Making Your Term Marks Accessible from the Web

Many instructors have asked for a simple, secure solution that will allow their students to access only their own test results on the web. This is a description of a temporary solution that will be phased out when this functionality becomes available through the new Student Information System.

Authentication based on WatIAM

The solution makes use of the authentication mechanism provided by WatIAM. To access their interim marks (final marks are released by the Registrar), students must have a UW Userid and password. Every student already has a UW Userid, but unless they have applied for coop jobs or participated in student elections, they may not have been assigned a password.

Setting up Your Web Directory

Start by creating a web-accessible directory as follows:

1. Create a web-accessible directory in which you will store your marks. For the purpose of this example, we'll call this 'marks'. It will be a subdirectory of your public_html directory, for example:
   cd public_html
   mkdir marks
2. You will need two files:

   .htaccess

   limits access to your directory to WatIAM-authenticated users. Depending on the configuration of the Web server that you are using, display the following, storing the contents in a .htaccess file:

   • If your Web server has been configured to use WatIAM for authentication, you can use the simplified version of the .htaccess file.
   • Use the appropriate .htaccess file if you are using a Math or Engineering server.
   • If your Web server has not been configured for WatIAM authentication, display the complete version and save as .htaccess.

   This file should have world-read turned on.

   ls -l .htaccess
   -rw-r--r--   1 snyder   other        441 Jan 16 15:52 .htaccess
   		

   getmarks

   perl program that generates the required Web page containing the student's marks. Grab the getmarks file from the Web and save in your marks directory. The file should have the following permissions:

   ls -l getmarks
   -rwx------   1 snyder   other       2082 Jan 16 15:11 getmarks
   		

Creating a Marks File

The getmarks program expects the marks file to be in a comma delimited format, for example:

Spanish 101 Fall 2000,,,,

Assign 1,Assign 2,Mid Term,Final Exam,Userid

7.0,7.5,47.0,92.0,snyder

6.5,8.0,36.5,78.0,chappell

10.0,9.5,28.0,55.0,ssmith

8.2,9.0,45.0,95.0,abartha

9.0,10.0,48.0,85.0,jfredrichs

8.0,8.2,47.0,87.0,landerson

The first value of the first line is expected to contain descriptive information. The second line is used to define column headings. Each of the remaining lines contains a column with the student's UWuserid. This is matched against the authenticated userid that the student will provide as part of a login to your web page.

Note that the export function of Exambook of Excel will create a file in the above format. Note also that there is no restriction on the number or type of columns to be displayed.

Store the file containing your marks in your 'marks' directory. In this example, suppose the file was called 'spanish101'.

Make sure the file does not have world-read permissions. For example,

chmod o-r spanish101
ls -l spanish101
-rw-------   1 snyder   other        718 Jan 16 15:07 spanish101

Student Access to Marks

Students should be directed to access your marks page using a URL in the following format:

hostname.uwaterloo.ca/~userid/marksdirectory/getmarks?course=marksfilename

for example:

ist.uwaterloo.ca/~snyder/marks/getmarks?course=spanish101

They will be required to authenticate themself using the following form.

And their marks will then be displayed, for example:

 

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Last updated by Paul Snyder on September 27, 2004.