iClicker Configuration

Collecting iClicker IDs by Submitty Gradeable

You can bypass the iclicker.com registration site and software by directly collecting remote IDs from the students via Submitty.

If you’ve collected iclicker IDs using the iclicker gradeable configuration, you can scrape the iclicker with this command:

/usr/local/submitty/bin/read_iclicker_ids.py /var/local/submitty/courses/<SEMESTER>/<COURSE>/submissions/<ICLICKER GRADEABLE>/ <INSERT REMOTE ID DESTINATION FILE>

Note: Students often misunderstand which digits on the back of their remote are their unique remote ID. Many type in the model number of the clicker that begins with something like “T24”. The remote ID is the 8 digit number/letter string that is on the white sticker next to the battery, and will only contain numbers and the letters A-F.

Remote ID file

Your iClicker remote id file should be a simple CSV file mapping iClicker IDs to student IDs, an example row might read:

#123ABC,"smithj"

The leading #, the letters in the iClicker ID being capitalized, and the student ID being wrapped in quotation marks are all important.

NOTE: iClicker support is based on the “iClicker Classic” software (formerly known as versions 6 (.csv files) and 7 (.xml files)), and may not work with newer versions. When running Rainbow Grades, a matching .csv file will be automatically created for any .xml file in your customization.json file.

Remote ID file

In customization.json there are only two additional entries needed to make iClickers work.

field: "iclicker_ids"
type: string
REQUIRED for iClickers

The string is a relative path (it can just be a name if it is in the grades_summary directory).
field: "earned_late_days"
type: array of numbers
OPTIONAL

If this array is filled in, then Rainbow Grades will generate a late_days.txt that can be uploaded to Submitty via the "Late Days Allowed" page. The numbers in the array should be increasing and indicate the number of iclicker points required to award students an extra late day. The file also contains the effective date that the late day was earned, which is calculated based on the timestamps embedded in the iClicker filenames.

NOTE: You must manually upload the late_days.txt file via the Submitty web interface. It is NOT uploaded by running make push.
field: "iclicker"
type: associative array of string to array
REQUIRED for iClickers

This array maps lecture numbers (e.g. "2" for lecture 2) to an array of associative arrays, where each of the inner associative arrays corresponds to one iClicker question.

The inner array format is:
- field: "file"
  type: array
  REQUIRED
  
  An array of strings, where each string is a relative path to a iClicker session file (should look something like LYYMMDDHHII.csv or .xml, where YY is the 2-digit year 00-99, MM is the 2-digit month 01-12, DD is the 2-digit day 01-31, HH is the two digit hour 00-23, and II is the 2-digit minute 00-59). Multiple files can be used for one lecture. Currently, multiple files can be used for one question even, but the column number and correct answer(s) must match for all files in a given "file" array.
- field: "column"
  type: integer
  REQUIRED
  
  This field specifies which question in the iClicker session to read student responses from. Each question is one column, so to get the third question you would use "column": 3.
- field: "answer"
  type: string
  REQUIRED
  
  The correct answer(s) should be in this string. Multiple answers can be counted as correct, simply use multiple letters with no spaces. If all five letters are used ("answer": "ABCDE"), the question is considered a poll question and Rainbow Grades will highlight student responses in yellow. For any other question, student responses will be highlighted in green if they are correct (1.0 points towards iClicker score) and red if they are incorrect (0.5 points towards iClicker score).

Below is a short example which gets questions 2.1 (a poll) and 2.2 (two right answers) from one file, and 2.3 from another pair of files which also contain 3.1 (a poll).

The example also allows students to earn an additional late day after getting 2 iClicker points, and a second late day after 6 iClicker points (not yet attainable in the example, which only has a total of 4 questions).

"iclicker_ids": "clicker_data/RemoteID.csv",
"iclicker": {
  "2": [
    {"file": ["clicker_data/L1701201013.csv"], "column": 1, "answer": "ABCDE"},
    {"file": ["clicker_data/L1701201013.csv"], "column": 2, "answer": "AE"},
    {"file": ["clicker_data/L1701220958.csv", "clicker_data/L1701221358.xml"], "column": 1, "answer": "D"},
  ],     
  "3": [
    {"file": ["clicker_data/L1701220958.csv", "clicker_data/L1701221358.xml"], "column": 2, "answer": "ABCDE"},           
  ]
},
"earned_late_days": [2.0, 6.0]

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