[An Andrew ToolKit view (a drawing) was included here, but could not be displayed.] NEOS on Athena TA Guide Dorothy L. Bowe 3 September 1991 Version 2 Copyright c 1991 Massachusetts Institute of Technology .bp 0 COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright c 1990, 1991 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that the name of MIT not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission. MIT makes no representations about the suitability or merchantability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. TRADEMARK NOTICES Project Athena, Athena, Athena Dashboard, Athena MUSE, Discuss, Hesiod, Kerberos, Moira, X Window System, and Zephyr are trademarks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). No commercial use of these trademarks may be made without prior written permission of MIT. REVISION HISTORY Version 2 (3 Sep 91, Dorothy L. Bowe): Revised draft for Athena 7.3; Kevin Cunningham converted document to EZ format. Version 1 (Dorothy L. Bowe): Original draft. .bp 1 .rm CT .ds LB Athena: September 1991 .ds CB % .ds RB NEOS on Athena (Ta Guide) Introduction What is NEOS? The Networked Education Online System (NEOS) is a set of programs for classroom oriented file exchange. NEOS is intended to mimic operations normally performed with paper in and out of class. There are files which represent assignments handed in, annotated assignments handed back, and handouts produced by the teacher for reference. Finally, there are files submitted for exchange, as one might trade papers for peer review. There are two interfaces to NEOS: one command-line oriented and one based on the Andrew toolkit using the Andrew EZ editor. Both versions use the same underlying software and perform the exact same function, so choosing between them can be a matter of preference, or can depend on the type of "document" a user will turn in. NEOS consists of programs for students to run, and other programs for graders to run: ----------------------------------------------------------- Command Function ----------------------------------------------------------- Students: eos an editor with full multi-media functionality for turning in, picking up, and exchanging papers turnin a command line interface for turning in assignments pickup a command line interface for picking up annotated assignments ----------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------- Command Function ----------------------------------------------------------- Graders: grade an editor with the full multi-media fuctionality for grading and annotating in a window environment collect a command line interface for collecting assignments turnin a command line interface for submitting handouts return a command line interface for returning assignments uncollect a command line interface for uncollecting assignments you did not mean to take for grading fxpurge a command line interface for removing assignments from the NEOS server which are no longer needed. ----------------------------------------------------------- Before You Begin The programs eos and grade are window applications built upon the Andrew toolkit. Before you attempt to use these programs, you should read the document Essential EZ on Athena, available from MIT Graphic Arts Copy Centers, W20-028 and 11-004. Command Line and Windowing Environments NEOS allows you the flexibility of working in either a windowing environment or on the command line. The window applications are built upon the Andrew toolkit and offer all of the multi-media capabilities of EZ, a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. For more information on EZ see Essential EZ on Athena. Configuring to Use NEOS Only courses which have made arrangements with Athena will be able to use the NEOS applications. Faculty members interested in using these programs for their classes should contact the Faculty Liaison Office at x3-0115 or send mail to f_l@athena. Setting the Path As of Athena Release 7.2 (January, 1991), all of the NEOS programs are available to you without attaching any lockers. If you used the command line versions, turnin and pickup, in the past, you no longer need to add /mit/eos/vaxbin or /mit/eos/rtbin to your path, and you should remove any references to these directories in your startup files. Selecting a Course In order to use the NEOS applications, you must specify the course number for which you are handing in assignments. If you will always be working in same course, you can set the environment variable COURSE by adding the following line to your ~/.environment file in your home directory: setenv COURSE course-number where course-number is the number assigned to your course and recitation section; get this number from your TA. If you prefer, or if you are taking more than one course using NEOS, you can also specify a course number on the command line using the -course option (-course can be abbreviated -c) of eos, turnin, and pickup: athena% eos -course 21.007 or athena% turnin -c 21.007 eos allows you to change the course after starting the program by selecting the Change Course option on the first pop up menu card. (For more information on using menu cards, see the Essential EZ On Athena document.) If you have not set the course by one of these three means and try to hand in a paper, pickup handouts, or exchange papers, eos will prompt you for the course number. Using the Window Version of NEOS - Grade Using the ez features of grade The program grade offers the full editing capabilities of the ez editor. Many of the editing functions can be found on the menu cards which pop up when you press the middle mouse button in the grade window. For more information on the editing capabilities of grade and ez, see the Essential EZ on Athena document. Starting Grade To start grade, move the cursor into an xterm window and type the following to your athena% prompt: athena% grade Like other Andrew programs, grade creates its own window when started. At the top of the window are six buttons: Pick Up, Turn In, Handouts, Exchange, Guide, and Help. To select one of these functions, move the cursor into the appropriate button and click with the left mouse button. (See Figure 1) [An Andrew ToolKit view (a raster image) was included here, but could not be displayed.]Figure 1: Main Grade Window The buttons have the following meanings: ------------------------------------------------------ Button Function ------------------------------------------------------ Grade Grade turned in papers. Return Return graded papers Handouts Get or pass out class handouts. Exchange Exchange papers with others in the course. Guide View the On Line Style Guide. Help Start up the Andrew help browser. ------------------------------------------------------ Grading a Paper To papers for grading, start grade from a directory in which you can write files. If you do not have write permission in the current working directory, grade responds with the following error message when you attempt to retrieve files: Permission denied while receiving filename. After starting grade, select the Grade button at the top of the main window. If grade does not know which course you are using when you click on this button (see section 2.2), a dialog box will appear, asking for the course number. A new window entitled "Papers to Grade" will appear with the course shown after the title. A list of all papers that have been turned in and are available to grade is displayed in the window. There is a set of buttons to the right of the list of papers: OLD DOCS/NEW DOCS, DISPLAY, EDIT, KEEP, and HIDE. [An Andrew ToolKit view (a raster image) was included here, but could not be displayed.]Figure 2: Selecting a Paper to Grade These buttons have the following meanings: ---------------------------------------------------------------- Button Function ---------------------------------------------------------------- OLD DOCS/ Toggle behavior between OLD DOCS and NEW DOCS. NEW DOCS When grade is first started, the window displays new docs, those papers not yet graded and available to be selected for grading. The button label is OLD DOCS. Selecting OLD DOCS displays old docs in the window, papers that have already been graded and returned, and toggles the label to NEW DOCS. DISPLAY Display a text file in a large font without marking it as taken for grading. EDIT Place a copy of the selected assignments into the main edit window for annotation. This is the recommended way of grading papers. KEEP Save a copy of the selected assignments into the current directory and mark each as taken. Keeping a papers means that other graders will not see the assignment when they start grade. HIDE Close the window. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Selecting Papers The DISPLAY, EDIT, and KEEP buttons operate on specific papers in the list. You must select papers before clicking on one of these buttons. To select a paper, move the cursor anywhere within the text which describes the paper and click with the left mouse button. The test for that paper will then be displayed in bold, indicating it has been selected. To select more than one, click with the right mouse button on each. After selecting the paper or papers you want to grade, you can use any mouse button to select an operation - display, edit, or keep. To read, annotate, and return papers you should select EDIT. Selecting this button will put copies of the assignments into separate butters in the main grade window. (For more information on ez buffers, see the help file on ez-buffers.) You will do all your editing in the main grade window. Updating the List of Papers To update the status of the list of papers in the grading window, select the menu card option Update List. This will insert new assignments which have been turned in and delete assignments taken by other graders. Inserting Annotations grade allows you to insert annotations in the form of notes which can be opened to display text, or closed to an icon. To insert a note: 7 edit the paper in the main grade window 7 place the ez insert cursor (the little ^) at the spot where you want the note to appear 7 select the menu option Insert Note on the Page menu card A small window will pop up at that location into which you can type your annotation. (See Figure 3) After typing your text, you can close the note by clicking the left mouse button in the top border of the note window, or by selecting the menu option Close Notes which will close all notes in the paper. the annotation will change to its "icon" form, two overlapped pages. Selecting the menu option Open Notes will open them all. [An Andrew ToolKit view (a raster image) was included here, but could not be displayed.]Figure 3: Grade Annotation Window Returning Graded Papers Once you are satisfied with your annotations, you can return the paper to the student by clicking on the Return button at the top of the window. Return returns the contents of the current edit buffer, that is, the file you have been editing. When you click on the Return button, you will be prompted for the username of the recipient student and the assignment number. grade will display the message Paper has been returned in the bottom message line area when the paper has been successfully returned. After the paper has been returned, you should delete the copy grade has placed into your current directory. The name of this file is the one displayed at the top of the main edit window. You should also delete the buffer containing the file. For information on deleting buffers, see the ez help file ez-buffers. Extending a Grading Session If you cannot finish all your annotations in one session, you can save the changes you have made so far by typing C-x C-s in the buffer. This will save a copy of the file in the current directory with the name indicated at the top of the buffer window. You can later restart grade on this assignment by using the command grade filename where filename is the name of the saved file. You must have the assignment in the current buffer in order to return it. (You can learn more about managing file and buffers in the Essential EZ On Athena document.) Customizing Grade If you are an experience ez user, you may be interested in customizing grade. grade has many options which allow you to customize your environment as well as more options for editing assignments. For more information on setting preferences, see the Andrew help files preferences and grade. Handouts To access course handouts, first make sure that you start grade from a directory in which you can save files. After you select the Handouts button, a new window entitled "Handouts" will be created containing a list of all the handouts available for the course. [An Andrew ToolKit view (a raster image) was included here, but could not be displayed.]Figure 4: Handout Window On the side of the window are five buttons: SUBMIT, DISPLAY, EDIT, KEEP, and HIDE. The EDIT and KEEP buttons operate on specific handouts; you must select which handouts you are referring to before clicking on one of the buttons. To select one handout, move the cursor to the text which describes it and click with the left mouse button. The text for that handout will then be displayed in bold, indicating it has been selected. To select more than one handout, click with the right mouse button on each. If you do select more than one handout, each will be displayed in a separate ez buffer; see the Andrew help file on ez-buffers for more information. Here is what the buttons do: ------------------------------------------------------------ Button Purpose ------------------------------------------------------------ SUBMIT This allows you to pass out a new course handout. Only certain people (TAs) can do this. DISPLAY Display a text (handout) file in a big font in the main grade window. EDIT A copy of the handout will be saved into the current directory, its name altered if necessary, to ensure it does not overwrite any existing files and then the file is placed into the main editing window for you to edit. KEEP A copy of the selected handout is saved into the current directory. The handout is given a name to ensure it will not overwrite any files currently existing in the directory, while still preserving any filename extensions, e.g. the .c extension. The name given to the handout will be displayed at the bottom of the handouts window. HIDE This will close the handouts window. ------------------------------------------------------------ To pass out new handouts, select the SUBMIT button. grade will ask what you wish to submit, a currently existing file or the contents of your current edit window. If you choose to submit a file as the handout, you will immediately be prompted for the name of the file. grade will then try to submit the paper. Once a paper has been submitted, you can use the Update List function to see it in the window. To print handouts directly from the handouts window, select the Print selected paper(s) menu option on the menu card. This operates on however many handouts you have selected, sending each to the printer. The printer name is taken from the environment variable PRINTER, or can be set using the Set Printer option on the menu card. Exchanging Papers To exchange papers with students, select the Exchange button at the top of the grade window. A new window entitled "Exchange" will appear, with the course number shown after the title. (See Figure 5) All papers shown in this window are available for reading by anyone in the class. [An Andrew ToolKit view (a raster image) was included here, but could not be displayed.]Figure 5: Exchange Window This window has the same format as the Handouts window, with the addition of a SUBMIT button which allows you to submit a file for public viewing. Selecting this button will result in eos first asking you what you wish to submit, either an existing file or the contents of the current edit buffer. If you choose to turn in a file, you will immediately be prompted for the name of the file you are submitting. grade will then try to submit the paper. Once a paper has been submitted, you can to see it in the list by using the Update List function on the first pop up menu card to see it in the list. When viewing exchange papers, there is another option added to the menu card: Remove selected papers(s). You can use this to delete papers which you have submitted. If you try to delete papers which are not owned by you, you will be informed that you are not the owner and the paper will not be removed. Help Selecting the Help button will cause the Andrew Help browser to appear, initially displaying the help pages on grade. To make this window disappear, select the Quit option on the first menu card. Using the Command Line Programs Introduction The command line programs, collect, return, turnin, uncollect and fxpurge allow you to retrieve, return, submit, and clean up assignments, handouts, and exchanges without opening multiple windows. collect will create a separate subdirectory in the current working directory for each student (if a subdirectory does not already exist) and put his/her turned in papers in that directory. return returns annotated assignments to the student, while uncollect returns assignments you did not intend to take. The turnin command, used by students to turn in assignments, may be used by graders to submit handouts. fxpurge allows you to clean up assignments on the NEOS server which have been returned and picked up by the student. The collect command The format of the collect command is as follows: collect [options] [+n] [-n] [assignment] [student...] All the command line options are optional, but if you do not specify the course with the -course option, you must have the COURSE environment variable set. If you do not set the course, you will get the following error message when attempting to collect papers: collect: No course specified If you mistype the course, you will get an error message similar to the following: collect: Warning: Course not found at OSAGE.MIT.EDU collect: No course initialized while retrieving list collect has many command line options which control its operation. Like grade, collect allows you to specify the course on the command line with the -course (abbreviated -c) option and recognizes the environment variable COURSE. Another important option is -list (-l) to list available files without retrieving them. For a complete description of the options to collect, see the man page by typing man collect. Listing Available Papers A particularly useful set of options to the collect command let you list available assignments to ensure that you retrieve only those papers you wish to grade. For example, to list all assignments for the (imaginary) course 52.001, do the following: athena% collect -l -c 52.001 Dorothy L. Bowe (dot): 406 Tue Aug 28 11:35 dot/passwd Anne R LaVin (lavin): 70 Tue Aug 28 11:36 lavin/motd Paul Boutin (paul) To list only those assignments turned in by the user dot, specify the username on the command line: athena% collect -course 52.001 -list dot Dorothy L Bowe (dot): 406 Tue Aug 28 11:35 dot/passwd Dorothy L Bowe (dot): 520 Wed Aug 29 9:02 dot/prog.c You can list only those papers turned in for a particular assignment by specifying the assignment number on the command line: athena% collect -course 52.001 -list 1 Dorothy L Bowe (dot): 406 Tue Aug 28 11:35 dot/passwd Anne R LaVin (lavin): 70 Tue Aug 28 11:36 lavin/motd 4 kbytes total Note that if the student did not specify an assignment number, it will default to assignment number 1. These two options may be combined to list only those assignments turned in by a particular student with a particular assignment number, and you can specify more than one student's username: athena% collect -list dot lavin Dorothy L Bowe (dot): 406 Tue Aug 28 11:35 dot/passwd 2 kbytes total Anne R LaVin (lavin): 70 Tue Aug 28 11:36 lavin/motd 2 kbytes total Retrieving Papers To actually retrieve papers for grading, simply omit the -list option: athena% collect 1 dot Dorothy L Bowe (dot): 406 Tue Aug 28 11:35 dot/passwd 2 kbytes total athena% ls dot passwd Here, collect retrieved the assignment called 'passwd' that was assignment 1 handed in by the user dot. It created a subdirectory called 'dot' and placed the file into it. If there already existed a subdirectory dot, collect would place any new assignments into the same directory. athena% collect 2 dot Dorothy L Bowe (dot): Using existing directory "dot". 70 Tue Aug 28 12:02 dot/motd 2 kbytes total athena% ls dot passwd motd Once you have collect the assignments you will have to edit them with a regular editor like Emacs (or do whatever you need to do; for example, print them out). The command line options +n and -n may be used to specify a range for dates of papers you wish to collect. For example, to collect only papers that are 10 or more days old: athena% collect -list -course 52.001 Bruce R Lewis (brlewis): 1 brlewis 92 Thu Nov 8 16:24 brlewis/ps2motd Dorothy Bowe (dot): 1 dot 493 Wed Dec 5 13:42 dot/passwd 4 kbytes total athena% date Wed Dec 5 13:43:08 EST 1990 athena% collect +10 -course 52.001 Bruce R Lewis (brlewis): 1 brlewis 92 Thu Nov 8 16:24 brlewis/ps2motd 2 kbytes total If you wanted to collect papers 10 days or less old, you would use the -10 option. Returning Graded Assignments The return command returns graded papers to students. The format is as follows: return [options] [+n] [-n] [assignment] [student...] The first argument that starts with a digit is assumed to be an assignment number. If you do not specify an assignment number, all assignments will be returned. Any other argument that does not start with a hyphen is a username; specifying no username will result in all students' files being returned. The +n and -n options operate as in the collect command. (See earlier for more details.) As with the collect command, various combinations can be used that allow you to return specific assignments. To return an assignment you must be in the directory containing the file (in this example, it would be the directory 'dot') or specify the full pathname on the command line. For example, to return the file passwd, assignment 1, to the user dot: athena% return 1 dot dot/passwd Returned passwd to dot on OSAGE.MIT.EDU. or athena% cd dot athena% return 1 dot passwd Returned passwd to dot on OSAGE.MIT.EDU Return Error Messages The NEOS server keeps track of every assignment you have ever collected until you purge them, and checks this list every time you return assignments. If you have unreturned assignments you may get warning messages from the server when you try to return any other files. These warnings do not mean that anything is broken, but simply remind you to return the assignments or purge them from the server (see section later for details on purging assignments). athena% return -l -c demo 3 dot 109 Tue Sep 18 09:41 dot/Scratch Couldn't return dot/Scratch (No such file or directory) 3 nschmidt 70 Tue Sep 18 15:28 dot/motd Couldn't return dot/motd (No such file or directory) 4 lavin 65 Sun Oct 14 11:42 educom4/motd Couldn't return educom4/motd (No such file or directory) 3 nschmidt 831 Wed Oct 10 15:43 nschmidt/turnin_demo_1.ez Couldn't return nschmidt/turnin_demo_1.ez (No such file or directory) athena% fxpurge -t -c demo Dorothy Bowe (dot): 3 dot 109 Tue Sep 18 10:11 Scratch 3 nschmidt 70 Mon Oct 1 15:39 motd Edu Com (educom4): 4 lavin 65 Mon Nov 19 14:12 motd Naomi B Schmidt (nschmidt): 3 nschmidt 831 Wed Oct 10 15:44 turnin_demo_1.ez athena% return -l -c demo No papers to return. Submitting Handouts with turnin The command turnin allows you to submit handouts which may be picked up by students using the command pickup. First, create the handout using your favorite editor. (On Athena, the default is Emacs.) You may used ez, Athena's WYSIWYG editor, but be sure that the students know this so that they may print the handout correctly. Once you have created the handout, you are ready to submit it. The syntax of the turnin command for handouts is: turnin -c course-name -h class-meeting [file] where course-name is the NEOS course name assigned to you by the faculty liaisons, class-meeting is the number corresponding to the class meeting for this handout, and file is the name of the file you created above. For example, to submit the file course_information to the course 16.226 for class meeting number 3, you would type the following: athena% turnin -c 16.226 -h 5 course_information You would then see the following message from the NEOS server: Turned in course_information to 16.226 on EOS.MIT.EDU. Returning assignments taken by mistake - uncollect If you take papers by accident that you do not want to grade, you can return them with the uncollect command. The format of the uncollect command is: uncollect [options] [+n] [-n] [assignment] [student...] uncollect does not remove the local files which collect placed in the working directory but merely corrects the state on the file exchange server so that other graders can take the papers for grading. To remove the local copies of the files, use rm or delete. For example, to uncollect assignment 5 of the user lavin: athena% uncollect 5 lavin uncollect recognizes the -course command line option and the COURSE environment variable. For more information on other command line options, see the manual page by typing man uncollect. Cleaning Up Files - fxpurge Papers which have been turned in, graded, and returned will remain on the server until explicitly removed with the fxpurge command. The format of this is command is: fxpurge [options] [ +n ] [ -n ] [ assignment ] [ student... ] For example, the following command removes all files more than 10 days old: athena% fxpurge +10 -c demo Where to Go for Help Man pages are available for all the NEOS applications described in this document. To access the man pages type the following commands at the athena% prompt: man turnin (or eos, etc.) When all else fails, help is available from the Faculty Liaison Office at x3-0115 or send mail to f_l@athena.