Teacher need: to export all submissions from ALL exercises with one button

[annirytkonen]

A+ already supports exporting all submissions from ONE exercise. Additionally, a corresponding feature for exporting all submissions from ALL course exercises at once is needed. It is estimated that teachers need this very rarely, but when they have the need, the feature is valuable. It is acceptable that creating the export takes time (type "I click on the button and go for a coffee").

Idea from @LassiHaaranen

[raphendyr]

Just to note it, I did work on a python script / framework to download this information via the A+ API. I personally feel like this specific use case shouldn't require easy to use UI, but if really needed can be done via the command line. The framework is not public, but it's based on https://github.com/aalto-letech/a-plus-client and has been then used to collect submission for cases of plagiarism.

I'm interested to hear feedback how the script worked for Lassi's course, assuming it was used. I did share it for one of the course staff.

Forthermore, to reason a bit why I don't feel like there should be UI for this. For me it feels like a case of missing UI from other aspects. I.e. Exercise services and staff interface for those should be good enough, that there is no need to collect submissions and do offline grading/assessment. For research, using API should be fine in my mind. In addition, due to data protection rulse, it should be too easy to copy protected data to places, which we do not manage. For example, we are unable to remove user data, if so requested, from the teacher's computer. To clarify, this is just my personal opinion and reasoning, and my believes might be wrong.

[markkuriekkinen]

Lassi does not have time to study the script yet, but using the script should be an adequate solution. However, the complexity of using a script and API is the problem. It is hard for "normal users" and studying the API and script templates requires time at any rate. Can we assume that the user interface for analyzing the submissions is ever going to be so good that teachers would not need to download any submissions? Each teacher may have different needs for analysis. When they need to download submissions, it would be easier to click a button in the user interface than to set up a script.

[annirytkonen]

I suggest that if this is a minor thing to do, we schedule this for summer 2020.

[raphendyr]

I would be beneficial to list different use cases here, so we can analyse if some of them can have a better fix/UX. Even with the button, the user has to write program for analysis, hence I feel like there is only small number of users that would find the API too complicated, but would be able to do the analysis them selfs. Nevertheless, the script works like download -u user_id and then you have everything in your filesystem.

Furthermore, the issue should mention if the export should be an excel file, multiple excel files or set of meta data and submission files. To my knowledge, current per exercise export doesn't export submission files. For exercise points, there is export in the grade page. Thus, it would be important to clarify the scope of the need (e.g. write down some use cases).

[markkuriekkinen]

@raphendyr has some good points. Furthermore, I don't think that a summer intern would be able to complete this issue in less than 2-3 days.