Dec. 19, 2007 Agenda and Notes

Call Info

11 a.m. EST
Sakai002 (Ad-hoc Meetings)

• Telephone: 812-856-7060
• Conference Code: 350
• PIN: 72524

Participants

Lance Speelmon
Ryan Lowe
Michelle Wagner
Stuart Freeman
Carl Hall
Clay Fenlason
Daphne Ogle

Agenda

• Status update
• Design considerations
• "Download All" implementation
• Near-term roadmap
• Documenting decisions (esp. changes)

Useful Links

Daphne's Notes
Problem Space on Fluid Wiki
Demo Server: http://drop2.lms.gatech.edu:8085/portal

Notes

Current Status:

• Steve Githens almost done with his gradebook helper work. There will eventually be 4 of these.
• Student submissions are virtually complete.
• Functionality yet to come: instructors being able to view and grade submissions
• Notifications and "Download All" have not seen any work yet (and it would be up to Georgia Tech to fulfill them over the near term)
• Tech has begun to look at the "Download All" code, and it won't be a simple port to assignment2
  • The legacy code should not be taken literally, because there have been problems with the .zip footprint in the past, and it may need some rethinking.
  • The download should be simplified, with a CSV template that would be used for the upload, and perhaps an HTML index file for navigating to contents.

NOTE: the service layer for assignment2 is now in the logic and not in a separate AssignmentService, and we'll need to review the API later on to make sure other tools can still call Assignment methods appropriately.
NOTE: a current development assumption is that if something is graded, it's in the gradebook. Which is not to say that a site will be required to use the gradebook tool, only that it is the gradebook services (and helpers) which will be used.
NOTE: there are no assignments permissions in assignment2 - Gradebook permissions are used exclusively.
NOTE: the due date cannot (for the near term) be a required form element for assignment creation, since it is not required in the gradebook.

Roadmap:

• a 1st iteration (with a "basic" feature set) is targeted for delivery in the second week of January
  • this will be used to gather initial feedback and have a stable core of functionality from which to build outward
• a 2nd iteration will be planned for a March 1 delivery

Current Concerns:

• Site-to-Site import does not work in Sakai across different tools, but we're definitely going to want to import assignments from the old tool into assignment2.
• Whether it's an OK strategy to have the service layer effectively working within the tool logic. This pattern was borrowed from the evaluation tool, but we're going to need to review the API after the first iteration.
• Whether the heavy reliance on gradebook services breaks down important separations of concern.
• Whether the four submission types (inline, attachment, inline and attachments, non-electronic) still make sense, and if the choice between them should be found somewhere besides assignment creation.

Design decisions:

1. The "Ungraded" column will be dropped from the assignment list for the first iteration
   • the calculations this column requires are a significant performance pain point for large classes
   • even if those queries are optimized, we will likely prefer a design which allows you to opt to view that information for a particular assignment, and not everything on the page at once
2. Open and Due dates will show the full date and time (for the 1st iteration), but we'll look to strip this down for the second iteration with some sort of info popup, to save screen real estate.
3. The paging widget will appear only when the number of assignments exceeds the default page value, and then it will appear immediately above the listing
4. The separate reordering screen for the assignment list will be removed for iteration 1, and we will attempt to use the Fluid reorderer on the main list screen for iteration 2.
5. The top-level "Add" action link will be shifted down to the Assignments List table, its language will be changed to "Add Assignment."
6. The "Accept Until" date will use the "Due" date by default, and not be required.