eggs =
...
Products.ECAutoAssessmentBox

After updating the configuration you need to run ``bin/buildout``,
which will take care of updating your system.

Then restart your zope instance and use the Add/Remove products page
in Site Setup to install ECAutoAssessmentBox.

.. _buildout: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/zc.buildout


Installing without buildout
---------------------------

Move (or symlink) the ``ECAutoAssessmentBox`` folder of this project
(``Products.ECAutoAssessmentBox/Products/ECAutoAssessmentBox``) into
the ``Products`` directory of the Zope instance it has to be installed
for, and restart the server. Use the Add/Remove products page in
Site Setup to install ECAutoAssessmentBox.


Support
=======

For questions and discussions about ECAutoAssessmentBox, please join the
`eduComponents mailing list`_.

.. _eduComponents mailing list: https://listserv.uni-magdeburg.de/mailman/listinfo/educomponents.


Credits
=======

ECAssignmentBox was written by `Mario Amelung`_ and
`Michael Piotrowski`_.

The icons used in ECAssignmentBox are from the `Silk icon set`_ by
Mark James. They are licensed under a `Creative Commons Attribution
2.5 License`_.

ECAutoAssessmentBox was ported to Plone 3 by `Eudemonia Solutions AG`_
with support from `Katrin Krieger`_ and the Otto-von-Guericke
University of Magdeburg.

.. _Mario Amelung: mario.amelung@gmx.de
.. _Michael Piotrowski: mxp@dynalabs.de
.. _Silk icon set: http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
.. _Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
.. _Eudemonia Solutions AG: http://www.eudemonia-solutions.de/
.. _Katrin Krieger: http://wdok.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/Members/kkrieger/


History
=======

# Changes in release 1.1 (2009-10-09)

- ECAutoAssessmentBox was completly re-implemented with support for
Plone 3.

- ECAutoAssessmentBox is now eggified and uploaded to PyPI. An old-style
tarball distribution is still available at plone.org.

# Changes in release 1.0 (2007-04-16)

- Added check box "Automatically accept assignments" to
ECAutoAssessmentBox to automatically move an assignment in state
"accepted" if it successfully passed all tests. (Makes sense for
backens which return true or false only.)

- Settings for ECSpooler and appropriated backends are now stored as
portal properties. Therefore it is no longer necessary to set up
spooler and backends after re-install.

- Indicators are now differ depending on the backends result type,
i.e., for backends returning True or False an icon will be displayed,
otherwise the plain result value (e.g., percentage or score.)

- Performance improvements: We are now using portal_catalog where
possible.