Google Summer of Code 2008 is coming to an end with the “Suggested ‘pencils down’ date” on the 11th and the “Firm ‘pencils down’ date.” on the 18th and yet i still feel like there is so much that could be added to my project.

Whats done:

  • report/stats gradebook plug-in works and shows text based statics on a courses grades in a table format.
  • report/stats has a modular design that allows for new statics to be dropped in.
  • Printable version of report/stats.
  • Group related functions for report/stats.
  • Settings page for report/stats.
  • report/visual gradebook plug-in’s framework is done and allows for new visualization to be dropped in.
  • report/visual gradebook plug-in’s flash/flex with flare front end is in a running state and can take grade data from Moodle, a visualization’s settings in an XML format and turn them into an interactive visualization for the user.
  • Continuous Grade Distribution Visualization.
  • Grade Distribution by Item (Bar) Visualization.
  • Grade Distribution by Group (Bar) Visualization.
  • Grade Distribution (Line) Visualization.
  • Normalized Grades vs Students Visualization.
  • Ability to invert Visualization’s axes.
  • Ability to hide axes.
  • Ability to hide axes labels.
  • Ability to hide any legend item (hide a group or item).
  • UI Selector widget for changing data source of the visualization.
  • Highlighting of legend items (highly a group or item in a graph).
  • Popup detailing a nodes information/data.

What needs to be done this week:

  • Finish printer friendly version of report/visual.
  • Add in checking of users capability to see if they should be able to view a visualization or statistic.
  • Add in two or three other visualizations i was planing to get in.
  • Finish options page for report/visual.
  • Fix mode problem in report/stats where students could possibly see all grades.

What needs to be done before the 18th:

  • Add more documentation.
  • Do final testing and fix any bugs found.
  • Clean up code.

What i wanted to get in but probably will not have time for:

  • Back port to Moodle 1.9.x
  • Export functionality to other programs and document types like excel.
  • Port to flare 2008.07.29 (new major flare release that had some big changes to the API witch would require some recoding of the plug-in’s front end).
  • Stats and visuals for outcomes and outcome reports.
  • “Find me in data” - a feature i wanted to add to show a user where they are in the data being visualized.
  • More options, more controls, more functions, more cool looking animations, more visualizations, more statistics, etc.
  • Better looking graphically and more natural UI.
  • Add reports that go beyond just grades in a course. Compare diffrent courses, years, drop out trends, age of students, submission times, etc.

Overall i am rather happy with how far the project has come considering that at the start i knew nothing of Moodle, Flex, Flare, Actionscript 3, or much flash. I think the plug-ins that i have made will be use full to teachers and educators and i hope to keep supporting them and working on them in my spare time as a hobby after GSoC has come to an end.