Re: [seul-edu] Online Test System

["David C. Moore" <dmoore@mbhs.edu>]

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Doug Loss wrote:

> I looked at the AUC site with an eye to how such an online testing
> system might be integrated into it.  The logical place would be as
> another component of the Interactive Classroom section.  David, are
> those tightly tied into the auc.cgi code, or would it be relatively easy
> to add other components to various sections?

AUC allows plug-ins, but right now the API is not quite to the point where
it is powerful enough to do what we want.  Currently, the API allows you
to code dynamically loadable modules that add content to a user's start
page, but not to the interactive classroom pages.  This is on my TODO
list.

> 
> Since AUC requires MySQL to run that might be a logical candidate for a
> data storage engine for this testing system.  Depending on what the
> future plans for AUC are vis-a-vis XML, a data format using EduML or
> something similar might also be good.

I used MySQL because it was stable and usable at the time I started coding
AUC.  However, EduML and/or XML would be an excellent addition to AUC.
However, it seems to me that EduML is not standardized to the point that I
could begin integration.  Long term though, I think it's the right
approach.

> David, are you thinking about
> providing teachers with gradebooks and similar administrative tools
> within AUC?  If so, we might be able to build on the work of some of the
> folks here on gradebooks.
> 

Yes, indeed I am.  Supposedly, there is some development on a web-based
gradebook at http://tempo.sourceforge.net.  But no code yet.  I would love
it if somebody else wrote a web-based gradebook, and distributed it both
as a standalone and as an AUC plug-in.  The API is finished enough so that
a gradebook could be integrated right now.

> I guess I'm thinking of AUC as the kind of "scaffold" program I
> mentioned in an earlier post.  Such a thing would be very nice to have. 
> Is AUC that type of program?  I don't know enough about its internals to
> know.  David, what do you think of this discussion so far?

Yes, I think AUC as a scaffold is my goal as well.  Plug-ins already work
to a limited degree, and I plan to improve the API later.

I think the discussion so far is good.  I think quiz software that could
be used both by itself and as an AUC plug-in would be super.  I've seen
WebCT as well, and AUC was partially intended as an open source
alternative to it.

Regards,

David Moore

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  David Moore       California Institute of Technology
 <dcm@acm.org>             http://www.mbhs.edu/~dmoore
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