Tired of wasting valuable class time managing shared folders or USB drives and manually verifying image formats? Do you struggle to keep track of student submissions, provide timely feedback, and create engaging presentations for your photography or graphic design courses? If so, you're not alone. Many educators in these fields face similar challenges, which can lead to frustration, delays, and missed learning opportunities.

That's where Prism comes in. Prism is a powerful new application that streamlines the image submission, presentation, marking, printing, and backup process for photography and graphic learning environments. With its user-friendly interface, customisable features, and robust technical capabilities, Prism can help you save time, reduce frustration, and enhance student engagement and learning outcomes.

In this post, we'll explore how Prism works, what makes it unique, and why it's quickly becoming a must-have tool for educators in photography and graphic design. Whether you're an instructor looking to improve your workflow or a student seeking a better way to submit and showcase your work, read on to learn more about Prism!

Image Submission

The primary function of Prism is to facilitate the submission of photos, ensuring that submitted images are correctly sized and scaled, in the correct format, and with the correct metadata.

Prior to the development of Prism, students would manually upload their daily images on USB drives. A tutor would have to download files from each of 30 USB drives and load them into slideshow software in the correct order to be shown to the class after dinner.

As a result, issues arose with students whose images did not meet the required specifications, leading to delays and frustration. With Prism, images are uploaded through a modern, user-friendly web interface that automatically checks for quality, size, formatting, and metadata before tagging them for easy identification later.

Features

Presentations

Prism offers a web-based slideshow system of submitted images, configurable with various options for image order, submitter information, title slides, and offline functionality to prevent playback interruptions due to connectivity issues.

Marking

Tutors mark images and provide feedback to students through Prism in a mobile-friendly view that allows for efficient marking.

Marking is highly customisable, with options to mark without knowledge of the student's identity, using random identifiers, or by student.

Print/Export

Prism enables printing or exporting images for various use cases, such as:

• Printing each student's top photo of the day for progress tracking.
• Printing contact sheets with or without feedback from marking for efficient sharing.
• Exporting photos for social media, allowing for full-resolution or web-optimized sizes.

Backup/Archival

Prism streamlines the archival process by allowing the export of all or a selection of submitted images at full quality to cloud storage for future reference.

Technical

Prism is built using Python, Django, SQLite, Bootstrap, and HTMX. It runs in an OCI container, making it suitable for cloud or on-site server deployment.

The application can utilise technologies such as CloudFlare ZTNA for remote access when the server is on-site, Auth0 for integration with existing authentication providers, and TailScale for administrative access to the server regardless of location.

Login

In high-trust environments Prism's trusted network login feature can allow students to connect and submit images with ease. Students can log in from a local network simply by selecting their name from a list, which permanently binds the user's device to their account.

Tutors and administrators must always log in with strong, multi-factor authentication supported by Auth0.