Development Process Navigator

An educational web application for ASU W.P. Carey's MRED program — instructors author real-estate development phase exercises, students complete drag-and-drop sorting with weighted scoring, per-card feedback, and a one-time correct-and-resubmit flow.

Live App: <YOUR_AMPLIFY_URL>

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Quick Links

Document	Description
Deployment Guide	Full deploy instructions + one-click CloudShell script
Architecture	System design, data model, API overview
User Guide	How-to for instructors and students

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What It Does

Role	Capabilities
Instructor	Create exercises (drag activities into phase mappings with weights), manage student roster via email invite or join code, view class results and history
Student	Complete drag-and-drop activity sorting exercises, receive per-card scored feedback, view attempt history and scores

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Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│           AWS Amplify Hosting                │
│         Next.js 14 Static Export            │
│    (Instructor UI + Student UI + Tutorial)   │
└────────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                     │ HTTPS
                     │
          ┌──────────▼──────────┐
          │    REST API         │
          │    Gateway          │
          │   (Cognito          │
          │   Authorizer)       │
          └──────────┬──────────┘
                     │
          ┌──────────▼──────────┐
          │      Lambda         │
          │   (REST API)        │
          │   Python 3.12       │
          └──────────┬──────────┘
                     │
   ┌─────────────────┼──────────────────┐
   │                 │                  │
┌──▼───────┐  ┌──────▼──────┐  ┌───────▼───┐
│ DynamoDB │  │   Cognito   │  │    S3     │
│(12 tables)│  │  User Pool  │  │  Assets   │
└──────────┘  └─────────────┘  └───────────┘

Layer	Technology
Frontend	Next.js 14 (React/TypeScript), AWS Amplify Hosting
Backend	Python 3.12 Lambda, modular monolith
REST API	Amazon API Gateway (REST) + Cognito authorizer
Data	Amazon DynamoDB — 12 tables, on-demand
Auth	Amazon Cognito User Pool (Instructor / Student groups)
Storage	Amazon S3 (asset uploads)
IaC	AWS CDK v2 (TypeScript, single stack)

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Repository Layout

├── frontend/                   Next.js SPA
│   ├── app/
│   │   ├── page.tsx            Login / Register
│   │   ├── layout.tsx          Root layout (NavBar + footer)
│   │   ├── instructor/         Dashboard, Exercises, Roster, Results
│   │   ├── student/            Dashboard, Exercise board, History, Scores
│   │   └── tutorial/           Help Center (role-tabbed guides)
│   ├── src/shared/             NavBar, Sidebars, InfoIcon, apiClient, session
│   └── deploy_amplify.sh       Manual Amplify deploy script
│
├── backend/                    Python modular monolith
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── api/                Lambda handler + dispatcher + router
│   │   ├── identity/           U1 — Auth & access
│   │   ├── authoring/          U2 — Exercise authoring
│   │   ├── exercise/scoring/   U3 — Pure scoring engine
│   │   ├── results/            U4 — History & results
│   │   └── live_session/       U5 — WebSocket live session
│   ├── tests/                  22 unit tests (all passing)
│   └── scripts/                smoke_test.sh, probe.sh
│
├── infrastructure/             AWS CDK (TypeScript)
│   ├── lib/processcanvas-stack.ts  Single stack — all resources
│   └── bin/processcanvas.ts
│
├── docs/                       Documentation
│   ├── DEPLOYMENT.md           Full deployment guide
│   ├── ARCHITECTURE.md         Architecture & design
│   └── USER-GUIDE.md           Instructor & student guides
│
├── deploy.sh                   One-click full deployment script
└── README.md                   This file

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One-Click Deployment (CloudShell)

Open AWS CloudShell in your target account and run:

git clone https://github.com/ASUCICREPO/Development-Process-Navigator.git
cd Development-Process-Navigator
chmod +x deploy.sh
./deploy.sh

That's it. The script installs all dependencies, deploys the CDK stack (backend + all AWS resources), builds the frontend, and deploys it to Amplify. See docs/DEPLOYMENT.md for full details.

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Local Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ and npm
• Python 3.12+
• AWS CLI + CDK CLI (npm install -g aws-cdk)

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev          # http://localhost:3000

Backend tests

cd backend
pip install -r requirements.txt
pytest -q            # 22 tests, all pass

Infrastructure

cd infrastructure
npm install
cdk synth            # validate (no deploy)
cdk deploy --profile <your-profile>

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DynamoDB Tables

Table	Partition Key	Sort Key	Purpose
Users	userId	—	User profiles
Enrollments	instructorId	studentId	Class enrollment
JoinCodes	code	—	Self-enrollment codes
Configurations	configId	—	Exercise configurations
ConfigurationVersions	configId	versionNumber	Config versioning
Templates	templateId	—	Reusable templates
Exercises	exerciseId	—	Published exercises
StudentExerciseState	exerciseId	studentId	Student progress / drafts
Attempts	studentId	attemptId	Submission history
Sessions	sessionId	—	Live session records
SessionParticipants	sessionId	studentId	Live session roster
WsConnections	sessionId	connectionId	Active WebSocket connections

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Instructor Access Code

Instructors register with a private access code to prevent unauthorized accounts.
The code is set as a Lambda environment variable (INSTRUCTOR_ACCESS_CODE) in the CDK stack.

To rotate:

1. Update INSTRUCTOR_ACCESS_CODE in infrastructure/lib/processcanvas-stack.ts
2. Update the fallback in backend/src/api/app.py
3. Run cdk deploy --profile <your-profile> from infrastructure/
4. Share the new code privately with faculty

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Credits

This application was developed by :

• Sreeram Saravana Prasad
• Lahari Shakthi Arun

License

Arizona State University · W.P. Carey School of Business · ASU AI Cloud Innovation Center