slack-grader

A simple command-line tool for posting "+1" type grades to a slack chat, keeping a log for each student for end-of-semester grades.

API token

you need to create a slack API token. You create an App that is a "bot" and then under "OAuth & Permissions" you give it access to your workspace.

• Start at: https://api.slack.com/apps

• Do "Create New App" and select "From Scratch"

• Call the App "slackgrader" and select for it to be in the workspace for your class

• In the "OAuth & Permissions" tab, add the bot token scopes:

  • chat:write
  • users:read
  • chat:write.customize

• On the same page, do "install to workspace" and copy the OAuth Token

  You can confirm on the "OAuth & Permissions" page that you are using the Bot User OAuth Token

• In your workspace, you'll need to add this bot to the channels you want it to post it, you can do this just by typing @slackgrader in that channel

setup

• install the slackclient package, e.g., as:

  pip3 install slackclient
  

• create an API token for your slack group.

• configure:

  ./slackgrade.py --setup
  

  This will ask you some questions (including the API token and where to log the grades).

  This will write a file in your home directory called .slackgrader

use

The basic usage of this script is to post a comment on a slack channel with a message (indicating the grade):

./slackgrade.py student comment [channel]

Each grade is assumed to have the same point value.

A record of this is stored in the logfile noted during the setup part above. Each record is given its own line in the log file. This allows you to keep it in version control and merge it across machines without conflicts.

To get a summary of points by student, do:

./slackgrade.py --report

To DM each user a summary of their participation (only they will see their records), do

./slackgrade.py --post_grades

This will show up in their slackbot channel.

todo

• add point values (so some comments can be worth more)

• cache the user list (add a --refresh option to reload it?)

• better support for multiple classes (setting a default class)

• we don't handle the case where comments have a "," in the report