Custom Cells#

e2xgrader comes with custom cells for students and teachers.

Choice Cells#

e2xgrader comes with built-in support for multiple and single choice cells.

Single Choice Cells#

A single choice cell is an extended markdown cell that turns lists into radio buttons. To create a single choice cell, activate the Create Assignment toolbar and change the desired cell to markdown. Then select the option Single Choice from the dropdown menu. Make sure to select the correct choices in your source version.

Here is an example of an unrendered single choice cell:

The rendered cell looks like this:

A rendered singlechoice cell with a choice selected#

In student mode the Edit Cell button is deactivated and students can not unrender the cell. During grading the student will only receive full points if the correct answer is selected.

Multiple Choice Cells#

A multiple choice cell is an extended markdown cell that turns lists into checkboxes. To create a multiple choice cell, activate the Create Assignment toolbar and change the desired cell to markdown. Then select the option Multiple Choice from the dropdown menu. Make sure to select the correct choices in your source version.

Here is an example of an unrendered multiple choice cell:

The rendered cell looks like this:

A rendered multiplechoice cell with some choices selected#

In student mode the Edit Cell button is deactivated and students can not unrender the cell. During grading a student will receive points for every selected choice that is correct and every not selected choice that is incorrect. The student will lose points for every correct answer that is not selected and every incorrect answer that is selected. If you want to change the grading scheme take a look at the custom autograders section.

Diagram Cells#

e2xgrader comes with built-in support for diagram cells. The diagram editor used is from diagrams.net (formerly draw.io).

A diagram cell is an extended markdown cell with an image attachment that can be opened in a diagram editor.

To create a diagram cell, activate the Create Assignment toolbar and change the desired cell to markdown. Then select the option Diagram Cell from the dropdown menu.

An empty diagram cell — A diagram cell with an empty diagram#

When you click on the Edit Diagram button, the diagram editor is shown in the same window:

All changes made here are saved and displayed back in the cell:

An diagram cell with a diagram — A diagram cell with a diagram#

When creating a diagram cell you can choose if the student should be given a partially filled diagram or if they always start from an empty diagram. By clicking on the Edit Cell button, you can add markdown to the diagram cell (i.e. a heading). In student mode the Edit Cell button is deactivated and students can not unrender the cell.

Configuring the Diagram Cells#

You can configure the following options for the diagram cells in your nbgrader_config.py:

drawDomain: The domain of the diagram instance to use
drawOrigin: The url of the origin of the diagram instance. This is the url from which the diagram instance sends messages
libraries: A list of libraries which should be active by default (e.g. uml, general, kubernetes, etc)

Example of configuring the diagram editor#

# nbgrader_config.py

c.DiagramEditor.drawDomain = "https://embed.diagrams.net/"
c.DiagramEditor.drawOrigin = "https://embed.diagrams.net/"
c.DiagramEditor.libraries = ["uml", "general", "arrows2"]

Upload Cells#

Upload cells are cells where students can upload files and take images via the webcam. These files are stored within the notebook.

Students can upload files and take images via the webcam by clicking on the Add Files / Images button. This opens the attachment editor.

Note: The webcam upload has not been tested across all browsers and devices and will likely not work on mobile.