Automating the generation of mathematical questions banks

Automating the generation of mathematical questions banks

Tristan Robinson

Civil, Environmental and Geomatic [email protected]

Engineering Teaching and Learning Workshop Efficient and Effective Assessment

mailto:[email protected]

The talk

• Generating a question bank

• Import a question bank into Moodle

• Examples

Generating a question bank in Moodle

• Time consuming– Create individual questions– Unfamiliar formatting– Settings– Provide answers (and wrong answers)

• Evolution of questions– Static– Portability– Dealing with systematic errors in the questions

Matlab GUI: QBank

• Designed for mathematical questions

• Input data is from Excel spreadsheets

• Output in XML Moodle format

Matlab GUI: QBank

• User friendly interface• Automates the process

as much as possible• Programme calculates

solutions• Generate large question

banks (>20 Q)• Can be adapted for most

applied engineering applications

Lets generate a Question Bank with 160 Q

• On my desktop (4+ years)– Differential 68Q in 17 sec– Integration 182Q in 40 sec

Work in progress: August 2012

User guide

DB for generating the questions




• You still have to manually enter the question

• You may still have to learn new syntax (Excel, Tex, Matlab)

• The question banks remain static

Example of a question bank

Mathematic question banks for 1st and 2nd year Engineering student




Thank you…

• Lets import the question bank into Moodle• Lets load this into Moodle

Matlab code

XML Moodle output from DBank

XML Moodle output from DBank

• You do not have to understand the syntax

• Why XML Moodle output? – Matlab can generate any output

Import / Export Questions

Import options

Export options (only three)

Functions in Moodle

Emergency and Crisis Planning

Thank you…

Automating the generation of mathematical questions banks

Documents