Hello Gangadhar,

On 2010-06-29, Gangadhar Hariharan wrote:
> i have started using the ECAutoAssessment product on my plone site.
> As i was working with it, i understand that it uses ECSpooler to do
> background checking. So i need not install ECSpooler separately as a
> product. My question is : how to create the test backend?

ECSpooler and backends are separate products (apart from Plone) which
have to be installed on a machine which is reachable inside your network
[1].  If you use the ECSpooler package from

  <http://wdok.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/software/ecspooler/>

please see the »Installation« and »Quick Start« sections in README.txt.

The common procedure is that you first start ECSpooler and than start
several backends which in turn register themselves at ECSpooler.

We have implemented multiple backends for Haskell, Scheme, Lisp, Erlang,
Prolog, Python, and Java.  However, ECSpooler only ships with a demo
backend, Keywords, which checks whether a submission contains certain
keywords specified by the creator of the assignment.

We do not include other backends because, when executing student code,
you have to take security precautions, e.g., by using chroot, jails, or
systrace.  If you are aware of the risks and if you are able to deal
with the configuration issues, we are happy to provide you with our
backends on request.

> Initially i do not have any test backends. Also, is there a
> documentation which helps to go about ECAutoAssessmentBox properly?

If ECSpooler and backends are running (daemon processes) you have to
configure ECAutoAssessmentBox for communication with the spooler.  Go to
»site setup« (left upper corner of your Plone site) and click on »Auto
Assessment Settings«.  Enter host, port, username, and password to
connect to your spooler and click »apply« (see ECSpooler's README.txt
for details about ports and users).

After that step you will see all registered backends and you have to
select all backends which shall be available to your site members.

Now you are ready to create an assessment box with automatic testing.
The current development version of ECAutoAssessmentBox has a separate
tab called »Tests«.  Using this tab you are able to add all necessary
fields for a selected backend; otherwise use the section »backend« in
edit mode.

Since we are currently work in progress for a new version of ECSpooler
and ECAutoAssessmentBox it might be that SVN and non-SVN versions do not
work together.  Please do not hesitate to contact me.

At the moment a full user documentation is available in German only
(including video tutorials), see


<http://wdok.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/forschung/projekte/educomponents/tutorials/>

A list of publications about eduComponents can be found here


<http://wdok.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/forschung/projekte/educomponents/bibliographylist>


Best wishes,
Mario

Footnotes:
[1] Even though spooler and backends are implemented as Web services we
do not act as a service provider. Thus, you have to install it for your own.

-- 
Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Inf. Mario Amelung      <[email protected]>
Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg               WDOK Research Group

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