Month: August 2013

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Maths with QTI – Solution and Hint

Use the following chunks of code to add “Show Hint” and “Show Solution” buttons to the question, define the hint and solution that are shown and do all the necessary processing

Variable Declarations

Request variables set to true when user asks for Hint or Solution

<responseDeclaration identifier="HINTREQUEST" baseType="boolean" cardinality="single"/>
<responseDeclaration identifier="SOLREQUEST" baseType="boolean" cardinality="single"/>

Outcome variables for tracking whether the user has viewed the Hint or Solution

<outcomeDeclaration identifier="seenHint" baseType="boolean" cardinality="single">
   <defaultValue>
      <value>false</value>
   </defaultValue>
</outcomeDeclaration>
<outcomeDeclaration identifier="seenSolution" baseType="boolean" cardinality="single">
   <defaultValue>
      <value>false</value>
   </defaultValue>
</outcomeDeclaration>

Outcome variables for tracking whether the user has viewed the Hint or Solution

<outcomeDeclaration identifier="ASKHINT" baseType="identifier" cardinality="single">
   <defaultValue>
      <value>askhint</value>
   </defaultValue>
</outcomeDeclaration>
<outcomeDeclaration identifier="ASKSOLUTION" baseType="identifier" cardinality="single">
   <defaultValue>
      <value>asksolution</value>
   </defaultValue>
</outcomeDeclaration>

ItemBody

Hint and Solution feedback blocks

<feedbackBlock identifier="SOLUTION" outcomeIdentifier="FEEDBACK" showHide="show"> Solution goes here </feedbackBlock>
<feedbackBlock identifier="HINT" outcomeIdentifier="FEEDBACK" showHide="show"> Hint goes here </feedbackBlock>

“Show Hint” and “Show Solution” buttons

<div class="">
   <feedbackBlock showHide="show" identifier="askhint" outcomeIdentifier="ASKHINT">
      <p>
         <endAttemptInteraction responseIdentifier="HINTREQUEST" title="Show Hint"/>
      </p>
   </feedbackBlock>
   <feedbackBlock showHide="show" identifier="asksolution" outcomeIdentifier="ASKSOLUTION">
      <p>
         <endAttemptInteraction responseIdentifier="SOLREQUEST" title="Show Solution"/>
      </p>
   </feedbackBlock>
</div>

responseProcessing

The code below can be used as the framework for the responseProcessing section. The responseProcessing expressions that, for example, idenitfy whether the question has been answered correctly should be inserted at the “***Response Processing goes here***” comment.

<responseProcessing>
   <responseCondition>
      <responseIf>
         <!-- If user has asked for the Hint -->
         <variable identifier="HINTREQUEST"/>
         <!-- Show the Hint -->
         <setOutcomeValue identifier="FEEDBACK">
            <multiple>
               <baseValue baseType="identifier">HINT</baseValue>
            </multiple>
         </setOutcomeValue>
         <!-- Set seenHint to true -->
         <setOutcomeValue identifier="seenHint">
            <baseValue baseType="boolean">true</baseValue>
         </setOutcomeValue>
      </responseIf>
      <responseElseIf>
         <!-- If user has asked for the Solution -->
         <variable identifier="SOLREQUEST"/>
         <!-- Show the Solution -->
         <setOutcomeValue identifier="FEEDBACK">
            <multiple>
               <baseValue baseType="identifier">SOLUTION</baseValue>
            </multiple>
         </setOutcomeValue>
         <setOutcomeValue identifier="seenSolution">
            <baseValue baseType="boolean">true</baseValue>
         </setOutcomeValue>
         <setOutcomeValue identifier="completionStatus">
            <baseValue baseType="identifier">completed</baseValue>
         </setOutcomeValue>
         <setOutcomeValue identifier="ASKHINT">
            <baseValue baseType="identifier">null</baseValue>
         </setOutcomeValue>
         <setOutcomeValue identifier="ASKSOLUTION">
            <baseValue baseType="identifier">null</baseValue>
         </setOutcomeValue>
      </responseElseIf>
      <responseElse> 
         <!-- ***Response Processing goes here*** -->
         <responseCondition>
            <responseIf>
               <!-- If the user has seen the solution, set the score to 0 -->
               <variable identifier="seenSolution"/>
               <setOutcomeValue identifier="FEEDBACK">
                  <multiple>
                     <variable identifier="FEEDBACK"/>
                     <baseValue baseType="identifier">SEEN-SOLUTION</baseValue>
                  </multiple>
               </setOutcomeValue>
               <setOutcomeValue identifier="SCORE">
                  <baseValue baseType="float">0.0</baseValue>
               </setOutcomeValue>
            </responseIf>
            <responseElseIf>
               <!-- If the user has seen the hint, divide the score by 2 -->
               <variable identifier="seenHint"/>
               <setOutcomeValue identifier="FEEDBACK">
                  <multiple>
                     <variable identifier="FEEDBACK"/>
                     <baseValue baseType="identifier">SEEN-HINT</baseValue>
                  </multiple>
               </setOutcomeValue>
               <setOutcomeValue identifier="SCORE">
                  <divide>
                     <variable identifier="SCORE"/>
                     <baseValue baseType="float">2.0</baseValue>
                  </divide>
               </setOutcomeValue>
            </responseElseIf>
         </responseCondition>
      </responseElse>
   </responseCondition>
</responseProcessing>
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Maths with QTI – Modifying assessment.xml (for Assessments created in Uniqurate)

To date, I have only created assessments in Uniqurate, so the items in this post just refer to a couple of things I have needed to modify in the assessment.xml (which exists at the top level of the assessment zip file) file to get the assessments working properly.

itemSessionControl

Control whether feedback is shown when reviewing (showFeedback), and whether the user can view the solution (showSolution). The solution is defined by using setCorrectResponse in the templateProcessing. The itemSessionControl tag can be contained within testPart, assessmentSection or assessmentItemRef (individual assessment item) blocks.

<itemSessionControl showFeedback="true" allowReview="true" showSolution="true" />

Test Feedback

For assessments created in Uniqurate, the total (i.e max score) for an assessment seems to be calculated by summing the max scores for each of the individual questions in the assessment, even if it is set up so that questions are repeated. Therefore, as a very simple example, if an assessment has a single section containing a single question, but “Number of questions to choose from section” is set to 2 and “Repeat questions” is switched on, the total/max score for the assessment is set to 1, when it should in fact be 2. This can be fixed by editing the testFeedback section of the xml. Just change the value in the last set of span tags to adjust the maximum score:

<testFeedback identifier="TEST_FB" showHide="show" outcomeIdentifier="TEST_FEEDBACK" access="atEnd">
     <div>You have reached the end of the test. Your total score was <printedVariable format="%.1f" identifier="TEST_total"/> out of <span class="uqfeedbackvar total">2</span>. </div>
</testFeedback>

Note that this example is taken from the default Uniqurate output, you can of course define your own feedback, displaying any of the variables defined in the outcomeProcessing section of the assessment.xml file.

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Javascript: array.indexOf() fix for IE8 and below

Just a quick note on how to deal with another one of the IE/Javascript deficiencies that make our lives so much easier(!) – IE from versions 8 backwards doesn’t support the indexOf() function for arrays, e.g.

var myArray = ['Apple','Banana','Orange'];
alert(myArray.indexOf('Orange'));  //alerts '2', but not in IE <=8

Thankfully, there are easy ways to fix this:

  1. the JQuery $.inArray() function, e.g. 
    alert($.inArray('Orange',myArray);
  2. Defining the indexOf function (before you call it!) if it doesn’t exist – taken from MDN 
    if (!Array.prototype.indexOf) {
  Array.prototype.indexOf = function (searchElement /*, fromIndex */ ) {
    'use strict';
    if (this == null) {
      throw new TypeError();
    }
    var n, k, t = Object(this),
        len = t.length >>> 0;

    if (len === 0) {
      return -1;
    }
    n = 0;
    if (arguments.length > 1) {
      n = Number(arguments[1]);
      if (n != n) { // shortcut for verifying if it's NaN
        n = 0;
      } else if (n != 0 && n != Infinity && n != -Infinity) {
        n = (n > 0 || -1) * Math.floor(Math.abs(n));
      }
    }
    if (n >= len) {
      return -1;
    }
    for (k = n >= 0 ? n : Math.max(len - Math.abs(n), 0); k < len; k++) {
      if (k in t && t[k] === searchElement) {
        return k;
      }
    }
    return -1;
  };
}