Questions Banks for Open edX

[Tony]

Has anyone heard of any question bank functionality support in Open edX (workarounds, xBlocks, etc.)

e.g. Master list of 100 questions -> 20 questions randomly generated and displayed for each unique student

Thanks!

[Beth Porter]

Hi Tony,

This is feature soon to be available on Open edX. We are introducing a concept called Content Libraries; and from a library of problems you can specify blocks in an assessment that are randomly pulled from that library.

It will be available by the end of January.

Thanks.

Beth

[Xavier Antoviaque]

Hi Tony,

 

You're in luck - we are putting the final touches to a problem bank feature (or, as we call it, Content Libraries - this can contain more than just problems), done within the edX solutions team. It is currently in review and should land in master in one of the upcoming weekly releases: https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/pull/6459

 

I'll post a link to a sandbox once it is ready, but in the meantime here are some screenshots to give you an idea:

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to go ahead and test the code on the PR I gave above, please do though! Bug reports and fixes are welcomed : )

 

NB: I can't mention the Content Libraries without mentioning Braden, Eugeny, Jonathan and Matjaz, who did the actual work of coding it, and the many people within edX who have designed, reviewed and tested the functionality.

 

--

Xavier

@OpenCraft

[Tony]

Thanks for the update Beth!

[Tony]

Thanks for sharing Xavier.

[Xavier Antoviaque]

The Content Libraries are now merged in master, and should be included in next week's release.

 

As promised, I have setup a sandbox for anyone who wants to test the feature:

• Studio: http://sandbox.opencraft.com:18010/
  
• LMS: http://sandbox.opencraft.com/
  
• Note: the default sandbox users are deactivated - you will need to create a new user.
  

 

To learn how to use content libraries and include randomized content/problems in a course, you can read the documentation Carol wrote:

 

http://draft-library-doc-test.readthedocs.org/en/latest/creating_content/libraries.html

http://draft-library-doc-test.readthedocs.org/en/latest/exercises_tools/randomized_content_blocks.html

 

(In the future, it will be moved to the stable version of the documentation: http://edx.readthedocs.org/projects/edx-partner-course-staff/en/latest/)

 

Important: Only courses created with the new "split" modulestore can use Content Libraries. You can tell if a given course is using split by looking at its identifier in the URL -- course identifiers are in this format:{key type}:{org}+{course}+{run}. For example, course-v1:edX+DemoX+Demo_2015.

 

Also, if you want to test on an Open edX instance, note that Content Libraries and the "split" modulestore are currently disabled by default -- to enable Content Libraries on an Open edX instance (devstack or fullstack), as the edxapp user:

 

1. Update edx-platform to the latest master (as usual, update the prereqs & assets, migrate the DB)
   
2. Ensure that the xmodule dependencies are up to date:
   
   pip install -r ~/edx-platform/requirements/edx/local.txt
   
3. Edit ~/cms.env.json and add "ENABLE_CONTENT_LIBRARIES": true to the FEATURES object.
   
4. Edit ~/cms.auth.json. Go to MODULESTORE > default > OPTIONS > stores - it should contain two or three entries. Re-order the entries so that the store with "NAME": "split", comes first in the stores list. This makes split the default modulestore for any new courses. (Note that the DEFAULT_STORE_FOR_NEW_COURSE also allows to do this, but it can't be overriden from the json configuration files yet, and hasn't been fully tested.)
   
5. Restart the LMS & CMS
   

 

Don't hesitate if you have any questions! Bug reports and PRs are welcomed, too : )

 

--

Xavier.