Version 0.2

By and a large, the past two weeks have been a success. Admittedly, I tested the boundaries of sanity along the way.

The highlights are that

• XML templates with linked Python for logic and PNG or ASCIIsvg files for images are now stored in SQL database and can be interpreted by Monassis;
• templates have tags (based on the chapters and sections of the FHSST books) which can be used to filter the questions the user would like to practice;
• student, teacher and author accounts exist, with students potentially belonging to class lists, each associated with a teacher.

The only bits that didn't make it in during the sprint are the reporting bits.

I'm about to show a demo to a group of teachers (in about 1 hour) and again some time tomorrow or Thursday to another group. Hoping to get some feedback from that.

Sprint: Structure and User Management

The time has come for the next round of all-out coding to push the exam practice system to the next stage of usefulness. The goal is to make it possible for a small number of teachers to have their classes practice for the upcoming exams, and to monitor their students' progress. The target date for showing this v0.2 prototype to a group of teachers is 18 October — exactly 2 weeks from now.

List of features to implement:

• Structured format for questions. The question templating is still too haphazard and not all question metadata is stored in a way that's easy to extract and process. The logic of questions will still be specified using Python. The question presentation and metadata will go into XML.
• Hierarchical labels for questions, to make filtering manageable. The tags will be along the following dimensions: topic (e.g. Physics::Mechanics::2d motion::Projectile motion), concepts (e.g. interpreting linear graphs, quadratic equations, rearranging equations), grade level.
• Many more questions. The structure format should make it easier for other people to help add templated questions. I should focus on whatever will be covered in the grade 10 final exams for mathematics and physics.
• Teacher and student accounts. Each teacher can set up a class list of students.
• Reporting to students: total problems completed, percentage answered correctly overall and filtered by topic, ranked list of topics that need practice.
• Reporting to teachers: same as students, but at both individual student level and average class level.

P.S. The project now has a name: Monassis.