Re: Timed Notebooks for Student Take-home examinations
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg60368] Re: [mg60289] Timed Notebooks for Student Take-home examinations
- From: Igor Antonio <igora at wolf-ram.com>
- Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 03:27:37 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Wolfram Research, Inc.
- References: <200509101046.GAA01781@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: igora at wolf-ram.com
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
I'm probably misunderstanding something, so correct me if I'm wrong: the package would reside on the student's computer and it would generate a notebook for the student to complete. At the time the student "requests" the notebook from your package, you write an encoded string to the notebook itself that basically assigns it a timestamp. Then the student would upload/send you that notebook and you would decode that string? (encoded string + time of upload = time spent) Is that the idea? A student could simply request a notebook from the package twice, say the second request 3 hours later. He would complete the assignment, open the notebook in any text editor and overwrite the encoded string with the new timestamp. I believe the best way to have this sort of thing is by having a system (say a website) where you can keep track of when a file is downloaded and uploaded and *you* keep track of the timestamps. This obviously deviates from your idea of creating a Mathematica package for that, but that's what schools seem to use. Like Chris mentioned, a web Mathematica application seems more appropriate. To prevent/diminish sharing of answers between students, you'd setup a web Mathematica application that required user authentication. Then, you'd be generate problems with different "initial values" for each student (or groups of students, whatever). Igor W. Craig Carter wrote: > I wonder if anyone has implemented this, if not I will give it a > try. > > I'd like to create a template and package for student take home > exams. > > The student would need to finish the notebook in a fixed amount of > time. The instructor, who has encoded the package, would be able to > determine how much time the student has used to finish the exam by > decoding a string that is written just before the notebook exits. > > It would need to be moderately safe from cheating. > > Advice would be most welcome. > > > W. Craig Carter > Lord Foundation Professor of Materials Science and Engineering > MIT, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering 13-5018 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 USA > 617-253-6048 ccarter at mit.edu http://pruffle.mit.edu/~ccarter http://pruffle.mit.edu/~ccarter/FAQS/ http://pruffle.mit.edu/~ccarter/I_do_not_use_microsoft.html -- Igor C. Antonio Wolfram Research, Inc. http://www.wolfram.com To email me personally, remove the dash.
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- Timed Notebooks for Student Take-home examinations
- From: "W. Craig Carter" <ccarter@mit.edu>
- Timed Notebooks for Student Take-home examinations