[opencms-dev] Is OpenCms suitable for building a homework(assignment) site?

[Shi Yusen]

Hi 杨朝晖,

See my answers below.

在 2007-01-03三的 15:33 +0800，杨朝晖写道：
> Hi, all
> 
> I'm preparing for a web homework/assignment project and I come across  OpenCms. After reading 
> the guided tour, features and  advantages pages on opensms.org, I still have some questions.
> 
> The web site is supposed to provide (at least) the following functionalities:
> 1. teacher and student users accounts, and student groups (with regard to courses).
Yes, by configuration only.

> 2. a library of questions with (reference) answers.
Yes, you can create your own question types such as single-response
questions and multi-respone questions by extending xmlcontent.

> 3. teachers give an assignment to a group of students by selecting a question from the lib.
> 	an assignment has its visible time, due time, and maybe "reference answer visible time".
Yes, each assignment can be an special type too.

> 4. students navigate finished and unfinished assignments, and answer unfinished ones.
Yes, every student has his/her own answer folder to store the answers.

> 5. teacher views and scores student answers. (optinally selecting part of answers for scoring is desirable)
Yes, the scores can be store in an xml too.

> 6. export, delete and import all assignments(and answers) relating to one course in one semester.
Yes, add an assignment managemnet in the Admistration view. If the
assignment is a resouce in OpenCms vfs, the export/import/delete is
almost ready.

> 
> The questions I've got:
> 1. Are all the above requirements easily supported  by OpenCms? If you have time, how?
> 2. Especailly, is the assignment workflow easily difinable?
I don't think you need workflow accoding to your requirements.

> 3. Time scheduled events and operations are not limited to "tasks"(in guided tour), am I right?
You can extend your own jobs.

> 4. I would require layout multiple related contents (question, answer, and score) in one page,
> 	does that break OpenCms's asummptions about templates?
On the contrast, you will find that's really what OpenCms be good at.

> 5. Any suggesting on the way to organize the assignments and answers? one folder for each assignment
> 	or one folder for each student, or anything else? (considering access control and export/import)
The answers can be stored in the same xml file with the question.
Assignment is a structured content of group name(s) of students, start
date/time, thru date/time, uris of questions, is it?

> 
> Well, that's many questions. Please refer me to documentations and links if you can.
> 

Have a good luck,

Shi Yusen/Beijing Langhua Ltd.