Thesis goals¶
This page summarises the main tasks of the master thesis Tools for Supporting DevOps Fundamentals Teaching and links them to the chapters where each task is addressed. The list is taken directly from Section Task formulation (Chapter 1.2 of the thesis) and is not extended with any additional items.
Source
The authoritative source is the thesis text in the repository git.kpi.fei.tuke.sk/.../thesis. Chapters are mirrored under the Thesis section of this documentation.
Main tasks¶
| # | Task | Chapter | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Understand how the SEF and DevOps Fundamentals courses are organised today and identify the blind spots of manual assessment. | 1. Introduction | Done |
| 2 | Analyse existing tools (auto-grading, repository analytics, compliance) and assess to what extent they cover the teacher's checklist. | 2. Analysis of existing solutions | Done |
| 3 | Empirically verify whether the combination of GitLab webhooks and REST API is sufficient to automate the evaluation of the checklist. | 3. Exploration of solution options | Done |
| 4 | Design and implement a set of supporting tools that integrate with GitLab and take over part of the routine DevOps checks. | 4. Design and implementation (in preparation) | In progress |
| 5 | Deploy the solution in production during a semester and collect feedback from teachers and students. | 5. Pilot deployment (in preparation) | Planned |
| 6 | Evaluate the impact of the deployment on the organisation of teaching and on the quality of feedback. | 6. Evaluation (in preparation) | Planned |
Task to documentation mapping¶
Alongside the thesis text, this user documentation also grows; it covers the implementation and operational side of the solution. The relationship between tasks and documentation sections is as follows:
| Task | Documentation section |
|---|---|
| 1 - understanding the teaching context | Introduction, Architecture |
| 2 - analysis of tools | Thesis › Analysis |
| 3 - technical feasibility | Thesis › Exploration, GitLab integration |
| 4 - design and implementation | Developers, API |
| 5 - pilot deployment | Teachers › Pilot, Operators |
| 6 - evaluation | will be added after the pilot has finished |
Design principles¶
The design follows three principles that emerged from the conclusions of Chapter 3 of the thesis:
- Event-driven system. The solution receives GitLab webhooks and enriches them with REST API calls; it requires no change to the GitLab installation.
- Per-student assessment over the whole semester, not at the level of a single merge request.
- Pedagogical responsibility stays with the teacher. The qualitative assessment of review communication is presented as a suggestion, not a final decision.
Project status
The first three tasks (analysis, tool comparison, technical verification) are closed in the thesis text. Design, implementation and the pilot are in progress and will be summarised in the upcoming chapters once the pilot semester finishes.