Website - User Input Form to Collect Questions

[JaeW]

Could we get more people to contribute questions if we had a website whose input form collected the data to a json file. Or does that detract from the app work too much?

[mgolokhov]

Any help would be nice. Person can push json file here. Or create an issue with questions answers and tags (but it's better to look in json first).

[JaeW]

You can pull info from a Google spreadsheet, yes? Created a Google Form to collect data. Crude but efficient.

[mgolokhov]

Wow!

[JaeW]

Here's the link to the form spreadsheet data. Please let me know if this will work; if so I promise to help and not take us down rabbit holes. :-\

[JaeW]

Crap. Forgot to add the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13bmt8pwh4x4GFTnoctxkxjKjsxDtYwwXbGS6ZEB-ik8/edit#gid=1307737117"link. Here it is.

[JaeW]

Was that a good or bad 'Wow!'? Will this work?

[mgolokhov]

Awesome!

[mgolokhov]

+Tags?

[JaeW]

Sorry, don't understand +Tags. Are you asking if the user can add additional tags?

[mgolokhov]

Would be nice to have this option.

[JaeW]

Do you want the users to be able to add additional tags? I'm always a little hesitant to allow the masses to add stuff like that. I could totally add you and joe as collaborators so anyone working on the backend could make adjustments. Would that be enough?

[mgolokhov]

May be to add switcher "Advanced mode", so me can push questions as well.

[JaeW]

I truly apologize. It's 5am here, and my brain is not working well and I'm confused. Would the "Advanced mode" be fore the App? Or for this form which simply does data/question collection? And where would would we be pushing questions? Oh wait! Or are you asking if there is a way to automatically push a new question submission to the question database?

[mgolokhov]

I'm talking about Google Form - implement two modes User and Advanced User (can be a checkbox or another link).

[JaeW]

Hmmmmm. Not sure about that. Would need to do some research.

[mgolokhov]

My english grammar can be wrong, feel free to correct (I'll be grateful).

[JaeW]

It appears that kind of customization is possible. Customizing forms

[JaeW]

Your English is actually very, very good. I think my lack of understanding has more to do with my newbie status.

[mgolokhov]

It's already cool. I like the visualization in tables. About export in json http://blog.pamelafox.org/2013/06/exporting-google-spreadsheet-as-json.html

[JaeW]

Oh excellent! I agree the visualization in tables is much easier. Especially if we want to check the goodness of the question/answer before importing it into the app.

[JaeW]

One thing I would (humbly) recommend, though. Before we starting adding permissions, etc. to forms, let's see how many contributors we attract. Since your initial post has only attracted you, me and Joe, I would like to come up with a "pitch" that will convince others that contributing to this project will benefit them.

[mgolokhov]

It's not an easy thing... We can cross reference to the problems students get in labs and problems we get while coding (I do my best to comment code). We can reference to the set of questions we added for a specific topic. We can contact to teachers for an assistance (need solid app).

[mgolokhov]

By the way Dr. Douglas C. Schmidt from https://class.coursera.org/posaconcurrency-003 seems more active mentor.

[JaeW]

In your country's universities, do they have wash-out classes? They do that at American universities. Basically the first one or two classes in any course subject they give you very little support to see who has the determination to get through. The further one gets through a course of study the more attention they give you. I just assume that this first (and possibly second) class are just that - meant to weed people out.

You're so right. Getting most people to do anything outside of what is absoluttely required is difficult. But the people who DO take that initiative are the ones who succeed. I'm thinking that, if people could use their contribution to this project on a resume they might be more inclined to help. Need to sleep on it though. Human motivation/nature is the most complicated thing on earth.

[JayBrizle]

Yeah professor Schmidt is very active his courses. He's always on the forums and has live office hours for questions and everything. In the Android concurrency course he evens discusses a post in the forum he thought was good during one of his question and answer sessions. He walks through the assignment code and everything. I will say that class is much more technical though and that sort of thing is almost needed to make a class like that more similar to a real university online class(I believe that is their goal)

[mgolokhov]

Even three of us by pushing just 1-2 questions a day in a month we'll get more than 100 questions.

[mgolokhov]

Janice, can you make Question Hint same size as Answers fild?

[JayBrizle]

Yeah like Maxim said, coming up with questions won't be a problem with 3 of us. We will have a massive amount of those soon enough. The thing will just be deciding how to organize them, like we are starting to discuss now. This should be fun, and sometimes frustrating :/

[JaeW]

I changed the Hint size on the form, but I'm going to play devil's advocate again (sorry, but that's what I do). When you import these fields into a database it will use the field type to allocate memory, yes? So, by using the Google forms paragraph field type (which the hint field is now), even if the hint itself is only a few words I'm pretty sure that the DB will still allocate that larger memory size. Depending on how many questions we end up with, this could really blow up the DB size. Just a thought, but something to keep in mind as the larger the db gets the slower it processes.

[JaeW]

I like the idea (for now) of just the 3 of us adding questions. I think I will add an additional field to collect our respective initials. That way we can test each others' questions (i.e., questions I write will be tested by Joe and Maxim to make sure they make sense and there is a correct answer). Okay with you guys?

[JaeW]

Suggestion for adding/contributing questions. So we have a pretty equal number of questions for each tag/topic, what if we choose 3 or 4 tags each week. Each of us agree to contribute at least 3 questions for each tag. That way we have the advantage of different question styles. Yes/no/maybe?

[mgolokhov]

Premature optimization is the root of all evil -- DonaldKnuth And for text it's not a big deal.

[JaeW]

Point taken. I'm learning. It's painful - as it should be.

[JaeW]

That which does not kill us makes us stronger. -- Friedrich Nietzsche

[mgolokhov]

Sure we'll review each other. As for equal number of tags it's a bit harder, because mostly we study topics sequentially. Just add all question you like, we'll balance them later.

[mgolokhov]

Would be nice to have such feature: when user enters a new question Form checks if similar already exists and show them.

[JaeW]

Maxim - nice job on the Google sheets/forms data validation.

[mgolokhov]

It is preliminary, validation rule is incomplete(we have to add all tags).

[mgolokhov]

Added python script to export quiz table

[mgolokhov]

I integrated export script in the build system. We hit 50 questions! Big thanks to Janice!

[JaeW]

Very nice work on the Python script!
Coming up with the form was easy. You guys have done the hard (coding) work. Let's just say kudos to all.
Don't know about Joe, but I have to do some serious work on the final two course labs. Need to put dodroid on back burner for about a week. Totally available for questions, but might not be fast in responding. Please forgive in advance. :-)

[JaeW]

You know? Lab4 actually wasn't that bad; I knocked that out last night. The Modern Art lab is going to be interesting . . . . . looking . . . since I'm color blind. Ha! Don't think it'll take that long, though. Like you said, Maxim, the layouts are witchy. }:-)

[JayBrizle]

Whoa I forgot about the modern art thing. I've been locked down finishing the final labs for all 3 Android courses. I'm also taking other java courses and I'm in "real" school for software dev right now. I will get back on dodroid after the weekend when all these classes end Sunday night

[JaeW]

Holy crap! You spend so much time programming you might as well have your computer implanted. :-D

No worries. I think we all have deadlines coming up. If I knock this Modern Art thing out tonight I think I'm going to look more at Android's Material Design guidelines. Following latest Android guidelines will give it the professional appearance I think we all want it to have.

Good luck with all of your assignments! TTYL

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Joe Brown notifications@github.com wrote:

Whoa I forgot about the modern art thing. I've been locked down finishing the final labs for all 3 Android courses. I'm also taking other java courses and I'm in "real" school for software dev right now. I will get back on dodroid after the weekend when all these classes end Sunday night

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/mgolokhov/dodroid/issues/15#issuecomment-156259442.

Janice Wildrick 314-651-4597

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” ― Margaret Mead http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/61107.Margaret_Mead

[mgolokhov]

https://github.com/mgolokhov/dodroid/wiki/User-Input-Form-to-Collect-Questions