[Contrib: Evaluation System] 1.3.0 QA Effort

[Nicola Monat-Jacobs]

Greetings! The EvalSys QA effort is not dead, it's just resting. In fact, it's barely resting at all.

I've just tagged 1.3.0-RC2. Please test this RC if you have the resources to run it locally. 

https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/evaluation/tags/1.3.0-RC2/

I'm still shopping around for someone who can host this for us on their QA box. I think we can make much better progress if we have a central, continually refreshed instance available to all testers.

One thing that would really help us in this endeavor is if someone could tackle EVALSYS-955: this would probably make QA server maintainers more likely to run EvalSys on their servers. I know Stephen Marquard (UCT) has written on the list before about challenges here, if you're looking for background.

Additionally, Adam Marshall (Oxford) has done some great testing so far to determine which open issues affect 1.3.x and which have since been resolved. As you can see from this report:

http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/EVALSYS/1.3.x+QA+Effort

we currently have 41 issues that are tagged as 'affects' issues for 1.3.0-RC*

12 issues have been fixed so far, and I'm hoping that number will go up once the Fall semester is more fully underway and things aren't so hectic for everyone.

Lovemore (UCT) has be working on a bunch of issues recently, so I just wanted to recognize his effort too.

Another great thing that has happened in the month of August: John Ansorge (OHSU) and Ellen Yu Borkowski (UMaryland) have taken the first steps at writing out Test Plans for EvalSys.

http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/EVALSYS/Test+Plans

Please take a moment to read through and add things - because everyone is using EvalSys in different ways, and using different parts of the system, we really want to capture as many different pieces of the puzzle as possible. Please add you own stories. Don't worry if it doesn't seem like there is a good place right now. Just make a new page, leave a comment, whatever, and we'll make things streamlined later. 

If you look at this draft and think, "Well, that's not how we do it!" Please please add a page with how you DO do it. :)

I'll probably schedule another followup QA call, but for after Labor Day (US, Sept 6th) as I think we're all too busy for it right now.

Thanks,
Nicola