Quiz

I see the same limited usage for the MooTyper plugin. Only Moodle sites with people interested in teaching some form of typing, have the plugin installed. Same for a math question type. There are many more Moodle sites having nothing to do with math, than there are sites used to teach math. Therefore, there are very few sites overall that install the formulas question type. An additional problem is that not too many people take the time to go searching through all the plugins to see just what there is available. (currently showing 1715 plugins available for download) Even doing a search can give very limited results depending on the words you search for. Just did a search for "math" and Formulas came up as number 20 in the list, which means that some folks might not ever see it due to just not scrolling down far enough.

Hello Marcus,

927 is still not that bad. But you are absolutely right, the Formulas question type deserves to be better known. This is why I undertook to promote it a little, for example by highlighting here its 10 years of existence.

Hon Wai Lau, Hana for friends, a young quantum physicist created this plugin while she was a graduate student at the University of Hong Kong. Her initiative is remarkable. The work of Jean-Michel Védrine who has ensured its maintenance and upgrading for many years is also to be appreciated.

The Formulas question type is one of the best for quizzes in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields because it allows, among other things, to very easily randomize the data of the questions. It is also very easy to learn and use, and at the same time has very powerful features.

Here are the main activities planned for the coming years regarding this plugin:

1. Continuous improvement of the documentation site ↗
2. Additions to language packs
3. Regular maintenance
4. Several improvements to the question itself.

I encourage anyone who works in STEM to try the Formulas question type plugin ↗.

As someone who was forced to consider using this plugin very recently, this plugin is potentially more powerful, but its UI is not as friendly and elegant as that of calculated question type, which seems to let you focus more on the content than the way in which to express the logic. Also, the way of using this for multiple correct (and incorrect) potential answers is inferior (in the sense that the UI imposes a workflow that will generate more errors for a normal human being) than the calculated question type. The units handling is similarly convoluted. The features are there, and probably more numerous than calculated, but they do not appear to do any favors to a harried Physics or Engineering instructor pressed for time. Fortunately, I figured out how to make the calculated question type do what I want, and I did not have to learn this. Formulas does allow you to use parts far more naturally than calculated, and the difference there is telling.

If I had to pick a programming language paradigm for comparison (restricted to string manipulation), calculated is python to formulas' perl. Somewhat less power but much easier to use.