Creating a new course

Courses are defined by subdirectories found in the tasks directory, which has been specified in the configuration. See Configuration reference. These subdirectories are composed of a course.yaml file describing the course parameters and other subdirectories corresponding to tasks (See Creating a new task).

Here is an example of the content of a tasks folder:

tasks/
    course_id_1/
        course.yaml
        task_id_1/
            task.yaml
            run
            ...
        ...
    ...

Ideally, you should only give permissions to a course folder to the course administrator if needed. The webapp task editor should not require you to give this access. If needed, several methods exist. See inginious-synchronize for Git repository synchronization.

Tutorial

Creating courses is reserved to the super-administrators (See Configuration reference). Course administrators are then able to configure the course by themselves.

Note

Demonstration tasks are made available for download here. They can also be downloaded and installed automatically via the inginious-install script.

Using the webapp

  1. As a super-administrator, go to the bottom of the course list and enter a new course id, for instance demo, and click on Create new course. A newly created hidden course named demo appears on the list.
  2. Click on that course, and then on Course administration to change the course parameters, add course administrators and tasks.

Please note that, if you give access to the course directory to course administrators, you still have to do some manual work for this to be effective.

Manually

The course description is a YAML file containing all the course parameters used by INGInious. Here is a simple course description. Put this file with the name course.yaml in a newly created demo folder in your tasks directory.

name: "[DEMO] Demonstration course"
admins:
- demouser

This elementary course description file will make a new publicly visible course with id demo appear as [DEMO] Demonstration course on the course list.

Course description files

Inside the task folder, courses are identified by subdirectories name by their course id and containing a course.yaml file. For instance, this file, for a course with id courseid1, should be placed in a courseid1 subdirectory.

course.yaml is a YAML file containing the course configuration.

admins:
  - demouser
name: "[DEMO] Demonstration course"
tutors: []
groups_student_choice: false
use_classrooms: true
accessible: true
registration: true
registration_password: null
registration_ac: null

While the course.yaml file must be present at the course root dir, all the fields inside are actually only used by the webapp. Here are the possible fields to set:

  • name Displayed name of the course on the course list.

  • admins List of administrators usernames. These users will have complete administrations right on the course.

  • tutors List of tutors usernames (restricted-rights teaching assistants). These users will have read-only rights on the course content. They cannot change course parameters nor tasks, cannot replay submissions or wipe the course data. However, they can manage the classroom composition and download all the student submissions.

  • accessible When this field is defined, the course is only visible if within the defined period. A course is always accessible to its admins, and is only hidden to normal users, even if they are registered to the course. This field can contain theses values:

    true

    the task is always accessible;

    false

    the task is never accessible;

    "<start>/<end>"

    where <start> and <end> are either empty or valid dates like “2014-05-10 10:11:12” or “2014-06-18”. The task is only accessible between <start> and <end>. If one of the values is empty, the corresponding limit does not apply.

    Dates are always considered as a precise instant (to te lowest resolution of the clock). For example, “2014-05-21” is expanded to “2014-05-21 00:00:00”. This means that start limits are inclusive, while end limits are exclusive.

    Some examples:

    "2014-05-21 / 2014-05-28"
"/ 2014-01-01 " # (strictly) before january the first
"2030-01-01 /" # opens in 2030
"/" # Always open
"/ 2013-12-31 23:59:59" # closes one minute before "/ 2014-01-01"

  • registration When this field is defined, users can only register to the course between the defined period. It takes the same arguments as accessible.

  • allow_unregister If this field is defined and set to false, then students are not allowed to auto-unregister from the course.

  • registration_password A password that is asked upon registration to the course. If empty or not defined, no password will be asked.

  • registration_ac Access control (AC) method. Can be null (anyone can register), username (filter by username), realname (filter by real name) or email (filter by email address). If AC is activated, the allowed values for the filter should be set in the registration_ac_list key.

  • registration_ac_list If AC is activated, registration_ac_list should contain a list of values for the filter.

  • nofrontend If this field is defined and set to true, then the course won’t be displayed on the webapp course list.

  • groups_student_choice If this field is defined and set to true and if collaborative work is activated for a given task, students will be invited to register by themselves for a group or team before submitting.

  • use_classrooms If this field is set to true, the classroom model will be used, otherwise, the team model will be used. The default value for this field is true. (See Classrooms and teams)