Keywords: quiz, question, mathematics, science, exam, multiple choice, e-exam, e-assessment, summative, formative, instant feedback
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- Separate validation and assessment allowing for complex formative feedback and line-by-line evaluation of student responses.
- Multi-part questions.
- Dynamic plots for question text and student feedback.
- Randomly generated questions.
- Support for scientific units and significant figures.
- Students type in mathematical expressions using a syntax called Maxima.
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To see a variety of example STACK questions, request access to the STACK demonstration course by emailing digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk by contacting the Digital Education team.
Who can use it?
- Tutors can create mathematical and scientific questions, and create response trees to provide detailed feedback to help students learn.
- Students can enter mathematical and scientific responses, see a preview of their answer before they submit, and receive feedback and grades for their working out.
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- Is the question text clear to students?
- Will students know how to input an answer? How familiar will my students be with Maxima?
- Could a "syntax hint" or "validation" help the student?
- Do I want to apply a penalty for wrong answers?
- What are the likely responses to my question and how would I evaluate each in turn?
- Do I want to randomise my questions?
Meeting the baseline
The UCL E-Learning Baseline suggests the following for Orientation :
- 2.2 Explain participation requirements:
- Identify which activities are compulsory and optional.
- Provide an indicator of effort (such as timings or page counts) for all compulsory tasks.
- Explain how students are expected to use UCL and external e-learning tools. This PowerPoint Induction template provides a starting point. Wholly online courses might provide this information as a screen-cast video, with a voice over.
- Link to instructions for any e-learning tools that students are expected to use.
- 2.8 Outline the Intended Learning Outcomes for every activity and resource in the description and provide a clear overview of what the student is expected to do.
The Assessment category suggests that you should:
- 4.1 Provide an assessment outline with a clear description of the module assessment, including schedule, criteria and submission details. To avoid duplication this might include a link to a module webpage.
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Questions in STACK can contain randomly generated elements. A student will be given a random variant of a question generated by a pseudo-random seed.The tutor is
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Tutors / question authors are strongly advised to pre-generate and "deploy" variants of a question. Not pre-generating question variants Forces Moodle to generate them on the fly - for quizzes with larger numbers of participants this can cause quizzes to crash/freeze. |
Why deploy variants
Tutors / question authors are strongly advised to pre-generate and "deploy" variants of a question. Not pre-generating question variants .
Deploying Random variants:
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Forces Moodle to generate them on the fly - for quizzes with larger numbers of participants this can cause quizzes to crash/freeze.
Other reasons for deploying variants of a question:
- STACK runs all the question tests on each deployed variant to establish each variant of the question is working. This aids quality control. By using question tests, it is unlikely a student will be given a random variant which does not work correctly.
- The tutor can decide if each deployed variant appears to be of equal difficulty. The tutor can easily delete variants they do not like.
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How to deploy question variants
The deployment interface can be found by editing a question and clicking on question tests and deployed variants.
- The easiest way to do so is to preview the question:
- Then click the Question is missing tests or variants link on the top right corner.
- Click ‘deploy single variant’ if not already deployed.
- Next to Deploy # of variants, enter the number of variants you would like and click Go Deploy # of variants. You can preview results and either exclude variants, or return to the quiz question settings to revise the randomisation you have used in the question.
(depending on the question and the question note content you may be able to deploy various amount; if possible deploy over 30) - Check variants as required.
- This will show the list of currently deployed variants, and links to undeploy all or a specific variant.
- Optionally, click ‘Run all tests on all deployed variants (slow):’ and check/undeploy any variants you don’t want to use.
Limitations
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There is currently no way to loop systematically over all variants and deploy them all. |
Step 4: Test questions
You can test questions by deploying random variants, and adding test cases.
Add test cases:
- Click Add a test case...
- Provide a test input, and the expected outcome.
- Click Save changes
- Clik Run all tests on all deployed variants to run the test on all the deployed variants of your question.
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Further guidance on STACK questions is available on the STACK Documentation documentation page. If you find any inaccurate or missing information you can even update this yourself (it's a communal wiki).If you have a specific question about the tool please contact the Digital Education team. |
Caution
- Not pre-generating question variants Forces Moodle to generate them on the fly - for quizzes with larger numbers of participants this can cause quizzes to crash/freeze. Ensure you generate/deploy question variants before the quiz runs.
- STACK allows students to use standard mathematical functions including sin, cos, and int for integration. For integration questions, you need to add 'int' as a forbidden word or else students can enter 'int' and Moodle will perform the integration for the student.
- Students will need to be instructed on how to enter Mathematical equations correctly. Digital Education recommends having a formative or practice quiz to familiarise students with the process of completing and submitting a STACK question. Guidance on Maxima can be found on the STACK documentation page, and in the Maxima manual.
- When using randomization, ensure you run question tests to ensure the difficulty of the question is consistent. See the STACK documentation page on Randomisation for more details.
- Once a quiz is underway it is still possible in Moodle to edit a question, and to re-grade students' attempts. This is useful in rare cases where there is a mistake. However, do not change anything related to the random generation of questions! Results are unpredictable, and may well result in a situation when the modified question is different to that answered by students taking the test prior to modifications.
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This guide was adapted from the STACK Documentation website, which provides a detailed walk-through with examples and videos for the STACK question type. Accessed on the 14th February 202027th July 2023.
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