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Posted in 2017

Doing more cool stuff with Maple TA without being a Maple Expert

Posted on 12/09/2017 by
Earlier I wrote a blog post on my first steps into Maple Graded questions in MapleTA, helping me to grade variations of the correct answer in student’s response.
For the next run of the class we piloted last year, we wanted to improve the grading.
Our goal:
Provide automatic partial grading of small mistakes,
thus boosting student confidence during the exam
and saving time on grading the exam.
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I managed to simplify the grading code with help from the MapleTA Community. I used ‘wildcards’ to capture the essence of a formula and used the Maple substitution function (subs and algsubs) to allow for the various notations the students would write for the correct response. If you want to see the code I used: visit the Maple TA and Mobius Community , (register) and search for my posts (@metahofzicht).
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Logo MapleTA and Mobius Community
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At first I was directed towards using procedures in the algorithm section in MapleTA. The example I got via the forum was brilliant (including easy checking of the code) but I got stuck, when using multiple response fields in my questions. (Still need to ask an expert what went wrong), but moving the grading to the grading code section of the response field resolved the issue.
Unfortunately it introduced another hurdle: I had to start using Maple to check my code. I had to use it for its debugging functionality, since regrettably TA lacks this essential feature. The disadvantage of having to use Maple for debugging is that syntax differs between the two. Some functions are ‘translated’ automatically when copy/pasting it from Maple into TA, but not all (especially not the parameter notation).
The main advantages of the new way of coding, was that it was way easier to read and correct typing mistakes in the formulas and since it was a lot shorter, it ran faster. In the first exam (june 2016) some questions took some time to load.
This year’s exam and retake went very smooth. Firstly, our lengthy discussions on how to pose the question (learning goals, texts, scoring and presentation) in the previous year, provided us with some sort of a blueprint for this particular course. This helped the instructor create new exam questions quicker and in a format that made clear how to do the programming and grading. Secondly, the instructor made sure he tested the exam extensively beforehand to minimize the number of mistakes afterwards. Thirdly, the students came in better prepared since they learned how to use TA and had practiced its syntax from day 1 of the course. They had access to three example exams to practice with.
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Concluding
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Grading the exam was quick, even though the number of participants exceeded expectations (500+). This process turned out to be the biggest time saver despite some small corrections needed.  Being able to regrade a question would certainly have speeded up these corrections, but for now we could only conclude that digital testing actually can save time (only after a big time investment earlier).
If you want to know more about the pilot and its findings you can find an article about it on Maplesofts website in the technical Research Papers section : Digital Testing in Engineering courses.
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Posted in Maple TA, Meta Keijzer-de Ruijter  

Hybrid Assessment: Combining paperbased and digital questions in MapleTA

Posted on 19/03/2017 by

In August 2016 we upgraded to Maple TA version 2016. A moment I had been looking forward to, since it carried some very promising new features regarding essay questions, improved manual online grading and a new question type I requested: Scanned Documents.

Some teachers would like to have students make a sketch or show their steps in a complex calculation. Because these actions are hard to perform with regular computer room hardware (mouse and keyboard only) it would be nice to keep those actions on paper, but how to cleverly connect this paper to the gradebook. In my blogpost from may 2013 I mentioned an example of a connecting feature from ExamOnline that is now implemented in Maple TA.

Last friday we had the first exam that actually applied this feature in an exam: about a hundred students had to mark certain area’s in an image of the brain on paper. The papers were collected, scanned and as a batch uploaded to MapleTA’s gradebook. The exam reviewers found the scanned papers in the gradebook and graded the response manually.

How does this work?

First, in order to use the batch upload feature, you need to create a paper form that can be recognized in the scanning process. Our basis was the ‘Sonate’-form (see image 1). Sonate is our multiple choice test system for item- and test analysis. This form has certain markings that can be recognized by the scan software, Teleform.

Example of Sonate form

Image 1: Example of a Sonate form

This form was converted into a ‘Maple TA form’ (see image 2). The form was adjusted by creating a response box (in green), an entry for student and Document ID (in brown) and a user category (in blue). The document ID is created by MapleTA. It is a unique numerical code per student in the test.

Scanned Document Form

Image 2: Example of Scanned Document Form

In the scan software a script is written that creates a zip-file containing all the scanned documents and a CSV-file that tells MapleTA what documents are in the zip. As soon as the files are created and saved, automatically an e-mail is sent to support. The support desk uploads the files to MapleTA and notifies the reviewers that all is set.

In the gradebook a button is shown. When you click it, it will open the pdf file so the reviewer can grade the student’s response.

In the MapleTA help, this process is described in detail. Here you also find how to manually upload the files to the gradebook. Maplesoft extended this feature by also allowing students to upload their own ‘attachment’ this can be any of the following file types:

Allowed file types

Image 3: Allowed file types in scanned documents

This feature is very promising for our online students. When using online proctoring at the moment they use e-mail to send  attachments. Now they might use MapleTA . As long as the file type is allowed.

Posted in digitaal toetsen, Maple TA  
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