[school-discuss] [Fwd: Interoperability and multiple choices]

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Interoperability and multiple choices
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 10:56:37 +0100
From: XIAO Gang <xiao@unice.fr>
Organization: Universite de Nice-Sophia Antipolis
To: drloss@suscom.net
References: <3BF3A22C.2C914BEF@unice.fr> <3BF55E49.7175F2E5@unice.fr>

Could you forward this to Schoolforge discussion list?

I have followed the recent discussion on interoperability format with
great interest. And I would like to call people's attention on the
extensibility of the format concerning teaching resources, especially
exercises.

It seems that to many people, computerized exercise is synonyme of
(static) multiple choice quizze. This is absolutely not true, and
defining a format based upon such an hypothesis represents a great
danger of being overwhelmed in quality in the future.

Even if the great majority of exercises created today are static
multiple choices, the technology actually allows a much wider variation.
In my OEF definition which represents only the low-end in terms of
performance of exercises on WIMS, the possibilities are already far
beyond static MCQ: parameter randomization may be numerical, textual,
positional (shuffle); statement may include parameters and dynamic
pictures; user input may be number, function, units, exact or
approximative text, equation, matrix, set,... And I am under constant
pressure by OEF writers for more feature extensions.

Even MCQ has a different meaning when random variation is added, because
the good choice must vary with the variation of random parameters,
instead of being static.

It is shown by our experience
(http://wims.unice.fr/wims/wims.cgi?module=adm/doc.en&doc=1001&job=read)
that such exercises represent great advantages over static MCQ.

Therefore, room should be reserved in the format of the (EduML?)
exercises, to allow for definition of (at least) random parameter
processing and multiple forms of input.

-- 

XIAO Gang (~{P$8U~})                          xiao@unice.fr
               http://pcmath126.unice.fr/xiao.html