DISCUSSION: How to add Teacher Login

[benloh]

In GitLab by @daveseah on Oct 31, 2019, 13:29

After talking to Ben about it the app needs, I'm thinking it's fundamentally this:

• A way for a teacher to login to the app so they add comments but NOT do anything else

BACKGROUND

Here's how the system currently works:

1. A valid user token is submitted from a client. The token encodes the groupid and classroomid with the name, with some non-cryptographic hashing to make it possible to validate a legit user token from a made-up one.

2. Once a student provides their user token, it is sent to URSYS NET into PKT_SessionLogin(), which validates the user token. If a valid token is received, an access key is generated and sent back to the client logging-in. The key is unique across connections, even ones with the same user login.

3. This access key is validated ONLY by PMC Model, which is accessed through UR.DBQuery and UR.DBTryLock/DBTryRelease calls. If the key is missing or doesn't match, the calls fail.

4. For all other accesses, the access key is currently not used.

TEACHER ACCESS

The commenting system is technically part of the PMC Model, which means for teachers to use it:

• they have to login and see ALL MODELS that are available to them
• they have to be disallowed access to everything except the commenting entry form
• they still need to have a valid access key or the DB will reject their updates

[benloh]

In GitLab by @daveseah on Oct 31, 2019, 13:59

I'm leaning toward creating an internal login table that generates teacher tokens based on the teachers data table. Otherwise they'd have to be manually created somewhere.

Modifications:

• A teacher token can be generated for each teacher when added via the admin panel
• On login: the teacher-provided token will have a groupId of 0, and classroomId will be interpreted as teacherId. Session will have to take this into account
• Session: will add inspection methods to return information whether current logged-in user is a teacher, and UI can make the distinction

[benloh]

In GitLab by @daveseah on Oct 31, 2019, 17:47

I've made the following modifications:

GENERATING TEACHER TOKENS

• Teacher Tokens are generated in AdmTeacherSelector.jsx in the dropdown rather than create a whole new table infrastructure
• There is a new hacked teacher token format which has the special groupId=0, with the classroomId repurposed to hold teacherId. The new method SESSION.MakeTeacherToken(teacherName,{groupId:0,teacherId}) creates this token. It's called by AdmTeacherSelector.jsx

CHECKING TEACHER LOGGED IN STATE

• SESSION.LoggedInProps() returns an object that is either has { studentName, groupId, classroomId } or { teacherName, teacherId } defined, based on who is logged-in.
• SESSION.IsTeacher() and SESSION.IsStudent() return true/false. Also accessible from UR.IsTeacherLoggedIn()
• SESSION.LoggedInName() is a shortcut method for returning the logged-in name

CHANGED FILES

• ModelSelect.jsx now imports SESSION and calls ADM.GetModelsByTeacher() if a teacher is logged in
• adm-data.js has the new GetModelsByTeacher(token)
• AdmTeacherSelector.jsx has teacher token generation hacked in