Tapas is the Teaching Assistant in Physics Assignment System

In the following we document the typical operations performed using Tapas.

Add a new semester

https://tapas.mit.edu/addSemester

Define the course resources (usually the physics department)

https://tapas.mit.edu/planCourseResources

There are a number of tables relevant for the active term and for planning. Use the following tool to select those.

https://tapas.mit.edu/selectTerm

The semesters are denoted as $term. For the active term we have

Assignments ($term) Evaluations ($term) Preferences ($term) Tas ($term)

For the planning term we have

Assignments ($term) Evaluations ($term) Tas ($term)

Assuming the $term variable the generateSlots.py tool will generate the available slots later to be used in the selection of preferences.

generateSlots.py $term d

To make sure that the slots will be available for the preferences the slots need to get a dummy assignment. The 'EMPTY' string is the preferred placeholder.

addAssignments.py $term exec remove

Double check that selections are working at:

https://tapas.mit.edu/select

Now we are ready to send the email.