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-Introduction
-============
-
-This app provides an "exam" app that lets users take an online
-programming quiz. Currently only Python and simple Bash scripts can be
-tested. At FOSSEE, Nishanth had implemented a nice django based app to
-test for multiple-choice questions. However, I was inspired by a
-programming contest that I saw at PyCon APAC 2011. Chris Boesch, who
-administered the contest, used a nice web application that he had built
-on top of GAE that basically checked your Python code, live. This made
-it fun and interesting. Their application can be seen at
-http://singpath.com
-
-I wanted an implementation that was not tied to GAE and decided to write
-one myself and the result is the "exam" app. The idea being that I can
-use this to test students programming skills and not have to worry about
-grading their answers myself and I can do so on my machines.
-
-You can define fairly complicated programming problems and have users
-solve the problem and the solution is checked immediately. The system
-supports pretty much arbitrary Python and uses "test cases" to test the
-implementations of the students. It also supports simple bash scripts
--- see the sample questions in "docs/". In addition it supports simple
-multiple choice questions. Since it runs on your Python, you could
-technically test any Python based library. It is distributed under the
-BSD license.
-
-It can use a lot more work but the basics work and the app scales to
-over 500+ simultaneous users. :)
-
-Dependencies
-=============
-
-Before you install/deploy, make sure you have the following installed:
-
- - Django 1.3 or above.
- - South (tested with 0.7.3).
-
-That and a running Python is pretty much all you need. Of course, for
-serious deployment you are going to need Apache or some other decent
-webserver.
-
-
-Installation and Deployment
-=============================
-
-To install/deploy this app follow the steps below:
-
- 1. Clone this repository and cd to the cloned repo.
-
- 2. Run::
-
- $ python manage.py syncdb
- [ enter password etc.]
-
- $ python manage.py migrate exam
-
- 3. Add questions by editing the "docs/sample_questions.py" or any other
- file in the same format and then run the following::
-
- $ python manage.py load_exam docs/sample_questions.py
-
- Note that you can supply multiple Python files as arguments and all of
- those will be added to the database.
-
- 4. First run the python server provided. This ensures that the code is
- executed in a safe environment. Do this like so::
-
- $ sudo python code_server.py
-
- Put this in the background once it has started since this will not
- return back the prompt. It is important that the server be running
- *before* students start attempting the exam. Using sudo is
- necessary since the server is run as the user "nobody". This runs
- on the ports configured in the settings.py file in the variable
- "SERVER_PORTS". The "SERVER_TIMEOUT" also can be changed there.
- This is the maximum time allowed to execute the submitted code.
- Note that this will likely spawn multiple processes as "nobody"
- depending on the number of server ports specified.
-
- 5. Now, run::
-
- $ python manage.py runserver <desired_ip>:<desired_port>
-
- For deployment use Apache or a real webserver, see below for more
- information.
-
- 6. Go to http://deserved_host_or_ip:desired_port/admin
-
- 7. Login with your credentials and look at the questions and modify if
- needed. Create a new Quiz, set the date and duration or
- activate/deactivate the quiz.
-
- 8. Now ask users to login at:
-
- http://host:port/exam
-
- And you should be all set.
-
- 9. Note that the directory "output" will contain directories, one for each
- user. Users can potentially write output into these that can be used
- for checking later.
-
- 10. As admin user you can visit http://host/exam/monitor to view
- results and user data interactively. You could also "grade" the
- papers manually if needed.
-
- 11. You may dump the results and user data using the results2csv and
- dump_user_data commands.
-
-WARNING: django is running in debug mode for this currently, CHANGE it
-during deployment. To do this, edit settings.py and set DEBUG to False.
-Also look at other settings and change them suitably.
-
-The file docs/sample_questions.py is a template that you can use for your
-own questions.
-
-Additional commands available
-==============================
-
-We provide several convenient commands for you to use:
-
- - load_exam : load questions and a quiz from a python file. See
- docs/sample_questions.py
-
- - load_questions_xml : load questions from XML file, see
- docs/sample_questions.xml use of this is deprecated in favor of
- load_exam.
-
- - results2csv : Dump the quiz results into a CSV file for further
- processing.
-
- - dump_user_data : Dump out relevalt user data for either all users or
- specified users.
-
-For more information on these do this::
-
- $ ./manage.py help [command]
-
-where [command] is one of the above.
-
-Deploying via Apache
-=====================
-
-For any serious deployment, you will need to deploy the app using a real
-webserver like Apache. The ``apache/django.wsgi`` script should make it
-easy to deploy this using mod_wsgi. You will need to add a line of the
-form:
-
- WSGIScriptAlias / "/var/www/online_test/apache/django.wsgi"
-
-to your apache.conf. For more details see the Django docs here:
-
-https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/howto/deployment/modwsgi/
-
-
-Sometimes you might be in the situation where you are not hosted as
-"host.org/exam/" but as "host.org/foo/exam/" for whatever reason. In
-this case edit "settings.py" and set the "URL_ROOT" to the root you
-have to serve at. In the above example for "host.org/foo/exam" set
-URL_ROOT='/foo'.
-
-License
-=======
-
-This is distributed under the terms of the BSD license. Copyright
-information is at the bottom of this file.
-
-Authors
-=======
-
-Main author: Prabhu Ramachandran
-
-I gratefully acknowledge help from the following:
-
- - Nishanth Amuluru originally from FOSSEE who wrote bulk of the
- login/registration code. He wrote an initial first cut of a quiz app
- which supported only simple questions which provided motivation for
- this app. The current codebase does not share too much from his
- implementation although there are plenty of similarities.
-
- - Harish Badrinath (FOSSEE) -- who provided a first cut of the bash
- related scripts.
-
- - Srikant Patnaik and Thomas Stephen Lee, who helped deploy and test
- the code.
-
-
-Copyright (c) 2011 Prabhu Ramachandran and FOSSEE (fossee.in)
-