[LON-CAPA-users] CAPA translator

[Mark Lucas]

The status of the translator is as follows:

* The translator works okay. Some of the code does not translate
gracefully.

* We've got a couple of perl scripts that we use to:

    - pre-process problems (rip out things like problem # macros)
    - Concatenate problems (for multiple-part problems)
    - post-process (try to fix some things externally that are not
        straightforward in the converter)

    - The scripts a bit of a kludge, and needs some local customizations,
       but someone reasonably perl conversant shouldn't have problems with
       them. Guy was supposed to stick these in the CAPA Convert directory
       under CVS, but I don't know if that has happened.


* We get pretty good translation rates. There are always little things you
want to tweak, but the numerical problems give a good translation, and if
you tweak the converted Tools, you can get a pretty good conversion on the
multiple choice/ NofM, etc... type problems.

We are Ohio University are working at translating the serway library and
our OUp200lib (a lot of serway problems and local problems coded
pre-1998).

We have the tipler library and will be doing translations on it, though we
have special requests from this end. David Ingram doesn't use sig figs and
units.

I'd be real interested in 'local formatting issues'. For example, I've
been following the policy that I put the title and duedate hardcoded into
the top of each problem.

						Later,
						   Mark

On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, H. K. Ng wrote:

> A few questions regarding translating CAPA problems.
> 
> 1. What is the status of the CAPA translator?
> 2. Is anyone translating any of the problem libraries like giancoli, 
> tipler? I have just hired an undergrad student to do some problem 
> translation and I do not want to duplicate translating the same lib.
> 3. My understanding is there is "no legal" issues regarding translating say 
> giancoli CAPA problems to LON-CAPA so long as we use the giancoli text? How 
> does that work with sharing of resources for some schools which do not use 
> giancoli?
> 
> Regards,
> Hon-Kie
> 
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Lucas					email: lucasm@ohiou.edu
252D Clippinger Lab  				phone: (740)597-2984
Department of Physics and Astronomy             fax:   (740)593-0433
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701