Course Enrollment API

A backend API for managing students, faculty, courses, enrollments, and grades in an educational institution.
Built with FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, and SQLite, featuring JWT-based authentication and role-based access control (RBAC).

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1. Tech Stack

• FastAPI – web framework for building high-performance APIs.
• SQLAlchemy ORM – database ORM and query abstraction.
• SQLite – development database (switchable via DATABASE_URL).
• Pydantic – request/response validation and settings.
• JWT – authentication using OAuth2 password flow.
• pytest – automated tests.
• Docker – containerization and deployment.

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2. Project Structure

• app/main.py

  • Creates the FastAPI app, initializes the database, registers routers and error handlers, configures CORS.

• app/api/ – Route modules:

  • users.py – registration, login, role/admin operations, password changes, enable/disable user.
  • students.py – CRUD for students, view of student grades.
  • faculty.py – CRUD for faculty.
  • courses.py – CRUD for courses, filtering by faculty and other criteria.
  • enrollments.py – CRUD for enrollments, grade assignment, and course-grade reports.

• app/models/ – SQLAlchemy models:

  • User, Student, Faculty, Course, Enrollment.

• app/schemas/ – Pydantic schemas:

  • Request/response models ensuring type-safe validation and clear API contracts.

• app/db/database.py

  • Database engine, SessionLocal, Base, and get_db dependency.

• app/core/security.py

  • Password hashing, JWT creation/verification, and authentication dependencies.

• app/core/config.py

  • Application settings loaded from .env via Pydantic settings.

• app/core/error_handlers.py

  • Centralized custom exception and error handling.

• tests/ – pytest test suite:

  • Covers users, students, faculty, courses, and enrollments.

• Dockerfile, .dockerignore

  • Container build and run setup.

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3. Setup & Installation

3.1 Clone the repository

git clone cd CourseEnrollement

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3.2 Create virtual environment & install dependencies

python -m venv venv

Windows venv\Scripts\activate

Linux/Mac source venv/bin/activate

pip install --upgrade pip pip install -r requirements.txt

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3.3 Create .env file

Create a .env file in the project root:

DATABASE_URL=sqlite:///./course_enrollment.db SECRET_KEY=your_secret_key_here ACCESS_TOKEN_EXPIRE_MINUTES=30

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4. Running the API (Local)

Start the server with:

uvicorn app.main:app --reload

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Open the interactive API documentation (Swagger UI):

• http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs

You can explore and test all endpoints directly from Swagger.

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5. Running with Docker

5.1 Build the image

docker build -t course-enrollment-api .

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5.2 Run the container

docker run -d --name courseenroll -p 8000:8000 --env-file .env course-enrollment-api

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The API will be available at:

• http://localhost:8000/docs

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6. Authentication & Roles

The system uses JWT-based authentication with the OAuth2 password flow.

6.1 Users

Each User has:

• username
• email
• password (stored as a hashed value)
• role – one of:
  • admin
  • faculty
  • student

6.2 Auth endpoints

• POST /users/ – Register user (admin, faculty, student).
• POST /token – Login; returns a JWT access_token.

Use the token as:

Authorization: Bearer <access_token>

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in protected endpoints.

6.3 Role-based access control

Admin can:

• Manage (CRUD) students, faculty, courses, enrollments.
• Manage users: list, get details, change role, enable/disable.
• Cannot directly enroll as a student.

Faculty can:

• View enrollments for their courses.
• Assign/update grades for enrollments in their courses.

Student can:

• View list of available courses.
• Enroll in courses (via API/admin assistance, depending on flow).
• View their own grades via student-grade endpoints.

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7. Main Endpoints (Summary)

7.1 Users & Auth

• POST /users/ – Register a new user.
• POST /token – Login and get JWT token.
• GET /users/ – List all users (admin only).
• GET /users/{user_id} – Get user by ID (admin only).
• PATCH /users/{user_id}/role – Update user role (admin only).
• POST /users/{user_id}/disable – Disable a user account (admin only).
• POST /users/{user_id}/enable – Enable a disabled user (admin only, if implemented).
• POST /users/{user_id}/change-password – Change password (self; admin can override old password).

7.2 Students

• POST /students/ – Create student profile.
• GET /students/ – List students with pagination and filters.
  Returns: { "total": , "items": [ ...students... ] }

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• GET /students/{student_id} – Get a specific student.
• PUT /students/{student_id} – Update student.
• DELETE /students/{student_id} – Delete student (admin only).
• GET /students/{student_id}/grades/ – Get all courses + grades for this student.

7.3 Faculty

• POST /faculty/ – Create faculty.
• GET /faculty/ – List faculty.
• GET /faculty/{faculty_id} – Get specific faculty.
• PUT /faculty/{faculty_id} – Update faculty.
• DELETE /faculty/{faculty_id} – Delete faculty (admin only).

7.4 Courses

• POST /courses/ – Create course (requires faculty_id).
• GET /courses/ – List courses (pagination and optional filters, e.g., by faculty_id).
• GET /courses/{course_id} – Get course details.
• PUT /courses/{course_id} – Update course.
• DELETE /courses/{course_id} – Delete course (admin only).

7.5 Enrollments & Grades

• POST /enrollments/ – Enroll a student in a course (prevents duplicate enrollments).
• GET /enrollments/ – List enrollments with pagination and filters.
  Returns: { "total": , "items": [ ...enrollments... ] }

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• GET /enrollments/{enrollment_id} – Get specific enrollment.
• DELETE /enrollments/{enrollment_id} – Delete enrollment (admin only).
• PUT /enrollments/{enrollment_id}/grade – Assign or update grade (faculty/admin).
• GET /enrollments/filter/ – Filter enrollments by student_id and/or course_id.
• GET /enrollments/reports/course/{course_id}/grades – Report of students + grades for a course (admin/faculty).

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8. Pagination & Filtering

For list endpoints (students, courses, enrollments):

• Response structure:

• total: total number of matching records.

• items: list of records on the current page.

• Query parameters:

• skip – offset (how many records to skip).

• limit – page size.

• Additional filters depending on resource (e.g., faculty_id for courses, student_id for enrollments, etc.).

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9. Testing

Run all tests with:

pytest

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The test suite covers:

• User registration, login, role checks, profile and password updates.
• CRUD operations for students, faculty, courses, enrollments.
• Enrollment uniqueness and grade assignment logic.
• Pagination structure (total + items) and basic filtering behavior.

All current tests pass.

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10. Possible Future Enhancements

• PDF or downloadable grade reports.
• Advanced statistics and analytics (per course, per student, etc.).
• More detailed documentation with diagrams and screenshots.
• Additional roles or permissions (e.g., department head, parent view).