Quick Rundown

1. Implemented stored queries and charting capabilites. Instructors can go to Resources -> Stored Queries and see what they look like.

2. Added a general email component that allows unlimited attachments and copy-to-self option. This component can be used by other components.

3. Added assignment templates.

4. Added Skill and Skill Evaluation function as part of the assessment features. Skill evaluation can be done in CS337, CS437, and CS491AB under Assessment -> Skill Evaluation.

5. Both assignment grades and course grades can now be sorted properly.

6. Added another survey type: Recorded Survey.

7. Instructors can attach notes to assignment grades like comments, with the difference that notes are not shown to the students.

8. Senior design project listings are automatically generated from the data stored in CSNS.

9. Session timeout is changed to 3 hours.

10. Minor changes here and there.

More Details

2. Added a general email component that allows unlimited attachments and copy-to-self option. The attached files are not sent out as regular email attachments - instead, they are stored in CSNS, and links to download those files are included in the email.

3. Assignment templates serve two purposes. First, making it easier to create assignments, and second, standardizing some assignment names in some classes. The second purpose is much more important than the first one, as some system components, e.g. senior project listing generation, rely on assignment names to extract certain information. Currently only CS491AB have assignment templates.

5. The system can automatically determine whether to sort assignment grades numerically or alphabetically based on whether the grades look like numbers or not. Course grades are letter grades as specified in the Faculty Handbook. Course grades are sorted first by grade value (e.g. A is 4.0 and B is 3.0), and then alphabetically if two grades have the same grade value.

6. CSNS now supports three types of surveys: anonymous, recorded, and named.

Anyone can take anonymous surveys without logging into CSNS. This survey type is appropriate for surveys like learning outcome surveys. The problem is that anonymous surveys are open to abuse, e.g. one user may complete multiple surveys.

Named surveys require the users to login to complete the surveys, and on top of that, the system keeps track of which survey response belongs to which user. This survey type is appropriate for things like graduate course pre-registration. Named survey is also the only type of survey where a user can modify their reponse after the response is submitted. The problem with named surveys is that since the author of each response is known, users may feel uncomfortable to express their true opinions.

Recorded survey provides a middle ground between anonymous and named surveys. Recorded surveys are only open to CSNS users, but unlike named surveys, the system only records whether a user has taken a survey or not, and does not track which response is given by which user. This survey type avoids the problems of the other two types, and at the same time let the users express their opinions freely. This survey type should be used for things like class surveys.

8. The system generates senior project listings by extracting information from specific CS491B assignments. For instance, it looks for notes in the assignment called "Project Presentation" or "Final Presentation" and assume that the notes are the download links for the presentation videos. Please check out the attached Java code ProjectsController.java to see exact what the system looks for.