Script for downloading student data from an A+
course using A+ REST API. You can download data for all students or some of
them, or all data for your own user account. The script downloads data to a
directory structure like this: course/user/module/exercise/submission.
You will need Python 3. The software is known to work with at least Python 3.5.
First, create a Python virtual environment which contains correct versions of required Python libraries. The following commands assume a macOS or Linux command line. See [Python documentation] (https://packaging.python.org/guides/installing-using-pip-and-virtual-environments/) for the Windows version.
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
First, activate the Python virtual environment if you have not done that yet.
source venv/bin/activate
Then configure the A+ downloader. You must set at least the domain of the A+ service and an API access token. The API access token is an unique identifier which A+ downloader uses to authenticate you when it reads the API. Go to https://aplusdomain/accounts/accounts/. Alternatively, login to A+ with your web browser, click your name on the top-right corner and select "Profile". You will see an information page about your A+ account. Copy the text in a box under the text "API Access Token". Usually this means double-clicking the text with the mouse and pressing Ctrl+C. Then give the following command:
python3 aplus_downloader.py set-domain aplusdomain --api-token xxx
where aplusdomain is again the domain of the A+ service, e.g.
plus.cs.aalto.fi, and xxx is the API Access Token, e.g.
4b8e612ac31483e041501538408d453248343510. A+ Downloader saves this information
into a new configuration file _config/config.ini.
TODO
After A+ Downloader has done its work, deactivate the virtual environment to return your default environment:
deactivate
The A+ Downloader uses A+ REST API to retrieve data. It is useful to know the some structure of the API, as the A+ Downloader uses similar terms (course, submission, file, user).
One can read the API by web browser at https://aplusdomain/api/v2/, where
aplusdomain is the domain name of the A+ service, such as plus.cs.aalto.fi.
When the API is accessed by web browser, it presents a dynamic HTML view of the
data. One can browse the data by clicking the links. The api/v2/ in the URL
is the root directory of the API. The following list shows some subdirectories
related to downloading student-submitted files.
courses/ : list of courses (first page)
courses/?page=x : list of courses, page number x
courses/id/ : data of a particular course with identifier id
courses/id/exercises/ : list of exercises on a course
courses/id/exercises/eid/ : data of exercise having identifier eid on course
with identifier id
courses/id/exercises/eid/submissions/ : List of submissions for a particular
exercise on a particular course. Each entry refers to submissions/id/ as
described below.
courses/id/exercises/eid : data of exercise having identifier eid on course
with identifier id
courses/id/students/ : list of enrolled students on a course
submissions/id/ : the data of a particular exercise submission id
submissions/id/files/fid/ : one unique file fid in a unique submission id
users/ : list of users
users/?page=x list of users, page number x
The A+ Downloader uses the A+ API client library to access the API. It requests the data in JSON format. The A+ API itself is defined in https://github.com/apluslms/a-plus/blob/master/api/urls_v2.py . It is implemented with Django REST framework.