openapi: 3.0.2
info:
title: Penn Courses API Documentation [Accounts] User [Accounts] User [PCR] Section-Specific Reviews API
version: ''
description: '
# Introduction
Penn Courses ([GitHub](https://github.com/pennlabs/penn-courses)) is the umbrella
categorization for [Penn Labs](https://pennlabs.org/)
products designed to help students navigate the course registration process. It currently
includes three products, each with their own API documented on this page:
Penn Course Alert, Penn Course Plan, and Penn Course Review.
See `Penn Labs Notion > Penn Courses` for more details on each of our (currently) three apps.
For instructions on how to maintain this documentation while writing code,
see the comments in `backend/PennCourses/docs_settings.py` (it is easy, and will be helpful
for maintaining Labs knowledge in spite of our high member turnover rate).
See our [GitHub](https://github.com/pennlabs/penn-courses) repo for instructions on
installation, running in development, and loading in course data for development. Visit
the `/admin/doc/` route ([link](/admin/doc/)) for the backend documentation generated by Django
(admin account required, which can be made by running
`python manage.py createsuperuser` in terminal/CLI).
# Unified Penn Courses
By virtue of the fact that all Penn Courses products deal with, well, courses,
it would make sense for all three products to share the same backend.
We realized the necessity of a unified backend when attempting to design a new Django backend
for Penn Course Plan. We like to live by the philosophy of keeping it
[DRY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don''t_repeat_yourself), and
PCA and PCP''s data models both need to reference course and
section information. We could have simply copied over code (a bad idea)
or created a shared reusable Django app (a better idea) for course data,
but each app would still need to download copies of the same data.
Additionally, this will help us build integrations between our Courses products.
# Authentication
PCx user authentication is handled by platform''s Penn Labs Accounts Engine.
See [Penn Labs Notion > Platform > The Accounts Engine](https://www.notion.so/pennlabs/The-Accounts-Engine-726ccf8875e244f4b8dbf8a8f2c97a87?pvs=4)
for extensive documentation and links to repositories for this system. When tags or routes
are described as requiring user authentication, they are referring to this system.
I highly recommend the [official video course on OAuth2](https://oauth.net/2/) (by Aaron Parecki),
then the Platform Notion docs on the "Accounts Engine" for anyone who wants to understand
Labs authentication better. Platform is our OAuth2 "Authorization Server",
and Django Labs Accounts is an OAuth2 client run by our Django backends (Clubs, Penn Courses, etc),
exposing client-facing authentication routes like `penncourseplan.com/accounts/login`.
There''s also this Wikipedia page explaining [Shibboleth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth_(software))
(which is used by Penn for authentication, and by the Platform authorization server).
See the Django docs for more on Django''s features for
[User Authentication](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/topics/auth/),
which are used by PCX apps, as part of Platform''s accounts system.
'
x-logo:
url: https://i.imgur.com/tVsRNxJ.png
altText: Labs Logo
contact:
email: contact@pennlabs.org
servers:
- url: https://penncoursereview.com
description: Penn Course Review
- url: https://penncourseplan.com
description: Penn Course Plan
tags:
- name: '[PCR] Section-Specific Reviews'
description: ''
paths:
/api/review/course/{course_code}/{instructor_id}:
get:
operationId: Retrieve Section-Specific Reviews
description: '(GET `/api/review/course/{course_code}/{instructor_id}`)
Get the review history of an instructor teaching a course.
<span style="color:red;">User authentication required</span>.'
parameters:
- name: course_code
in: path
required: true
description: The dash-joined department and code of the course you want reviews for, e.g. `CIS-120` for CIS-120.
schema:
type: string
- name: instructor_id
in: path
required: true
description: The integer id of the instructor you want reviews for.
schema:
type: string
- name: semester
in: query
description: Optionally specify the semester of the desired course (defaults to most recent course with the specified course code).
schema:
type: string
required: false
responses:
'200':
content:
application/json:
schema:
properties:
instructor:
type: object
description: Information about the instructor.
properties:
id:
type: integer
description: The integer id of the instructor.
name:
type: string
description: The full name of the instructor.
course_code:
type: string
description: The dash-joined department and most-recent (across all codes representing the topic) code of the course, e.g. `CIS-120` for CIS-120.
sections:
type: array
description: The sections of this course taught by this instructor.
items:
type: object
properties:
course_code:
type: string
description: The dash-joined department and course code of the section, `CIS-120` for CIS-120-001.
course_name:
type: string
description: The title of the section's course, e.g. 'Programming Languages and Techniques I' for CIS-120-001.
activity:
type: string
description: 'The activity of the section. Options: `[''Undefined'', ''Clinic'', ''Clinical Rotation'', ''Dissertation Abroad'', ''Dissertation'', ''Doctoral Program Exchange'', ''Field Work'', ''Hybrid'', ''Independent Study'', ''Lab'', ''Lecture'', ''Masters Thesis'', ''Online'', ''Practicum'', ''Recitation'', ''Seminar'', ''Senior Thesis'', ''Studio'', None]`'
semester:
type: string
description: The semester this section was taught (of the form YYYYx where x is A [for spring], B [summer], or C [fall]), e.g. `2019C` for fall 2019.
forms_returned:
type: integer
description: The number of review responses collected for this section (or null if this section does not have review data).
forms_produced:
type: integer
description: The final enrollment of this section (or null if this section does not have review data).
ratings:
type: object
description: The reviews for this section.
properties:
rSemesterCalc:
type: string
description: The oldest semester included in these review aggregations (of the form YYYYx where x is A [for spring], B [summer], or C [fall]), e.g. `2019C` for fall 2019. This field will not be missing.
rSemesterCount:
type: integer
description: The number of semesters included in these review aggregations. This field will not be missing.
rInstructorQuality:
type: number
description: Average Instructor Quality
rCourseQuality:
type: number
description: Average Course Quality
rCommunicationAbility:
type: number
description: Average Comm. Ability
rStimulateInterest:
type: number
description: Average Stimulate Ability
rInstructorAccess:
type: number
description: Average Instructor Access
rDifficulty:
type: number
description: Average Difficulty
rWorkRequired:
type: number
description: Average Work Required
rTaQuality:
type: number
description: Average TA Quality
rReadingsValue:
type: number
description: Average Readings Value
rAmountLearned:
type: number
description: Average Amount Learned
rRecommendMajor:
type: number
description: Average Recommend Major
rRecommendNonmajor:
type: number
description: Average Recommend Non-Major
rAbilitiesChallenged:
type: number
description: Average Abilities Challenged
rClassPace:
type: number
description: Average Class Pace
rInstructorEffective:
type: number
description: Average Instructor Effectiveness
rNativeAbility:
type: number
description: Average Native Ability
rFinalEnrollment:
type: number
description: Average Final Enrollment at the End of the Semester
rPercentOpen:
type: number
description: Average Percent of Add/Drop Period Open
rNumOpenings:
type: number
description: Average Number of Openings During Add/Drop
rFilledInAdvReg:
type: number
description: Average Percent of Sections Completely Filled During Advance Registration
comments:
type: string
description: A textual description of the section, as well as common sentiment about it from reviews.
description: Reviews retrieved successfully.
'403':
description: Access denied (missing or improper authentication).
'404':
description: Invalid course_code or instructor_id.
tags:
- '[PCR] Section-Specific Reviews'
x-tagGroups:
- name: Penn Course Plan
tags:
- '[PCP] Course Recommendations'
- '[PCP] Schedule'
- '[PCP] Primary Schedule'
- '[PCP] Calendar'
- '[PCP] Break'
- name: Penn Course Alert
tags:
- '[PCA] Registration History'
- '[PCA] Registration'
- name: Penn Course Review
tags:
- '[PCR] Course Reviews'
- '[PCR] Autocomplete Dump'
- '[PCR] Department Reviews'
- '[PCR] Section-Specific Reviews'
- '[PCR] Plots'
- '[PCR] Instructor Reviews'
- name: Penn Courses (Base)
tags:
- '[PCx] NGSS Restrictions'
- '[PCx] Attributes'
- '[PCx] Status Updates'
- '[PCx] Healths'
- '[PCx] Friendship'
- '[PCx] Course'
- '[PCx] Section'
- '[PCx] Pre-NGSS Requirements'
- name: Penn Labs Accounts
tags:
- '[Accounts] User'
- name: Other
tags:
- '[PDP] Docked Course'
- '[PDP] Degree'
- '[PDP] Onboard From Transcript'
- '[PDP] Fulfillment'
- '[PDP] Degree Plan Lists'
- '[PDP] Satisfied Rule Lists'
- '[PDP] Degree Plan Detail'