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APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
APIS
Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Niall S F Barr
Rowin Young
Niall Sclater
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Why APIS? (human factors)
●
Assessment is vital to education
●
Learning is an interactive process
–
●
●
Current on-line assessment systems are fairly
inflexible.
“Roll your own” systems tend to be limited, but
appealing because they 'fit'
–
●
'Conversational' model
Glasgow Dental School
APIS provides simple to use, standards compliant
assessment item support.
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
ELF – Web services (1)
«Web service»
APIS (QTIv2)
Student
Workstation
running
Web browser
«Server»
Dispatch
Server (VLE)
«Web Service»
Item bank
«Web service»
Oghma-C
(QTIv1)
«Web service»
Maths
Extension
service
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
ELF – Web services (2)
«Web Service»
ISIS (simple
sequencing)
«Web service»
APIS (QTIv2)
Student
Workstation
running
Web browser
«Server»
VLE
«Web Service
portal»
Dispatch
Server
«Web Service»
Item bank
«Web service»
Oghma-C
(QTIv1)
«Web service»
Maths
Extension
service
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
A web service in action
●
http://ford.ces.strath.ac.uk/niallb/QTIServiceConsumer/
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http://130.159.236.5/wstest/oghma_service.asmx
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Use cases 1 & 2
« uses »
Formative
assessment
Student
« uses »
Student
Sumative
assessment
« looks at results »
Teacher
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Use case 3
Integration with
teaching material
Name - Integrating assessment with other material
Context of use:
A course or tutorial structured using Learning Design or Simple
Sequencing requires integrated QTI assessment.
Primary Actor:
A VLE or similar
Preconditions:
VLE has access to APIS and either ISIS or SBLDS services, course-ware
written using Learning Design or Simple Sequencing exists.
Trigger:
Student logs into VLE and accesses course-ware
Main success scenario:
1. The student is completely unaware of the web service technology!
Related Information:
The mechanism by which APIS is integrated with the Learning Design and
Simple Sequencing services is unclear.
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Use case 4
●
Assessment
embeded into web
pages
Assessment embedded into web pages
–
This is what teachers keep asking for.
–
APIS makes it simple.
–
Light weight alternative to LD/SS
●
Automatic conversion to simple sequencing a possibility?
–
Only a minor change to what teachers already do.
–
Why don't we have this as a key requirement for all
formative assessment systems?
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Technical stuff – existing systems
●
●
●
●
Currently APIS is a library that requires a thin
wrapper to convert it into a web service
Development application is a simple web server,
runs on Windows and Linux
Demonstration application runs on any web
server with PHP 4.3 support (e.g. IIS or Apache)
ASSIS project will integrate APIS with ISIS
(Simple Sequencing) and TOIA (item banking)
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Technical stuff – what is being developed
●
A Java library which –
renders QTI 2 XML into HTML form fragments for
presentation
–
converts HTML form data to QTI 2 response
variables
–
carries out QTI 2 response processing
–
integrates feedback and adaptive material into
rendered HTML
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Metrics
Oghma-C
Language
C++
QTI version Version 1.2
File count
11
Lines
2501
Statements 1869
Branches (%) 29.7
Classes
9
APIS
Java
Version 2.0
70
5491
2355
15.5
89
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Technical stuff – what is being developed
●
A example Java applet which –
●
provides support for interactions that return coordinates (selectPointInteraction)
A demonstration service consumer
–
PHP web application, reads item XML, and calls
APIS for rendering and processing
–
Supports QTI v 2 through APIS and QTI v 1.2
through Oghma-C web service
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Technical stuff – what is being developed
●
Not being developed yet –
Support for other interactions that are beyond basic
HTML forms.
–
Support for response processing significantly more
advanced than the published examples.
–
(Probably) Support for template items
(A necessary piece of requirements scrubbing, more on that later...)
APIS
– Assessment Provision through Interoperable Segments
Technical stuff – platform and language
●
Programming all in Java 1.4
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XML reader uses Apache SAX
●
Intention is to provide a Axis web service,
however a Tomcat servlet or stand-alone web
service will probably come first.
(A J# or C# .NET variant is also a possibility...)
●
Should run on Windows (2000 or later), Linux
and Solaris servers (With Tomcat and Axis)