Automation of the active listening process in a degree project seminar

In todays degree project presentations, there must be active listeners on site. Active listeners are other students who also are doing degree projects, they listen to the presentation and ask questions to the presenter. This is a mandatory assignment for every degree project student. The problem with this assignment is that the process of getting once attendance approved is implemented in an old-fashioned way, a signature from the examiner on site on a piece of paper is the only proof of participation.

In this thesis the whole active listener process will be improved both for students and examiners with the help of digitalization. As a student it should be easy to ask your questions to the presenter, these questions will then be a part of the attendance. As an examiner the attendance and active listening participation will be made easier to document and record.

With the help of the learning management system Canvas, which the Royal Institute of Technology uses, attendance control for examiners will be made easier. Students will with the help of a discussion function in Canvas post their questions to the presenter, the questions will then be used as a proof of attendance and participation during the presentation. With its application programming interface, Canvas can be used with the programming language Ruby, which is intended to be used to digitalize and simplify the active listening process.

Once the project is completed, master and knowledge of a new programming language and Canvas application programming interface will be acquired. Ideally in the future, students and examiners in the Royal Institute of Technology only need to use Canvas for the active listener process and in that way the process will be digitalized.

Keywords: Canvas RESTful API, Ruby, automatization, digitalization, active listener, degree project