RE: MathML? XML? Multiple choice quizzes...

Hi.

---
> Is anyone able to give me some pointers in the right direction?  I'm looking
> for a way to create huge banks of searchable, randomisable multiple-choice
> questions to be given and graded as quizzes *offline* from a CD-Rom.  The
> more automated this is in the long run, the better.

I think that would be a great use for MathML + XHTML.  You could also include a
browser such as Mozilla 1.0 ( www.mozilla.org - 1.0 is coming out in about a
week), IE5.5/6 and a plug-in such as MathPlayer (
http://www.mathtype.com/webmath/mathplayer/ - I hear that the final version is
out soon too).  I'm also writing a MathML-Presentation viewer using
JavaScript-written-HTML, but I'm not even close to being done....

---
> -- the questions are currently in LaTeX format because there are a number of
> mathematical symbols not easily displayed (unless they were converted to a

1) There is a MathML to LaTeX converter at
http://www.raleigh.ru/MathML/mmltex/index.php?lang=en .

2a) Likewise, there is a LaTeX to MathML (XHTML + MathML) converter over at
http://www.geom.umn.edu/~ross/webtex/webtex/ .

2b) There is another LaTeX to MathML converter at
http://hutchinson.belmont.ma.us/tth/mml/ .

---
> -- the questions often get students to refer to a data appendix -- which
> could be done in a scrollable pop-up window

You can use a XSLT style-sheet to create the pop-up window automatically (while
authoring).  An example of this is Rich Dougherty's EXCELLENT DOM2 sidebar for
Mozilla/Netscape, which can be found at
http://www.richdoughty.net/projects.asp#projects-sidebar .

---
> -- possiblity of hints
> -- possibility of immediate feedback for the question (rather than all at
> the end)

Have you heard of DocBook ( http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook ) - it may help
you out maybe?

---
> Does anyone else have any brainwaves as to how to do this?

Not Me!!!  :-D

---
Jimmy Cerra
"my mind is slipping away ... day by glorious day" - Robin Gorkin


--
> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-math-request@w3.org [mailto:www-math-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of
> Albert Miao
> Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 11:16 PM
> To: www-math@w3.org
> Subject: RE: MathML? XML? Multiple choice quizzes...
>
>
> There is an emerging standard among eLearning developers for coding
> questions in XML. This is known as the QTI (Question and Test
> Interoperability) specification, and is available at www.imsproject.org.
>
> There are also parsers and related test deployment software commercially
> available, details of which can also be found at the same site.
>
> Albert Miao
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-math-request@w3.org [mailto:www-math-request@w3.org]On Behalf
> Of Rachel Cunliffe
> Sent: Thursday, 30 May 2002 08:06
> To: www-math@w3.org
> Subject: MathML? XML? Multiple choice quizzes...
>
>
>
> Hi there,
>
> Is anyone able to give me some pointers in the right direction?  I'm looking
> for a way to create huge banks of searchable, randomisable multiple-choice
> questions to be given and graded as quizzes *offline* from a CD-Rom.  The
> more automated this is in the long run, the better.
>
> Here's some of the issues:
>
> -- the questions are currently in LaTeX format because there are a number of
> mathematical symbols not easily displayed (unless they were converted to a
> gif)
> -- the questions often get students to refer to a data appendix -- which
> could be done in a scrollable pop-up window
> -- possiblity of hints
> -- possibility of immediate feedback for the question (rather than all at
> the end)
>
> I've attempted converting LaTeX to an interactive PDF file.  While it keeps
> the nice mathematical symbols, it's hard to navigate and show the data
> appendix nicely -- gets fiddley very fast.
>
> I've thought about converting LaTeX to XML in an automated sort of way, but
> I run into the problem of having to convert all the math symbols into gifs
> and then trying to format them nicely together.  Even if I do this, I don't
> have experience with XML (yet) -- I'm used to php/mySQL.  Say I go along
> this route, are there any examples of XML structures/parsers for multiple
> choice data?
>
> Does anyone else have any brainwaves as to how to do this?
>
> *Many many thanks*
> .: rachel

Received on Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:32:17 UTC