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This repository contains an online quizzing tool, designed for and tested on UVA's implementation of shibboleth.

Installation

This directory needs to be in a place apache can find it.

You'll need to give apache write-access to the log/ and cache/ subdirectories. This can be done by, e.g. chmod 777 log/ cache/ or chown www-data log/ cache/, etc.

Dependencies

You'll need a copy of KaTeX and of Michelf's Markdown.

Automatic

Run bash .htgetDeps.sh -- this should download all needed dependencies for you.

Manual KaTeX

You'll need to install KaTeX if you want math rendering; you'll also need servable copies of the katex css and fonts files.

Two modes of KaTeX handling are supported; client-side (the default) and server-side.

Server-side installation

Set "server-side KaTeX":true in course.json and run

  1. npm install --global katex
  2. mkdir katex
  3. cp /usr/local/lib/node_modules/katex/dist/katex.min.css katex/
  4. cp -r /usr/local/lib/node_modeuls/katex/dist/fonts katex/

(note: /usr/local/lib/node_modules/ might be /usr/lib/node_modules/ instead depending on how npm is installed).

Client-side installation

Set "server-side KaTeX":false in course.json and download and extract the latest release of KaTeX. After extraction, there should be at least the following in your main quizzes directory:

└── katex
    ├── fonts
    │   ... many files here
    ├── katex.min.css
    └── katex.min.js

Manual Markdown

You'll need a copy of Markdown.php as well.

  1. wget "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/michelf/php-markdown/lib/Michelf/Markdown.php" -P Michelf
  2. wget "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/michelf/php-markdown/lib/Michelf/MarkdownExtra.php" -P Michelf
  3. wget "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/michelf/php-markdown/lib/Michelf/MarkdownInterface.php" -P Michelf

Customize

The files provided assume apache authenticates users via Shibboleth or another automated authentication system, placing verified user IDs in $_SERVER[PHP_AUTH_USER] before running any script. If you have a different authentication system, you'll need to modify authenticate.php (and possibly .htaccess) accordingly.

You'll need to customize the course information in course.json

  • "homepage" will be added as a link to the top and bottom of each page
  • "quizname" will be used to identify quizzes to users
  • "staff" is a list of login IDs who have pre-open viewing and grade adjusting powers
  • "time_mult" is a mapping of user IDs and multipliers to add to their quiz time limits, for students who get extra time on tests
  • "server-side KaTeX" should be set to false unless you have a compelling reason not to want client-side math rendering
  • "detailed-partial", if true will show partial credit as vulgar fractions like ⅜; without, all partial is shown just as ½

Creating Quizzes

To create a quiz, create a file questions/tasknumber.md. This file opens with a header, then a description, then a set of questions. The header consists of lines of the form key: value; blank lines are not allowed in the header.

Example

open: 2020-01-24 12:00
due: 2020-01-27 08:30
title: Demo Quiz
hours: 1
comments: true

This is a demonstration of this **quizzing tool**!

Cool, huh?

Question
What is $\sum_{i=2}{3} i$?

key: 5

Question box (2 points)
Write a brief biography of Dennis Richie

key: Dennis Richie invented the C programming language. This alone makes him one of the most important people in history.
key: /(Dennis|Richie).*([Hh](e|im)|Dennis|Richie)/s

Multiquestion
We have two kinds of multiple-choice questions.

Subquestion mmc
What would you like on your sandwich?

a. meat
*a. cheese
*h. peanut butter
*a. banana
X. mustard

ex: as we discussed in class, there is only one good sandwich (and mustard doesn't matter)

Subquestion
Where would you like me to deliver your sandwich?

h. your home
ex. I don't like making deliveries
a. my home
ex. I'm very private and won't tell you where I live
w.8 the classroom
ex. Can do, but technically eating in the classroom is against the rules
*a. the cafeteria
*a. my office

Question img
On a piece of paper, write by hand the following for-loop ten times

    ans = 0
    for i in range(10):
        ans += i

Scan or take a picture of your paper and upload it here.

Quiz Header

Meaningful headers lines are

key default notes
title Quiz tasknumber Shows in index view, not in quiz view
seconds = 60 × minutes time limit; 0 means unlimited. At most one of seconds, minutes, and hours may be given
minutes = 60 × hours (see seconds)
hours 0 (see seconds)
open 2999-12-31 12:00 time (per server clock) when students may first view the quiz
due 2999-12-31 12:00 time (per server clock) when students may no longer view the quiz and quiz key and grade becomes available
comments true may students add comments to their answers?
keyless false prevents autograding, hides key, lets students take time-limited quizzes late
order shuffle if no key shown, how should multiple-choice options be ordered? Values are shuffle, sort, and pin
qorder = order if no key shown, how should questions be ordered? Values are shuffle, sort, and pin
hide false if true, will only be shown on index for (a) staff and (b) students who have already viewed it
draft false if true, will only be shown on index and only be viewable by staff
unhide empty list space-or-comma separated list of IDs who should bypass hide and draft keys

The header lines must be terminated by a blank line.

A deprecated header line is directions, an old one-line way to create a quiz description. New quizzes should use the description tool instead.

Quiz Description

You can include information that applies to the whole quiz between the header and the first question.

You can edit question or option text after students take a quiz, but must not reorder, insert, or remove questions or options; under the hood answers are stored as "student's selection for the 3rd option of the 5th question in the file" so such reorderings mess up student answers.

Stand-alone questions

A question consists of a question header, question description, and either a key or a set of options.

Question Headers

The question header must begin with the exact text Question. The line may also optionally contain the following, in any order:

  • pin to override the header order and keep options in the order listed in the question file
  • mmc to make the question multiple-multiple-choice: that is, multiple-select instead of single-select
  • box to make the question have a multi-line text area answer
  • img to make the question have an image upload instead of web form answer
  • (3 points) or the like to change the weight of this question; (0 points) drops it from grading entirely. Default is 1 point.

If the question is not mmc, box, or img then it is either single select (if there is at least one option provided) or short answer (otherwise).

Question Description

Text between the question header and the first option, explanation, or key is shown as the question text.

An explanation of the question as a whole is created by beginning a line ex: ; the remainder of that line, and all subsequent lines until an option or key, is only rendered when displaying the key.

Question Options

An option is introduced as one of the following:

  • a. option text -- an option that should not be selected
  • *a. option text -- an option that should be selected
  • h. option text -- an option worth half credit
  • x. option text -- an option to drop and hide from display
  • X. option text -- an option to drop but still display
  • w.875 option text -- an option worth 0.875 instead of 1

For a select-one question, fractional weights create partial credit. For a multiple-select question, each option is treated like a true-false question and fractional weights downplay the importance of a particular question. All questions (h, x, X, w) may have a preceding *; this is meaningful only for multiple-select questions.

If a student selects a dropped question on a single-select, it is treated as full-credit. That may change in a future release.

Any option can be followed by an option-specific explanation as ex. explanation text (note: ex. for options, ex: for questions); like question explanations, these are only shown when displaying the key.

Any option may be multi-line; lines after an option and before the next option, explanation, key, or question are treated as part of the option.

Free-response keys

A key is provided on a line beginning key: ; if the next character is a / it is treated as a perl-compatible regular expression, otherwise it's directly matched to what the user types. Either way, exactly one space must follow the colon.

Regular expressions are not anchored by default, so key: /the/ will give full credit to answer withered, but /^the$/ will only give credit to the exact answer the. Also note that many flags can follow the terminating /; a few of the most useful are

  • /th*e/i is case-insensitive, matching ThHhHhE for example
  • /th.e/s matches both "thee" and "th\ne" -- without it, . is any non-newline character
  • /☺+/u matches in UTF-8 instead of by byte, meaning ☺ is treated as a character instead of a three-byte sequence \xe2\x98\xba. Important if you plan to apply quantifiers to non-ASCII characters.

You can have several keys; only the first will be displayed in a key view but if any match, the student gets points. Keys can also be partial-credit as e.g. key(0.25): /..*/ to give ¼ credit to any non-blank answer. If multiple keys match a student answer, the highest-scoring one will be used.

A note on images

Currently, image-type questions have no enforced time limit. We found that students often struggled to get images created and uploaded and removing such a limit reduced complaints and special cases dramatically. A future version may make this customizable via course.json.

Grouped questions

A question labeled "Subquestion" will be grouped with the previous question or subquestion; it is otherwise treated exactly like a Question.

A special label "Multiquestion" accepts no in-line options. Text following Multiquestion and preceding the next Subquestion will appear as descriptive text for a question group.

Question
stand-alone

Question
because followed by Subquestion, joined with next

Subquestion
joined with previous

Subquestion
also with the two above

Question
stand-alone

Multiquestion
this text will not show up as it describes an empty question group

Question
stand-alone

Multiquestion
The following will all be displayed with `(see above)` pointing to this text

Subquestion
part 1

Subquestion
part 2

Question
stand-alone

Grading Quizzes

Most questions will be autograded, but human input is sometimes needed

  • free-response answers that did not receive full credit are logged for review
    • adjustments are performed by assigning key items for other answers
  • if comments are enabled (comments: true header) then commented answers that did not receive full credit will be logged for human review
    • adjustments are performed on a per-student basis
  • image uploads are not autograded
  • questions with a rubric are not autograded

Rubrics

This is an incomplete extension under active development:

  • parse rubrics in quiz definition files
  • graded rubric displayed to students
    • assumes {"slug":"318c8248","feedback":"","rubric":[1,0,0.5]}{.json} format (just those three keys, just list-of-numb grade)
  • grading interface shows rubric
  • multiple graders on same question supported without collisions
  • display grade ranges before grading
  • display "not yet graded"

If a question has a line rubric:, following material will be taken as part of the rubric as follows:

  • If there is text following rubric:, it will be made a rubric item

  • Question Options syntax will create rubric items; note that * is ignored. As with options, x discards an item and X shows it but gives is 0 weight (same as w.0). Extra-weight options are not currently supported; decrease the weight of other items instead.

    Weights will be normalized and do not need to add up to point weight, but must not sum to zero.

Bug: currently, hidden rubric items (x.) still have to be graded. There are several places the code needs to change to fix that (display, error-checking, grade array creation, grading).

Warning: rubric grading has only been tested with image questions so far, and that only a little. Other bugs likely.

If there is a rubric, then the question is ungraded until a human grades it. Post-autograde pre-human grade, the quiz grade shows as a grade range, as e.g. "3--7 / 8 (37--88%)" and the question shows "(not yet graded)"

External quizzes

You can make a quiz-like placeholder for an externally-managed quiz. The presence of an external header is used to indicate this, and overrides most other quiz properties.

key default notes
external The path to a CSV file containing grades
compid first column Header of the column containing computing IDs
score second column Header of the column containing scores on this task
outof 1 Score that earns 100%

The CSV file must be comma (not tab) separated and

The compid column can have either the literal value identified by the login system or that followed by an @ and any suffix. For example, at UVA mst3k and [email protected] both work.

See questions/external-example.md for more.

Course Grade

You may optionally include a file name weights.json which enabled a grade-preview option. This file allows a hierarchical rubric made of several parts.

A part is a JSON object with the following keys

  • name, used to display this group of grade components to students

  • weight, which defaults to 1

  • parts, an array of subordinate parts

  • type, which is one of the following options:

    type Meaning
    groups Score = weighted average of scores of parts
    replace Score = last taken quiz from parts
    best Score = drop the lowest drop scores from parts and weighted average the others; or keep the highest one if drop not given
    math computes min, max, and mean of parts and then does math expressed in eqn
    item look up the score of the value of name

A string can be used in place of a part; "01" is treated as {"type":"item","name":"01"}.

Math is expressed as

  • numbers
  • the variables "min", "max", and "mean"
  • an object with key min an value an array of math; returns the minimum value in that array
  • an object with key max an value an array of math; returns the maximum value in that array
  • an object with key + an value an array of math; returns the sum of all value in that array
  • an object with key * an value an array of math; returns the product of all value in that array
  • an object with key / an value an array of two math elements; returns the first divided by the second
  • an object with key - an value an array of two math elements; returns the first minus the second

By default, missed items are not included in averages so that students won't see grades drop between submission and grading times. You can change that by including a top-level key "deadline":"2021-12-14" or the like; after that day, missed items will be included as 0s in averages.

Extensions and Excusing

course.json may optionally include the following:

{...
"excuse":
    {"01":["mst3k", "tj1a"]
    ,"another_quiz":["lat7h"]
    }
,"extension":
    {"01":{"lat7h":2.5}
    }
,"early":
    {"02paper":{"mst3k":1}
    }
}

Excusing an assignment will only have impact if weights.json is used.

The units of extension and early are days, and will let the student start the assignment in an expanded time window. Be careful in using these: it is possible to extend a quiz for one student until after its key was released for all other students.

Regrade requests

If regrade: true is present in the quiz metadata, then the following additional features are enabled:

  • after grades are released, a regrade request option shows up for each question. It shows a log of interactions, labeled "student" and "staff", and a text box to make a new reply.
  • the grader page shows regrade requests, which are presented similarly to commented wrong answers.

Staff special options

A few options are only available by staff editing URLs directly

  • If you are staff and add asuser=mst3k as a query parameter (e.g. quiz.php?qid=03&asuser=mst3k), then you'll see the page mst3k sees, including their answers, etc.
  • If you are staff and add showkey as a query parameter (e.g., quiz.php?qid=03&showkey) then you'll be able to see the key even before the quiz closes.
  • If you are staff and add section=XYZ as a query parameter (e.g., index.php?section=9), and if you have a file named sections.json with studnet IDs as keys and section names as values, like {"mst3k":9,"lat7h":10,"tj1a":9}{.json}, then all grade averages and response percentages will be computed based only on students in that section.
  • There's a hidden URL printable.php?qid=03 that is a printer-friendly, no-submissions version of quiz.php.

Known bugs

At least some commented wrong answers are not showing up in the grading view. Most are; I only have one example that is not. Still trying to debug it.

We had some vague bug reports that the time limit on images might be "partially enforced". Not sure what that means

Future extensions

  • Make server- vs client-side rendering of KaTeX configurable
  • Permit gap between close and key release for extra time students on fixed-time quizzes
  • Add student-view grading as well as question-view grading
  • Add "drop this question for this student" grading option
  • Add "this question is in topic X" for specification grading and ABET evaluation
  • Add "this quiz can replace that other one" for specification grading
  • Add randomized question pools