Rubyric

Rubyric is an online tool in which you can create courses and assignments, receive submissions and assess them by using rubrics. More information about Rubyric and how to use it can be found here.

Environment

Install ruby 2.3.1 or higher. One way of installing these versions in Linux is by using one of the following Ruby version management tools, rvm or rbenv.

If you followed the guides provided in the above link. You would find yourself adding some scripts to the ~/.bashrc file. However, you can use your favourite shell.

You can always verify your default shell by typing the following command in your terminal

ls -l /proc/$$/exe

or

echo $SHELL

Ruby and rails environment

Update the RubyGems version

sudo gem install rubygems-update

Install rails with the following command

gem install rails -v 5.0.2

or

sudo gem install rails -v 5.0.2

Before you start installing any Gem, it is important to check the Bundler version. The current version of Rubyric requires a Bundler version (>= 1.3.0, < 2.0). In addition, it is worth noting that Rubyric requires a version <= 1.4.X of the big-decimal gem.

Verify Bundler version

bundler -v

and/or

gem list bundler

If you have a different Bundler version which is not compatible with the Rubyric ecosystem, you must uninstall it and install a compatible version. The command for installing the Bundler is similar to the one below. However, you can choose the most suitable version for you.

gem install bundler -v 1.17.3

Database

Rubyric uses a PostgreSQL database. Therefore, you must install PostgreSQL and create a user.

sudo apt-get install postgresql
sudo -u postgres createuser --interactive

Additional packages

Rubyric also requires pdfinfo, ghostscript and libpq-dev to work.

sudo apt-get install poppler-utils ghostscript libpq-dev

Download Rubyric and Install Gems

Clone the Rubyric project

Now it is time to clone the Rubyric project and install the required gems. First, clone the project from Github. You can use either SSH or HTTPS.

git clone [email protected]:Aalto-LeTech/rubyric.git && cd rubyric

or

git clone https://github.com/Aalto-LeTech/rubyric.git && cd rubyric

Install gems

Once you have a copy of the Rubyric project, you can proceed to install the required gems.

bundle install

Side note: Some packages will require manual installation, and some other will require some manual intervention related to compatibility issues. You can find some of the most recurrent problems in the Troubleshooting section

Configure Rubyric

Local configuration

Now that you have installed the required software and tools, you must configure your Rubyric project to run in your computer.

cp config/initializers/secret_token.rb.base config/initializers/secret_token.rb
cp config/initializers/settings.rb.base config/initializers/settings.rb
cp config/database.yml.base config/database.yml

Create a database and username

The first step is to create the database and the rails user

sudo -u postgres createdb -O rails rubyric

Now, we will create a user called "rails" with password "rails". This particular user is used for testing purposes.

sudo -u postgres psql

The PostgreSQL console is indicated by postgres=# prompt. At the PostgreSQL console enter the following command, which will assist you in assigning the password to the "rails" user.

postgres=# \password rails

Enter the desired password (in this case, your password should be "rails") at the prompt, and confirm it.

Now you may need to exit the PostgreSQL console by entering the \q command and pressing the enter key.

postgres=# \q

It is necessary to know that we are using the "rails" user only for developing purposes. In a production environment, it is better to use other means to improve security during the database authentication.

Side note: The rails user can be also modified in the database.yaml.base file, and subsequently in the database.yaml file if you wish.

Initialize database

rails db:setup

It is possible that the following error appears, while running the above command.

undefined method `yaml_as` for ActiveRecord::Base::Class
Did you mean? yaml_tag

Therefore, you may run the following command and try again.

bundle update delayed_job

Make user Rubyric admin

Open rails console

rails c

Find a user and update admin attribute. You can find user by their user id with User.find(id) or by some other attributes with User.find_by(attribute: value).

User.find(id).update_attributes(admin: '1')

or you can create a new user as admin

User.create(email: email, password: password, admin: '1')

Run Rubyric

In order to run Rubyric on your computer, you should start the server by typing the following command.

bin/delayed_job start
rails server

Once the server is started, you can now initialise Rubyric at http://localhost:3000.

If you are planning to run Rubyric along with A+, you may prefer to run Rubyric in a different port than the port 3000, e.g. using port 3030. More information about local development with A can be found in the Documentation.

bin/delayed_job start
rails server -p 3030

You can now access Rubyric at http://localhost:3030.

Troubleshooting

• If you find the following error while trying to run Rubyric.

  Bundler could not find compatible versions for gem "bundler":
    In Gemfile:
      rails (= 5.0.2) was resolved to 5.0.2, which depends on
        bundler (>= 1.3.0, < 2.0)
  
    Current Bundler version:
      bundler (2.1.2)
  
  This Gemfile requires a different version of Bundler.
  Perhaps you need to update Bundler by running `gem install bundler`?
  
  Could not find gem 'bundler (>= 1.3.0, < 2.0)', which is required by gem  'rails (= 5.0.2)', in any of the sources.

  You should try to uninstall the incompatible Bundler and install one of the recommended ones.

  gem install bundler -v 1.17.3
  gem uninstall bundler -v 2.0.1
  bundle update --bundler
  bundle install
  

• If the following error appears

  undefined method `yaml_as` for ActiveRecord::Base::Class
  Did you mean? yaml_tag

  you may run the following command.

  bundle update delayed_job

  In addition, you could google this compatibility issue, and try to find the version of the delayed_job that solves this issue.

• Another common error is related to the bigdecimal gem. As mentioned above, you should install the ruby compatible versions. The bigdecimal versions allowed in Rubyric are any version from 1.3.5 to 1.4.4. Therefore, if the following error appears.

  NoMethodError: undefined method `new' for BigDecimal:Class

  you should install one of the ruby compatible versions.

  version	characteristics	Supported ruby version range
  2.0.0	You cannot use BigDecimal.new and do subclassing	2.4 ..
  1.4.x	BigDecimal.new and subclassing always prints a warning.	2.3 .. 2.6
  1.3.5	You can use BigDecimal.new and subclassing without warning	.. 2.5

  For example, you could install the bigdecimal version 1.3.5.

  gem install bigdecimal -v 1.3.5

• In case you are having trouble with the version of the bundle you can verify and delete the extra bundlers

• Another common problem that can appear while trying to run Rubyric locally is related to the i18n gem. If you cross with the following error message.

  Could not find i18n-0.9.5 in any of the sources
  Run `bundle install` to install missing gems.

  Try installing the i18n gem version i18n-0.9.5.

  gem install i18n -v 0.9.5

Tested environments

If you are having issues with version and compatibility of packages, you can try to set up the following environments which have been tested.

Tested in Ubuntu 20.04 and 18.04.

About your application's environment
Rails version             5.0.2
Ruby version              2.5.8-p224 (x86_64-linux)
RubyGems version          3.1.4
Rack version              2.0.1

You can check the different version of the packages in which you intend to run Rubyric by using the rake about command.

rake about

or

bundle exec rake about