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SkillBuilder

A web application for evaluating students' professional skills, such as teamwork and communication. The purpose of the SkillBuilder application is to allow instructors to assess teams of students in real-time using research-based or custom rubrics. Instructors can email students their results, as well as download the data for analysis.

Setup

The following shows how to get SkillBuilder running on your operating system.

Requirements

The following technologies are required:

  1. Python >= 3.12
  2. Redis
  3. Docker/Docker Desktop
  4. Node >= v21.6.1

Find your operating system below and follow the instructions on installing them.

Linux

Debian/Ubuntu (and its derivatives)

  1. Perform any system upgrades.
sudo apt update -y
sudo apt upgrade -y
  1. Install Python3:
sudo apt install python3
python3 --version

Ensure that the version is >= 3.12.

Note: Debian uses the last stable release of Python (which is not 3.12), but from testing, it seems to work just fine.

  1. Install Redis:

Using the following link to install:

https://redis.io/docs/latest/operate/oss_and_stack/install/install-redis/install-redis-on-linux/

Note: Ubuntu and Debian typically use systemctl as the init system, but if using something different, the docs will not cover those.

  1. Install Node:
sudo apt install nodejs
node -v
  1. Install Docker/Docker Desktop:

Use the following link for the instuctions for Ubuntu:

https://docs.docker.com/desktop/setup/install/linux/ubuntu/

Use the following link for the instuctions for Debian:

https://docs.docker.com/desktop/setup/install/linux/debian/

MacOS

MacOS will require some kind of package manager (this document will use homebrew).

You can find homebrew here: https://brew.sh/

  1. Install Python3

You can find the downloads here:

https://www.python.org/downloads/macos/

  1. Install Redis
brew install redis
  1. Install Node

Either download prebuilt binaries directly, or use a package manager:

https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager

  1. Install Docker/Docker Desktop

The following link will walk you through it:

https://docs.docker.com/desktop/setup/install/mac-install/

Windows

Running this project on bare metal Windows is no longer supported. You will need to get WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) or preferably WSL2.

The following shows you how to set it up:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

Once this is install and set up, open Windows Terminal, Powershell, Command Prompt (or whatever terminal emulator you use) and do:

wsl

If this is working correctly, follow the installation instructions in the Linux section of this README to get all dependencies.

Running Rubricapp in a Docker container

  1. Perform a build:
docker compose build

This step is needed for whenever Docker files are modified.

Note: Docker will cache during build time. If you need to rebuild without the cache, run:

docker compose build --no-cache
  1. To run the container, do:
docker compose up

Note: if changes are required for the database, you can reset the database with:

docker compose down -v

When the front end is finished compiling, it should show a link, namely: http://localhost:3000. Simply open this link in your browser and use an appropriate login.

Not using Docker

You can also run rubricapp without Docker, but you will need to manually run the setup yourself.

  1. Create a virtual environment
python3 -m venv <environment_name>
source <environment_name>/bin/activate

This is where all of the Python dependencies will be stored instead of being stored globally on your system.

  1. Start Redis

Enable the Redis service using your appropriate init system (systemctl in this example).

systemctl start redis

Make sure that it is running:

systemctl status redis
  1. Launch the backend:
user@/(project root)$ cd BackendFlask
user@/(project root)/BackendFlask$ python3 ./setupEnv.py -irds

The setup flags are as follows:

  • -i, --install - install all depencencies
  • -r, --reset - reset the database
  • -d, --demo - load demo data into the database
  • -s, --start - start the backend server

Later iterations of using setupEnv.py only requires the -s flag (unless new depencencies are added or if the database needs to be reset etc).

  1. Launch the Frontend Server
user@/(project root)$ cd FrontendReact
user@/(project root)/FrontendReact$ npm install # only do this once
user@/(project root)/FrontendReact$ npm start

This will launch the server on port 3000. Access it by navigating to http://localhost:3000 in your browser and logging in with appropriate credentials.

Other

If you are testing with adding students/TAs/admins, it may be time consuming to manually do it via the website. There is a script that will automatically insert new users into the database straight from the command line. It is important to note that this script only works if the backend is currently running inside docker.

Run this script with:

./dbinsert.sh

Run this and follow the on-screen instructions.

Troubleshooting

Redis issues

If it does not start correctly, there could be a multitude of reasons. I suggest using journalctl to investigate it (systemctl will give out the full command).

But a good starting point is seeing if it is already running:

ps aux | grep redis

This will give the PIDs of all processess with redis in its name. Try killing them with kill <pid1> <pid2> ..., <pidN> and then rerunning systemctl start redis.

Note: if redis is not considered a service, try using redis-server or redis-server.service.

Port conflicts

The backend runs on port 5000 and the frontend runs on port 3000. You may already have processes running on those ports. If this is the case, you will have conflicts and the server(s) will not run normally.

You can check what is running on those ports with:

lsof -i :5000
lsof -i :3000

If any output appears here, you may either want to kill them with kill, or run those processes on different ports.