October 23, 2023

Effort Tracking

For the past 8 years, Robin Nagy the director of Effort Tracking has developed a innovative process of measuring and tracking student efforts to improve motivation for learning, as well as character growth. Originally developed in Google Spreadsheets Robin approached CoSource to help design the backend database and build a web frontend.

The architecture

CoSource built the solution using VUE (JavaScript framework for building single-page applications), Microsoft .net core (database accessed through EF Core) and SQL Server. We also used Azure DevOps, to automate the build process (running tests against the software) and to deploy the application to all the different servers.

The application was hosted on Microsoft Azure which allows the application to automatically scale based upon the number of users, and the system resources.

The advantages of using Microsoft Azure and Azure DevOps are:

Security
Reliability
Performance
Ease of deployment

The three main users of the platform are:

School Administrators
Teachers
Students

Back end system

In Summary

Customer

Effort Tracking

Industry

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Business Problem

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Solution

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Outcome

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The challenges

In developing the platform, CoSource faced a number of key challenges.

The Database Design
An easy to use and intuitive user interface.
Security and protection of student’s and teacher’s data.
Scaling to meet the demands of 100s of students and teachers grading their effort scores at the same time.

Database Design

The database design had to take into account the complexity of the relationships between students, teachers, classes, reporting periods and effort scores. It also had to be flexible enough to be extensible in the future.

School Administrators

The administrator area allows school admins to do the following:

Import and export data
Setup teachers, classes and students.
Define reporting periods.
Setup reminders for student to complete their grading

Administrators can also define the effort tracking metrics.

Teachers

For each reporting period, teachers grade their student on a certain metrics and scale (these can be changed in the admin area). A list of classes that the teacher is responsible for is displayed, along with the students. Any class that has not been graded is highlighted.

Teachers can also view the grade summary for previous reporting periods, to review what the students entered.

Student

Each student logins to the system and is presented with an easier to use grading system for the current grading period. One of the key requirements was for the application to be visually appealing to the students.

Student also have access to a dashboard, to see their overall effort score, as well as a detailed breakdown.

Final thoughts

The platform already is being used by several schools. The feedback from both students and teachers has been very positive.

Very much like the new design for the effort tracking. Simple design and very user friendly.
This website is a significantly better alternative to the previous system.
This is pretty cool. Much better than the old system.
I like it a lot – very convenient. Much improved interface. The overlaying of criteria as you score is also very helpful.
This website is awesome!
Very easy to use and navigate. Thank you.
Website is very clean and easy to use and navigate! Have always appreciated the use of this system and hope that other schools are also using this fantastic system effectively!
Really liking the new updates for effort tracking. Much easier to use for all the students. Big thanks from all the students.

If you would like to learn more or have any questions please contact us at info@cosource.com.au or visit www.efforttracking.com to learn more about the platform.