Table of Contents

• TaskTracker Server
  • Requirements
  • Installation
  • Database generation
  • Models
    • TaskTracker files
    • Activity Tracker files

TaskTracker Server

The TaskTracker server is part of the TaskTracker toolkit for collecting and processing data of student activity during problem solving. TaskTracker server facilitates interaction with the TaskTracker plugin.

The primary goal of this project is data collection. First, tracking and analysis of students’ coding behavior can be a valuable source of insight into the learning process: for example, help the teacher to improve their course and understand which topics and assignments may be more difficult for students. Second, such data may be used in computing education research. If you choose to share your problem-solving data with us, it will help our studies in generating personalized hints during problem solving.

For more information about TaskTracker, consult the following resources:

• wiki
• research paper
• presentation
• demo.

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Requirements

1. MongoDB
2. Node.js
3. npm

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Installation

1. Download the repository.
2. Run MongoDB. It has to work on the localhost:27017.
3. Install TaskTracker packages by issuing install npm as root from the server installation directory:

sudo install npm

4. Issue npm start as root from the server installation directory. It will work on localhost:3000.

If everything is done correctly, you will see the following message:

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Database generation

The data for the database can be found in configs. You can change the data before generating the database.

To generate a database for the TaskTracker plugin, send the POST request to <path_to_your_server>/api/database-generator/task-tracker.

Every time you change the configs, re-generate the database.

Note: The default <path_to_your_server> is localhost:3000.

See an example using Postman:

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Models

The section describes the models and API operations in the server. For a complete description of all models, see the API reference in the wiki.

TaskTracker files

The data-item model stores code snapshots of user solutions from the associated TaskTracker plugin.

Model

Field	Type	Description
id	String	Internal MongoDB ObjectId.
externalDiId	Integer	External ID represented in public fields as id.
codePath	String	Path to the file with code snapshots.
activityTrackerKey	String	External ActivityTracker item ID.

Operations

Endpoint	Method	Description
/api/data-item	POST	Save a TaskTracker file with code snapshots in the database.
/api/data-item/all	GET	Get metadata for all TaskTracker files.
/api/data-item/:id	GET	Get metadata for a TaskTracker file by its external ID.

Note: For more information, see data item operations in the wiki.

Activity Tracker files

The activity-tracker-item model stores Activity Tracker logs with user actions from the associated TaskTracker plugin.

Model

Field	Type	Description
id	String	Internal MongoDB ObjectId.
externalAtiId	Integer	External ID collected from the file id in public fields.
codePath	String	Path to the Activity Tracker log.
createdAt	Date	Creation date.

Operations

URL	Type	Description
/api/activity-tracker-item	POST	Save an Activity Tracker log in the database.
/api/activity-tracker-item/all	GET	Get metadata for all Activity Tracker logs.
/api/activity-tracker-item/:id	GET	Get metadata for an Activity Tracker log by its external ID.

Note: For more information, see Activity Tracker operations in the wiki.