Vocareum offers a cloud-based platform for hosting and deploying Jupyter Notebooks in an educational context. Vocareum is the best way to serve Jupyter notebook for multiple users. It is basically a platform for Python programming. Key capabilities of the platform include grading automation, plagiarism detection, providing code feedback, team projects, and peer reviews.
Students will go to an assignment through Brightspace, so there is no need to install an application.
Summative testing
Summative testing with Vocareum is not allowed for various reasons, including the following:
- Most of the data is still stored in the USA. A first data migration was held in January 2022. The remaining data will be migrated in May 2022.
- There is no live support for our time zone.
- Vocareum cannot be used in a secured environment in the exam halls at the TU Delft.
On the roadmap for 2022 is to see how summative testing could be made available.
Setting up Vocareum for exercises
Contact Teaching-Support@tudelft.nl to activate Vocareum. Once Vocareum has been made active in your course:
- Go to Content in the Course in Brightspace and click on the module Instructor Area.
- Click on the Vocareum link to access your course in Vocareum.
- Once in Vocareum, you can create your assignments.
In case your students cannot access their assignments, please confirm they are accessing it through the Brightspace course as described here.
To create an assignment in Vocareum, follow these steps:
- Go to the course where you want to create your assignment.
- Go to the tab Edit Assignments.
- Here you can either copy or create a new assignment.
In case you would like to create a new assignment, click New Assignment:
- Fill in the Title for your new assignment.
- Choose the appropriate group (optional).
You can create new Groups by clicking on the New Group-tab - Click on Save and continue.
- You have now created an assignment. An assignment can have one or more parts, which corresponds to different notebooks within the same assignment.
- Click in the + beneath Parts.
- Fill in a Part Name, it can be the same as the assignment name.
- Underneath the name, there is a drop-down to determine which lab type you want to use. Pick Jupyter Notebook, the other lab types are not allowed.
- Click on Save Part to save the part.
In case you would like to copy an old assignment, click Copy Assignment.
- Select the course that contains the existing assignment that you want to copy.
- Select the assignment you want to copy or select All Assignments to copy all assignments from the course.
- Click on Copy.
Check the Links to relevant help articles about Vocareum to read more about how to setup your assignment.
To link your assignments to your Brightspace course:
- In Vocareum, go to the assignment you want to publish and press Publish. Note that students will now be able to access the assignment.
- In Brightspace, go to the Content tab, click on Existing Activities and then choose Vocareum from the list of tools available.
- A pop-up will appear, where you can choose which assignment you want to add to your course.
- There are two options for each assignment: new tab and iframe. Select new tab.
- The assignment will appear in your course.
- Click on the arrow-down next to the assignments name, and choose Edit Properties in-place.
- Check the Open as External Resource-box.
Basic settings of a course in Vocareum are:
- Title
Name of the course that all the users will use to select a course. - Course Image (Optional)
If you upload an image, this will be used in the “Card View” when listing the course. - Timezone
This will be used for all the settings when time is needed like due date for submissions. - End Date
Date when the course ends. As a teacher you cannot change this date. After this date students will no longer be able to work on their projects. As a teacher or admin, you will continue to have access to the platform. - Access End Date
Students can no longer work on their projects after the “End Date”, they can continue to access their data until this date. As a teacher, you are able to change the Access End Date.
Vocareum is integrated with your Brightspace course through LTI 1.3. Do not toggle the LTI button off.
- LTI version
Vocareum supports LTI versions 1.1 and 1.3. Do not change this setting, Brightspace only supports LTI 1.3. - Show all assignments
Should be OFF if you want Vocareum to only show the assignment that the student clicked on in their LMS. If ON student can navigate to other published assignments from their Vocareum window. - Auto Create Sections
If enabled, sections are create based on the id of your course in Brightspace. Manual created sections in Vocareum are automatically overwritten.
Skilljar is not used at TU Delft, thus this is not relevant.
- No Submission
When this setting is enabled students can run their notebook but cannot submit their work. - Mastery Levels
This feature allows you to specify an order in which assignments must be completed by students. This is accomplished by assigning a “level” (integer) to each part of an assignment. Assignments with lower levels must be successfully completed before assignments with higher levels may be attempted.
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3659011-mastery-learning
- Sections
You can divide your class into two or more sections. Then, you will be able to manage each section independently (assignment publication and timelines).
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3658989-managing-class-sections - Slip Days
Slip days are used to compute how many days a student is late for a submission in case there is a deadline set. When a student is graded, the late penalty (if set) will be calculated accordingly.
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3659016-slip-days
If you have any questions about container resources, please contact Teaching-Support@tudelft.nl.
If these settings need to be changed, please contact Teaching-Support@tudelft.nl.
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3658992-managing-cloud-resources
If you have any questions about code editor settings, please contact Teaching-Support@tudelft.nl.
Links to relevant help articles about Vocareum
Basic course settings:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3658991-basic-course-settings
Installing Python packages:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3658985-installing-python-packages
Managing class sections:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3658989-managing-class-sections
Grouping assignments:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/4562543-grouping-assignments
Configuring workspace:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3659003-configure-workspace
Assignment options:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3659005-assignment-options
Team projects:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3659009-team-projects
Student view:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3659007-student-view
Assignment versioning:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3659008-assignment-versioning
Grading assigments:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3658979-grading-assignments
Creating a Jupyter assignment with nbgrader:
https:/help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3658961-creating-a-jupyter-assignment-with-nbgrader
Grading of multiple submissions per assignment:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3658977-grading-of-multiple-submissions-per-assignment
Peer review:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3703227-peer-review
Plagiarism detection:
https://help.vocareum.com/en/articles/3658976-plagiarism-detection
Support
For support, please contact Teaching-Support@tudelft.nl, we will forward your question to the correct place.