A full-stack web application designed to streamline the academic peer review process in colleges.
The platform enables teachers to create classrooms , students to submit projects , and teachers to evaluate projects with structured feedback and marks.

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🚀 Live Demo

• 🌐 Frontend: https://student-peer-review-nu.vercel.app/
• 🔗 Backend: https://peer-review-backend-r75l.onrender.com

🖼️ Screenshots

Add your screenshots to a /screenshots folder and update this section with the final images.

• Login and registration
• Teacher dashboard and classroom
• Student dashboard and classroom
• Project evaluation and export

🚀 Features

👩‍🏫 Teacher

• Secure authentication
• Create and manage classrooms
• Generate unique room codes
• View participants and submitted projects
• Evaluate student projects (marks + feedback)
• Close classrooms to stop submissions
• Export evaluation data as CSV
• Export evaluation data as Excel (XLSX)

🧑‍🎓 Student

• Secure authentication
• Join classrooms using room code
• Submit project details
• View feedback and marks
• Automatic redirection when classroom is closed

🔐 General

• Role-based access control (Teacher / Student)
• JWT authentication with cookies
• Real-time UI updates using polling
• Clean glassmorphism UI
• Responsive design

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🧠 System Architecture

Frontend (React + Tailwind)
          ↓
Backend (Node.js + Express)
          ↓
Database (MongoDB)

• Frontend handles UI and user interaction
• Backend handles authentication, business logic, and CSV export
• MongoDB stores users, rooms, projects, and reviews

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🧭 Architecture Diagram

flowchart LR
  UI[React + Tailwind] -->|HTTPS| API[Node.js + Express]
  API -->|Mongoose| DB[(MongoDB)]
  API -->|SMTP| Mail[(Email Provider)]

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🛠️ Tech Stack

Frontend

• React.js
• Tailwind CSS
• React Router

Backend

• Node.js
• Express.js
• MongoDB
• Mongoose
• JWT Authentication
• bcrypt

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🔐 Authentication Flow

• JWT token generated on login
• Token stored in HTTP cookies
• Middleware validates user on every protected route
• Role-based authorization ensures correct access

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🔄 Real-Time Updates Strategy

The system uses polling to synchronize data across users.

• Client fetches updated room/project data every few seconds
• Ensures all users see latest submissions and reviews
• Stable and suitable for academic environments
• Avoids complexity of WebSockets

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📊 CSV Export Feature

• Teachers can download evaluation data in CSV format
• CSV is generated dynamically on backend
• Includes student details, project title, marks, and feedback
• File opens directly in Excel / Google Sheets

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🧪 Testing Note (Important)

Cookies are shared across browser tabs.

To test Teacher and Student simultaneously , use:

• Different browsers (Chrome & Brave), or
• Incognito window

This ensures correct session isolation.

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▶️ How to Run the Project

1️⃣ Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/your-username/peer-review-system.git

2️⃣ Backend setup

cd backend
npm install
npm start

Create a .env file:

MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/peer-review
JWT_KEY=your_secret_key
FRONTEND_URL=http://localhost:5173
CORS_ORIGINS=http://localhost:5173
EMAIL_USER=your_email@gmail.com
EMAIL_PASS=your_app_password
JWT_EXPIRES_IN=15m
REFRESH_TOKEN_EXPIRES_IN=7d
LOG_LEVEL=info

3️⃣ Frontend setup

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

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🔧 Operations Runbook

Environments

• Local: http://localhost:5173 (frontend) + http://localhost:3000 (backend)
• Dev/Staging: Use dedicated URLs and isolated MongoDB instances
• Production: Render backend + Vercel frontend (or your hosting setup)

Health and readiness

• GET /healthz returns process status and uptime
• GET /readyz returns readiness based on MongoDB connection

Logs

• JSON structured logs with timestamp, level, message, requestId, userId, latencyMs
• Set log level via LOG_LEVEL (e.g., info, warn, error)

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📈 Monitoring

UptimeRobot

• Monitor GET /healthz for uptime
• Optionally monitor GET /readyz for database readiness
• Use the public backend URL (Render) for checks and alerts

Prometheus

• A sample Prometheus configuration is provided in prometheus.yml
• Default scrape target: host.docker.internal:3000
• If you expose a metrics endpoint (for example, /metrics), update the scrape config accordingly

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🧪 DevOps Pipeline (CI/CD)

This repository includes a GitHub Actions workflow at .github/workflows/main.yml.

On every push or pull request to main

• Security - Audit & Scan: installs dependencies, runs npm audit, builds backend image, and scans with Trivy
• Backend - Test: installs backend dependencies and runs npm test
• Frontend - Lint, Test & Build: runs npm run lint, npm test, and npm run build

On push to main

• Backend - Build & Push Docker Image: pushes to GitHub Container Registry (GHCR)
• Backend - Trigger Render Deployment: calls the Render deploy hook and verifies /healthz

CI/CD secrets

• RENDER_DEPLOY_HOOK - triggers backend deploy on Render
• BACKEND_HEALTH_URL - base URL for health checks (example: https://peer-review-backend.onrender.com)
• RENDER_ROLLBACK_HOOK - optional rollback hook for auto-revert on failed health checks

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💾 Backup and Restore

Prerequisites: MongoDB Database Tools (mongodump, mongorestore) installed on the machine.

Backup (Linux/macOS)

export MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/peer-review
export BACKUP_DIR=./backups
./backend/scripts/backup.sh

Backup (Windows PowerShell)

$env:MONGO_URI="mongodb://localhost:27017/peer-review"
$env:BACKUP_DIR=".\backups"
./backend/scripts/backup.ps1

Restore (Linux/macOS)

export MONGO_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/peer-review
export BACKUP_PATH=./backups/20260101-120000
./backend/scripts/restore.sh

Restore (Windows PowerShell)

$env:MONGO_URI="mongodb://localhost:27017/peer-review"
$env:BACKUP_PATH=".\backups\20260101-120000"
./backend/scripts/restore.ps1

Restore drill (recommended monthly)

• Take a fresh backup from production
• Restore into staging or a local environment
• Run smoke tests (login, create room, add project)
• Record duration and any issues in the release notes

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🚨 Incident Response

• Triage: confirm impact and capture request IDs from logs
• Mitigate: rollback via RENDER_ROLLBACK_HOOK or redeploy last known good image
• Communicate: post status update to stakeholders
• Resolve: fix root cause and deploy patch
• Postmortem: document timeline, fix action items, add tests

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✅ Release Checklist

• Ensure CI green: tests, lint, security audit, Trivy scan
• Verify environment variables and secrets
• Run database backup before production deploy
• Deploy and verify GET /healthz and GET /readyz
• Monitor logs for errors and latency spikes
• Update release notes

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🛡️ Governance

Branch protection recommendation (GitHub):

• Require pull request reviews
• Require status checks:
  • Backend - Test
  • Frontend - Lint, Test & Build
  • Security - Audit & Scan
• Require branches to be up to date before merging
• Restrict who can push to main

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🎓 Academic Relevance

This project demonstrates:

• Full-stack development
• Secure authentication
• Role-based access control
• Database design
• REST API design
• UI/UX principles
• Real-world problem solving

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👨‍💻 Author

Developed as an academic project to improve transparency and efficiency in project evaluation systems.