diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index e77ae876..5c6bbd31 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ gem 'uglifier', '>= 1.3.0'
 gem 'will_paginate', '~> 3.0'
 gem 'tubesock'
 gem 'faye-websocket'
+gem 'nokogiri'
 
 group :development do
   gem 'better_errors', platform: :ruby
diff --git a/Gemfile.lock b/Gemfile.lock
index 268f8596..9dda22e1 100644
--- a/Gemfile.lock
+++ b/Gemfile.lock
@@ -361,6 +361,7 @@ DEPENDENCIES
   jquery-turbolinks
   kramdown
   newrelic_rpm
+  nokogiri
   nyan-cat-formatter
   pg
   pry
diff --git a/app/models/exercise.rb b/app/models/exercise.rb
index 658a8fb5..9eabb874 100644
--- a/app/models/exercise.rb
+++ b/app/models/exercise.rb
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+require 'nokogiri'
 require File.expand_path('../../../lib/active_model/validations/boolean_presence_validator', __FILE__)
 
 class Exercise < ActiveRecord::Base
@@ -105,6 +106,14 @@ class Exercise < ActiveRecord::Base
     exercise
   end
 
+  def from_proforma_xml(xml_string)
+    # how to extract the proforma functionality into a different module in rails?
+    xml = Nokogiri::XML(xml_string)
+    self.title = xml.xpath('/root/p:task/p:meta-data/p:title/text()')[0].content
+    self.description = xml.xpath('/root/p:task/p:description/text()')[0].content,
+    self.execution_environment_id = 1
+  end
+
   def generate_token
     self.token ||= SecureRandom.hex(4)
   end