CALipso Facto Quiz
This suite
of three programs creates and runs CAL quizzes for undergraduate teaching
It is
written in Delphi 5 The executable
files will run from the web page or can be downloaded
and run from
the hard disk.
The three
programs that make quizzes are:
CFCreate - puts together quizzes made from images,
questions, responses, feedback comments
and scores.
CFRun - runs quizzes made by CFCreate.
CFExe - a template that incorporates a quiz into one executable file for
ease of distribution
and security.
This
submission includes the above three programs together with five examples of
executable
quizzes made by the CF suite. These
are:
A short quiz to be used to get a feel for attributes
of a test
Introduction
to a Practical class
ECGHtSnds.exe
- for Preclinical, Physiol Sci and Human Sci students
Interactive
handouts for lectures
Exercise.exe -
1st year Physiol Sci and Human Sci students
Altitude.exe -
2nd year Preclinical and 1st year Physiol Sci and Human Sci students
CVControl.exe
- 2nd year Preclinical and 1st year Physiol Sci students
Design of
the quizzes
The CAL
quizzes were originally written to prepare students and new demonstrators for
practical
classes by
introducing them to the main questions covered in class. It has also been used to
introduce
topics for tutorial discussion and to make lecture handouts interactive. They are
intended to
make students think about subjects that may not be covered directly in the
reading.
To sustain
interest and reinforce the learning process it provides immediate, detailed
feedback
comments on
all answers selected. This feature
distinguishes it from most CAL formats where
'feedback'
is limited to 'correct' or 'wrong'.
The general
structure and marking scheme are comparable to those used in the Part A papers
of
Oxford's 1st
BM examinations.
Each quiz is
composed of up to 50 screens each of which may contain:
an image
a trigger (usually a question)
a choice of three responses to the
trigger
a feedback comment on each response
a score (-1 to +2) for each response
sounds that go with each score (this
can be turned off)
The above features are all optional -
none is required
During the
first attempt at the quiz the student can only move forward from one screen to
the next.
This permits
sequences of screens in which later ones might give away the answers to earlier
ones.
Within each
screen the score does not change after one has selected as many responses as
there are
correct
ones, e.g. if there are two valid
responses and one invalid one the student's third choice
may be made,
and the feedback comment read, without penalty (or credit). Feedback comments
on
'incorrect'
responses are often highly informative.
The
cumulative score and position within the test are always displayed. These give a sense of
progress and
achievement.
Once all questions
have been answered the score and % are displayed and sealed. Now the student may
review their
answers by moving either backwards or forwards through the screens to read
feedback
comments. The scores for responses that had been
incorrectly clicked are highlighted in red.
Those
that had
been correctly clicked are highlighted in green.
The design
is flexible in that:
it is not necessary to make use of any
single component - image/question/response/feedback
comment
empty components do not appear on the
screen
there is a variable number of 'correct'
answers within each screen
the image can be used as a basis for the
question or as part of the question
there can be up to 50 separate screens
A feature
that may be considered by some to be a shortcoming of the program is that the
space allowed
for
questions, responses and feedback comments is limited. This limits the amount of reading a student
must do and
therefore speeds up the test.
The programs
are designed to be easy to use but each contains two sets of instructions
(brief and more
extensive)
that may be called by clicking 'help' on the main menu at the top of the
screen.
Extra
instructions needed for using the three programs that make quizzes are:
CFCreate -
In this program you start by clicking 'load single image' and then
selecting a
jpeg file. A few examples can be downloaded by right-clicking on the
following links:
jpeg1, jpeg2, jpeg3,. jpeg4, jpeg5,
jpeg6.
The path in the centre of the screen must
then be edited appropriately. The
questions and
responses etc can then be entered and
saved.
CFRun - This program needs the files created by
CFCreate.
CFExe - To make use of this one must possess Delphi 5 or later, and the
source code,
which is available.
Copyright: All
images that are based on figures taken from the literature have been
acknowleged.
The status of these is currently being investigated, but I am
reassured that, for the time being,
I may use them.
An email on the subject from Charles Shaw is included below for
clarification.
'You raised some queries a lttle while ago, as raised by Piers
Nye. I'm sorry that it has taken so
long to get back to you: in part this was because I wanted to wait
to see which way the wind was blowing
with UUK, but it's still been too long.
I hope that the general circular below clarifies the position for
the time being. The issues that Piers
raises are clearly something of a grey area: my own view would be
that where someone (such as Piers) is
acting in good faith to acknowledge original sources, I would not
expect to see any changes in pracice
for the time being: let's wait to see what the future licence says
for the longer term. Once that becomes
clear, I will be pursuing the question of advice or training
sessions or whatever seems best in order to
communicate the requirements of the new licence.
Best wishes
Charles'
----- Forwarded by Charles Shaw/ASUC/Admin/OxfordUniversity on
15/05/07 14:49 -----
Charles Shaw/ASUC/Admin/OxfordUniversity
15/05/07 14:46
