In charlotte-ngs/rteachtools: Tools For Teaching

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Disclaimer

Before every semester when preparing the infrastructure for a new course or for a new version of an existing course, the same tasks have to be carried out. The outline given below gives a few hints and ideas on how this process could be automated. In what follows, we start with a description of the manual process that is used so far. The second part contains possible ideas for automation.

Assumptions

The course is assumed to be a course consisting of the following components

• course notes
• exercises and solutions
• additional material

The structure of the course should be kept as flexible as possible. Hence, further components such as student projects or homework or term projects should be easily integrable.

Manual Setup Process for asmss2022

The following steps are taken in the setup process

• Step 1: Start a new RStudio project

R -e 'usethis::create_project(path = "/Users/pvr/Data/Projects/Github/charlotte-ngs/asmss2022_gh-root/main/asmss2022", rstudio = TRUE)'

• Step 2: Add a description file

usethis::use_description(fields = getOption("charlotte.ngs.description"))

This file must be edited and adapted according to the new course. This can be done via

usethis::edit_file(path = "DESCRIPTION")

• Step 3: Licence is added

usethis::use_cc0_license()

• Step 4: README File is added

usethis::use_readme_rmd()

The README file is the main page of content, not only for the Github page, but also for the website which will be created via pkgdown

• Step 5: Git Repository

usethis::use_git()

• Step 6: Setting up the pages for the website

usethis::use_vignette(name = "course_notes", title = "Course Notes")
usethis::use_vignette(name = "course_exercises", title = "Exercises")
usethis::use_vignette(name = "course_solutions", title = "Solutions")
usethis::use_vignette(name = "course_additional_material", title = "Additional Material")

• Step 7: Adding a news site

usethis::use_news_md()

• Step 8: Install package

devtools::document();devtools::install()

• Step 9: Build Site

pkgdown::build_site()

After committing and pushing all the material, the material should be available.

Second Example: pigsciencess2022

cd && cd Data/Projects/GitHub/charlotte-ngs
~/Data/Projects/GitHub/fbzwsqualitasag/qmactools/inst/bash/nrsproj.sh \
-t ~/Data/Projects/GitHub/fbzwsqualitasag/qmactools/inst/template/rstudio/RStudioTemplate.Rproj \
-p pigsciencess2022_gh-root/main/pigsciencess2022

• Step 2: Add a description file

usethis::use_description()

This file must be edited and adapted according to the new course. This can be done via

usethis::edit_file(path = "DESCRIPTION")

• Step 3: Licence is added

usethis::use_cc0_license()

• Step 4: README File is added

usethis::use_readme_rmd()

The README file is the main page of content, not only for the Github page, but also for the website which will be created via pkgdown

• Step 5: Git Repository

usethis::use_git()

• Step 6: Setting up the pages for the website

usethis::use_vignette(name = "course_notes", title = "Course Notes")
usethis::use_vignette(name = "course_exercises", title = "Exercises")
usethis::use_vignette(name = "course_solutions", title = "Solutions")
usethis::use_vignette(name = "course_additional_material", title = "Additional Material")

• Step 7: Adding a news site

usethis::use_news_md()

• Step 8: Install package

devtools::document();devtools::install()

• Step 9: Build Site

pkgdown::build_site()

• Step 10: Create Repo on Github

Create the new repo on the Github platform and run locally

git remote add origin https://github.com/charlotte-ngs/pigsciencess2022.git
git branch -M main
git config user.name "charlotte-ngs"
git config credential.username "charlotte-ngs"
git push -u origin main

After committing and pushing all the material, the material should be available.

Template for Course Notes

usethis::use_rmarkdown_template(template_name = "Course Notes Bookdown Skeleton Project", 
                                template_dir = 'cnotesdown',
                                template_description = 'Course Notes Bookdown Skeleton Project for Charlotte-NGS',
                                template_create_dir = TRUE)

Install package to make template available

devtools::document();devtools::install()

Starting Course Notes

rmarkdown::draft("cn", template = "cnotesdown", package = "rteachtools")
fs::file_move("cn/cn.Rmd", "cn/index.Rmd")

Change template settings

Slides

Create template

usethis::use_rmarkdown_template(template_name = "Course Beamer Slide Skeleton Document", 
                                template_dir = 'cbeamerdown',
                                template_description = 'Course Beamer Slide Skeleton Document for Charlotte-NGS',
                                template_create_dir = TRUE)

Start a new slides document

rmarkdown::draft("sl/l01_psb_intro", template = "cbeamerdown", package = "rteachtools")

Template for Exam

Exams are created in a special Rmarkdown document using latex-features to create a title page.

usethis::use_rmarkdown_template(template_name = "Exam Questions Skeleton Document",
                                template_dir = 'cexamdown',
                                template_description = 'Exam Template Document for charlotte-ngs',
                                template_create_dir = TRUE)

Using the template works with

rmarkdown::draft(file = "exam/asm_exam_sol", template = "cexamdown", package = "rteachtools")

Automation Steps

charlotte-ngs/rteachtools documentation built on Sept. 21, 2023, 4:20 p.m.