Re: QZB Re: search for quiz software [Fwd: helping with seul-edu]

[rnd@sampo.karelia.ru]

On Sat, 26 Dec 1998, Daniel P. Kionka wrote:

>> hunt. I just want  to  have  a  model  which  will  incorporate
>> features in a way understandable by teachers who has no  degree
>> in Computer Science ;-)
>
>I will admit that you can easily be sucked into a never ending search
>for other systems.  You can also end up in analysis paralysis.  But you
>can always learn something from seeing how other systems work.  And you
>may find out that other system already does things it would take you
>months to develop.

Well. I have already seen many quiz-programs.  (Though  not  as
many Web-based ones).

Your idea to use HTML is quite reasonable. I was thinking of it
myself too.

The only argument (and not so strong one) I have is that I want
questions to be separable from each other, making the  bank  of
questions if one wants it. But this is  solvable  if  one  just
makes one question per html page.

*

One more good point of HTML  is  that  internationalization  is
ready made. (Unicode for example).

>> First priority now is to MAKE A SPECIFICATION of the input data
>> format which will be
>> * easy for the people (NO programming for non-power users!)
>> * flexible enough to embrace all kinds of quizes with all
>>   kinds of question ordering and so on.
>
>I don't know if the format is that important.  It is the features, and
>the format is just a way to access them.

The format is important because different formats has different
ability to add new features.

>If you want it flexible, you should have a single engine that generates

My definition of flexible was  not  developer-side  flexibility
but ability to organize questions in different ways. Its not so
easy as it leads to enumerating  possible  types  of  ordering,
counting scores, changing  ordering  on  the  fly  (repetition,
etc.), different kinds of statistics at the end...

This is why it is not trivial.

When I am __programming__ a quiz in, say, HyperCard, I can  add
as many features as I want because HyperCard is pogrammable and
I  can   implement   almost   any   type   of   (closed   form)
questionaire-type program...

End-user is not to be faced with  "if  you  want  this,  do  it
youself in language X"...

So, I am going to continue compiling the list  of  features  to
include.

They are from these categories:

- type of question
- question selection and ordering
- reactions to student answers
- collecting and presenting statistics
- on-line progress monitor
- informational displays (introduction, instructions, result-display)
(What else?)

Don't forget some teachers do  NOT  like  closed-form  quizzes.
They  prefer  to  receive  textual  answers  and  analyse  them
themselves.

In one of my quiz-programs  I  made  result  screen  to  be  of
different color according to the  mark  the  student  received.
(red for 'excellent', green for 'good', blue for 'satisfactory'
and grey for 'bad or unsatisfactory'.) There was also  a  sound
so a teacher/tutor could supervise the  class  and  notice  the
progress of the student group...

Such nicities aren't to be neglected.

Oh boy... how to make it easy and powerful at the same moment?


>several quiz types from different input formats.  In my original mail I
>mentioned using an HTML page as one kind of input.  I wrote up this
>sample of what it might look like:
>http://www.blueneptune.com/~dkionka/quiz/sample1.html

Thanks! I have just looked at it.

I am going to rewrite my specifications  alittle,  as  I  think
they are reaching ripe stage (in my head ;-)

>> *** MY NEW IDEAS on QZB ***
>
>These ideas sound good...

And it also seems that HTML in no disavantage  in  implementing
them!

For example, for QZB may need

control.html + ques*.html

in order to generate a quiz from them!

control.html will describe the discipline for  question  order,
grading, repeating, etc.  And  ques-pages  will  do  what  they
are supposed to do.

So, the picture now is:


{control,ques*}.txt    ---\
{control,ques*}.html   ---> *.qzb  ---> http://...cgi-bin/qzb?somefile.qzb...
                                  \        + right answers file
                                   \--> qzb somefile.qzb
                                   \--> xqzb somefile.qzb


with central line being first to implement.

>> After fiddling with different kinds of scenarios I came to  the
>> conclusion that there is a need to have two layers  of  control
>> files:
>> 
>> 1) question/task database ("content")
>> 2) scenario file which will specify a certain quiz
>>    scenario, using questions from the database


Sincerely yours,
Roman A. Suzi

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