Course Feedback App

This repository implements a lightweight course feedback system used to collect, aggregate and review student evaluations of courses and lecturers.

Features at a glance:

• Student dashboard to submit ratings, per-lecturer ratings, and comments.
• Teacher dashboard to view aggregated feedback for courses.
• Admin dashboard to manage courses and lecturers and assign lecturers to courses.
• MongoDB-backed persistence and a single-file Node.js HTTP server (server.js).

Quick Start

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (14+ recommended)
• A MongoDB instance (local or Atlas)

1. Install dependencies:

npm install

2. Configure environment (create a .env or export env vars):

# Example (PowerShell)
$env:MONGODB_URI='mongodb://localhost:27017'
node server.js

3. Start the server (example):

node server.js

By default the server will connect to the course_feedback_app database and serve static files from the public/ folder. The server prints the listening port and confirms MongoDB connection on startup.

Environment Variables

• MONGODB_URI — MongoDB connection string (required for DB-backed mode).
• ADMIN_KEY — Shared admin authorization key (default: admin123 if not set).
• PORT — HTTP port (default: 3000 if not set).

API Reference

Public endpoints:

• GET /api/health — Simple health check.
• GET /api/courses — List courses. Supports ?level= filter.
• POST /api/feedback — Submit student feedback. Payload example:

{
   "courseCode": "CSC101",
   "level": 100,
   "rating": 4,
   "lecturerRatings": [{ "lecturerId": "<id>", "rating": 5 }],
   "comments": "Great course",
   "wantsResponse": false
}

• GET /api/feedback — Aggregated feedback (supports ?level=).

Admin endpoints (require header Authorization: Bearer <ADMIN_KEY>):

• GET /api/admin/courses
• POST /api/admin/courses — Create course (body: { code, name, level, lecturerId? }).
• PUT /api/admin/courses/:code — Update course.
• DELETE /api/admin/courses/:code — Remove course.
• GET /api/admin/lecturers
• POST /api/admin/lecturers — Create lecturer (body: { name, role: "lecturer" }).
• PUT /api/admin/lecturers/:id
• DELETE /api/admin/lecturers/:id

Security note: the server validates that lecturerId assignments reference a user with role lecturer.

Data Model

• courses collection: { code, name, level, lecturerId?, lecturerName? }
• lecturers collection: { _id, name, role } (role expected to be lecturer)
• feedback collection: stores per-course aggregated records and raw entries used to compute averages

Developer Notes

• The server is implemented in server.js (vanilla Node.js HTTP server). It connects to MongoDB and seeds default course and lecturer data on first run.
• Frontend is under public/:
  • public/admin-dashboard.html + public/js/admin.js — Admin UI and logic.
  • public/student-dashboard.html + public/js/student.js — Student UI.
  • public/teacher-dashboard.html — Teacher UI (reads aggregated feedback).

Running Smoke Tests

An automated smoke test for admin flows is available at scripts/admin-smoke-test.js.

# Example (PowerShell)
$env:BASE_URL='http://localhost:3006'
node scripts/admin-smoke-test.js

Next Steps / TODO

• Replace single-key admin auth with proper accounts (JWTs/passwords).
• Add rate-limiting, input sanitization for displayed HTML, and production hardening.
• Optionally add per-lecturer login and a view filtered to assigned courses.

License

MIT — see LICENSE file if provided.