[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [seul-edu] Eduml proposal (the documennt)



Eric Sandeen writes:
 
 > <email> - instead of comma separated, can we have multiple <email> tags?
Yes, it make sense.

 > 
 > <tasks> - it doesn't make sense to me to have <tasks> outside of a
 > session... while some tasks may be duplicated across sessions and
 > classes and courses, I think that in general, they should be within a
 > <class> element.  I don't think that there will be enough task
 > repetition to warrant a whole list of <tasks> outside of a <class>. 
 > Also, this seems to have a unique <task> entity for each student, for
 > each task.  This will quickly grow unmanageable, with
 > (sessions*courses*classes*students*tasks) entries, if I'm reading it
 > right.

Yes I'm also not sure about this need.

 > <session>
 >   <course>
 >     <class>
 >       <teacher> - I'm not sure why "act" is in here... in fact, I'm not
 > sure what the difference between <task> and <act> is?
 > 
 > I had suggested something along these lines, (starting with the
 > <session> tag.)
 > 
 > <tasks> are contained within a particular <class>.  They are also broken
 > into categories, to show which tasks are tests, which are papers, etc. 
 > These categories can be weighted for the final average.  The grading
 > scale for each task is shown in its attributes (maximum possible points)
 > if applicable, and they can be weighted as well.  The <symbols> relate
 > symbolic/letter grades to  percentage/numeric grades.  (this allows
 > grades to be entered numerically or symbolically, and to give a final
 > letter grade based on a final percentage)

Here, we can used the scale element as most of the scale will be the
same under one school institution.


>  Finally, a <student> has
 > <mark>s for each task completed.  A <comment> or other entities could go
 > within the <mark> tags.
 > 
 > (Is this too constraining?  Are there grading methods that wouldn't fit
 > into this scheme?  It would seem that marks _must_ be either numeric or
 > symbolic.  If they are numeric, they must have a maximum possible
 > value.  It also seems likely, but not mandatory, that tasks would be
 > grouped in some way, and possibly weighted.  Am I missing anything
 > here?)
 > 
 > <session name="Fall 1999" start="1999/08/03" end="1999/12/24">
 >  <course course_id="e9678" name="Freshman English">
 >   <class class_id="s2" name="Period 1" room="123" teacher="123-45-6789">
 >    <tasks categories="true" marks="numeric"> <!-- marks could also be
 > "symbolic" -->
 >     <category name="Tests" weight="30">
 >      <task task_id="1" name="Midterm" max="100" date="1999/09/23"/>
 >      <task task_id="2" name="Final" max="100" weight="2"
 > date="1999/09/30"/>
 >     </category>
 >     <category name="Quizzes" weight="20">
 >      <task task_id="3" name="Quiz 1" max="100" date="1999/08/20"/>
 >     </category>
 >     <category name="Homework" weight="30">
 >      <task task_id="4" name="Homework 1" max="100" date="1999/10/23"/>
 >     </category>
 >     <category name="Projects" weight="20">
 >      <task task_id="5" name="Project 1" max="100" date="1999/11/01"/>
 >     </category>	
 >    </tasks>
 >    <symbols>
 >     <symbol name="A" score="90"/> <!-- relate symbols to numbers -->
 >     <symbol name="B" score="80"/>
 >     <symbol name="C" score="70"/>
 >     <symbol name="F" score="60"/>
 >    </symbols>
 >    <student people_id="506-94-7378">
 >     <mark task_id="1">100</mark> <!-- assignment id from tasks -->
 >     <mark task_id="2">80</mark>
 >     <mark task_id="3">90</mark>
 >     <mark task_id="4">83</mark>
 >     <mark task_id="5">88</mark>
 >    </student>
 >   </class>
 >  </course>
 > </session>




This look good but why not using ref. to existing <scale> element.
I took some of your ideas for the mapping.
For exemple:

<scale scaleId="unique scale identifier">     <!-- performance arithmetic -->
 <scaleSchema> a paragraph explaining this marking schema </scaleSchema>
 <scaleMath high="high" low="low" type="relative or absolute">
  mathematical algorithm to use</scaleMath>
 <scaleMatrix> an array of permissible marks if finite </scaleMatrix>
</scale>


We can define a common scale based on float value from -100 to 100 for
exemple. But this is more application specific as Eduml doesn't do any
computation. In the case of a numeric scale we just need to compute an
affine transformation using the low and high value. With a discret
scale we can supply a mapping to the common scale.  Scale are quite
common toward session, so it's ok to defined them outside of the
session

Fix me if you have better idea.



<scales>
 <commonScale>
  <high>100.0</high>
  <low>0.0</low>
 </commonScale>

 <scale scaleId="over100">
  <numeric type="???">  
<!-- FIXME Should we say if we use int, float, flaten to the 1/2,... ? -->
   <high>100</high>
   <low>0</low>
  <numeric>
 <scale>

 <scale scaleId="ABCDEF">
  <discret>
   <symbol name="A" map="100.0"/>
   <symbol name="B" map="80.0"/>
   <symbol name="C" map="60.0"/>
   <symbol name="D" map="40.0"/>
   <symbol name="E" map="25.0"/>
   <symbol name="F" map="5.5"/>
  </discret>
 </scale>
<scales>

<session name="Fall 1999" start="1999/08/03" end="1999/12/24">
 <course course_id="e9678" name="Freshman English">
  <class class_id="s2" name="Period 1" room="123" teacher="123-45-6789">
   <tasks categories="true"> 
    <category name="Tests" weight="30">
     <task task_id="1" name="Midterm" scaleRef="over100 "date="1999/09/23"/>
     <task task_id="2" name="Final" scaleRef="over100" weight="2" date="1999/09/30"/>
    </category>
    <category name="Quizzes" weight="20">
     <task task_id="3" name="Quiz 1" scaleRef="ABCDEF" date="1999/08/20"/>
    </category>
    <category name="Homework" weight="30">
     <task task_id="4" name="Homework 1" max="100" date="1999/10/23"/>
    </category>
    <category name="Projects" weight="20">
     <task task_id="5" name="Project 1" max="100" date="1999/11/01"/>
    </category>	
   </tasks>
   <student people_id="506-94-7378">
    <mark task_id="1">100</mark> <!-- assignment id from tasks -->
    <mark task_id="2">80</mark>
    <mark task_id="3">90</mark>
    <mark task_id="4">83</mark>
    <mark task_id="5">88</mark>
   </student>
  </class>
 </course>
</session>



Should we gad weight to class, course and session ?


Hilaire