Tarrant County College Texas Government Trailblazer Trek
Interactive HTML learning modules for GOVT 2306 (Texas Government) at Tarrant County College. Adopted by the TCC Professional Development Center as the primary reading for the course.
Sister repository: Federal Government Trailblazer Trek (GOVT 2305).
For Students
Open any chapter from the course index, enter your name, work through each section, and download your completion-report PDF when finished. Submit the PDF to Canvas. Screenshots are not accepted — only the PDF carries the integrity code your instructor uses to confirm you completed the work.
If you close a tab mid-chapter, your progress is saved automatically. Reopen the chapter and click OK on the "Welcome back" prompt to resume.
For Instructors
What you're looking at
Each chapter is a self-contained HTML file with no external dependencies (other than two Google Fonts and the integrity-verifier's pdf.js library). Chapters host on GitHub Pages and can also be uploaded directly to Canvas as files — Canvas renders them inline via iframe.
| Property | Value |
|---|
| Chapters | 15 chapters (Texas) — see also the Federal Government repo for 16 more chapters |
| Points per chapter | ~1,000 – 1,900 (varies by content; includes a 25-pt reflection per section) |
| Branding | TCC Graphic Identity Standards Manual v1.2 (Sept 2013) |
| Hosting | GitHub Pages + Canvas LMS |
| Offline support | Yes, via localStorage resume |
Verifying a student's completion report
Every PDF a student submits carries a tamper-evident integrity code — an 8-character hex hash of name | date | score | chapter title. Editing any of those four fields after the PDF is generated breaks the hash.
To verify:
- Open the verifier: tools/integrity_verifier.html (or browse to the Instructor Tools panel on the course index)
- Drag the student's PDF onto the dropzone (or click to choose).
- Read the verdict:
- ✅ Verified — report is authentic. The integrity code matches the visible fields. Grade the work as submitted.
- ❌ Integrity code does NOT match. Either a field was edited after printing, or the PDF was not generated by a Trailblazer Trek chapter. Ask the student to redo and re-print.
- ⚠️ Could not auto-extract all fields. The PDF text was unreadable in places. Use the manual fallback to type in the visible fields plus the 8-character code.
The verifier runs entirely in your browser. No student data is uploaded anywhere. You can save the file locally and use it offline.
It handles both branding eras automatically — PDFs printed before the brand-compliance rename (when chapter titles started with "TCC ...") and PDFs printed after (titles starting with "Tarrant County College ...") both verify.
Handling common situations
- Student says "I completed it but the report won't generate." The completion-report button appears once all sections of the chapter are done. Have them check for any sections without the green "completed" indicator.
- Student submits a screenshot, not a PDF. Decline and request the PDF. Screenshots have no integrity code and can't be verified.
- Student submits a PDF with the integrity code blacked out or removed. Treat as suspect; ask for a fresh submission.
- Integrity code doesn't match but the work looks legitimate. Use the manual-fallback panel of the verifier to enter the values you see; sometimes pdf.js misreads a field. If the manual entry also fails, the PDF was likely altered.
- Student earns > 100%. This used to happen due to a points-audit bug. It shouldn't anymore — a CI workflow catches mismatched totals. If you see this again, please file a GitHub issue with the chapter name.
How scoring works
Each chapter has reveal cards (15 pts each) and knowledge-check questions (50 pts for correct, 0 for wrong). Some chapters add a per-section completion bonus (50 pts). In addition, every section ends with a written reflection worth 25 points, credited automatically once the student writes at least 50 words of genuine, on-topic response. A section is not marked complete until its cards, questions, and reflection are all finished, and the pacing alert holds off until the reflection is submitted. Total earnable points and the declared maximum are kept in sync by tools/audit_points.py, which is reflection- and bonus-aware and runs on every push via .github/workflows/audit.yml.
Grading the reflections. Reflections are auto-credited for meeting the minimum, so the PDF score a student submits already includes them. The completion report prints each reflection in full, with a note reminding you that you may adjust a chapter's score up or down to reflect the quality of the reflections, or accept the auto-awarded total as-is — that judgment is left to you when reading the work.
A student's percentage = earned / maxScore × 100, capped naturally at 100% as long as the audit is green.
Resume and integrity, under the hood
Both features are injected into every chapter from a single shared block (see trek_extras content in any chapter file, delimited by the sentinel comment <!-- TCC Trailblazer Trek — Resume & Integrity Extensions -->).
- Resume saves
gameState to localStorage every 5 seconds plus on tab hide/close. The key is per-chapter, derived from document.title. Sets are tagged with {__trekSet__: [...]} so they survive JSON serialization.
- Integrity computes
SHA-256(name|YYYY-MM-DD|score|chapterTitle), takes the first 8 hex characters, and renders them in a styled box on the completion report. Recomputes on beforeprint so the value in the PDF is always fresh.
For developers — adding or editing a chapter
- Create or open the chapter HTML file at the repo root.
- Make sure scoring uses one of the 8 supported patterns (see
tools/audit_points.py for the full list — the common ones are gameState.maxScore and per-section {earned, max} objects).
- Run the audit locally:
python3 tools/audit_points.py .
- Commit and push. The audit re-runs in CI; a red ✗ means a mismatch needs fixing.
- The
trek_extras block is idempotent — it gets re-applied to every chapter when injection runs. Don't edit the block manually in a single chapter; if changes are needed, edit the central injection source.
Brand compliance
This project follows the TCC Graphic Identity Standards Manual v1.2 (September 2013):
- Official Pantone hex codes from manual p.16 (Pantone 289 navy
#002b5c, Pantone 3155 teal #00788a, Pantone 202 burgundy #98002e, Pantone 4525 tan #dac792)
- Typography per manual p.17 (EB Garamond as the Adobe Garamond Pro analog, Inter as the Frutiger LT Std analog — both free Google Fonts)
- Four-color brand stripe from the official PowerPoint template (manual p.25)
- "Tarrant County College" on first reference per the manual's Do/Do Not checklist (p.28)
- EEOC statement included in every chapter footer per manual p.19
- Official TCC star-mark logo embedded in each chapter header and completion report
The TCC logo, name, and marks are property of the Tarrant County College District. This is faculty-produced course material authorized for course use.
License & attribution
Course content adapted from OpenStax American Government (3e/4e), licensed CC BY 4.0. Texas Government chapter content draws on Wikimedia Commons images and OpenStax. Code is provided as-is for TCC course use.
Maintained by Professor Jared Alan Stewart, Tarrant County College.
For issues, suggestions, or grade-dispute help: open a GitHub issue or contact the maintainer.
