Set up hand-in requirements for a CodeGrade assignment

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It is desirable to have strict hand-in requirements and instructions for some programming assignments. Perhaps to make manual or automatic testing less cumbersome or to disallow the handing in of certain unwanted files.

CodeGrade offers an elaborate means to set up hand-in requirements for assignments that force students to hand in files or archives with a requested structure. Follow the guide below to learn how to set this up for your CodeGrade assignment:

1. Go to the Assignment Management page for the assignment you want to add hand-in requirements to by clicking on the button.

2. Under the General tab, locate the Hand-in requirements section. You can choose to copy the instructions over from another assignment, or set up a new requirements schema.

3. Select the policy of your requirement:

   • By default Deny all files: All files are denied by default, further rules (required or allowed files) determine exactly and strictly what students can or must hand in (i.e. this will allow you to whitelist certain files and deny anything else).

   • By default Allow all files: All files are allowed by default, further rules (required or denied files) determine which specific files a student cannot hand in or must hand in (i.e. this will allow you to blacklist certain files and allow anything else).

4. After selecting either of the policies above, more options are displayed to further specify the behaviour of your requirements:

   • Delete empty directories: If enabled, automatically delete empty directories in submissions.

   • Delete leading directories: If enabled, automatically delete superfluous leading directories (i.e. top-level directories in which all files / subdirectories are located).

   • Allow overrides by students: If enabled, the student can, after being shown a warning, still force hand in the submission even if it violates the hand-in requirements.

5. Subsequently, rules to make exceptions for the set policy can be given in the Exceptions and requirements section. The following rules can be created:

   • Required: This rule is available to both default policies and can be used to require students to hand in certain files.

   • Allowed: This rule is available if all files are denied by default and can be used to make exceptions to this policy. Files and folders indicated as allowed are allowed to be handed in.

   • Denied: This rule is available if all files are allowed by default and can be used to make exceptions to this policy. Files and folders indicated as denied cannot be handed in.

Warning

The exceptions and requirements are individual rules that act as exceptions to the chosen policy. There is no ordering between rules.

Note

Use / or \ as a directory separator to specify that certain files are required, allowed or denied in a directory. Start the rule with a directory separator (/ or \) to specify that a file is required, allowed or denied in the top level directory.

To match more than one file, you can use a single wildcard for the name of the file, by using a *. For example /src/*.py matches any file ending with .py in the directory src that is directly in the top level directory of the submission.

6. When the default policy, options and exceptions and requirement rules are set up to your wishes, press the Submit button to save the hand-in requirements.

Once hand-in requirements are set up for an assignment in CodeGrade, students are provided with the Hand-in instructions tab on the assignment upload page with an overview of the set up instructions and requirements.

Furthermore, if a student submits a submission that is not conform the requirements, a warning will be shown. Unwanted files will automatically be detected and deleted.