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Welcome to the documentation for our python utility for Microsoft Access databases!
Documentation
Classes
Grading
- Scoring
Background
This project started because we teach Microsoft Access as part of a survey information technology course at the United States Military Academy. Students in the class have to complete a project using Access. With 8 instructors for 400 students, grading the database project can be a tedious task. Students are asked to do very specific things in the project, hence the project lends itself to some form of auto grading.
We wanted to use Python to write our grader because it is the base language taught at USMA and all the instructors are familiar with it. However, as we searched for a library to interface with the access database, we were surprised to find a lack of viable options. Other libraries will interface with an Access database on some level, but none were able to pull all the elements we wanted to grade.
We change the project a little each semester and create a solution database as a reference. We could not find any libraries that easily compared two different tables or queries.
Thus, we set out to develop a library that would serve two purposes.
- Interface with all the elements and properties available in an Access database table or query.
- Compare two tables or queries
The Library
For those wanting to access the different elements and properties of Microsoft Access tables and queries, the library pulls metadata from all the tables and queries in an Access database. The metadata is stored primarily in the DataBase and Table classes.
For those looking to compare to tables or queries, the library has a series of functions that compare two tables or queries.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank key contributors to this project - Dr. Malcolm Haynes and MAJ Keith Major.