Programmatic access through API

[MarkoSchuetz]

Environment
The currently deployed version does not provide this feature.

Description of feature/enhancement
This feature would provide:

• A means to generate API tokens whether they get auto-generated for every course, whether one has to manually trigger their generation, or whether they get auto-generated for every instructor.
• The API tokens can then be used to access API end-points on the server.

Justification
Scenario: Several courses with several feedback sessions. Teammates feedback is one part of the grading process, but not the only one. Students miss feedback submission deadlines, get extensions, others notice at different times then also get extensions, etc. Multiple calculations and recalculations will be done in this scenario. Each calculation requires downloading the results from Teammates. With API tokens and corresponding server endpoints this manual step could at least be eliminated. Another benefit would be to e.g. triggering extensions.

Existing similar features and their shortcomings
None

[wkurniawan07]

@MarkoSchuetz thanks for the suggestion. However, as a product, TEAMMATES is (was) not (initially) designed to be accessed through direct API calls. While the landscape has changed and TEAMMATES has followed RESTful API design to a large extent, to support usage via API calls would require a lot more deliberation and design.
At the moment there is no plan to support such and even if there is, it would likely take some quarters from the point of agreement that it should happen.