Automatic generation of exams in Blackboard format (which is partially based on QTI 1.2).
exams2blackboard(file, n = 1L, nsamp = NULL, dir = ".",
name = NULL, quiet = TRUE, edir = NULL,
tdir = NULL, sdir = NULL, verbose = FALSE, rds = FALSE,
resolution = 100, width = 4, height = 4, encoding = "UTF-8",
envir = NULL, engine = NULL,
num = NULL, mchoice = NULL,
schoice = mchoice, string = NULL, cloze = NULL,
template = "blackboard",
pdescription = "This is an item from an item pool.",
tdescription = "This is today's test.",
pinstruction = "Please answer the following question.",
tinstruction = "Give an answer to each question.",
maxattempts = 1, zip = TRUE, points = NULL,
eval = list(partial = TRUE, rule = "false2", negative = FALSE),
base64 = FALSE, converter = NULL, seed = NULL, mathjax = NULL,
fix_pre = TRUE, ...) make_itembody_blackboard(rtiming = FALSE, shuffle = FALSE,
rshuffle = shuffle, minnumber = NULL, maxnumber = NULL,
defaultval = NULL, minvalue = NULL, maxvalue = NULL,
cutvalue = NULL, enumerate = TRUE, digits = NULL,
tolerance = is.null(digits), maxchars = 12,
eval = list(partial = TRUE, rule = "false2", negative = FALSE),
qti12 = FALSE, mathjax = FALSE)
exams2blackboard returns a list of exams as generated by xexams.
make_itembody_blackboard returns a function that generates the XML code
for the itembody tag in Blackboard's version of the IMS QTI 1.2 format.
character. A specification of a (list of) exercise files.
integer. The number of copies to be compiled from file.
integer. The number(s) of exercise files sampled from each
list element of file. Sampling without replacement is used
if possible. (Only if some element of nsamp is larger than
the length of the corresponding element in file, sampling
with replacement is used.)
character. The default is the current working directory.
character. A name prefix for resulting exercises and ZIP file.
logical. Should output be suppressed when calling
xweave?
character specifying the path of the directory (along with its
sub-directories) in which the files in file are stored
(see also xexams).
character specifying a temporary directory, by default
this is chosen via tempfile. Note that this
is cleaned up (i.e., existing files are deleted) and only certain
temporary files are preserved.
character specifying a directory for storing supplements, by
default this is chosen via tempfile.
logical. Should information on progress of exam generation be reported?
logical indicating whether the return list should also be saved as an RDS data file.
numeric. Options for rendering PNG
graphics passed to xweave.
character, ignored. The encoding is always assumed to be UTF-8.
argument passed to xweave (which passes
it to knit).
argument passed to xweave indicating whether
"Sweave" (default) or "knitr" should be used for rendering Rnw exercises.
function or named list applied to numerical (i.e., type num)
questions. If num is a function, num will be used
for generating the item body of the question, see function make_itembody_blackboard().
If num is a named list, these arguments will be passed to function
make_itembody_blackboard().
function or named list applied to multiple choice,
single choice, string, and cloze questions (i.e., type mchoice, schoice,
string, and cloze), respectively. See argument num for more details.
character. The IMS QTI 1.2 or 2.1 template that should be used. Currently,
the package provides "blackboard.xml".
character. Description (of length 1) of the item pool (i.e., the set of copies).
character. Description (of length 1) of the overall assessment (i.e., exam).
character. Instruction (of length 1) for the item pool (i.e., set of copies).
character. Instruction (of length 1) for the overall assessment (i.e., exam).
integer. The maximum attempts for one question, may also be set to
Inf.
logical. Should the resulting XML file (plus supplements) be zipped?
integer. How many points should be assigned to each exercise? Note that this
argument overules any exercise points that are provided within an expoints tag
in the Rnw/Rmd exercise file. The vector of points supplied is expanded to the number of exercises in
the exam.
named list, specifies the settings for the evaluation policy, see function
exams_eval.
logical. Should supplementary files be embedded using Base 64 coding?
Argument base64 may also be a character vector of file suffixes that should be encoded, e.g.
base64 = c("png", "rda") will only encode PNG images and binary .rda files.
If set to NULL only image files will be encoded.
arguments passed on to make_exercise_transform_html.
The default for converter is set to "ttm" unless there are Rmd
exercises in file where "pandoc" is used.
integer matrix or logical. Either NULL (default), logical, or a
matrix of random seeds for each possible exercise to be set prior to calling
driver@sweave. If NULL no random seeds are set. If a matrix,
the number of rows must be n and the number of columns must
correspond to unlist(file). If TRUE a suitable matrix of seeds
is sampled.
logical. Should the JavaScript from https://www.MathJax.org/
be included for rendering mathematical formulas? By default mathjax = FALSE
unless converter = "pandoc-mathjax" is used. However, also for the default
converters (producing MathML output) mathjax = TRUE can be used, enabling
rendering of mathematical equations in browsers without native MathML support
(like Chrome/Chromium). Note that this only works in Classic Blackboard but not
in Blackboard Ultra.
logical. Should the HTML <pre> environment for rendering verbatim
output be replaced by <code> tags? This is necessary in classical Blackboard
which does not render <pre> correctly.
arguments used for IMS QTI 1.2 item construction, for details see the XML specification (see IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. 2012), especially Section 4.
numeric. The cutvalue at which the exam is passed.
logical. Insert potential solutions in enumerated list?
integer. How many digits should be used for num exercises?
logical. Should tolerance intervals be used for checking if the supplied
num answer/number is correct? The default is to use tolerance intervals if digits = NULL.
numeric. Lower bound for the number of characters in fill-in-blank fields. The actual number of characters is selected as the maximum number of characters of this value and the actual solution.
logical. For reverse compability to plain QTI 1.2 XML format.
Blackboard employs an XML format that essentially uses the Question & Test
Interoperability (QTI) standard, version 1.2, see IMS Global Learning
Consortium, Inc. (2012). However, as this deviates from the plain QTI 1.2
standard in several places, the exams2qti12 cannot be used
directly. Instead, exams2blackboard is a new interface that is likely
to be improved in future versions.
exams2blackboard produces a .zip file that may be uploaded into
Blackboard. This includes the final XML file of the exam/assessment as well as
possible supplement folders that include images, data sets etc. used for the
exam. After uploading the test into Blackboard, the material will appear
under ‘Course Tools’: the test will be available in ‘Tests’,
and each pool within the test will also appear in ‘Pools’.
exams2blackboard proceeds by (1) calling xweave on
each exercise, (2) reading the resulting LaTeX code, (3) transforming the
LaTeX code to HTML, and (4) embedding the HTML code in a XML file using
Blackboard's QTI standards for assessments and question items. For steps (1)
and (2) the standard drivers in xexams are used. In step (3), a
suitable transformation function is set up on the fly using
make_exercise_transform_html, see also the details section in
exams2html. For step (4), the function will cycle through all
questions and exams to generate the final XML file in the Blackboard QTI
standard. Therefore, each question will be included in the XML as one section.
The replicates of each question will be written as question items of the
section.
The function uses the XML template for Blackboard's QTI standards for
assessments and items to generate the exam (per default, this is the XML file
blackboard.xml provided in the xml folder of this package). The
assessment template must provide one section including one item.
exams2blackboard will then use the single item template to generate all
items, as well as the assessment and section specifications set within the
template.
The default template will generate exams/assessments that sample one replicate
of a question/item for each section. The usual procedure in exam/assessment
generation would be to simply copy & paste the XML template of the package
and adapt it to the needs of the user. Note that all specifiers that have a
leading ## in the XML template will be replaced by suitable code in
exams2blackboard and should always be provided in the template. I.e.,
the user may add additional tags to the XML template or modify certain
specifications, like the number of replicates/items that should be sampled for
each section etc.
Per default, the individual question/item bodies are generated by function
make_itembody_blackboard, i.e., make_itembody_blackboard checks
the type of the question and will produce suitable XML code. Note that for
each question type, either the arguments of make_itembody_blackboard
may be set within num, mchoice, schoice and string
in exams2blackboard, by providing a named list of specifications that
should be used, or for each questiontype, a function that produces the item
body XML code may be provided to num, mchoice, schoice
and string. E.g., mchoice = list(shuffle = TRUE) will force only
multiple choice questions to have a shuffled answerlist.
Note that in Blackboard cloze items are not officially supported, and
hence this type of item is not supported in the current version of
exams2blackboard either. It is currently investigated if a workaround
may be implemented to allow for cloze items.
Blackboard, Inc. (2016). Blackboard Help: Question types. https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Tests_Pools_Surveys/Question_Types
IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. (2012). IMS Question & Test Interoperability: ASI XML Binding Specification Final Specification Version 1.2. https://www.imsglobal.org/question/qtiv1p2/imsqti_asi_bindv1p2.html
Zeileis A, Umlauf N, Leisch F (2014). Flexible Generation of E-Learning Exams in R: Moodle Quizzes, OLAT Assessments, and Beyond. Journal of Statistical Software, 58(1), 1--36. tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.18637/jss.v058.i01").
exams2qti12
## load package and enforce par(ask = FALSE)
library("exams")
options(device.ask.default = FALSE)
## define an exams (= list of exercises)
myexam <- list(
"boxplots.Rmd",
"ttest.Rmd",
"anova.Rmd",
"scatterplot.Rmd",
"relfreq.Rmd"
)
## output directory
dir.create(mydir <- tempfile())
## generate .zip with Blackboard exam in temporary directory
exams2blackboard(myexam, n = 3, dir = mydir)
dir(mydir)
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