Team project for CSC 440, Applied Software Engineering at Eastern Kentucky University
- By Michael Galliers and James Miller
The core goal of this project is to make a grade tracking web application using modern software engineering technologies. These technologies include:
- A React.js frontend with Redux state management
- A Django backend
- Fully automated build, test, and deployment process using Travis-CI
- Containerized deployments with Kubernetes
The following is an excerpt from the requirements specification report:
As EKU college students, we the authors have firsthand experience with the difficulties of grade/progress management. The tools already used by the college for grade management have their flaws. Many professors either do not setup the grading categories and weights properly, or they choose to not use BlackBoard for tracking grades at all. Also, BlackBoard does not have the ability to give advanced insights for student grades other than simple weighted averages or totals.
Students can choose to manage their grades on their own, either using technology, such as spreadsheets, or pen and paper. Students who do this are able to gain more insights into their progress in courses, but it can be very time consuming to setup spreadsheets or do computations by hand, especially when predicting grades needed on an assignment.
As a solution to these problems, we propose a software system for grade and progress tracking. The system shall have 2 main related components: one for grade tracking and one for major/concentration progress tracking. The grade tracking system will allow students to easily enter and track their grades across colleges, semesters, courses, and categories (homework, exams, etc.). Various views on the user interface will display grades/scores using visual elements and animations, making it easy for students to see how well they are doing.
The second component of the application is a progress tracker for majors and concentrations. Information provided through the grade tracking feature, coupled with course requirements structures will allow students to view their progress across multiple majors and concentrations.
The system shall have a user account management component to keep track of students, including the ability to register, login, edit account, and logout. When a student logs into the system, the student shall see a dashboard containing the most relevant information and navigation links. From there, the student will also be able to access the system menu, allowing them to navigate to either the grade tracking component or the progress tracking component.
The grade tracking component shall have views for the following items:
- All semesters (root grade tracking view)
- Courses in a semester
- Details of a course (including categories and grade entries)
The All Semesters view shall allow the student to navigate to a particular semester, add/remove a semester in which they are enrolled, and view statistics about his/her grades in that semester.
The Courses view shall display the courses that are in a particular semester. The student shall be able to add/remove/edit courses, view statistics for grades in each course, and navigate to any of the courses.
The Course Detail view shall display all remaining details for a particular course. This includes the statistics of a student's grades in the course, the grading categories of the course, and the grade entries themselves. The student shall also have the ability to add/remove/edit categories and grade entries.
The progress tracking component shall allow students to track their progress across major concentrations. This component shall have the following hierarchical views:
- Colleges (root progress tracking view)
- Majors
- Concentrations
- Concentration progress
The Colleges view shall display the colleges in which the student is enrolled and allow him/her to navigate to the Majors view for that college. The student shall also have the ability to add/remove colleges which he/she is enrolled in.
The Majors view shall display the majors of the college which was navigated from that the student is enrolled in. The student shall be able to add/remove majors which he/she is enrolled in and also navigate to the Concentrations view for a particular major.
The Concentrations view shall display all the concentrations of the major which was navigated from, broken up into 2 sections: one for the concentration(s) the student in enrolled in and one for all other concentrations. The student shall be able to add/remove concentrations which they are enrolled in and navigate to the Concentration progress view.
The Concentration progress view shall display visuals for the student's progress in the concentration, including overall progress and individual courses completed. This view shall be based on courses the student has entered through the grade tracking component.