GRIT 2.1 Documentation
Kent Mein & Vijay Ramanathan
Computer Science and Engineering
University of Minnesota
Introduction: What is grit?
GRIT 2.1 is a system for securely displaying grades over the
Web. GRIT 2.1 is an improved version of GRIT 2.0.
As before, GRIT 2.1 comprises of two parts:
- The program "/opt/local/bin/grit" (note the change; it's
grit not grit2.1 or grit2.0)
to be used by the TAs to enter data into the database.
- The program located at https://wwws.cs.umn.edu/grit/ to
be used by the students to view their grades. The rest of this document focuses on the grit program itself.
To see a list of available commands type grit with no arguments.
You can also get a more detailed explanation by typing grit -help.
For problems, suggestions, and other questions please email:
Getting Access to use GRIT:
To get access you need to email
.
With the following information:
- Where you will be using it (IT or CS)
- Your account name on that cluster
- The course
- The instructor of the Course
- *The number of sections you want to activate.
* We suggest only activating one section unless you want to
keep the statistics generated for each section separate. It
requires more work on your part because you will need separate
gradefiles for each section.
Submitting grades:
Format of the Grade File
The Grade file should contain the following information:
Course Information
The course information is pretty easy. It starts with the keyword course: followed
by the course designator, course number, section number, quarter code and year. The quarter codes are:
- F = Fall
- W = Winter
- S = Spring
- SU = Summer
- I = Intersession
Example:
course:CSCI9998.1.S.1999
OR
course:CSCI3322.1.SU.1999
Grade Template
The template begins with the keyword template:. It has the
following format:
template:(tag-element)[:(tag-element)]
tag-element has the format: (tag)=(maxscore)
[, order =(order)][, weight = (weight)]
(tag) is a label for a specific test/homework.
(maxscore) is the maxscore for that tag.
The order field is optional and lets you order the printout
of the various tags you assign. The webpage will print them out
from lowest to highest.
The weight is an optional field that lets you assign a percentage
to each tag as to how it will affect the overall total grade.
Example:template:hw1=20,order=1,weight=.90
:hw2=20,order=2,weight=.10
Student Scores
The students scores begin with a student id, and have the
following format: (id):(tag)= (score)[, comment = (comment)]
(id) is a student id.
(tag) is a tag from the template.
(score) is the students score for tag
(comment) is a string and is optional.
Example Grade Files
The following are all valid grit grade files:
Submitting a grade file
Run grit with the filename of the gradefile as
an argument.
( % grit gradefilename )
The grit program is a setuid program so you may get an error opening the file for input.
If you do, change the permissions on the file so it is
readable by everyone. Once you have loaded your file, you should
change it back so that others can NOT read it. You also
need to make sure that the path to the file is executable by
everyone, the file can not be read if the user can not get into
the directory.
GRIT Security
It is very important that you are aware of the basic security requirements when using grit.
The files you upload to grit should not be world readable.
They should only be readable by you and, if necessary, the professor and
other class ta's.
You should not store these files in class web space.
If the file is world readable, anyone can access the file with a web browser.
You do not need to create a link to the file to make it accessable.
Incorrectly setting the permissions on grade files is a violation of
the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Violating this policy is a serious offense. Please contact Systems Staff if you have any questions or need assistance with
setting the permissions on you grade files. We would be more than happy to help.
Setting Proper Permissions
The following directions demonstrate how to correctly set the permissions on your grader file.
Assuming your group was F04C1101 and your file is ~mein/grades/grader.dat
Change the group for the directory and the file:
%chgrp F04C1101 ~mein/grades
%chgrp F04C1101 ~mein/grades/grader.dat
Change the permissions so your group can access both the file and the directory in which the file resides.
%chmod 701 ~mein/
%chmod 770 ~mein/grades/
%chmod 770 ~mein/grades/grader.dat
If members of your group will need to add files to the directory in which the grader file resides, turn on the
sgid bit for that directory. This way, when other members of the group add a file to the directory, the
group will always be set to the group assigned to that directory. You do NOT want to have a file containing student
grades readable by the "grads" group. If this occurs, all cs graduate students will be able to read the file.
chmod g+s ~mein/grades/
Viewing Data in GRIT:
Along with the built in functions that GRIT offers, a couple of students
have submitted the following program to format the output of grit.
The script is /project/grader/reportGrades.pl
The following commands can be used together or separately.
Each definition shows the single usage. Here is an example of the
commands used together:
grit -show -graph -total CSCI9998.1.S.1999
For each of these commands, if you do not specify a gradefile
you will get a list of gradefiles you have access to.
The Show Command
Example:grit -show CSCI9998.1.S.1999
When you specify a course it prints out each tag along with the
current statistics for that tag. It also prints out a list
of all scores entered for that course. (Ordered by student ID)
The Graph Command
Example:grit -graph CSCI9998.1.S.1999
When you specify a course it prints out a graph for
each tag. It graphs how many students got specific scores.
The Total Command
Example:grit -total CSCI9998.1.S.1999
When you specify a course it prints out Weighted totals for
each student as well as their overall percentage.
Deleting Data from grit:
Example:grit -delete CSCI9998.1.S.1999
The delete command takes a coursename as input and
removes all scores and tags for the specified course. If
you do not specify a course name, a list of courses you have
access to will be displayed.
Note: This will not remove your access for a given course.
Here's what the student will see:
Grades for Joe Schmoe (1762783) for SPRING 1999
| CSCI 9998 (Section 1) |
| Tag | Your Score | Maximum Possible Score | Weight | Highest Score in Class | Lowest Score in Class | Standard Deviation | Mean | Median | TA's Comments |
| HW1 | 30 | 50 | 0.1 | 38 | 30 | 4.041 | 34.333 | 35 | |
| HW2 | 25 | 50 | 0.1 | 45 | 25 | 10.000 | 35.000 | 35 | You must try harder |
| MIDTERM | 50 | 100 | 0.35 | 88 | 50 | 19.553 | 71.667 | 77 | You aren't trying hard enough |
| HW3 | 25 | 50 | 0.1 | 44 | 25 | 9.504 | 34.667 | 35 | You can do better. |
Your weighted total till now is 33.5 / 65 = 51.538%
|
