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diff -u modules/gerd/concept/description.tex:1.8 modules/gerd/concept/description.tex:1.9
--- modules/gerd/concept/description.tex:1.8 Fri Jul 9 11:28:15 2004
+++ modules/gerd/concept/description.tex Fri Jul 9 15:20:56 2004
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@
LON-CAPAÕs core development group is located at Michigan State University, and in addition to faculty members, has a staff of three fulltime programmers, two user support staff, one technician, one graduate student, and one project coordinator. LON-CAPA is open-source (GNU General Public License) freeware, there are no licensing costs associated. The LON-CAPA group offers training and support, as well as hosting.
-Dr.~Kortemeyer is the director of the LON-CAPA project. \subsubsection{Shared Distributed Content Repository}LON-CAPA is designed around the concept of easy sharing and re-use of learning resources. The ITR research showed that this is only possible by integrating all layers of the infrastructure to give instructors a seamless user experience: pure library systems, such as NSDL, do not offer instructors the ability to in one system: locate existing content; generate and publish new content; enforce secure digital rights management; assemble (sequence) content; deploy the assembled content in a complete course management system; and have continual assessment of the learning content quality, both subjective and objectiveIn addition, the system has to be highly scalable, and avoid single points of failure.In LON-CAPA, the underlying distributed content repository spans all servers in a given cluster. Navigation through selected resources is provided by an internal sequencing tool, which allows assembling, re-using, and re-purposing content at different levels of granularity (pages, lessons, modules, chapters, etc). LON-CAPA provides highly customizable access control on resources, and has a built-in key mechanism to charge for content access. The shared content pool of LON-CAPA currently contains over 60,000 learning resources, including more than 18,000 personalized homework problems. Disciplines include astronomy, biology, business, chemistry, civil engineering, computer science, family and child ecology, geology, human food and nutrition, human medicine, mathematics, medical technology, physics, and psychology. A large fraction of these resources are also available through the gateway to the National Science Digital Library. In addition, the problem supplements to a number of commercial textbooks are available in LON-CAPA format.The network provides constant assessment of the resource quality through objective and subjective dynamic metadata. Selection of a learning resource by instructors at other institutions while constructing a learning module does both establish a de-facto peer-review mechanism and provide additional context information for each resource. In addition, access statistics are being kept, and learners can put evaluation information on each resources.\subsubsection{Formative and Summative Assessment Capabilities}LON-CAPA started in 1992 as a system to give personalized homework to students in introductory physics courses. ÒPersonalized" means that each student sees a different version of the same computer-generated problem: different numbers, choices, graphs, images, simulation parameters, etc, Fig.~\ref{twoproblems}.
+Dr.~Kortemeyer is the director of the LON-CAPA project. \subsubsection{Shared Distributed Content Repository}LON-CAPA is designed around the concept of easy sharing and re-use of learning resources. The ITR research showed that this is only possible by integrating all layers of the infrastructure to give instructors a seamless user experience: pure library systems, such as NSDL, do not offer instructors the ability to in one system: locate existing content; generate and publish new content; enforce secure digital rights management; assemble (sequence) content; deploy the assembled content in a complete course management system; and have continual objective and subjective assessment of the learning content quality.In addition, the system has to be highly scalable, and avoid single points of failure.In LON-CAPA, the underlying distributed content repository spans all servers in a given cluster. Navigation through selected resources is provided by an internal sequencing tool, which allows assembling, re-using, and re-purposing content at different levels of granularity (pages, lessons, modules, chapters, etc). LON-CAPA provides highly customizable access control on resources, and has a built-in key mechanism to charge for content access. The shared content pool of LON-CAPA currently contains over 60,000 learning resources, including more than 18,000 personalized homework problems. Any content material contributed ot the pool is immediately available ready-to-use within the system at all participating sites, thus facilitating dissemination of curricular development efforts. Disciplines include astronomy, biology, business, chemistry, civil engineering, computer science, family and child ecology, geology, human food and nutrition, human medicine, mathematics, medical technology, physics, and psychology. A large fraction of these resources are also available through the gateway to the National Science Digital Library. In addition, the problem supplements to a number of commercial textbooks are available in LON-CAPA format.The network provides constant assessment of the resource quality through objective and subjective dynamic metadata. Selection of a learning resource by instructors at other institutions while constructing a learning module does both establish a de-facto peer-review mechanism and provide additional context information for each resource. In addition, access statistics are being kept, and learners can put evaluation information on each resources.\subsubsection{Formative and Summative Assessment Capabilities}LON-CAPA started in 1992 as a system to give personalized homework to students in introductory physics courses. ÒPersonalized" means that each student sees a different version of the same computer-generated problem: different numbers, choices, graphs, images, simulation parameters, etc, Fig.~\ref{twoproblems}.
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=6.5in]{atwood}
\caption{Web-rendering of the same LON-CAPA problem for two different students.\label{twoproblems}
@@ -142,7 +142,9 @@
\item as a result, lively discussions take place, both online and in the helproom --- both of which will be analyzed in this project, see section~\ref{discussion}
\end{itemize}
-Students are usually given immediate feedback on the correctness of their solutions, and in some cases additional help. They are usually granted multiple attempts to get a problem correct. This allows to follow a learner's thought process, both through statistical analysis (see~\ref{statistical}) and data-mining (see~\ref{datamining}) approaches.\subsubsection{Course Management}Over the years, the system added a learning content management system and standard course management features, such as communications, gradebook, etc., which are comparable to commercial course management systems, such as BlackBoard, WebCT, or ANGEL. See
+Students are generally given immediate feedback on the correctness of their solutions, and in some cases additional help. They are usually granted multiple attempts to get a problem correct. This allows to follow a learner's thought process, both through statistical analysis (see~\ref{statistical}) and data-mining (see~\ref{datamining}) approaches.
+
+The system also allows for free-form essay-type answers, which are however graded by humans with the assistance of the system (keyword-highlighting, plagiarism-checks, etc).\subsubsection{Course Management}Over the years, the system added a learning content management system and standard course management features, such as communications, gradebook, etc., which are comparable to commercial course management systems, such as BlackBoard, WebCT, or ANGEL. See
Refs.~\cite{features,edutools} for an overview of features, and comparisons to other systems.In addition to standard features, the LON-CAPA delivery and course management layer is designed around STEM education, for example: support for mathematical typesetting throughout (\LaTeX\ inside of XML) Ð formulas are rendered on-the-fly, and can be algorithmically modified through the use of variables inside formulas; integrated GNUplot support, such that graphs can be rendered on-the-fly, and allowing additional layered labeling of graphs and images; support for multi-dimensional symbolic math answers; and full support of physical units.\subsection{Collaborative Learning Laboratory}
The Lyman-Briggs School of Science Collaborative Learning Laboratory, which is expected to be completed in 2005. It is modeled in part after a setup by the North Carolina State University Physics Education R\&D Group~\cite{ncsu}, and offers a space where students can collaborate on homework while their interactions and online transactions are recorded.
@@ -154,7 +156,7 @@
\begin{description}
\item[Multiple-choice and short-answer questions] The most basic and most easily computer-evaluated type of question, representing the typical back-of-chapter textbook problem.
-For the purposes of this project, "multiple choice" and "short-answer" will be considered as separate classes, where short-answer includes numerical answers such as "$17 kg/m^3$." The problems on the left side of Figs.~\ref{threemasses} and \ref{trajectory} are examples of "short-(numerical)-answer" problems.
+For the purposes of this project, "multiple choice" and "short-answer" will be considered as separate classes, where short-answer includes numerical answers such as "$17 kg/m^3$," and formula answers, such as "\verb!1/2*m*(vx^2+vy^2)!." The problems on the left side of Figs.~\ref{threemasses} and \ref{trajectory} are examples of "short-(numerical)-answer" problems.
\item[Multiple-choice multiple-response questions] This type of problem requires a student to evaluate each statement and make a decision about it. The problem on the right side of Fig.~\ref{threemasses} is of this type.
\item[Representation-translation questions] This type of problem requires a student to translate between different representations of the same situation, for example from a graphical to a numerical or textual representation. The answer might be given in different formats, for example in the problem on the right side of Fig.~\ref{trajectory}, it is a short-numerical-answer.
@@ -163,13 +165,28 @@
\item[Context-based reasoning problems] The distinguishing characteristic of these problems is that they are set in the context of real-world scenarios and not in the context of the artificial "zero-friction" laboratory scenarios of typical textbook problems.
As in the case of "representation-translation," "context-based-reasoning" in this project will be considered a feature, which may apply or may not apply to any of the other problem types.
-\item[Estimation problems], also known as "Fermi Problems" require the student to form a model for a scenario, and make reasonable assumptions. A typical example is "How many barbers are there in Chicago?" or "How long will I have to wait to find a parking spot?" While students find it initially hard to believe that these questions have anything to do with physics, hardly any expert physicist would deny their significance in learning how to solve problems~\cite{mazur96}.
+\item[Estimation problems], also known as "Fermi Problems," require the student to form a model for a scenario, and make reasonable assumptions. A typical example is "How many barbers are there in Chicago?" or "How long will I have to wait to find a parking spot?" Students do need to explain their reasoning.
+
+While students find it initially hard to believe that these questions have anything to do with physics, hardly any expert physicist would deny their significance in learning how to solve problems~\cite{mazur96}.
A component of this project (see section~\ref{estimate}) will be to find and implement mechanisms to implement these question-types within an online system in an authentic yet scalable fashion.
-\item[Qualitative questions]
-\item[Essay questions]
+\item[Qualitative questions] This type of questions asks students to make judgments about physical scenarios, and in that respect are somewhat similar to ranking questions. While the questions themselves are of the type "Is this high enough?" or "Can we safely ignore \ldots?," they often do require at least "back-of-the-envelope" calculations to to give informed answers. As in the case of estimation problems, students do have to explain their reasoning, but the question itself is usually more structured, and at least the initial answer is more easily evaluated by a computer.
+\item[Essay questions] These are "explain why" questions. A certain scenario is presented, and students are asked to explain why it turns out the way it does. Students are not asked to recall a certain law --- it is given to them. Instead, they are asked to discuss its validity.
\end{description}
-
+Table~\ref{classification} summarizes the classification scheme which will be used in this project.
+\begin{table}
+\small
+\begin{tabular}{|p{2cm}|p{1.5cm}|p{0.9cm}|p{0.9cm}|p{0.9cm}|p{1.5cm}|p{1.2cm}|p{1.2cm}|p{1.1cm}|p{0.9cm}|}
+\hline
+&\multicolumn{4}{|c|}{Multiple-choice and short-answer}&Multiple-choice multiple-response&Ranking&Esti\-mation&Quali\-tative&Essay\\
+&Multiple-choice&Tex\-tual&Nume\-rical&For\-mula&&&&&\\
+\hline
+"Traditional"&&&&&&&&&\\\hline
+Repre\-sentation-translation&&&&&&&&&\\\hline
+Context-based&&&&&&&&&\\\hline
+\end{tabular}
+\caption{Classification scheme for question types, adapted from Redish~\cite{redish}.\label{classification}}
+\end{table}
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=6.5in]{threemassesjpg}
@@ -239,7 +256,7 @@
\bibitem{features} LON-CAPA feature overview,
{\tt http://www.lon-capa.org/features.html}
\bibitem{edutools} EDUTOOLS Course Management System Decision Making Tools, {\tt http://www.edutools.info/course/compare/}
-\bibitem{ncsu} North Carolina State University, {\tt http://www.physics.ncsu.edu:8380/physics\_ed/Room\_Design\_files/frame.htm}
+\bibitem{ncsu} North Carolina State University, Physics Education and Development Group, {\tt http://www.physics.ncsu.edu:8380/physics\_ed/Room\_Design\_files/frame.htm}
\bibitem{transana} University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, {\tt http://www2.wcer.wisc.edu/Transana/}
% Methodology
@@ -247,7 +264,7 @@
\bibitem{MPEX} E. F. Redish, J. M. Saul, and R. N. Steinberg, {\it Student expectations in introductory physics}, Am. J. Physics {\bf 66}, 212-224 (1998), survey available on The Physics Suite CD in Teaching Physics, ISBN 0-471-39378-9 (2003)
\bibitem{hestenesmech} D. Hestenes and M.Wells, {\it A Mechanics Baseline Test}, Phys. Teach {\bf 30}(3), 159-166 (1992)
\bibitem{foundation} Foundation Coalition, {\it Key Components: Concept Inventories}, {\tt http://www.foundationcoalition.org/home/keycomponents/concept/index.html} (2003)
-\bibitem{maloney} D. P. Maloney, T. L. OÕKuma, C. J. Hieggelke, A. van Heuvelen, {\it Surveying studentsÕ conceptual knowledge of electricity and magnetism}, Am. J. Phys. Suppl. {\bf 69}, S12 (2001)
+\bibitem{maloney} D. P. Maloney, T. L. O$'$Kuma, C. J. Hieggelke, A. van Heuvelen, {\it Surveying studentsÕ conceptual knowledge of electricity and magnetism}, Am. J. Phys. Suppl. {\bf 69}, S12 (2001)
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