Links to the online MapleTA help pages for instructors:
The online help page chapters for instructors are:
The MapleTA system uses 3 different ways of creating questions but stick to the HTML Question Editor method (which includes the Question Designer question type). The two other methods, .qu file scripts and LaTeX files, take longer to learn and are not as forgiving with mistakes. The online help pages are full of references to these two early methods. In the help pages, try to stick to descriptions and examples using the HTML Question Editor and the Question Designer.
Chapter sections to know about:
Decide how to organize your growing collection of questions. Soon after starting to write questions for your course you will have tens if not hundreds of questions and each one will need a title or name and some way to organize them.
MapleTA provides user-defined information tags to help you describe each question and also provides a pseudo-folder looking structure called Groups to tag questions that you want to identify together.
Organizing your questions into chapter groups is an obvious option, but a group naming structure based on Chapter1, Chapter2, won't adapt well if you reorganize your chapter structure or the course textbook changes.
The UW calculus parent course has groups and subgroups with names like:
Pre-calculus
Distance
Geometry
Circles
Straight-lines
Triangles
...
Functions
Domain and Range
Composition
Exponential
...
Limits and Continuity
...
Differentiation
...
where the Group, subgroup (etc) names reflect the general topic of the question.
The question repository has 5 different ways of searching for questions:
Your tags can be any information fields you like. Here are some ideas:
Title Topic Author Quiz name Origin Course Term Date Difficulty Learning objective/purpose Question Type Comment question feedback Hints Solution etc
There are no boolean search operators like And, Or, Not to make compound searches. You only see tag names and tag values.
A summary of the types of questions available in MapleTA is in chapter 5, table 5.1 in version 10. Read about the question types that the Question Designer question type supports. The rest of chapter 5 describes each question type. http://www.maplesoft.com/support/help/MapleTA10/MapleTAInstructor/ch05.aspx
Short videos of making each question type are listed here on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlcD7K2JXjTC66xE4pKto_WO5iQx5biuf
The Question Designer question type can be a multi-part question and is the recommended way of creating multipart questions over the standalone multipart question type.
You can include multiple response areas in a single question - each input response can be a different question type (e.g. multiple-choice, text, number).
Over time the Question Designer type question has absorbed more separate question types into its multipart question types.
Question types that cannot be made inside the Question Designer type are:
The remaining ten or so question types can be created either within the Question Designer question type or as individual questions of their own type. The Question Designer multiple-choice question can be a multiple-select question type.
There are many similar but slightly different Mathematical Formula question variations that allow you to ask for a general formula expression or for more specific types of formula expressions:
See "Table 5.5: Mathematical Formula Subtypes Comparison Table" for descriptions and examples of these similar types. http://www.maplesoft.com/support/help/MapleTA10/MapleTAInstructor/ch05s07.aspx Following the table are detailed examples of these types.
There are a couple of different Maple-graded question types. Maple-graded questions have a distinct Maple code grading script that takes as input the response answer text of the student and returns a real number in the range [0,1] as the value of the question grade. Zero means a grade of 0, one means a perfect grade for the question.
Normally, you don't need to ask the Maple computer algebra system side of MapleTA to grade an answer using its many libraries of symbolic and numeric mathematics, but it is available if needed. This question type can analyze parts of a student's answer to award part marks.
From the "Maple-graded Question Type - Overview" of chapter 5.8:
Using the Maple-graded question type, you have access to many different kinds of mathematical objects, not just simple expressions. You can use Maple to create questions whose responses require sets, differential equations, unevaluated integrals, groups and many other types of mathematical data. The Maple-graded question type allows for questions with complicated answers, questions with different possible answers, and questions requiring a powerful answer-equivalence checker.
With the Maple-graded question type, you also have access to the plotting capabilities of Maple. You can use Maple to plot a student response (or a function derived from a student response, for example, the definite integral of the student response) for a Maple-graded question type or display a plot for any question type.
You can assign partial grades, allowing you to find common errors and reward partial credit.
Two similar-sounding Maple-graded question types that are easy to confuse:
In a Maple-graded formula question type, the student should not enter Maple commands (e.g. int(sin(x),x) for the integral of sin(x)). Further, the MapleTA system runs a basic syntax checker on the student input. It leaves basic calculator math alone (e.g. sqrt(x^2) and sin(x) remain unchanged) and tries to help students by turning unrecognized formula words into letter variables and inserting multiplication signs * between each variable. This works well for 2xy+3y, which becomes 2*x*y+3*y. Unrecognized math words like factor(x^2-1) for example, turn into nonsense expressions like f*a*c*t*o*r*(x^2-1).
In a Maple-graded Maple syntax with Text Entry Mode question type, the student typically enters Maple commands and expressions and the MapleTA system leaves the input untouched as it passes it along to the Maple grading script.
There are many types of feedback in MapleTA assignments and questions. Assignment settings determine if and when students see feedback. One set of assignment settings controls what feedback students see while answering questions, and another set of assignment settings controls the feedback students see after submitting the assignment for grading.
MapleTA uses the following terms in its help pages for different types of feedback:
feedback:
solution:
hints:
All three types of feedback can include variables from the Algorithm section of a question and so can make specific references to the question the student is doing. In other words, the student can see feedback with the numbers she was using locating her errors quickly.
A question without feedback is not as useful to instructors or students. Build in the question feedback when making the question and it will be there in the future when you want students to study from your online assignments to master the material. The option is always present to hide feedback from students if it is not appropriate for certain quiz uses.
Algorithmic variables are defined in the Algorithm section of a question. They allow creating many similar questions from a common question root.
The following four documents show useful examples of designing questions with algorithmic variables in mind and point out some necessary checks to avoid creating duplicate answers, invalid variable values (e.g. division by 0) and inefficient variable value generation.
Other things to keep in mind:
The last half of chapter 6 (sections 6.14 to 6.25) of the online help manual (v10) explains algorithmic questions, their form, the 30-odd built-in functions available for scripting, and how to access Maple's large library of symbolic and numeric mathematics operations.
If a student has trouble with a mapleta question we would like them to be able to identify the question to the instructor. If the question was taken from a pool of questions then knowing the question appears second in the quiz is not much help to identify it in the pool. To assist the identification you can make use of the fact that browsers show the title attribute value of HTML DIV tags when the cursor moves between the starting and ending DIV tags i.e. the DIV tag title becomes an HTML tool tip.
For example, you can use the MapleTA HTML editor source button to add 2 HTML DIV tag lines to surround your question text like this:
<div title="coursename/group/subgroup1/subgroup2/questionname"> Your question text goes here... and continues here ... ... and ends here. </div>
When this question is delivered to students they can see the title value "coursename/group/subgroup1/subgroup2/questionname" to identify the question when their cursor is moved over the question text.
The title value identifies the course, the question name and the group names locating the question in the course question repository.
Students have 2 ways of typing mathematics answers like numbers, variables, common functions and expressions of these basic forms:
Students have a choice of which mode to use to answer a question. Beside the input box is a link allowing students to switch input modes and a second link to preview their answer before submission.
More detail is available in 6.4 Student Responses and Grading: http://www.maplesoft.com/support/help/MapleTA10/MapleTAInstructor/ch06s04.aspx
Single letters in student answers in mathematical Formula questions are treated as variables. Common math function words in student answers are treated as MapleTA function names e.g. sin, exp, abs. Words not recognized as MapleTA functions are not treated as word variables but as the multiplication of the letter variables making up the word. An example is factor(x^2-1) being seen by MapleTA as f*a*c*t*o*r*(x^2-1). Use the Maple-graded Maple syntax with Text Entry Mode question type to grade a non-MapleTA function or word variable expression.
Short videos making each MapleTA question type are available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlcD7K2JXjTC66xE4pKto_WO5iQx5biuf
Introduction to MapleTA v10 youtube video.
Maple plotting videos.
Paul Kates
Mathematics Faculty CTE Liaison
pkates@uwaterloo.ca, x37047
Last modification date: Fri Nov 27 14:03:09 2015.
Previous modification date: Mon Mar 23 16:18:32 2015.