General developer forum

I don't use Moodle's quiz features and I know nothing about Hot Potatoes, so maybe I am talking complete nonsense.

Nevertheless I have some experience with integrating Moodle with other systems, namely WeBWorK.  WeBWorK generates symbolic math. homework, which I  link to a Moodle offline assignment.  The students' grades, which are generated in WeBWorK, are returned to Moodle using a web robot (curl).  The work involved in writing the appropriate Perl scripts to achieve this integration was fairly modest, less than a week.

Perhaps you could use a similar strategy to integrate Moodle quizes with Hot Potatoes?

I have an idea of how to smoothly integrate HP-type multi-answer questions into the quiz framework. I would like to dig into this but there are some issues that I would like to have straightened out first.

Thomas - the solution that you have in mind, does it involve tracking through the ordinary quiz interfaces or are we talking about separate tracking instuments?

About WebCT imports -

-Are we talking about importing files created by or with WebCT?

-If that is the case, is the format of these files open and free for anyone to use? I am afraid not and therefore I am about to suggest a file format simular to the already implemented "Missing word format".

A file for a HP-type multi-answer question could look something like this:

Start of file:/
The first question is a multi choice question that will be positioned here {1:MULTICHOICE!Wrong answer|Feedback for this wrong answer~Another wrong answer|Feedback for the other wrong answer~=Correct answer|Feedback for correct answer~%50%Answer that gives half the credit|Feedback for half credit answer} and right after you will have to deal with this short answer {1:SHORTANSWER!Wrong answer|Feedback for this wrong answer~=Correct answer|Feedback for correct answer~%50%Answer that gives half the credit|Feedback for half credit answer} and finally we have a floating point number {2:NUMERICAL!=23.8:0.1|Feedback for correct answer 23.8~%50%N/A|Feedback for halfcredit answer in the nearby region of the correct answer}
/:End of file

Explanation of the format:
The colors above are not part of the format. They are just there to mark out the important parts.
 - { and } delimits each single answer and marks its position in the question text.
 - First there is the relative score for the answer in the question. It is the integer in purple followed by ':' . It will be normed to the questions total maximum grade on the quiz. In the example it would mean that the NUMERICAL answer is worth as much as the other two together. Default relative score is 1.
 - Then there is the type of answer! Same as its corresponding question type.
 - The possible answer alternatives separated by ~ follows.
      - %50% denotes the alternative's fraction of the full grade of the correct answer. = denotes the correct answer and is the same thing as %100%. Default is %0%.
      - Starting with | there is the optional feedback at the end of each alternative.
      - For the numerical answer alternative there are the correct answer followed by ':' and the accepted error margin. If the ':' is omitted the answer alternative works like a case-insensitive shortanswer type answer alternative.

On the screen it would appear like this for the student:
>>>>
The first question is a multi choice question that will be positioned here [___V] and right after you will have to deal with this short answer ______ and finally we have a floating point number _______
<<<<

The [____V] would be a drop-down and ______ would be a text input field. Note that I wish to use different answer types at once (MULTICHOICE, SHORTANSWER and NUMERICAL).

In the database, I have the question get the new qtype=MULTIANSWER and then there will be the new table prefix_quiz_multianswer taking care of the additional multianswer options.

Any reflections?