CSC111 Submitting Programs to Moodle 2015

--D. Thiebaut (talk) 12:22, 23 January 2015 (EST)

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This page documents the steps necessary for submitting your Python programs for automatic evaluation on the Smith College Moodle site.

Steps

Login to Moodle

• Point your browser to Moodle, login with your Smith Id, and pick the link for this course.

Submit your Program

• Find the link for today's assignment or lab.
• Click on it!
• You should see something similar to this screen capture:

• Click on the Submission tab.
• Using Windows Explorer, or Finder, depending on your computer, locate your lab1.py file and drag it to the drag and drop area. Or, click on Choose a file and pick lab1.py.
• Click on Submit, and then on Continue
• Click on the Edit tab, and you should see your program in an edit window.
• Click on Run. You should see something similar to the window below.

Evaluate the Program

• This is a very important step of the submission process. The Run command allows you to verify that your program can run on Moodle. But this does not generate a grade for you. To get your program graded, you need to evaluate it.
• If the console window is still up, close it.
• Click on the Evaluate tab.

• Note the grade assigned to the program, and the comments section, that will give you some idea of what may not be correct with the output.

Evaluate & Grade Program

• Click on the Evaluate menu option.

• The output above shows that the program didn't run as expected. It didn't crash, but its output is not the one wanted. In particular:
  • It got a grade of 0/100. There was 1 test only, so failing it yields a grade of 0. If the program had been one that expected an input and would have generated an output, it could have been tested with, say, 3 different types of input. If it had failed 1 of the 3 inputs, it would have gotten a grade of 66/100.
  • The output window also shows the difference between the current output of your program, and the one that was expected. This is an easy way for you to see what needs to change in your program.
  • Finally, you are shown that your program was tested only once, and failed that one test.

• In case your program failed a test, you should go back to the Edit window and update your code (if the modification is simple enough; otherwise go back to your original in emacs).
• Evaluate your code again. In general you will not be limited in the number of submissions you make, although this might be a feature put in use for some assignments or exams.
• Keep editing/evaluating until your program passes the test(s).

Be Careful of Extra Space Characters!

Look at the evaluation results below:

It seems that the output of the program matches the expected output, but for some reason, Moodle rejects the program... Why?
Take a closer look at the image to see if you see the problem...
The answer is illustrated in the image below:

The program outputs an extra blank line. Very likely it has an extra number 10 (line-feed character) at the end of the string. Removing it will solve the problem and make the program pass, with a 100/100 grade.