Using Chat To Run

A Large Course

Michael Ball
UC Berkeley
michael@cs10.org

My Goals

All allows us to better focus on teaching!

• Save TA  / Instructor Time
• Reduce Common Errors
• Enable New Assignments
• Have Fun

• Find collaborators for future work!

Instant Chat

IRC is cool (again?)!

 

Why Real Time Chat?

We love to hate email...


• Chat rooms are topically focused
• Ability to bother only those who are online
• "Rooms" and "Channels" allow for fun topics
• Integrations. Lots and Lots and LOTS of integrations

Examples

"Slack Integrations" → "About 11,300,000 results (0.36 seconds) "


Enter: Hubot

Github's robot which integrates with everything!


What About Your Course?


APIs → Build the features you need!

Google, Canvas,  Moodle, Sakai all have APIs

Blackboard, Piazza, edX....
not so great, but solvable.
 

In Practice


Example Problems

Yours may be different!

• Automatically set due date extensions
• Grant partial access to a grade book
• lock &  unlock items
• Search for student / group info
• Automate multistep processes

Solve Simple Problems


We use password protected quizzes.

Problem:  Passwords need to be reset.

Solve Simple Problems


Easily link to Piazza posts.

Sometimes a little heads up is good!

Enable New Assignments

Oral Lab Checkoffs — painful w/o automation!


Don't Let The Inmates Run The Asylum 

Build Security in where possible!

Protect Yourself From Errors

Michael> /give Mary a 20 day extension for HW1
Alonzo> @Michael, I'm sorry I can't do that. Someone can type "approve extension gold" to grant your request.
Andy> /reject extension gold
Andy> @Michael, are you sure you didn't mean 2 days?
Michael> Whoops, thanks! 
 Michael> /give Mary a 2 day extension for HW1
Alonzo> Done! Mary's new due date for HW 1 is March 1

Warning: This is vaporware.

Summary

  • Chat alone can improve communication
  • Use automation + integrations to save time
  • Build new automations to handle complex tasks.



Thank You!


cs10.org/conferences
michael@cs10.org


P.S. There are bonus slides online!


Bonus Slides

Getting Started with Implementing Hubot

Basic Setup & Overview


  1. Get a Slack (or Hipchat or other)  organization
  2. Setup a chatbot.
    1. It's easy! Clone a repo and push to Heroku
    2. (See the links)
  3. Add your own extenstions.

Some Quick Links:


  • Hubot: github.com/github/hubot
  • Alonzo (or Bot): github.com/cs10/Alonzo
    • Feel free to steal lots of custom stuff!
  • Canvas LMS API: github.com/cs10/node-canvas-lms
  • Group Mentions: github.com/cycomachead/hubot-group-alias
  • Piazza Integrations: github.com/cycomachead/hubot-piazza
  • Google Drive Integrations: github.com/aaaschmitt/hubot-googledrive-search
  • Generic Canvas Integrations: github.com/cycomachead/hubot-canvas

A Really Simple Command

cs10.HELP_LINKS = [
    'Late Assignments Form: http://bjc.link/lateAssignmentsSP16',
    'Late Add From: http://bjc.link/sp16lateadd',
    `Late Add Form Password: ${process.env.LATE_ADD_FORM_PW}`,
    'Contacts Sheet: http://bjc.link/cs10contacts',
    'Checkoff Answers: http://bjc.link/cs10checkoffquestions',
    'Get Snap! Project: https://alonzo.herokuapp.com/snap-proj.html'
]
 
robot.respond(/.*(links|forms).*/i, function(msg) {
        msg.send(cs10.HELP_LINKS.join('\n'));

  • 
});

• Define some links in an array, and send a message whenever someone asks for "@Alonzo links"

Writing a New Canvas Command

robot.respond(/find the next due date/i, findDueDates);
function findDueDates(resp) {
    resp.send('Working on it...'); // Send a message to a room
    cs10.get('/assignments', { per_page: 100 }, function(err, res, body) {
            future = _.filter(body, isFuture);
            next = _.minBy(future, dateDist);
            due = new Date(next.due_at).toLocaleString();
            msgText = `The next assignment ${next.name} is due on ${due}.`;
            resp.reply(msgText); // Notify the asker with reply()
    });
}
function dateDist(assn) { return new Date(assn.due_at) - new Date() };
function isFuture(assn) { return dateDist(assn) > 0 };

• robot registers a regular expression to a callback
• callback can do whatever it wants!
• You can send() or reply() and more
• CS10 object is just a Canvas API call.

A (Mostly) Complete List of Our Auotmations

  • Resetting Quiz Passwords
  • Checking and auditing student 'slip days'
  • Uploading Grades to Canvas
  • Handling Late Add Students
    • Emailing TAs + students of revised due dates
    • Updating due dates in Canvas
  • Sending messages to multiple people easily
    • Slack's 'groups' feature, but for free! (and before Slack had it)
  • Searching Google Drive
  • Piazza Links