Author Archives: Mike Conley

OLM: What is it?

I’ve mentioned the OLM project a few times, and more than once, I’ve been asked:  “What is this OLM thing you keep talking about?”

So that’s what this post is for:  to provide a plain-English explanation of what OLM actually is/does.

Note: I can’t guarantee that the history of OLM is entirely accurate – I’m assembling this from hearsay, and personal accounts.  If there are any corrections to be made to this post, please comment or email me.

Part 1:  How it Used to Be

Computer Science students, at one point or another, have to computer programs for their assignments.  These programs are written in a myriad of languages (Java, Python, C, the list goes on…), and have to be marked by teaching assistants.

Originally, after students submitted their completed programs, the TA’s would print off the source code and write on the printouts to give feedback on how the code was written.  They would also use a rubric to grade the overall assignment based on predetermined criteria – which isn’t at all unusual in grading student work.

That’s how it used to be.

Part 2: The Birth of OLM

One day, the Computer Science Department at UofT decided that they wanted to write a web application for instructors to manage assignments, and to receive student submitted code.  They also wanted TA’s to be able to log in, and mark the code, almost as if they were doing it on paper.

So OLM (On-Line Marking) was born.  It was written in a web framework called TurboGears by a group of undergraduate students.

And it wasn’t bad.  It’s still used in the department to this day.

Part 3:  OLM is Reborn as…Checkmark…or OLM…or something

The original OLM has a few deficiencies.  The instructors who actually use it could probably rattle off plenty of stories about how, sometimes the client-side of the interface doesn’t entirely agree with the server, or little glitches that require diving into the database to fix.

Plus, the code-base is kind of a hodge-podge.  Not easy to extend, not easy to maintain…the framework that OLM was written on was no longer the “hot framework”, and there was little in the way of support.  Something needed to be done.

So it was decided that OLM would be recreated from the ground up, and would be an evolution based on the lessons learned from the original implementation.  It was going to be rebuilt in Ruby on Rails, and it was going to be awesome.

It was also going to be renamed.  The name “Checkmark” has been bounced around, but should really be more considered as a code-name.  The project is still referred to as OLM, or Checkmark.

(Just came up with a name idea:  MarkUs.  Note to self:  send name idea to supervisor…)

Part 4:  As it Stands

The new implementation of OLM is actually in pretty decent shape.  There are plenty of bug-fixes and unimplemented features, but a lot of the hardest stuff seems to be over – at least, in terms of matching the feature list of the original OLM.

And that’s important, because our supervisor wants this thing polished, tested, and deployed for the Fall term – and it’s got to at least match the original feature set of OLM, if not exceed it.

Part 5:  Want to See It?

If you want to see this thing, you have three choices:

  1. Catch me in person, and ask to see it.  If I have my laptop, I’ll give you a demo.
  2. Get it from our Subversion repository, and get it running on your own machine.
  3. Enroll in a CS undergrad course in the Fall, and who knows…maybe you’ll end up using it.

Anyhow, if there are any OLM related questions, or even some name ideas, please don’t hesitate to post.

What my Brain is Chewing On Right Now…

I’ve been neglecting my blog.

So here’s just a taste of what’s on my mind right now:

School

  • I was recently accepted to Graduate School at the University of Toronto, in the Department of Computer Sciences.
  • I went on an OLM refactoring sprint this past weekend.  Parts of the code were driving me nuts, and I feel much better about it now.  I think with this past weekend, plus the code spring over reading week, I’ve made some nice headway with this project.
  • The UCDP Directors’ Shows are underway!  Lots of tech work to do around here, and nobody sleeps when the shows are up.
  • My CSC301 midterm is coming up.  I need to beef up on Design Patterns, Intellectual Property / Copyright Law, and a crapload of Javascript/CAKE/Canvas stuff
  • I have a “site specific” movement piece that I need to write/choreograph with a group.  I’ve got a good group, but the assignment looks hard.  This is my final project in Movement class.
  • I need to memorize and present a personal letter / journal entry from an explorer / conqueror for Voice class.  This is my final project for Voice.
  • I need to memorize and rehearse my scene for Twelfth Night for Performance class.  I also have to write at least two pieces of short music for it.
  • I have to write a 12 page paper, weighing the evidence supporting the notion of CIA involvement with the assassination of John F. Kennedy for my INI304 class.
  • My CSC301 team and I need to beef up our Family Tree Viewer for the final presentation

Personal / Career

  • I’ve been offered the opportunity to work on OLM this summer
  • I might be doing GSoC this summer.
  • I’ve been offered the opportunity to work for several impressive startups in Toronto
  • I’ve been offered the opportunity to work for a large school board
  • I’ve been offered the opportunity to work as a stage technician for the Toronto Fringe Festival this summer.  This would make two summers in a row, if I do it.
  • I’m heading to Poland in late June with a bunch of my UCDP classmates, to see some overseas theatre.
  • I want a vacation.  I miss family, home, Grimsby.
  • There are several theatre companies using the UCDP facilities over the summer, and I’ve been offered the opportunity to stage tech for them, and otherwise get involved.

So, I’m busy.  But I’m enjoying it.

Anyhow, that’s what I’m up to.

Rendering Multiple Partials with Ruby on Rails

So, as we speak, I’m going through a bit of the code that I’ve submitted for the OLM project, and I’ve begun refactoring.

While doing this, I ran into an interesting problem:  I want to use Rails’ remote_function to update two sections of the page with an AJAX call.  For a while, this stumped me, because you can really only have one render call within a controller method, like this:

render :partial => "footer"

But I was determined to render two.  So here’s what I ended up doing:

On the client side, I’ve got this in my view…

<%= remote_function (:url =>{ :action => "codeviewer", :id => @assignment.id, :uid => @uid },
                   :with => "'fid='+fid", :after => "$('working').hide();")%>

And in the Controller, in the “codeviewer” method, I do this: 

render :update do |page|
    page.replace_html 'codeviewer', :partial => 'codeviewer', :locals =>
        { :uid => params[:uid], :filetext => filetext, :annots => annots}
      #Also update the annotation_summary_list
    page.replace_html 'annotation_summary_list', :partial => 'annotation_summary', :locals => {:annots => annots, :fid => @fid}
end

This will render my two partials in the DOM elements with ID’s ‘codeviewer’ and ‘annotation_summary_list’, respectively.

Nice.