The University of Edinburgh is happy to announce our upcoming event as part of the Jupyter Community Workshop series funded by Bloomberg. The University will be hosting a three-day event, the core aspect of this event being a hackathon focused on adding improvements, fixes and extra documentation for the nbgrader extension. Alongside this we will also hold an afternoon of talks highlighting how Jupyter can be used in education at varying levels. The event will take place on 29 to 31 May at the University of Edinburgh, with the afternoon of talks taking place on 30 May.

The first and main part of the event will be the nb grader hackathon. nbgrader is a Jupyter extension that allows for the creation and marking of notebook-based assignments. Here at the University, we have adopted nbgrader and our developers have integrated the extension into our Jupyter service Noteable. The hackathon will focus on improving the core features and extending the abilities of nbgrader; by adding such features, it will be easier for institutions to adopt and embed both Jupyter and nbgrader into their teaching practice.

The second, equally important part of our event is a series of talks aimed at highlighting the uses of Jupyter within education. As part of developing our local Jupyter service, we have uncovered many use cases across the University of how Jupyter can be adopted in a variety of disciplines and scenarios that we are keen to share. We will also be able to showcase an institutional approach to adopting and supporting Jupyter at scale. On top of this, there is also the opportunity to hear from many of our hackathon attendees. This series of talks is aimed at academic colleagues, and teaching and support staff at any level of education and includes an evening networking event to allow attendees to further explore how they may introduce Jupyter to their institution.

What are we working on?

We have worked with our local developers and scoured the nbgrader Github repo to devise a plan of attack for the hackathon in terms of features and improvement. We’re keen to engage with the wider community regarding these goals and have created a post on the Jupyter Discourse to allow further discussion.

Support for Multiple course/Multiple classes. Instructors that teach multiple course using nbgrader or students enrolled on multiple course. Multiple Courses (ref: PR #1040) vs Support for multiple classes via Jupyterhub groups (PR #893)

Considerations for LTI use: Users/Courses not in the database at startup

Support for Multiple markers for one assignment (part of issue #1030, which extends #998)

API Tests have hard-coded file copy methods to pre-load the system to enable testing, and os.file_exists-type tests for release & submit tests

Generation of feedback copies for students within the formgrader UI (to mirror the existing terminal command). Also consider ability to disseminate this feedback back to students within nbgrader.

Want to get involved?

If you would like to be involved in the hackathon, we still have an amount of funding left for travel and accommodation. We are looking for participants who have a good understanding of Jupyter and nbgrader who would be able to attend all three days of the event. If you would be able to attend, please complete the following form: [https://edin.ac/2vP8bFS].

If you can’t attend but want to have a say on what is worked on during the hackathon then join the discussion on the Jupyter Discourse (if you’re new to Jupyter this is an excellent place to head to for community discussions)

If you’d like to come along to our Jupyter community afternoon on 30 May, book a place via Eventbrite.