Difference between revisions of "Administration design"

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(Brainstorm area)
(add scenario mode)
 
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GCompris contains a lot of activities for children in a large age range. It is used at home and at schools.
 
GCompris contains a lot of activities for children in a large age range. It is used at home and at schools.
  
Home users can easily follow their children and propose them the most appropriate activities. But using it in classrooms brings a new set of requirements:
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Home users can easily follow their children and propose them the most appropriate activities. But using it in classrooms brings a new '''set of requirements''':
  
* let the teacher hide inappropriate activities
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* Maintain students/teachers/groups/profiles
** activity filter
 
** creating profiles to easily propose an activity set to a new audience
 
** activity pre-configurations (like uppercase only)
 
  
* let the teacher track children usage
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* Profiles
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** activity filter (difficulty filter or activity list)
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** activity configuration (like uppercase only)
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** create and assign activity dataset
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** create and assign a scenario. A scenario is a list of [activity/level/configuration] that a children must follow. It replaces the traditional menu.
 +
 
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* Collect and report students results
 
** must be as real time as possible to let the teacher help the children asap
 
** must be as real time as possible to let the teacher help the children asap
** no real need for long term persistence, teachers probably won't dig in old data to extract relevant informations.
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** longterm statistical reports
  
 +
* Distribute activities (as rcc files)
  
== Legacy version ==
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* Share datasets and activities with other teachers/schools
  
In the legacy version the administration mode is accessible with a second icon launcher. In fact it just runs the same 'gcompris' binary but with the '-a' option.
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* Web storage and sharing of children's creation
  
Features:
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* Private text chat with the ability to share a drawing or send it.
  
The idea is to let an administrator configure as much or as little as he wants. For instance, the profiles can be used even if no classes, groups and users are created.
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* Pause or mute the set of GCompris under the teacher's control.
  
* Classes / Users
 
** Create users
 
** Create classes and associate users
 
 
* Groups
 
** Create groups within a class
 
** Associate users to the group
 
 
* Profiles
 
** create profiles
 
** associate one or more class / group to a profile
 
  
* Activities
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== Schoolbus System Architecture ==
** enable / disable activities for a given profile
 
*** one by one
 
*** by a level filter
 
** configure activities for a given profile
 
  
* Logs
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* Centralization of a backend service (schoolbus) that is supposed to run on gcompris.net as well as (optionally) as an installation in LAN/school scope.
** All success / failure in activities are saved in a log
 
** A report contains the date, user, activity, level, sublevel, duration. An optional description of the difficulty encountered was planned but never implemented.
 
  
* Login
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* The core of the central service comprises an access layer (API) and a storage layer (DB). All data access happens through the API. Optionally a web interface may be needed to administrative the central service itself (not the admin content), which then would also use the API.
** If users have been created, they can be authenticated when GCompris is started in the normal mode (login pseudo activity). There are 2 modes, one where the children click on the button with his name, one where he must type his name. There is no password.
 
  
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* DB store: Could use a RDBM or a non-relational, key-value based DB. Will be decided based on datamodel complexity ...
  
== Brainstorm area ==
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* For the gcompris.net installation daily (or so) backups of the DB are expected to be enough.
  
Most important features in order of importance:
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* To be better able to cope with outage of the server or the network the GCompris client could store a backup of the last known profile data to be used as fallback.
* profiles
 
* tracking real time usage
 
  
=== Persistence ===
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* Protocol: For communication with the API Websockets can be used as well as HTTP. Websockets have the advantage of bidirectional communication and can be used both by web-based clients as well as native clients. Over the low level protocol an ASCII based payload (like JSON RPC) will be used to call API methods and return results back.
  
In the old version the sharing of the configuration was done through a shared 'sqlite' database. This is not a good usage for it, it requires an admin to set it up on a shared folder. Does not suit well the mobile use case. Where do we save the configuration: gcompris.net, a teacher server, ?
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* A QML based admin console might live as an admin activity inside the GCompris application and be unlocked in some way. Serves for administrative access to the content via the backend API.
  
=== Administration console ===
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* Direct communication from users to the admin-application could be used to directly report result for the live view unless storing the results is not needed. This would relieve the central server.
  
How do we do this, what technology (Qt, Web, ...), how is it linked to the users, ...
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[[Category:English]]

Latest revision as of 00:16, 13 February 2016

High level overview

GCompris contains a lot of activities for children in a large age range. It is used at home and at schools.

Home users can easily follow their children and propose them the most appropriate activities. But using it in classrooms brings a new set of requirements:

  • Maintain students/teachers/groups/profiles
  • Profiles
    • activity filter (difficulty filter or activity list)
    • activity configuration (like uppercase only)
    • create and assign activity dataset
    • create and assign a scenario. A scenario is a list of [activity/level/configuration] that a children must follow. It replaces the traditional menu.
  • Collect and report students results
    • must be as real time as possible to let the teacher help the children asap
    • longterm statistical reports
  • Distribute activities (as rcc files)
  • Share datasets and activities with other teachers/schools
  • Web storage and sharing of children's creation
  • Private text chat with the ability to share a drawing or send it.
  • Pause or mute the set of GCompris under the teacher's control.


Schoolbus System Architecture

  • Centralization of a backend service (schoolbus) that is supposed to run on gcompris.net as well as (optionally) as an installation in LAN/school scope.
  • The core of the central service comprises an access layer (API) and a storage layer (DB). All data access happens through the API. Optionally a web interface may be needed to administrative the central service itself (not the admin content), which then would also use the API.
  • DB store: Could use a RDBM or a non-relational, key-value based DB. Will be decided based on datamodel complexity ...
  • For the gcompris.net installation daily (or so) backups of the DB are expected to be enough.
  • To be better able to cope with outage of the server or the network the GCompris client could store a backup of the last known profile data to be used as fallback.
  • Protocol: For communication with the API Websockets can be used as well as HTTP. Websockets have the advantage of bidirectional communication and can be used both by web-based clients as well as native clients. Over the low level protocol an ASCII based payload (like JSON RPC) will be used to call API methods and return results back.
  • A QML based admin console might live as an admin activity inside the GCompris application and be unlocked in some way. Serves for administrative access to the content via the backend API.
  • Direct communication from users to the admin-application could be used to directly report result for the live view unless storing the results is not needed. This would relieve the central server.