The Walden’s Paths Quiz EngineThe Walden’s Paths Quiz Engine

Avital Arora, Emily Barker, Unmil P. Karadkar, Pratik Dave,

Luis Francisco-Revilla, Richard Furuta,

Frank Shipman, Suvendu Dash, Zubin Dalal

 

Center for the Study of Digital Libraries

Texas A&M University

Walden’s Paths – OverviewWalden’s Paths – Overview

• Facilitates inclusion of Web-based information to achieve teachers’ curricular goals

• Most information on the Web is not suitable for use in classroom education

• Information needs to be contextualized – To suit the curricular goals– To highlight focal points for students– To present issues of interest

• Paths are annotated lists of Web pages

Walden’s Paths – OverviewWalden’s Paths – Overview

WWW Host

Web Page

Internet BackboneA Path

Walden’s Paths ServerWalden’s Paths Server

• Content frame• Annotation frame• Control frame

Walden’s Paths ServerWalden’s Paths Server

Off-path traversal

Early Walden’s Paths QuizzesEarly Walden’s Paths Quizzes

• Annotations contained the questions• Students turned in answers on paper

Benefits of Online TestingBenefits of Online Testing

• Students– Quicker turnaround time (improved feedback)– Pointers to additional information– Easily track personal progress– Take multiple practice quizzes to fine-tune learning process

• Teachers– Reduced grading burden via automation– Easily generate slightly modified tests to discourage cheating– Include additional information for student perusal– Easily track overall and individual performance– Improve teaching methods or materials

Highlights of Teacher SurveyHighlights of Teacher Survey

• Most teachers use the Web to disseminate course information

• Some teachers use online testing extensively

• Others do not use it at all

• Lack of support for expressive answers– Drawing graphs– Deriving equations– Writing complex mathematical formulae

Quiz Engine – Design PrinciplesQuiz Engine – Design Principles

• Simplicity for wider use– By teachers with little technological experience– With little or no training

• Loosely tied to the Walden’s Paths Server– Quizzes in conjunction with paths– Stand-alone quizzes– Quizzes in conjunction with other software

• Promote variety of use– Created by teachers or students– Quizzes for academic evaluation or practice

Quiz Engine – FeaturesQuiz Engine – Features

• Interactive and Passive Quizzes– Immediate evaluation and feedback during preparation– Delayed evaluation for academic assessment

• Separation of question authoring and quiz creation– Teachers may author questions at their convenience– Creation of question banks for future use– Quizzes generated based on the questions available at the time– Students may generate practice quizzes (in progress)

• Centralized question bank– Community benefit — use of questions by other teachers– Historical benefit — use of questions from earlier semesters

Quiz Engine – FeaturesQuiz Engine – Features

• Support for different types of questions– Multiple choice with single correct answer (includes true-or-false)– Multiple choice with multiple correct answers– Specific word or phrase as the correct answer– Long essay-type answer (graded by the instructor)

• Supplementary information– URL for a Web page with more information– Image as an intrinsic part of the question or as a clue

• Quizzes with varying properties– Randomize questions– Include questions authored by others

Quiz Engine – Authoring QuestionsQuiz Engine – Authoring Questions

Quiz Engine – Creating a quizQuiz Engine – Creating a quiz

Quiz Engine – Interactive quizQuiz Engine – Interactive quiz

Quiz Engine – Passive quizQuiz Engine – Passive quiz

Current DirectionsCurrent Directions

• Integrate the Quiz Engine into the Path Server– Enable students to track their own progress– Student initiated quizzes – “Take Quiz Now” icon– Path Server will track path reading sessions– Support complex relations between browsing and quizzes

• Explore changes to nature of paths– Embedded quiz pages– Mandatory or optional– Announced or surprise (pop quizzes)– Engage students in the learning process

• Support co-authoring of paths and quizzes

• Widen the variety of supported question types

ResourcesResources

Walden’s Paths Homepagehttp://www.csdl.tamu.edu/walden/

Principal InvestigatorsRichard Furuta (furuta@csdl.tamu.edu)

Frank Shipman (shipman@csdl.tamu.edu)

Walden’s Paths Test Serverhttp://walden.cs.tamu.edu/