Installation

Setup

To install the refined eSTEeM: Measuring Qualification effects project’s framework create the suggested directory structure shown below and unzip the docs, scripts and taxonomies folders from The Open University’s online data store, DOI: 10.21954/ou.rd.7370444, and copy the README, LICENSE and requirements files.

Suggested directory structure:

|- LICENSE.txt
|- README.md
|- README.html
|- requirements.txt
|    |-- docs
|    |-- mbz
|    |-- scripts
|    |-- taxonomies
|    |-- zipped-assignments

The directories are:

docs
Contains assorted documents covering the overall framework, and png files) and more technical aspects (rst and html files).
mbz
An empty directory for Moodle backup downloads.
scripts
Contains Python scripts, managed by git and accompanied by TODO docs.
taxonomies
Contains three sample classification schemes in both source and processed forms.
zipped-assignments
An empty directory for TMA & EMA downloads.

All other directories required by the framework are generated on demand when running each script.

The framework requires Python 3 to execute the scripts. Where possible built-in Python libraries have been used. However, there are two dependencies for specialist tasks:

The dependencies have to be installed separately using Python’s supplied pip installer.

You may find it more convenient to install a comprehensive Python bundle such as anaconda because it includes both matplotlib and nltk.

Note on versions used in developing version 1.0.0 of the framework: Python 3.6.6, matplotlib 3.0.0, nltk 3.3 and pip 18.1.

Documentation

If you are looking to apply the framework, read usage.rst.

If you are a developer looking to maintain the framework, design decisions are documented in design.rst. For guidance on data suitable for testing, read testing.rst.

To address the potential breadth of audience for these documents, all source/\*.rst files are available as build/\*.html pages too.

Diagrams are developed in PowerPoint and saved as office/\*.pptx files. They are exported in png format to images/\*.png files.

The main report, office/Report.docx, from the original Measuring qualification effects project has more information in it, especially relating to the output files and data tables. Examples of use of that original framework are in office/Cookbook.docx.

Sub-folders

There are four sub-folders:

  • build html versions of source documents
  • images png files of workflows, and any other images
  • office pptx files of workflows, and two Word documents from original project, the project report and a cookbook using the scripts
  • source rst versions of documents

Principal documents

  • design notes on design decisions
  • installation this document
  • testing notes on testing as not applied to the scripts
  • usage overview of the framework workflows, describing the folders and scripts in:
    • assignment_analysis processing student TMA and EMA submissions
    • forum_posts_analysis processing forum posts, both filtering and classifying
    • learning_design placeholder for an extension of this framework to analyse teaching material
    • prepare_taxonomy preparing a classification schema
    • userid_analysis processing a student’s progress across courses