Forum: support

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ] By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-08-28 22:17	[forum:49751]
OK, good, thanks for the feedback!

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ] By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-08-28 20:52	[forum:49750] N8.png (4) downloads
Thank you very much. Attached image. It appears correctly, after installation: install.packages("exams", type = "source", repos = "https://R-Forge.R-project.org") Best wishes, Amelia

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ] By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-08-28 18:05	[forum:49749]
The package has now been rebuilt. So you could try to install the development version via install.packages("exams", repos="https://R-Forge.R-project.org") And then hopefully the comments are improved.

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ]
By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-08-22 00:03

[forum:49747]

Amelia, thanks for the additional clarification. With this I could make a fix that improves the display of the comments when enumerate=FALSE. I tested this under a few other QTI-based systems.

Taking the comments from Gabriele into account it may be the case that the new comments are still not processed correctly by Bb Ultra (which I wasn't able to test).

Unfortunately, the build system here on R-Forge is hanging at the moment so that the new development version cannot be directly installed, yet. (It can be checked out from the SVN, though.)

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ]
By: Gabriele Cantaluppi on 2023-08-21 17:46

[forum:49746]

The problem is that Bb Ultra that does not allow line breaks within list elements.
Also using shift+Enter in a <li> element in the Bb Ultra document/test editor, that in Bb Original inserted a , it now creates </li><li>.
Therefore when 'interpreting' the feedback by r exams:
<ol type = "a">
<li> Istanbul (Turkey) False. The capital of Turkey is Ankara. </li>
<li> Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) True. Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia. </li>
</ol>

Bb Ultra converts all the as </li><li>, that is it inserts new list elements as:
<ol type = "a">
<li> Istanbul (Turkey) </li>
<li> False. The capital of Turkey is Ankara. </li>
<li> Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) </li>
<li> True. Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia. </li>
</ol>

The behaviour is similar with paragraphs elements.

 Astana (Kazakhstan) True. Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan.
Warsaw (Poland) True. Warsaw is the capital of Poland. 

is converted by replacing the with resulting in:

 Astana (Kazakhstan) 
 True. Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan.
Warsaw (Poland) 
 True. Warsaw is the capital of Poland. 

In case of html lists, the solution for Bb Ultra might be to remove tags from <li> elements, or replace them with some delimiter.

 tags can instead remain within elements. The only unexpected result would be the different line/paragraph spacing of with respect to .
In any case, the line spacing can no more be obtained, at this moment, with Bb Ultra.

Best regards,

Gabriele

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ] By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-08-21 14:23	[forum:49745] Np.docx (3) downloads
The argument "mchoice = list(enumerate = FALSE)" if related to the issue of incomplete comments. As I have already mentioned, I use this argument in BbUltra, to remove the double listing, because the presentation is not correct. In this case, the comments are incomplete. I attach the image again, using "mchoice" and removing it.

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ] By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-08-21 13:41	[forum:49744]
I know what the arguments are for. The question is whether they are related at all to the issue with the incomplete comments. If so, please explain in which way they affect the issue. If not, omit the arguments in your example code because then they are unnecessarily distracting.

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ]
By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-08-21 12:38

[forum:49743]

N.docx (1) downloads

Achim,

"eval" is to give negative credit to the question.
"mchoice" is to remove the listing, in the questions: mchoice y schoice.
I started using this argument, because in Bb Ultra, by default it also gives you a listing and if you randomize the possible answers it forms a chaos. I attach a file with all the cases. From this it is deduced, that the argument "mchoice" is the one that spoils it.

In original Bb, there is no need to remove the list, but in Bb Ultra, if you want to randomize the answers, it is necessary, so that it is coherent. I hope I have explained myself.

Best wishes, Amelia

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ] By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-08-21 11:35	[forum:49742]
Amelia, we always try to respond to questions from the community because (a) it is typically helpful for the users of R/exams (typically not only the one who asked the question) and (b) it may reveal issues in R/exams that we can then fix/improve. It would still be good if you could clarify the usage of your additional arguments (eval & mchoice) in exams2blackboard(). Best wishes, Achim

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ] By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-08-21 11:13	[forum:49741]
Thank you very much for all the comments and I am sorry if I have bothered you. I was unaware that you do not have access to Bb. I've always asked my doubts, thinking that you did, because you have always been very receptive to everything I've asked, which I appreciate very much. In the future, I will keep that in mind. Best regards

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ]
By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-08-21 11:00

[forum:49740]

Amelia, be aware of what you ask from volunteers when you say that we "should do it and check it".

I haven't had access to Bb in more than a decade (and was never keen to) and Niels, the principal author of exams2blackboard, doesn't have any access at his institution and none to Bb Ultra. Given that these are commercial systems without free access and only very poor documentation for these puproses, it's not the most rewarding occupation to try and support Bb users.

Also, I asked you whether all the arguments you provide really make a difference. I know that n=1 is not needed because it is the default. And encoding="utf8" is the only possible value since R/exams 2.4-0 so this cannot even be changed anymore. The eval= specification likely makes no difference as well, but it would have been helpful if you clarified that. Possibly the mchoice= specification is relevant but again a corresponding explanation would have been helpful.

I know that it is work to do these things and you might find it tedious. The same is true for us, though, and likely even more tedious because we haven't looked at this as specifically as you have.

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ]
By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-08-21 09:58

[forum:49739]

Capitals.Rnw (1) downloads

I have used the exercise capitals.Rnw as provided in the package. I attach it.

The problem, (I have already said it in the previous message) occurs in Bb Classic and Bb Ultra.

I have imported it with the zip file, which is generated on execution:

exams2blackboard("Capitals", n=1, encoding = "utf8",mchoice = list(enumerate = FALSE) ,eval = list(partial = T, negative = -1, rule = "false"))

Ideally, you should do it and check it. The problem is that the comments are incomplete and may confuse the user. The easy solution is to remove the option in Bb from the comments and only put the option of the correct solution to the question and in this case the information is correct.

RE: Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ]
By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-08-21 08:26

[forum:49738]

It is hard to say something with the information provided. First, I'm not sure whether you used the capitals.Rnw exercise as provided by the package or made some modifications. Second, the code is more complex than needed.

So please provide a minimal reproducible example, e.g., does the problem occur with

set.seed(1)
exams2blackboard("capitals.Rnw")

? Or are any of the other arguments necessary to make the problem occur? If so, please explain which argument exactly leads to the problem.

Then explain how you imported it. Does it occur in classic Bb as well or only in Bb Ultra? Again, a minimal precise description would be helpful.

Incomplete comments in Blackboard in mchoice and schoice questions. [ Reply ]
By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-08-20 12:59

[forum:49737]

1.png (6) downloads

Hello.
For example, in the exercise template, "Capitals", once you run
exams2blackboard("Capitals", n=1, encoding = "utf8",mchoice = list(enumerate = FALSE) ,eval = list(partial = T, negative = -1, rule = "false"))
and you upload it to Bb or to BbUltra, in case it is put this way:
\begin{solution}
\begin{answerlist}
\item False. The capital of Nigeria is Abuja.
\item False. The capital of Brazil is Brasilia.
\item False. The capital of Canada is Ottawa.
\item False. The capital of New Zealand is Wellington.
\item False. The capital of Turkey is Ankara.
\item False. The de facto capital of Switzerland is Bern.
\item True. Tokyo is the capital of Japan.
\item True. New Delhi is the capital of India.
\item True. Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan.
\item True. Warsaw is the capital of Poland.
\item True. Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia.
\end{answerlist}
\end{solution}

The comments appear like this:

Zürich (Switzerland)
False. The de facto capital of Switzerland is Bern. Auckland (New Zealand)
False. The capital of New Zealand is Wellington. Lagos (Nigeria)
False. The capital of Nigeria is Abuja. São Paulo (Brazil)
False. The capital of Brazil is Brasilia. Astana (Kazakhstan)
True. Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan.

And in the event that it gets this way:
\begin{solution}
\begin{answerlist}
\item False.
\item False.
\item False.
\item False.
\item False.
\item False.
\item True.
\item True.
\item True.
\item True.
\item True.
\end{answerlist}
\end{solution}

Comments are in the attached file.

Would it be possible to make the information in "Comments" clearer?

Thanks