Start date: 2 January 2007
End date: 30 June 2007
Funding programme: e-Learning Frameworks and Tools programme
Project website:
http://smirkboard.herts.ac.uk/mcqfm
JISC theme(s): e-Learning
This project has now completed. See the project website and the final report available at the foot of this page.
Background / Context
The project is necessary because IMS QTI is a fantastic spec with tremendous possibilities but very few easy tools are available for the creation of content. Standards without content tend to wither. Therefore, what we propose is a very simple tool to offer a humanly readable textual notation for questions (the type one might send questions to colleagues in via email) which can then be easily converted into QTI. We also intend to produce it in as simple a way as possible: a web service which has just five functions and which can be invoked from any application anywhere. These functions are:
- QTEXT2HTML
- QTEXT2QML
- QTEXT2QTI
- QTI2QTEXT
- QML2QTEXT
We will only cover a subset of the non graphical interaction types of QTI (for instance choice interactions, gap matches, ordering questions, etc). However, from my own experience, I know these are the most important question types – and so at least having a simple way of generating these, the creation of content will be massively facilitated.
Aims and Objectives
The overall aim of the project is to produce a simple web service which will allow the user to produce QTI questions from any MCQFM consuming application. To participate in a community of QTI development practitioners to disseminate the standard.
The specific objectives are to:
- Produce a simple toolkit for writing and editing objective test questions for output into QTI
- To participate in a community of QTI authoring practitioners
- To develop some question banks of questions genuinely used in real courses
- To write documentation for the service to allow administrators to incorporate it in their applications/services, and for practitioners to develop questions
Project Methodology
The project methodology will be based on RAD (Rapid Application Development techniques) of iterative prototyping. We hope to get prototypes working as soon as possible in order that we can publicize them to the community for testing. We will seek to follow 'open source' methods such as 'release early, release often' and seek out the comments of users.
Implications/ Deliverables/ Stakeholders
The findings of the project will be cycled back through
- Writings of papers for academic conferences
- Through JISC dissemination events
- Partnering with other relevant initiatives (e.g. tencompetence)
The major stakeholders will be anyone interested in rapidly creating objective test questions in QTI form. That is to say: developers in the JISC community, elearning materials developers, the general development community around QTI.