Subject: [LON-CAPA-dev] lonsimpleproblemedit.pm

From: Mark Lucas <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 09:34:32 -0400 (EDT)

Hi,

I just saw a lonsimpleproblemedit.pm flow past in the cvs stuff. Can 
someone give the 4 line summary of what this is to do and how it can/will 
be accessed?

Pras is currently playing around with an external simple editor in visual 
basic that would provide the simplest form of radio or optionresponse
problems. It would create a file that could then be uploaded, so he/we 
have a interest in what's going on here.

Thanks!
Mark

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Mark Lucas					email: [email-masked]
252D Clippinger Lab  				phone: (740)597-2984
Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 02:56:08 -0400 (EDT)

Hi Mark,

People kept asking for a mechanisms to make simple one-off problems in 
the same way that syllabi, simple pages, etc, are made from inside DOCS.

In DOCS you will now find a button "Simple Problem" alongside 
"Simple Page," etc.

If you press it you will be prompted for a title, and the thing gets
glued into your folder.

If you navigate to that problem (after re-init course) you have a little
Edit button on the left top corner. You can then edit the problem fairly
simply. It offers Radio, Option, Essay, and String.

Down in the guts (not interesting to the user), the mechanism is very
straightforward and not interfering with how the rest of LON-CAPA works. 

The URL is always /res/lib/templates/simpleproblem.problem, which is a
static "published" resource. Different instances of URL have different
symbs, like always.

Anyway, what the editor really does is set normal parameters for that
resource, the same way that deadlines and tolerances work. Only in this
case, you actually set the problem text, foil texts, etc, for the 
instance of that one resource with that particular symb.

I am pretty happy about this mode, since it did not require any changes
to the way LON-CAPA works (in fact, only uses existing mechanisms -
LON-CAPA can do a ton of stuff that even we are often not aware of), 
takes advantage of all caching, needs no replication or cross-server
loads, etc.

If people want more sophisticated problems, they should continue to use
the normal author mechanisms.

- Gerd.

Quoting Mark Lucas <[email-masked]>:

> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-dev mailing list
> [email-masked]
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-dev
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From: Mark Lucas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 11:07:31 -0400 (EDT)

Gerd,

Thanks for the run down. This sounds like a good thing.

One question: if these are created under DOCS, what is the 'sharability' 
of these questions and their ability to be merged into other sequences?
(I'm still pretty DOC-naive, sorry!).

Thanks,
Mark

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From: Gerd Kortemeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 11:04:51 -0400

Hi Mark,

On Thursday, July 10, 2003, at 11:07  AM, Mark Lucas wrote:

> of these questions

Zero, like all one-offs in DOCS.

>  and their ability to be merged into other sequences?

Zero.

> (I'm still pretty DOC-naive, sorry!).

DOCS is just for simple one-time-use-quick-and-dirty stuff.

Sharability and re-usability of DOCS is exactly like in BlackBoard or 
WebCT.

- Gerd.