It’s Friday morning of orientation week for new students in AFIT's Graduate School of Engineering and Management, time for all master’s students to assemble in the auditorium to take the Mathematics Diagnostic Examination. Some take a calculus exam; some take algebra. They gather and wait for the exam proctor to arrive with boxes of exams, scratch paper, pencils, ‘bubble’ sheets, and of course, instructions. About three hours later, it’s all over. Now each answer sheet must be graded using Scantron, an antiquated, laborious process that will provide the student, the student’s academic advisor, and the department with the exam score and performance statistics for those taking the exam. All this will be done in a timely manner, assuming, of course, there are no glitches in the process.
Ahhhh…… proctors, boxes of paper, glitches; all of these reek of time, money, and effort that can perhaps be better used elsewhere. Seizing upon this, Maj. Kyle Novak from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics has developed a new web-based format for the diagnostic exam by using the test capabilities available in the Blackboard Academic Suite. With the new format, not only will paper, proctors, and processing problems disappear, but other efficiencies will be gained. For example, students will have instant feedback on their performance and have greater flexibility as to when and where they take the exam. The new format is currently being tested and is expected to be ready for new students entering in June 2007.
There are serious technical difficulties in putting mathematics online in this way. In particular, Blackboard is a general purpose e-learning system and mathematical expressions are not inherent in its design. Blackboard has limited capabilities to include math symbols. It is time consuming to write questions using the Blackboard interface, and the resulting expressions lack the refinement expected of an exam where mathematical notation plays an intrinsic role. Maj. Novak’s solution was to write a computer script to parse a list of questions and responses written in LaTeX, a typesetting system synonymous with writing research mathematics. The script produces a collection of graphics files (pngs) along with HTML instructions that can be uploaded to Blackboard. Not only does this procedure simplify writing the exam, but it also produces an optional hard copy of the exam without any change to the LaTeX document.
Combining LaTeX and Blackboard is not limited to the mathematics diagnostic exam. It can be used to generate quizzes for distance learning classes and traditional classes as a means of gauging a student's grasp of concepts. LaTeX-compiled images can also be embedded with HTML in e-mail where precise mathematical expression is important. Often, a writer will go to great lengths to avoid mathematical expressions, or if it is unavoidable, will add a PDF attachment to the e-mail. The mathematics (written in LaTeX and sent to png) may be added seamlessly inline with the response.
