hsingh23/courseflow

An interactive teaching environment

CourseFlow

"I just want to ask my students some quiz questions online. How hard could it possibly be?"

CourseFlow is a Django-based courseware package that lets students participate in online activities. Each such activity is called a "flow". It flows over a couple of pages, each of which can be, say, a video, a quiz question, a page of text, or, within the confines of HTML, something completely different.

CourseFlow is set apart by the following features:

• Emphasizes ease of authoring, using YAML, Markdown and Python. See example content.
• Versioning of content through deep integration with git. Instructors can preview newly-authored content while students work with prior versions, all from the same instance of CourseFlow.
• In-class instant messaging via XMPP. Works well with `xmpp-popup <https://github.com/indcuer/xmpp-popup`_.

Installation

CourseFlow currently works with Python 2.7. (This is because dulwich, a dependency, does not yet support Python 3.)

Install bower and its dependencies, as described on its web page.

(Optional) Make a virtualenv to install to:

virtualenv --system-site-packages my-courseflow-env
source my-courseflow-env/bin/activate

To install, clone the repository:

git clone git://github.com/inducer/courseflow

Enter the courseflow directory:

cd courseflow

Install the dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Copy (and, optionally, edit) the example configuration:

cp local_settings.py.example local_settings.py
vi local_settings.py

Initialize the database:

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser --username=$(whoami)

Retrieve static (JS/CSS) dependencies:

python manage.py bower install

Run the server:

python manage.py runserver

Open a browser to http://localhost:8000, sign in (your user name will be the same as your system user name, or whatever whoami returned above) and select "Set up new course".

Additional setup steps for Docker

(TODO)

Add to kernel command line, if needed:

[...] cgroup_enable=memory swapaccount=1

Change docker config to disallow IP forwarding:

--ip-forward=false

in :file:`/etc/default/docker.io`.

License

Copyright (C) 2014 Andreas Kloeckner

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.