[ale] Linux Help Desk Call Apps?
Dow Hurst
dhurst at kennesaw.edu
Thu Nov 6 13:12:54 EST 2003
How does this application differ from WebCT? Is WebCT not opensourced?
I don't use it and am not familiar with it, but it is heavily used in
the University System here in GA. We have lab quizzes, online tests,
and teacher/student forums that are all done thru WebCT. I'll pass on
more info if interested,
Dow
James P. Kinney III wrote:
>That is where my app was headed. It supported a series of quizes
>selected randomly from a test bank that was used for pre-lab "force the
>student to read the lab book" testing. During the lab, the students
>logged into the online lab notebook to record their observations and
>data. If they had not taken the pre-lab quiz, they were locked out. The
>final lab report page was sent by email as a PDF to each student in the
>lab group.
>
>The admin pages were still in development and are not ready for use by
>anyone but a perl wizard :) Basically, the admin pages will allow a
>teacher to design a lab notebook using modules (text entry, data forms,
>data processing, graph box) and build multiple lab types from the basic
>framework. The second admin page build test bank questions based on
>topic headings. The 3rd page select topic heading for each quiz so that
>quiz content can be modified quickly. The student data is tracked so
>that the teacher can get the exact quiz and question/answer layout that
>the student got.
>
>It desperately needs to be rehacked to use a database instead of the
>flat files that were getting unwieldy to maintain. There is also the
>need for some javascript to add for some specialized error trapping and
>to make the spreadsheet a bit easier to use.
>
>A second app-in-progress was a hideous test bank program. Each question
>had 15-30 answers to choose from. Each wrong answer could be arrived at
>by a mistake. This allowed for partial credit on a multiple-choice test.
>It also allowed for every student to get different numbers but basically
>the same test with problems in different orders. It was only the real
>hard-nosed instructors that liked that one. :)
>
>On Thu, 2003-11-06 at 12:01, Jonathan Glass wrote:
>
>
>>To go off on a small tangent...
>>
>>Something I think would be useful to develop is a web-based testing
>>system for teachers. The teachers input the questions and appropriate
>>answers (or select from a DB), then presents the test to the students.
>>Once the student finishes the exam, the correct answers appear on the
>>screen, along with his grade. The teacher gets a real-time admin screen
>>showing who has taken the text, average time taken, and pretty graphs of
>>the grades.
>>
>>A professor at Macon State designed such a system using ASP.Net and
>>tight Office integration (and he doesn't want to OSS/GPL it). I think
>>something comparable from the OSS world would be a help for
>>teachers..although I'll admit to not having done market research to see
>>what commercial packages are available. I've only had professors ask
>>for this.
>>
>>My $0.02
>>
>>Jonathan Glass
>>
>>James P. Kinney III wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Great point, Dow. I guess I've sat on the web application I wrote at
>>>Emory for providing a web-forms based spreadsheet with graphing and
>>>curve fits long enough.
>>>
>>>The more stuff that is "out there" the more weight the opensource
>>>process gets.
>>>
>>>On Thu, 2003-11-06 at 11:16, Dow Hurst wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>You may not expect the interest of other people in the code since your
>>>>being humble. However, since I've been thinking about open source
>>>>lately and it's impact on people's lives, I think you may find that your
>>>>code could be a nice project on sourceforge. It can grow, if watered,
>>>>into something businesses would want and would pay support for. The
>>>>code can be GPL'd but still companies will pay for support. I think it
>>>>is amazing to see the projects that start out like this one and grow
>>>>into world influencing pieces of software. Think about the influence of
>>>>Apache, GCC, and Gimp. I am in the midst of my first install of Gentoo
>>>>1.4 and have been thinking philosophically as I watch compilation
>>>>happen. I think my Celeron 333MHz laptop will become useful again due
>>>>to this project. Gentoo's install isn't that bad either for the benefit
>>>>down the road. Just amazed once again at the power of people like you
>>>>being involved in open source,
>>>>Dow
>>>>
>>>>PS. There is never enough variety of software.
>>>>
>>>>Jonathan Glass wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Oh yeah! I have a verbal ok to publish the s/w w/a GPL license.
>>>>>Wesleyan's only request is they get the updates, too. :)
>>>>>
>>>>>I'm preparing for the GRE over the next 4-6 weeks, but after that I'll
>>>>>have time to publish that code on my web site. I'm not sure how many
>>>>>people would care to see it, but it will be available.
>>>>>
>>>>>I think I'm going to post my notes on some of my other projects as well
>>>>>(SMB auth via PHP, PDF printer for Samba that acts as a Windows printer
>>>>>and emails the resulting PDFs to the user, etc).
>>>>>
>>>>>Life is good, and information wants to be free!
>>>>>
>>>>>Jonathan
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>A comment you made is why I see Open Source software as inherently
>>>>>>better than closed. You said you'd post it (given permission, of
>>>>>>course) "after cleaning it up". If you know no one outside the coding
>>>>>>group will see the source, why make it pretty? Granted, I'm not a coder
>>>>>>, but I can see that being the case.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Brian
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jonathan Glass wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I use Perldesk to catch incoming email to "helpdesk at ibb" and
>>>>>>>"help at ibb"...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I wrote WesHelpDesk for Wesleyan College that does all the required. It
>>>>>>>interfaced with Exchange 5.5 via LDAP for user info, NT 4 for
>>>>>>>authentication, and a local smart-relay for outbound email and paging.
>>>>>>>ALl ticket updates automatically get sent to the end-users, and
>>>>>>>escalations get sent to the Director. Because everything is MYSQL
>>>>>>>driven,
>>>>>>>the Director is able to use ODBC to generate usage/tracking reports.
>>>>>>>Pretty cool 6 month project...earned me As for 2 different classes (DBA
>>>>>>>and Web Design). :)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>If anyone wants to look at it, I'll ask the Director for permission to
>>>>>>>GPL
>>>>>>>it, and post the code somewhere (after cleaning it up a bit..of
>>>>>>>course!).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Thanks
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Jonathan
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>All,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>It would be nice to put a computer to catch help desk calls, log them,
>>>>>>>>email them to techs, or have the system page them etc. etc. I seem to
>>>>>>>>rember reading a review in Linux Journal. Anyone remember which one?
>>>>>>>>Any
>>>>>>>>one successfully putting a computer box to catch the initial calls?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>John
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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--
__________________________________________________________
Dow Hurst Office: 770-499-3428 *
Systems Support Specialist Fax: 770-423-6744 *
1000 Chastain Rd. Bldg. 12 *
Chemistry Department SC428 Email: dhurst at kennesaw.edu *
Kennesaw State University Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com *
Kennesaw, GA 30144 *
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