Peer Evaluation Django Project

This is a Django-based peer evaluation system.
Follow the instructions below to set up, configure, and deploy the project.

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🎬 Project Preview

You can watch a demo of the project here:

Watch the demo

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/peer_eval.git
cd peer_eval

2. Create and Activate a Virtual Environment

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

3. Install Dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Configure Database and Settings

• By default, the project uses PostgreSQL for local development.
• Edit peer_eval/settings.py:
  • Update the DATABASES section with your local PostgreSQL credentials:

    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
            'NAME': 'peer_eval_db',
            'USER': 'your_db_user',
            'PASSWORD': 'your_db_password',
            'HOST': 'localhost',
            'PORT': '5432',
        }
    }

  • Make sure ALLOWED_HOSTS is set to:

    ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['localhost', '127.0.0.1']

  • For local file storage, ensure:

    MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
    MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media')
    STATIC_URL = '/static/'
    STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')

5. Apply Migrations

python manage.py migrate

6. Create a Superuser

python manage.py createsuperuser

• Enter your own username, email, and password (your password will be private).

7. Run the Development Server

python manage.py runserver

• Visit http://localhost:8000/admin/ and log in with your superuser credentials.

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👩‍🏫 Adding a Teacher User for Testing

1. Log in to the Django admin at /admin/ using your superuser account.
2. Navigate to the "Users" section.
3. Click "Add user".
4. Fill in the username, password, and email.
5. After saving, edit the user and assign them to the "teacher" group or set the appropriate permissions/roles as needed for your app.

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🌐 Deployment on Render

1. Prepare for Deployment

• Make sure you have a render.yaml file in your repo (already provided).
• Remove any sensitive information (like secret keys) from settings.py and use environment variables instead.

2. Environment Variables

On Render, set the following environment variables in the dashboard:

SECRET_KEY=your-production-secret-key
DEBUG=False
ALLOWED_HOSTS=your-app-name.onrender.com
DATABASE_URL=your-render-postgres-url
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-aws-access-key
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-aws-secret-key
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME=your-s3-bucket-name
AWS_S3_REGION_NAME=us-east-1

3. Update settings.py for Production

• Use django-environ to read environment variables:

  import environ
  env = environ.Env()
  environ.Env.read_env(os.path.join(BASE_DIR, '.env'))
  
  SECRET_KEY = env('SECRET_KEY')
  DEBUG = env.bool('DEBUG', default=False)
  ALLOWED_HOSTS = env.list('ALLOWED_HOSTS', default=[])
  DATABASES = {
      'default': env.db('DATABASE_URL')
  }
  # S3 storage settings...

4. Deploy

• Push your code to GitHub.
• Connect your repo to Render and deploy.
• On Render, run:

  python manage.py migrate

• To create a superuser on Render, set these environment variables:

  DJANGO_SUPERUSER_USERNAME=youradmin
  DJANGO_SUPERUSER_EMAIL=your@email.com
  DJANGO_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD=yourpassword
  

  Then run:

  python manage.py createsuperuser --noinput

  Remove these variables after the superuser is created.

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📝 Notes

• Never commit your .env file or secrets to git.
• Always rotate secrets if they are accidentally exposed.
• For local testing, you can use SQLite by setting:

  DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///db.sqlite3
  

  in your .env and updating settings.py to use django-environ.

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📄 Sample render.yaml

services:
  - type: web
    name: peer-eval
    env: python
    buildCommand: pip install -r requirements.txt
    startCommand: gunicorn peer_eval.wsgi:application
    envVars:
      - key: DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
        value: peer_eval.settings

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🛠️ Setting Up PostgreSQL Locally

If you don’t have PostgreSQL installed, follow these steps:

1. Install PostgreSQL

• macOS:

  brew install postgresql
  brew services start postgresql

• Ubuntu/Linux:

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib
  sudo service postgresql start

• Windows:
  Download and install from https://www.postgresql.org/download/windows/

2. Create a Database and User

Open a terminal and enter the PostgreSQL shell:

psql postgres

Or, if you get a "command not found" error, try:

sudo -u postgres psql

Then run the following commands (replace peer_eval_db, your_db_user, and your_db_password with your own values):

CREATE DATABASE peer_eval_db;
CREATE USER your_db_user WITH PASSWORD 'your_db_password';
ALTER ROLE your_db_user SET client_encoding TO 'utf8';
ALTER ROLE your_db_user SET default_transaction_isolation TO 'read committed';
ALTER ROLE your_db_user SET timezone TO 'UTC';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE peer_eval_db TO your_db_user;
\q

3. Update Your Django Settings

In peer_eval/settings.py, update the DATABASES section:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'peer_eval_db',
        'USER': 'your_db_user',
        'PASSWORD': 'your_db_password',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '5432',
    }
}

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Now you can continue with migrations and running the server as described above!

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🤝 Contributing

Feel free to fork and submit pull requests!

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📧 Support

For issues, open a GitHub issue or contact the maintainer.

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