Grading exams in vscode

This is a vscode extension that helps grading exams in vscode.

Exam format

The target exam formats are programming exams where the students submit plain text files (e.g. .R or .py files), which are structured into several exercises:

## Question 1
print('this is my solution to q1')

## Question 2
print('the solution to q2 is:')
print(123)

(See ./example/ for a more detailed example.)

The grader must be allowed to modify the files (or copies thereof) in order to specify points and leave comments. These comments will be in a human-readable format, allowing people without this extension to understand the feedback. Assigning points without this extension is also possible, but inconvenient, since the points-comments must match the corresponding regular expressions.

Features

The extension parses all exam files, identifying answered exercises and parsing points given by the grader. The body of exercises can be highlighted accordingly. The command vscode-grading.addPointsComments adds placeholders for points comments. Points can be adjusted directly in the editor, through code-lenses, or keyboard shortcuts (e.g. ctrl+k 2 for 2 points, ctrl+k - to decrement points).

An overview of the identified exercises and parsed points can be shown using commands vscode-grading.checkPresent, vscode-grading.checkGraded, and vscode-grading.checkPoints (ctrl+click a cell to go to the corresponding file).

The solution to the currently selected exercise (or any fixed one) can be shown in a separate editor that updates when the selection changes, using the command vscode-grading.showSolution.

Configuration

The structure of the exam needs to be specified in the setting "grading.exercises", which should be done in the workspace settings. The patterns used to identify exercises and patterns/templates to identify and modify (points) comments can be adjusted in the settings "grading.exercise.startRegex", "grading.comment.regex", "grading.comment.template", "grading.comment.pointsRegex", and related ones. For details, see the description of individual config entries and the example configuration in ./example/.vscode/settings.json.

Further configuration options include toggles for the background highlighting and code-lenses.

Development

The extension was primarily written to match my personal use-case, and is under (infrequent) development. Any bug reports, feature suggestions, or pull requests are welcome!