About
The purpose of creating this website was to provide a service allowing students and teachers to more easily access useful information regarding standards in the NCEA curriculum.
The system to support this system is built on the following elements, all containerised through Docker, and composed through Docker Compose
- Python3.9 with Beautiful Soup and Pandas
- for scraping, parsing, and managing the database of resources, standards, and subjects.
- MeiliSearch
- for serving fast, typo-resistant search results for both subjects and standards.
- PostgreSQL
- for providing a scalable, enterprise-level database.
- Python with Flask and Waitress
- for serving the data from the database to the frontend with a RESTful API.
- Caddy
- as a reverse proxy and a service retrieving auto-SSL/TLS certificates from LetsEncrypt.
- GoAccess
- for reading Caddy logs and hosting a websocket, where a dashboard can be connected.
- HTML/CSS/JS + Bootstrap
- for creating a responsive, dynamic frontend.
FAQ
Why are there two columns in the literacy column?
This is because literacy, for university entrance (UE), comes under two categories - reading, or writing. Some standards count for neither, one, or both. On the left of the literacy column, there's a letter that represents whether the standard provides reading or writing credits for UE (blank for no, R for yes). On the right of the literacy column, the letter represents whether the standard provides writing credits (blank for no, W for yes).
What about exclusions?
Exclusions is the name given by NZQA to the situation where two standards assess roughly the same skill or topic. In that case, one standard will be excluded, and the credits from that standard will not be counted. Usually this occurs between unit and achievement standards, where generally the achievement standard's credits will be counted. I have chosen to currently not implement exclusions calculations in this website, becauase I have assumed that most schools will not allow students to do standards where one of them is excluded.
Here you can find the link to the exclusions information and table on the NZQA website.
What if there are multiple annotated exemplars?
Sometimes standards can have multiple annotated exemplars. These exemplars are all stored in the database, so they can be retrieved when the 'Category' sort is selected on the standard page. They do not appear on the 'Year' sorting, because they are not associated with a given year, they are just based on the standard alone. However, the button saying 'Annotated Exemplar' will link only to the first of these exemplars (often this is exemplar A).
Copyright Disclaimer: The resources I link to the official NZQA resources for NCEA standards. They are under Crown Copyright. They are produced and hosted by the NZQA.