Electronic Coursework Submission in Physics

Electronic Submission and Return of Work for Physics Courses

Contents

• General Considerations
• Guide to Using the Electronic Coursework Submission system
  • For faculty
  • For TA's/graders
  • For students
• Configuring the LabSubmit program
• Guide to Using the Electronic Coursework Return system
  • For faculty
  • For TA's/graders
  • For students

A growing number of labs and courses are making extensive use of certain software in the course work, and are interested in setting up a procedure for electronic submission of such work to the TA's and/or faculty. Also, a number of faculty are interested in being able to electronically return graded work to the students.

Because of the importance course related work holds in an academic environment, there are a number of issues that must be dealt with any electronic submission/return procedures, including:

1. Security of submitted work. So as not to encourage academic dishonesty, work submitted by one student should not be accessible to other students.
2. Authenticity of submitted work. It is also important to verify that the work submitted as from a student was actually submitted by that student. A valid timestamp of when the work was submitted may also be important in assuring that the work was submitted before some deadline.
3. Security and authenticity of returned work. The student has a right to privacy with respect to graded work being returned.
4. Reliability. As more and more courses start doing electronic submission and/or return, they will begin to depend on the system functioning. This becomes especially important if the system is being used to extend deadlines beyond normal business hours; failure of the system a few hours before a deadline when no one is around to fix it could be disasterous. Even worse is if a malicious student could force a system failure so as to force an extension to be granted. It is also important that should a failure occur, the student be promptly notified so that other arrangements can be made.

A number of faculty and TA's are currently using electronic mail for the submission of course work. Although that is a somewhat workable solution, it fails a number of the points listed above. In particular, the authenticity of submitted work (it is not difficult to fake email so that it appears to come from someone else, and it is not easy to get a good time stamp on when the work was submitted), and reliability. There are a number of denial of service attacks that could be used against such a system without revealing the identity of the attacker. Furthermore, if the submission fails, e.g. due to the recipient being over-quota, or even the student mispelling the email address, the user would not get very good notification of the error. At best, they will get an email (requiring them to check their mail shortly after the submission) some time after the submission (maybe a few minutes, maybe four hours or even several days) informing them of the problem. And that is only if the email had a proper return address (which is not the case with mail sent from public access machines in the Physics department as most mail clients do not facilitate use by multiple one-time users).

Physics Computing Services has developed a better system, availing itself of the strong Kerberos authentication used in the PNCE-Unix/Glue system as its foundation. This system remedies many of the shortcomings of the email system described above, in particular:

• authentication of submissions is possible (assuming students adequately protect their Glue accounts and passwords). There is also a valid, accurate timestamp available if requiring submissions before a deadline.
• students receive immediate notification of success or failure of the electronic submission process. This allows for prompt rectification of any problems that may occur, and/or informs them that they may have to make arrangements for non-electronic submission if they are submitting too close to the deadline for the problem to be resolved.
• is less prone to denial of service attacks, and the easiest of such attacks will leave clear traces of who the instigators are.
• PCS hopes to have available for Spring 2001 an utility called LabSubmit on all teaching and Powl lab machines which will make the submission easier and less error prone for the students.

First of all, there needs to be a course directory hierarchy created for your course. You can see if one exists by logging onto any PNCE-Unix/NSCP-II/Glue machine and doing a directory listing of /dept/phys/courses. If a directory for your course does not exist under there, contact PCS and request that one be created. If a directory named after your course does already exist, you must be identified to the system as one of the professors teaching that course. If the command
/usr/afsws/bin/pts members $USER
includes the group phys:physnnn-mgr in its output (where nnn is the number of the course in question), you are already known to the system as teaching that course. If not, contact the chair's office or PCS requesting to be added to that group.

If you plan to use the electronic coursework submission part of the course hierarchy, every student in the course (and the TA's) will need Glue accounts (PNCE-Unix and NSCP-II accounts count as Glue accounts, WAM accounts DO NOT). All faculty and graduate students in the Physics department are eligible for Glue accounts through the Physics department, and all undergraduate or graduate students (physics majors or not) can obtain accounts through the Office of Information Technology (NOTE:any individual person is only entitled to a single account, either through Physics or through OIT, not both). Registration for a Glue account begins online, with the procedure listed here. In the unlikely event of problems obtaining an OIT account, or if exceptional circumstances exist, accounts for any student in a Physics course will be granted by PCS; submit a physhelp in such cases.

You will also need to identify to the system which users are your TA's, and which users are in your class. You should plan on trying to get the Glue usernames of all students in your class during the first few classes (although Glue accounts are needed to use the system, if a student only has a WAM account, their Glue username when they get a Glue account will be the same as their WAM username, so you may wish to collect that in lieu of a Glue username. They will, however, need to get their Glue account before you can do anything with that information.) PCS has provided a number of scripts to simplify this process, and some documentation describing their use.

Faculty members will probably also wish to read the usage notes for TA's, as well as skim the usage notes for students.

How to use Electronic Coursework Submission System: for TA's

The system will allow for any student identified by the system as being in the class (e.g. a member of the group phys:physnnn) to place coursework in any directory beneath /dept/phys/courses/Physnnn/submissions. Note that the class directory structure is defined on a class by class, not section by section basis, so all submitted work for all sections for all professors for this course will go somewhere beneath this directory. It is therefore strongly recommended that you create subdirectories and a policy on where students should put their work. PCS recommends, and LabSubmit defaults to having a subdirectory of submissions for each faculty member teaching the course, and subdirectories beneath that for each assignment. However, the system is flexible, and you can have more (or fewer) layers, different layers, and order the layers differently as you see fit. (You should look at the section on configuring LabSubmit so it properly handles your configuration.) For example, you might decide to put directories with section numbers or the name of the TA between the professor and assignment number directories. You should set these directories up ahead of time (at least before anyone might want to submit work into them), and explain the structure to your students.

At the beginning of the semester, you will probably need to clear out any submitted work from the previous semester. This can be done with a command like:
rm -rf /dept/phys/courses/Physnnn/submissions/name
wherename is the name of the faculty member, or whatever name was given to the top level directories in your scheme. Please take care not to delete a directory tree that is currently in use by another faculty member currently teaching the course. Also, do not use the above command when there might be ungraded work in any of the directories.

Once the directory structure is set up, students can begin submitting work. Note that the LabSubmit program depends on answers from the student as to what professor, section, assignment number, etc., to determine where to put the assignment, so you will probably need to think about what to do if the assignment is misplaced, e.g. if a student puts lab report #5 in the directory for lab report #4. (I would suggest at first only looking where you expect stuff to be, and only if a student complains that they submitted something but you can't find it, that you look for it elsewhere. The timestamp on the file should allow you to determine that it was submitted before the deadline, and the hassle of having to find the file should hopefully teach the student to be more careful in the future.) You should also be aware that a student cannot copy over something that was already submitted, even if they were the ones to submit it. This is a security feature, but also means that you will occasionally find more than one submission from the same student for the same assignment. This could be due to the student belatedly realizing that they sent the wrong file, or from a student realizing and correcting a mistake in the original submission after it was sent. You should have some idea of how you wish to handle such.

After the files are submitted, TA's and/or faculty for the course can log into any PNCE-Unix, NSCP-II, or Glue machine and cd to the appropriate submissions subdirectory. Unlike the students, they have ability to read (as well as write to) any files there. The LabSubmit program will by default (see section on configuring LabSubmit to change that) use the name of the file given by the student, prefixed by the student's username, and suffixed by a version number if needed to make it uniquely named. NOTE: the username part of the filename is intended as a convenience, but should not be considered reliable. Any student in the course can create a file starting with any username. If you have any concerns or questions about who submitted a file, use the command:
ls -l filename
where filename is the name of the file to examine. For example, using bigboote-mylab.nb as the filename might return something like
-rw-rw-r-- 1 bigboote osl 3240433 Nov 27 11:41 bigboote-mylab.nb
assuming a student bigboote submitted an assignment. The third field in this example (after the -rw-rw-r-- and the 1) gives the name of the user who submitted the file. In this case (as should be the usual case), the submitter is user bigboote and agrees with the name on the file. But should there be any question of who submitted it, it is the third field which should be trusted. If you are concerned about when a file was submitted, the above command also gives the timestamp showing the time of submission, in this case a bit before noon on Nov 27.

The procedure for opening the file for grading will depend somewhat on what type of files are being submitted. If they are viewable under Unix, you can either open them and grade them in place, or you can copy them to somewhere in the /dept/phys/courses/Physnnn/private area and open and grade them there. If the file is of a type specific to an PC application, or you prefer using PCs, you will need to copy the files from the Unix box to the PC. The following shows a typical session doing just that using the simple MS ftp client:
C:>cd c:\tmp
C:tmp>ftp ftp.physics.umd.edu
Name (none): bigboote
Password:
Remove system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files
ftp> cd /dept/phys/courses/Physnnn
250 CWD command successful
ftp> cd submissions/Bigboote/0101/HW3
250 CWD command successful
ftp> bi
200 Type set to I.
ftp> prompt
Interactive mode off.
ftp> mget *
local: bigboote-mylab.nb remote: bigboote-mylab.nb
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for bigboote-mylab.nb (3240433 bytes)
226 Transfer complete
local: georgeb-lab2.nb.nb remote: georgeb-lab2.nb.nb
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for georgeb-lab2.nb.nb (3640344 bytes)
226 Transfer complete
local: tigspid-phys.nb.nb remote: tigspid-phys.nb.nb
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for tigspid-phys.nb.nb (2673444 bytes)
226 Transfer complete
ftp> quit
221-You have transferred 9754121 bytes in 3 files.
221-Thank you for using the FTP service on phys-www1.physics.umd.edu.
221 Goodbye. You can also use other, more user-friendly ftp clients in a similar fashion. Remember that you will need to transfer in BINARY mode for any PC application files. Remember to delete the transferred files when done, especially if using an open machine (a teaching or POWL lab machine. If you are planning to return the graded work electronically, see also the section on returning work for TA's.

How to use Electronic Coursework Submission System: for students

Submitting Coursework Electronically using LabSubmit

The LabSubmit program comes in slightly different flavors depending on the machine youare sitting at. Machines in the teaching labs should have specialized versions of the program specific to that particular lab course. Machines in the POWL labs will have some of those course specific versions, but will also have a generic version which can be used to submit work to any class for which this is enabled. DO NOT USE electronic submission unless your professor told you to do so. It is possible that the electronic submission feature was enabled for another professor, possibly from a previous semester, and that your professor does not wish to use it. In such a case, there is no guarantee that the professor will accept electronically submitted work and you may get a zero for that assignment unless turned in physically.

All versions will start with a welcome screen, which will identify whether that version is specific for a given course or the generic version. Make sure that if it is not the generic version you chose the one for the right course, and hit the Continue button. If you make a mistake, you can exit by hitting the Cancel button at any time.

If you continued, a screen will file dialog will pop up allowing you to select the file to submit. Although we tried to make a good guess at what directory you will be in, you may need to change directories to find the file. Double click on the file, or hit the Accept button to make your choice.

The main window will show your selection, and instruct you to enter your Glue username and password in the login window that appears. Do so and hit the return key in the password box or hit the OK button to continue. The program will then try to log in via ftp using the information you provided, and complain if something went wrong, asking you to re-enter your username and password.

If you are using the generic version, it will then list all courses for which electronic submission is available, and prompt you to choose one.

Both versions will then prompt you with some questions regarding the course, such as your professor, or section number, assignment number, etc. Please answer these questions correctly, otherwise your assignment will not be put in the right place and the grader will not find it. Although you may be able to get your grader to search for it, they might not want to, and it is easier for everyone all around if you simply answer everything correctly so it gets put in the right spot.

Once you answer all the questions to find the right directory into which to put your assignment, the program will generate a name for your file on the ftp server, and inform you if there are any other files there with the same name. As your username is prepended to the name of the file you gave, such files would appear to be submitted from you. In such a case it will append a version number onto your file to make the filename unique.

You cannot overwrite a file once submitted, even if you submitted it. If you realized that you submitted the wrong file by mistake, just run LabSubmit again, giving the correct file. If the filename would be the same as something already submitted, it will append a version number. You should probably send an email or otherwise inform the professor or TA in this case so that they grade the correct file.

If you find a file with your username in it that you did not submit, please contact you professor at once. Someone may be trying to do something unethical. The system can identify who submitted the file, but it would be helpful for you to notify the professor so it is brought to his attention.

The last step of the process will be a list of all files in the designated directory beginning with your username, including the file size and time created. You should verify that the recently submitted file appears and has a reasonable size (it might be slightly larger or smaller than reported on the PC, but should be close in size).

You should also see the section on dealing with problems when submitting work.

Submitting Coursework Electronically without LabSubmit

The submission process basically involves putting a copy of your work in the appropriate directory for your section, assignment number, etc. under /dept/phys/courses/Physnnn/submissions on any Glue machine. If the file already exists on a Glue machine, you can simply use the cp command to copy it there. Otherwise, you can use ftp and ftp the file directly into that directory. It is customary to have the file on the ftp server begin with your username.

You will not be able to overwrite any files in that hierarchy, even if you were the one to submit it. If you need to resubmit a file for some reason (e.g. you submitted the wrong file, or discovered an error in your work), you will need to add some version number to it. You should also email your professor or grader to inform them which file is good. (Also note that it is up to your professor and/or TA to decide whether to allow multiple submissions, etc.)

You should also verify that the file has been saved correctly with the
ls -l /dept/phys/courses/Physnnn/submissions/Professor/Assignment/filename
command. This will probably have to be issued from a login prompt, not from the ftp prompt, due to idiosyncrasies of the ftp server.

Configuring LabSubmit for your course

You will also need to establish directories into which to return the work. This can be done by running the command
create_class_return_directories physnnn
any time after the class group has been populated. (It will also need to be run again after any additions are made to the class group.)

Faculty will likely also be interested in the sections on the Electronic Coursework Return system from the student and TA/grader perspectives.

How to use Electronic Coursework Return system- for TA's

To use the system, faculty and/or TA's simply put a copy of the work to return to the student in the directory with their username. This can be done with a simple cp command if the file is already on a Glue system machine, or you can use the ftp command if the file is on a PC.

How to use Electronic Coursework Return system- for students

How to read the work depends on the type of file. If the file is readable using applications available on the Glue system, you can just open the file up under that application. If the file needs to be opened in a PC application, you can do so either on a WAM PC or using the ftp command, e.g. with the simple MS ftp client, you would do something like:

1. cd c:\tmp or wherever you wish to put the downloaded file.
2. ftp to ftp.physics.umd.edu
3. log in with your Glue username and password
4. cd to /dept/phys/courses/Physnnn/returned_work/username where username is your Glue username.
5. ls to see if the file is there.
6. bi to set mode to binary
7. get file to get the file
8. quit to exit

You can also use other, more graphical ftp clients if you wish, and the procedure is similar, but hard to enumerate here.

You should save a copy of the returned work when you download it, as periodically old items may be purged to conserve disk space.

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